16

At the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of Senegal’s independence, President Abdoulaye Wade inaugurated the Monument de la Renaissance Africaine. Higher than the Statue of Liberty, hugely expensive, the Monument has faced a number of controversies. While the Monument can easily be denounced as yet another white elephant, we situate it within Wade’s development and pan-African policies. We also take stock of the controversies it has generated so far, focusing on the ways in which its formal attributes have become subject to a nation-wide debate on its moral (im)propriety. Far from concluding that the Monument is another state fetish, we argue that it should be seen as an articulation of contested subjectivities.