| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Pierre Sané Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Page 2 of 6
It sounds like political action, concern about human rights, started early.
Very early. And also during my student age I was lucky enough to be studying in France during May, 1968, and I was already involved with the African student movement in France. At that time the student movement, the African student movement, was pan-Africanist. It was not by African country but rather all the African students from all of Africa studying in France were involved in the same movement. And that movement had an objective of reunification of the African continent.
During my student days I was also very much involved in student politics; but I've never been involved or interested in party politics and in the political structures. It has always been in the various movements, the student movements or the development movement, the pan-African movement, or the human rights movement.
All of these movements are really transnational -- they have a vision beyond the nation state.
Exactly. Be it at the African level or be it at the human rights level, I've always felt confined within the framework of the nation state. And I've always seen my commitment as being a commitment to fellow human beings, irrespective of their nationality, of their religion.
It's hard for students today to understand what that '68 period was like. What impressed you most about the sixties political activism?
I guess mistrust of any kind of authority which is not grounded in accountability and democracy. 1968 was very spontaneous. I was in Bordeaux at the south of France, but our agenda was not dictated by Paris. What we were doing in the streets of Bordeaux was coordinated by the collective of the students in Bordeaux. So I guess what is left with me is the belief in spontaneity, the belief in the ability of people, if you mobilize them, to bring changes. And I think that the '68 movement did bring changes, even if they were not the changes in terms of political structures but changes in the culture of societies. Certainly changes in the culture of the university and the interaction between those who were administering the university and the students.
What did you do after you finished your studies? Did you go directly into development work?
Yes. My first studies were in business. I started study in business school. And when I finished study in business school in Bordeaux, I went to Paris, continued and did a degree. I'm a chartered accountant by training, that's my first training. It took me ten years, and when I finished I realized that that's not what I wanted to do. I don't want to work as an accountant and help companies to maximize their profits on the backs of the workers. So I actually never worked as a chartered accountant.
When I finished I went back home and I joined an organization called International Development Research Center, which is a Canadian international organization that is set up to assist developing countries to build their scientific capability and, through research undertaken at home, to find solutions to the problems that they were confronted with, in the field of public policy, macroeconomics, education, house policies, or in the field of technology, development of appropriate technologies in the field of agriculture or industrial development. I worked there for 15 years, and certainly during that period I came across some of the most dedicated people in Africa. Those are the scientists and researchers in the universities who are working in very, very difficult conditions, who could make an excellent living and have the appropriate conditions in American universities, in European universities, but who are very committed to the continent and in spite of all the difficulties are trying to undertake their scientific endeavors in an environment which is not really conducive to generating innovations, the political environment or the economic environment.
What do you think are the roots of their idealism?
It's difficult to find just one or two. I suppose each of them would have had a very individual journey that they have traveled and an individual history. But what I found they had in common was their commitment to African reunification, and their conviction that Africa, the way it is divided today, is certainly not viable and constitutes one of the major obstacles to the development of the continent.
Next page: Amnesty International
© Copyright 1999, Regents of the University of California