International Justice And Legal Rhetoric In David DIOP’s Poetry

Author: LawSphereX

Category: General Law

Published: 2026-08-23T20:22:22.204+00:00

Updated: 2026-08-30T07:09:09.376Z

INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE AND LEGAL RHETORIC IN

DAVID DIOP’S POETRY

Jacques Bellezit, University of Strasbourg (France)

ABSTRACT

David Mandessi DIOP (9 July 1927 – 29 August 1960) was a French Senegalese poet deeply involved in the “Negritude” cultural and political movement. Being under several angles an “enfant terrible” (terrible child) of this anticolonial French literary movement, DIOP published in 1956 his only poetry book (Coups de Pilon, i. e. “pestle blows”). In this book, he convokes an international legal rhetoric that we will present before examining its relevance for contemporary international society. David Mandessi DIOP (9 July 1927 – 29 August 1960) was a Senegalese poet deeply involved in the “Negritude” cultural and political movement. “Negritude” (i. e.

“Negroness”) was founded by several French Black writers and intellectuals such as Aimé Césaire (former member of the “Académie Française”) Leopold Sedar Senghor (First President of the Republic of Senegal), Léon-Gontan Damas or the Nardal sisters around the 1930’s. 1 Even if these theoreticians have their approach to the movement, this latter is based on common conceptions such as the affirmation of equality between Blacks and White as well as the existence of a specific “negro”, pan-African culture, transcending divisions imposed by the Europeans – and chiefly the French presence in Africa, French Guiana or French Western Indies. 1 Several papers have been dedicated to the Negritude movement cf. inter alia Kesteloot, Lilyan, and Ellen Conroy Kennedy. “Senghor, Negritude and Francophonie on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century. ” Research in African Literatures, vol. 21, no.

3, 1990, pp. 51–57. JSTOR, http://www. jstor. org/stable/3819633. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025. ; Irele, Abiola. “Négritude--Literature and Ideology. ” The Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 3, no. 4, 1965, pp. 499–526. JSTOR, http://www. jstor. org/stable/159175. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025. Chalendar, Pierrette, and Gérard Chalendar. “LES CHEMINS DE LA NÉGRITUDE. ” Esprit (1940-), no. 14 (2), 1978, pp. 75–89. JSTOR, http://www. jstor. org/stable/24266451. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025.

Sharped by several books such as Césaire’ “Cahiers du retour au pays natal”2 published in

1939 or Sedar-Senghor’s “Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache”3 [Anthology

of the new Negro and Malgasy poetry]. Still, also with the magazines “Présence Africaine” [African Presence] and “l’Etudiant Noir” [The Black Student] the “négritude” movement is a polymorphous concept, seen by S. B. DIAGNE under different, kaleidoscopic views, mixing revolt, ontology, philosophy, aesthetics, epistemology, and politics. 4 Other authors have thought on the negritude topic under a Marxist prism: for instance, REXER also hypothesizes that the Negritude movement was linked with Marxist rhetoric5 especially due to the influence of French Communist Party fellow traveller Jean-Paul Sartre having prefaced Césaire’s Anthologie with a text called “the Black Orpheus”6 whereas YESUFU considers DIOP’s poetry as poetics of liberation. 7 Being a (hyper? ) active member of the Negritude movement, David DIOP published in 1956 his only poetry volume, “Coups de Pilon” (i. e.

, pestle blows or hammer blows). In this volume, he expresses his furious anger against white European colonialism. 8 This was noted not only by his post-mortem critics9 but also by his peers of the Negritude movement such as Césaire, who expressed his hope that “with time, David DIOP would become more human”, in a “straight-jacketing” movement of his younger counterpart. 10 According to S. CAMARA11, by writing “Coups de Pilon”, DIOP “hinted at his intention to

2 Césaire, Aimé

Return to My Native Land, Bloodaxe Books, 1997, ISBN 1-85224-184-5 3 Xavier Luce, « Anthologie de la Nouvelle Poésie Nègre et Malgache en Langue Française : présentation et transcription », Continents manuscrits [En ligne], 17 | 2021, mis en ligne le 30 mars 2022, consulté le 19 janvier

2025 URL

http://journals.openedition.org/coma/8598 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/coma.8598 4 Diagne, Souleymane Bachir, "Négritude", The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Spring 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = .

5 Rexer, Raisa. "Black and White and Re(a)d All Over

L'Étudiant noir, Communism, and the Birth of Négritude. " Research in African Literatures, vol. no. 4, 2013, p. 1-14. Project MUSE, https://dx. doi. org/10. 2979/reseafrilite. 44. 4. 1. 6 Christopher Schliephake « Orpheus in Black: Classicism and Cultural Ecology in Marcel Camus, Samuel R. Delany, and Reginald Shepherd », Anglia, 2016/1. 7 Yesufu, A. R. (2003). David Mandessi DIOP's Hammer blows and the poetics of liberation. Camel Tracks: Critical Perspectives on Sahelian Literatures, 109. 8 In the frame of this paper, we will refer to the original edition of Coups de Pilon, published in “Presence Africaine” editions ( ISBN 978-2-7087-0382-7 ) 9 Rhodes, Enid H. “David DIOP: Poet of Passion. ” L’Esprit Créateur, vol. 10, no. 3, 1970, pp. 234–41. JSTOR, http://www. jstor. org/stable/26279594. Accessed Jan. 2025. OJO, Samuel ADEOYA.

“David DIOP : The Voice of Protest and Revolt (1927-1960). ” Présence Africaine, no. 103, 1977, pp. 19–42. JSTOR, http://www. jstor. org/stable/24350635. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025.

10 Mpond, S. (1970). David Mandessi DIOP

An Assessment. Présence Africaine, (3), 97-107.

11 CAMARA (Sana), La poésie sénégalaise d'expression française, 1945-1982, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2011, 201 pages, spéc pages 119-214. engage in a fierce polemic against Western civilization”. In MECASSON’s opinion, his rebellious style has earned him the nickname “counsel-poet,” developing judicial rhetoric, especially international law and justice figures, using “ legal rhetoric, [...] in denouncing crimes against the Black man committed by the West.”12 DIOP’s “Coups de Pilon” 88 pages-long book is composed of 43 poems. They are divided in

3 parts named “Coups de Pilon” (17 poems, from pages 9 to28) ), “Cinq poèmes” ( “Five

Poems”) and “poèmes retrouvés” (Retrieved poems) (21 poems). His poetic work opposes a nostalgic view of “a typical indigenous decor- complete with a laughing sun, pirogues, crocodiles, and the constant cadence of the native tam-tam. We find an archetypical African surrounded by his beautiful wives, [... ] and which signals the reader that the world in this poem is that of tradition”13 to an oppressed colonized Africa under the cruel rule of the “White' or of the West”. His poetic work is also completed by some theoretical writings and letters to his friend and fellow poet Alioune DIOP, (pages 69 to 83) In the first category of poems, one can find “A ma mère” (To my mother) “Tam Tam” “Une Danseuse Noire” (A Black Dancer), or even the first part of “Celui qui a tout perdu” (The one who has lost everything).

But the heart of “Coups de Pilon” is, in line with the author‘s rebellion, his committed poems invoking concepts analysable through International law and justice concepts. The current paper aims to introduce some invocations in DIOP’s poetry (I) before presenting their evocation and evolution under the lens of current international law and justice evolutions (II) I) Legal-Rhetorical Invocations in DIOP’s “Coups de Pilon”

12 Mécasson Douadelet Camus « Lyrisme poétique et rhétorique militante chez David DIOP » Annales de

l’Université de Moundou, Série A - Faculté des Lettres, Arts et Sciences Humaines, Vol.7(1), Num. Sp. Janv. 2020, ISSN 2304-1056 p.7-27 13 Brodesky, Richard L. “Poetry and History in David DIOP’s ‘Coups de Pilon.’” South Atlantic Bulletin, vol. 39, no. 4, 1974, pp. 121–25. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3198239. Accessed 24 Jan. 2025.

At first, in his poem “l’Agonie des chaînes” (Chains’ Agony) DIOP mentions in several verses the words “Dimbokro Paulo Condor” referring, respectively, to the name of shootings in 1950 in Ivory Coast and the infamous French colonial prison in Indochina. 14 But after having assimilated colonized populations (from Congo to Vietnam) to slaves, his poem “Vagues” (Waves) depicts French colonizers as a “fooled Beast” kicked by the waves of freedom. It turns out that the “bestial” figure is versatile: this is also found later in his poem “Aux Mystificateurs” (To the Mystificators) in which the poet blames “cynical monsters in cigars” for having invented “nigger circuses”. In DIOP’s most famous poem, “Afrique”15 (Africa), one can see a paradox: the poet claims about “Africa that sings my grandmother [... ] I never known you.

” It seems to be a fantasy or a poetic license, as DIOP was a professor in Senegal and Guinea until his death. Indeed, DIOP authored an article about the reform of Education in Guinea, where he served as a teacher from

1958 to his death.16

While depicting the harshness of slavery in “Afrique” (“Your beautiful black blood spilled in the fields [... ] the work of slavery, the slavery of the children [... ]” and the inhumane acts imputable to the “Whites” in “Le Temps du Martyre” (Martyre’s Era) (“The White killed my father because my father was proud. The White raped my mother because my mother was beautiful [... ]”, he also hails Africa to a revolt by brandishing symbols as the tam-tam or the memories of Dimbokro and Bouafle killings. This introduction to DIOP poetic revolt is a necessary prolegomenon to analyze the evocation and the evolution of international law and justice in his poetic work. 14 According to Frederic Angeviel, if the prison of Paulo Condor was indeed a French “bagne” (i.

e penal colony), it became, after Vietnam’s independence in 1955, an expanded detention centre thanks to American assistance, under the name of “Con Son Prison” whose life conditions were depicted in “The Tiger Cages of Con Son". LIFE Magazine. 17 July 1970” (Frédéric Angleviel, Poulo Condore. Un bagne français en Indochine, Paris, Vendémiaire, 2020, 195 p) 15 This poem was translated in English and analyzed on the website “Poemotopia” https://poemotopia. com/david- DIOP/africa/ 16 Cf. “Autour de la réforme de l’éducation en Guinée » (p 77) and « Extrait d’une lettre à Alioune DIOP » (p. 75) II) Evolution of DIOP’s invocations under the lens of international law and justice DIOP, who died on 29 August 1960, was aware of the “ self-determination of peoples” principle laid out in Article 2 of the United Nations Charter, which probably nourished his rebellious style.

If self-determination is a concept deeply rooted in legal and political philosophy17, DIOP did not seem to have drafted a project of what a decolonized Africa could be, or even used the French and American Revolutions inheritances against the colonialist power, as Ho-Chi-Minh did in Vietnam on September 2nd, 1945. 18 His poem “Non! ” (No) (p. 63) is the one in that only claims that “Blacks always gather themselves to demand their right to freedom and the respect to their dignity”. 19 In other words, he claims self-determination for a “race” as such. However, the one who advocates “respect for the principle of equal rights and selfdetermination of peoples,” (Article 1§2 of the UN Charter) does it without “encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race [... ]” (Article 1§3 of the UN Charter).

In the same poem, he embodies as such the role of “counsel-poet”20, prophesizing that “in one hundred years, in one thousand years, Bouaflé’s mango trees, Dimbokoro’s Borassus [palm tree], those of Yamoussoukro, Grand-Bassam coconut trees, will witness in the Humanity’s Bar of crimes committed on behalf of Freedom”. DIOP seems to claim what will be known after his death as an “Opinion Tribunal” in these verses: These kinds of Tribunals, claiming to use a legal/moral procedure, aim to “judge” scandals that are allegedly not dealt with an “official” justice system. The first Tribunal of its 17 Cf inter alia Keitner, C. I. (2000). National Self‐Determination in Historical Perspective: The Legacy of the French Revolution for Today's Debates. International Studies Review, 2(3), 3-26. Privitera, F. , & Huttenbach, H. (1999). Self-determination from Versailles to Dayton: its historical legacy.

18 https://vietnam.gov.vn/national-flag-emblem-anthem-declaration-of-independence-68960

19 One must notice that in this poem, as in the whole book, DIOP opposes “Blacks” and “Whites” with no consideration of ethnicity and social groups. 20 Joining the French tradition of committed poetry embodied notably by Victor Hugo, Aimé Césaire or Louis Aragon inter alia (cf. Summers, H. (2017). Words Instead of Weapons: The Historical and Cultural Significance of Committed Poetry in France. Oxford Brookes University. ) kind was initiated by Jean-Paul Sartre and Bertrand Russell in 1967 about the US actions in Vietnam21 and the last one took place in The Hague to “sue” the actions of the controversial Monsanto company. 22 However, beyond this prophetic dream of the poet, real-world international justice addressed DIOP’s grievances before and after his death.

Calling “Humanity” to judge “white colonialism” recalls the notion of “crime against humanity,”23 which allows the prosecutor-poet to sue “in one hundred years, in one thousand years” without temporal limitation. 24 However, by putting face-to-face “Humanity” and “white” colonialism in an emphatic movement, one may understand that despite the horrors of colonialism, “Whites” are not (anymore? ) part of humanity. Such hazardous rhetoric has been claimed before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda: in the Nahimana and others case25, Barayagwiza stated that “Next to Tutsi blood, Hutu blood is not red. It is black. Therefore, it can be spilt without serious consequences. ” This dehumanization of the colonizer, seen as a “Beast” (cf. supra) is part of the process towards genocide as theorized by G. H.

Stanton26 and was also found in several mass atrocities (use of a number to style an inmate or comparison to an object rather than a human being). 27 21 Even if Jeremy Bentham might be seen as a theorician of “Opinion Tribunals” (Cutler, F. (1999). Jeremy Bentham and the public opinion tribunal. Public Opinion Quarterly, 321-346), Sartre and Bertrand Russel were the first to establish such “Tribunals”. Theses “mimics the judicial ritual” in order to contribute to evolution of positive legal norms (cf. Franck Carpentier, « Du tribunal Russel-Sartre au tribunal Monsanto : une justice fictionnelle pour penser le droit au-delà des États », Revue française de droit constitutionnel, vol. 112, no 4, 18 décembre 2017, p. 821–844 (ISSN 1151 2385, DOI 10. 3917/rfdc. 112. 0821, lire en ligne [archive])) Klinghoffer, A. (2002).

International citizens' tribunals: Mobilizing public opinion to advance human rights. Springer. 22 MacCarrick, G. , & Maogoto, J. (2018). The Significance of the International Monsanto Tribunal's Findings with Respect to the Nascent Crime of Ecocide. Tex. Envtl. LJ, 48, 217. 23 Article 6-c) of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal Statute, which has been reproduced in Article 7 of the Statute of Rome instituting the International Criminal Court 24 Cf. Article 29 of the Statute of Rome “The crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court shall not be subject to any statute of limitations. “

25 TPIR Nahimana and others (ICTR-99-52) Judgement du 3 décembre 2003 §739

26 Stanton, G. H. (1998). The 8 stages of genocide. Genocide Watch, 1 ; Stanton, G. H. (2013, February). The ten stages of genocide. 27 For instance, in the Japanese-army Unit 731, “The individuals in Japanese doctors’ experimentation, all foreigners to Japan, were not seen as human beings or even as animals, but merely as “experimental materials”. They were called maruta in Japanese, which means “logs of wood”, and were identified by numbers.” Cf. Japanese doctors' experimentation in wartime China Nie, Jing-Bao The Lancet, Volume 360, s5 - s6 If the “Négritude” theoreticians wanted to underline the uniqueness of “Nigger” state of mind, this claimed uniqueness has been embodied, for the whole Africa, in documents such as the

1981 African Charter of Human and People Rights which “[...] is provided of the critical mass

of a human rights protection legal instrument”28. And a lot of African countries have taken their place in the international legal system: We can follow Prof. Alain PELLET when he concludes that, before the International Court of Justice, there is no trace of “Africanity” in cases involving States of this continent as they have become independent, equal and sovereign States. 29 Former ICJ Vice-President Yusuf even stated in his Declaration under the February 2nd 2017 preliminary judgment in the Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (Somalia v. Kenya) case that “International law today is not the same as that of the early twentieth century nor even that which prevailed at the time of independence of African States in the 1960s [...

] [African Governements] need to develop and use their own expertise to negotiate, draft, and advise on the rules and obligations of international law to which they wish to subscribe”30. The International Court of Justice also judged that Senegal has to create a juridical apparatus to put former Chadian leader Hissène Habré on trial, by underlining that Senegal failed to comply with its obligations under international law (and especially the “aut dedere, aut judicare” principle)31. The then- Extraordinary African Chambers which were created by a treaty between Senegal and the African Union managed to render justice by sentencing Habré to life imprisonment32.

28 F Ouguergouz in « Charte Africaine des Droits de l'Homme et des Peuples: une approche juridique des droits de l'homme entre traditions et modernités » Presses Universitaires de France (p 348) 29 Remarques cursives sur les contentieux ‘africains’ devant la C. I. J. », in L’Afrique et le droit international : variations sur l’organisation internationale. Liber Amicorum Raymond Ranjeva, Pedone, Paris, 2013, pp. 277- 30 Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (Somalia v. Kenya), Preliminary Objections, Judgment, I. C. J. Reports 2017, p. 3 31 Questions relating to the Obligation to Prosecute or Extradite (Belgium v. Senegal), Judgment, I. C. J. Reports 2012, p. 422. One can note that the failure of Senegalese authorities to either extradite or judge M. Habré was unanimously supported by the Court. 32 Sofie A. E.

Høgestøl (2016) The Habré Judgment at the Extraordinary African Chambers: A Singular Victory in the Fight Against Impunity, Nordic Journal of Human Rights, 34:3, 147-156, DOI: 10. 1080/18918131. 2016. 1233374 Finally, the milestone judgement stating that the individual rights of a natural person can be discussed before the Hague Court floor stems from the famous “Diallo” dispute, which opposed two African states. 33 Before the International Criminal Court (ICC), African States have also taken their place by cooperating with the Court, beyond the post-colonial criticism that may have been addressed to this latter34.

For a single topic example, one has to read the statement of the former (Gambian) ICC Prosecutor BENSOUDA on November 24th 201535 : “Since the Court became operational in 2002, my Office has received a number of formal requests from African states to investigate allegations of atrocities committed on their territories. Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d'Ivoire and Mali, have all invited my Office to step in to investigate and prosecute. The most recent country to call on my Office to investigate potential crimes committed on its own territory is the Central African Republic – and this, for a second time. “ Such requests are also a mark by these States of self-determination36, this latter right being enforceable as an erga omnes obligation.

37 Conclusion: If DIOP’s “Coups de Pilon” exulted the beauty and the singularity of “négritude” which can 33 Ahmadou Sadio Diallo (Republic of Guinea v. Democratic Republic of the Congo), Merits, Judgment, I. C. J. Reports 2010, p. 639 34 Cf inter alia Schneider, L. (2020). The International Criminal Court (ICC)–A Postcolonial Tool for Western States to Control Africa?. Journal of International Criminal Law (JICL), 1(1), 90-109; Mutua, M. W. (2016). Africans and the ICC: Hypocrisy, impunity and perversion. Africans And The Icc: Perceptions Of Justice, Kamari M. Clarke, Abel S. Knottnerus, & Eefje de Volder, eds, 47-60. Shilaho, W. K. (2018). The International Criminal Court and the African Union: Is the ICC a bulwark against impunity or an imperial Trojan horse?. African Journal on Conflict Resolution, 18(1), 119-146. https://www. icc-cpi.

int/news/statement-prosecutor-international-criminal-court-fatou-bensouda-iccindependent-court-must-be 36 The ability for a State to seize an international juridiction as a marker of its sovereignty has been established inter alia in the Permanent Court of International Justice Advisory Opinion n°18 “Free City of Danzig and ILO” of August 26th, 1930t. “Such acts as the ratification of a draft convention or the filing of a complaint against another Member State for failure to observe the provisions of a convention must clearly belong to the field of foreign relations. “. Due to the sui generis status of the Free City of Dantzig following the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, the City did not have competence in its foreign relations (this field of competence was assumed on its behalf by Poland).

37 East Timor (Portugal v. Australia), Judgment, I. C.J. Reports 1995, p. 90 §29

still be poetically relevant, his position of committed “poet-counsel” devoted to freedom and self-determination would have to be tempered, due to the evolution of international context as well as the one of international law. Both international courts also open their floors and working system to non-African major geopolitical crises: for instance, the current conflicts between Ukraine and Russia and between Israel and the Hamas movement have both drowned “unprecedented global interest and public scrutiny [... ], as can be gathered from, inter alia, media reports, and global demonstrations”38 Under this lens, social media and 24/7 information sources can interrogate the current relevance of DIOP’s “Coups de Pilon” as an international, legal, committed humanist “poetcounsel”.

However, David DIOP is and will remain forever an “enfant terrible” (terrible child) of the “Négritude” poetry, whether under the West African mythic39 or the French rebellious and committed intellectual prisms. A terrible child that has been, however tempered by his fellow poets of the “Négritude” polymorph and kaleidoscopic movement: what an example for an international society aiming to avoid breaches of peace and temper international tensions, In an era in which hubris seems - regrettably - to thrive in the current international society, we hope that this example may be duplicated. 38 Dissenting opinion of Judge Sebutinde under the January 26th, 2024, ICJ Order in Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) 39 Boccara, M. (2019, May).

La mythologie des enfants terribles et les pulsions du très jeune enfant. In Bébé, petite enfance en contextes.