Historical review of the conditions of the emergency of a problem of under-employment in the Senegal river valley

(1)

- -

. -

{l) ~ o 'Z :f

CS/2673-20

( 3.)

UNITED NATIO

AFRICAN INSTITU'FS F MUUJ'Ui,_.J:>l,~llVll

INSTITUTE 02 DLV ~LOPMENT STliD lES IDJIV .=RS ITY OF SUSSEX

DEVELOPMENT lLl'ffi

V'·ODUCTry}:;_ E~IPLOYivlENT IN '⁷¹RICAN COlfl_~TRIES 10 November-12 December

1 ~ 75 J

(2)

CS/2673-:-20 Page 1,.

IÜSTORICAL REVIEvl OF 'THE CONDITIONS OF THE EMERGENCE OF A PROBLEM OF UNDER-EMPLOYMENT IN THE SENEGAL RIVER V .AL LEY

The following. paper is in 1 ine wi th the spirit of the previous speakers who stressed the need to place the analysis of employment in its overall context. We wish.to emphasize that this stand is not a "luxury" of re.levance only to the intellectual curious i ty of intel- lectualsj but an obliga~ion i f we want to attack the roots of the problem and not just act blindly on its present external manifestations.

The his tory of the c.ondi ti.ons in which the problems of under- employment appeared in the Senegal River Valley, which we are going briefly to trace, is based mainly on Senegalese experience, al though the Fleuve (River) region is a political front ier. I t vrill enable us to understand new a region which travellers, up to the beginning of the 19th century, agreed was prosperous and .Populated, whatever the economic-political entities considered and in particular the kingdom of Gajagaa to which we will re fer more particula::rly, is now exp9riencing an e'ndemic food shoriage and a rural depopulation of international di- mens ions' involving 30lb to 40}'o àf' the adul t male labour force in the middle and upper. valley of the river r:~gion.

ri'

is ~·s.sentiàl to trace the hisi;ory of t·his process t o understand how to act on it, ·in what direction ·ar:Îd at what cost. · It can :.also be used as an example, since the model to be derived from it· con:cerning

the· conditions for the emergènce of underemployrnent, is to be found in

other areas of .Africa ànd the '-Tbrld, · where there were, as in our case, zones unquestiohab'ly sui ted to agr iculture combined 'ii th an indifference on the part of the colonial state·· authori ties who abandoned · these zones

,.

for ecologico-economic rèasons after having extracted all possible advantages from them. In these· circumstahces the è olonialists pre- ferred to concentrate on regions better adapted to the colonial cash crops (groundnuts) and extend the latter.

(3)

CS/2673-20 PCJgo 2.

The common features of this typo of situation concern colonial strategy and tnctics.

The stratogy consisted in populating the groundnut area, decrcod a "useful" zo:t;te in tho miJdlo of tho 19th century 9 wi th immigrants from the surrounding regions ₉ thus croc., ting in tho se regions of abun- dant l abour supply situations in which the producers could not live on the puroly domostic production which had so far ensured the annual reproduction - and more - of tho producers by providing them with grain reserves to covor th0 betwo~n-harv-Jst soasons and possible shortages.

The tactical means of applying this stratogy are:

1) war (the economie decisions e.ro bG.cked by thG army);

2) forcod labour;

3)

dispossessing tho trG.ditional kings and the morchnnts of tho ir poli tic<'l c~nd economie pow0r Md

4)

last but not loast, G. compulsory pool tru:: roquirod to be paid in money

9 which can only be obtained in oxchange for the colonial trado products.

Nor must wo forgot the considerable role playod by the triàngular slave trade in this rogion bef ore thoso mo asuras were devised. Ace or- ding to the historian Curtin, the Gajagaa.,alone supplied9 in tho 18th century₉ an average of 51% of the slaves exported from Sonogambia. In view of tho strategie importance of the Upper Senegal for the trade

of tho Western Sudan arca recognizod by tho Portuguese who tried to establish themselv0s there in the 1. 6th century ₉ nll the se me ans wGre used on a largo scala. It would tako too long to set them out in de- tail. As an oxample, I will show how tho traditional chiefs and merchants woro dispossessed of the. ir political ande conomic pow0r.

(4)

'

CS/2673- 20 Page

3

1) tho Soneg~loso traders with whom the colonial trading houses usod to deal in the·early pGriod, with respect to products such as gum, go],d and slaves, wcre grad.ually removed from th-J t :V.fLt;li,ng-posts of the River region. Tho rivalries became acuto when the French tried to obt ain the monopoly of the sources and circulation of gold in the Gajagaa.

2) Administrative division of the kingdoms. E.g. Fouta Toro

divided into threo. This t notio deal t a sevore blow to the foundatiQns of domestio production.

The imbal anoes, the inst ability of the P?Pulation (perpetual war in the l9th oentury), and the

p o';~ r-ty

^thus ^oro^atod., were part of tho arsena~ of tho colonizers. Th~y were regarded as a neoessity for the emergence of tho colonial trade oconomy ( éoonomie d.o traite) that vras desirod, and whioh oonsiderod tho people only in relation to its own devolopment. The ultimate purposo of the manipulations to whioh the produoers · we±-e thon sub je oted was not man, but his' produo t .

Wi th the ??J-onial er a, changes w<3re gradually made in line wi th interest s that were all oxtornal t o tho producors and to tho marchant class (Dioula), and honco to the socio ty as a wh ole. It is important to grasp this foature of oolonizatïon, · booc,uso tho colonial "valoriza-

tion" of tho country consisted sololy in the . rploitation of aroas

.. ;

which wero of interost for tho colony.

It follows that tho treatment given to these ar0as varied dopending on these interests. Althoug~ from 1840 to the prus~nt day, the Fleuve r egion was oonsidored as"· a perïpheral zone, i t was previously tho main axis of colonial economie activi ties. The reas on

vrh?

^tlJ.c ^axis ^shiftc^d

. '

in 1849 is that groundnut oultivat ion was devuloping very rapidly (2,600 mo tric tons in 18.50-27,000 t ons b(:) tween 186 8 and 1 87-7) • It is only from that tirne the..t problem of 6mployment crcatod .by; colonization roally emerges.

(5)

CS/2673-20 Page 4

It was not easy to dotach the peasants of t hu Flouve rogion from theiir ·domestic economy ,_ as is evidonced by all thv t actical me ans al- ready mentioned which had to be used to achievo it and which rosorted more to force than to doceit.

At first, indeed, the poople¹s resistance discouragod tho French, so that, for tho construction of the railway in Sonegal Oriental (in tho upper river valley) they brought in 2,500 Chinesc coolies, who were dccimatod by malnutrition and illness, and thon 1,600 Moroccans who all died, under inhuman conditions of work (episode related by Abdoulaye J3atchily Phi.JD1

~

¹

It was this failuro to sottle foreign labour which made the colonicl

·authorities devide to use local labour, which was accustomed to the

very harsh climatic conditions of the region.

This new economie ordor was only consolidatod o.t thü end of tho 19th,century with tho defe2.t of t'ho arrnod resistance of El Hadj Omar and Samory.

Thus we see that the constraints on rural urban migration wero of a political and economie nature.

Tho colonial era was rnarked by rural-rural migrat.li.on (seasonal migration, harvest-season work) in tho groundnut aroa, which slackenod in the 1960s.

When wo corne t o the poriod of Independenco, we note that :

1) the colonial trade system of the groundnut arca is accentuatod: - incroaso in the areas under groundnuts;

concentration of infrastructure invcstment in th2.t arca;

at tho s ame time, the peripheral regi ons continue to be abandoned (Eastern Senegal; criticcl zone).

'

(6)

1

,, .·.

:.

--

-· ...

cs/2673-20 Page

-5

2) there is nn ·e:xp.Y.os...i.or. of mig~ti.on to France ( ill1crec:u3ti:â:-·

t;we11tyfold bctween 1.960 and 1970), which unque stionably represents a stage ?f j_ncre as~d dependence on France and is reflected in an accelerated

.

improverishment . of the Fleuve region. ·

3) 'continu~tion of rural-urban migration.. This affects the

Toucouleurs mor8 than the either groups; they find .menial jobs as driver, cook-boy, shoe-shiner, waiter etc.

,,#. ~ ... . ..... - • · · -- • - · •• -· •• - · -

4)

hal ting of rural-rural migr ation, be cause of t he--moderniza- tion of agriculthrai machinery.

i,

Thus there is ho b.reak with the past, but continui ty in the em- ploymertt::._:p.-c;li~:y·.··- In-~this ·r.espect the term llneo-colonial" u.s-ed to

1 ,. .J' 1 . ' .·. .

describe the pres8rtt situation is just±fied. The colonial heritage weigbs very heavily on the new orientations •

... ·'

The present position

There is· howev~r .. an awareness, although st:i.ll,_ somewhat vague,

·of the need, to. rilodj_fy a situation vrhich is generat ing mo;re and more probléms. The goV'ernments are feeling .the need, .to put .their ho'l;l.se

in order be.cause of the dangers inherent in this situation. The crisis of present-day capitalism, reflected in the limitation of immigrati on fro'm r'ormer coloniàl countries, the growing u:riem.ployme_nt in Dakar, and tho re act fons 'of the :P'easailt:i'y ,' which in orden to· prote ct i tself from "{he haz~d·s· of growing a single cr op, hai3 been ,return.;i.ng, against government d;i.rectives, to food' crops since 1971' (but .in •.a d;eteriora-

ted context so that it has been impossible to improve· food cropping),

have· combined to create an unstable situation which the government

is trying to remedy.

.

·.

(7)

CS/2673-20 Page 6.

The l qgistic means boing rel iod on t o change the s ituation are an inter-st ate organization of three ripnrian states, tho (O~WS, Organisati on pour la mise en oeuvre do la val ée du Sénégal) and, a.t national 1ovol , tho SAED (Sociét é d ' arnénëJg8ment et d'exploitation du Del ta).

The purposes of tho SAED

Considerecl both as a past oral /agricul tMr al regi on and a pot entially industrial region, th0 Senegal r iver valley has boen and still is the testing-ground for vrhat was be l ieved t o bo a panacoa for sottling the pr oblGms-·of employn:ent. Wc f ind th<Œe, in combination, the two types of inŒustrial 1zati on whose l iQit ations hav.e boen pointed out by Samir Amin:

the import-substitut ion industry the export industry

Rice-growing, which extends wherevcr riceficlds have boen organised, is indeed an impoi·t-subst i tut ion industry.

True ,

rico is a f ood crop, but i t is markotablo. It is subst i tutod f or millet., when is vi~tually unobtainable outside tho place whoro it is grown.

An additional disadvant ago of this choice is that it re-croates the ·conditions of a singlo .... crop oconomy al though the dangers of this aro wol l known. Anothor oxarnplo of an import--subs.ti tut i on .indus try i s t o be f ound in th6 stimulus givon to tho. poasants to produce t omat oes for industrial pr ocossing into tomat o conmmtrate vrhich is LJade in largo- scala production 'units.

Tho SélQO applios to the Richard-Tell cane sugar complex owned by a French ontrepreneur who has recoived a l oan of

4

billion CFA francs fr om the Sonogaloso govorlli~8nt.

'

(8)

(

. . CS/2673-20

Pago

7.

Turning to what we h::we called the export industry 9 >'1'0 note that this is also a threat to tho Fleuve region, ospocially at Eakel9

where thore are proj0cts for cattlo f~ttening r w1ches9 which would have Europe as the ir main market .

Those developmonts or projects are to be critioizod bath 1-lith respect to tho tech11ol ogios thoy use ~d to th-3Ü social, political

and 0conomic consuquoncGs.

1)

they aro mortgaging tho ocological future of thoso regi ons through th0 drastic destruction of land-holdings ₉ lTithout any consul- t ation wi th tho poasants . Yot wc know that p<.Jasant farming Pl'actices arc based on ompirical knowledge₉ often thousands of yuars old, of soil conservation. An industry such as that of Richard-Toll (the rofinery polutiDg,_, the river) is a throat to the precr.U'ious balP..nce butwuen salt land and ar ab le land.

2)

they continuo t o tic - om might sa;y bind hand and foot - thu dovelopmont of thosv regions t o the needs of foreign economies. The fact that thoso nGeds aro ncn• do0s not impr ovo the situation.

3)

On tho social lovol.

We mey wonder what the new form of land appropriation is intcnduù.

to promote. It has boen arguod that poasant incomos 1vould be stabi l izod by this now land distribution· and by those new crops. Tho fe.ct that

theso products depend on foreign oconomies for thoir markets makes this assertion somewhat incrediblo. And evon if wo accopt that thlli socuri ty of incomos is possible ₉ at what l0vol will the income be, of what kind will it bo? (at subsistance lovel or abovo?) .

The soc.ial effocts alroady recordod wh<.ŒO SAED has beon ostp.bl ishod for sovor al yoars are evidenc.:; that thu only c0rtain benoficiarios of the system have boen a few civil- servant- absontcG landlords.