Islam and Activism: The Marabout and the Trade Union

Abstract

This chapter examines the role of Muslim actors in social movements in French West Africa, particularly in Senegal. It investigates the role Sufi leaders (marabouts) played in trade union struggles, nationalist political struggles, and the construction of the postcolonial states. It demonstrates how they interfered in the battles of the confederation of workers’ unions that brought together workers of various trades and nationalities, and how they shifted from being religious to economic entrepreneurs to pacify the colonial and later postcolonial public space. Using examples from the railroad workers’ strike of September 1938 in Thiès, the 1947-1948 strike of the workers of the Dakar-Niger railroad, and the strike of May 1968 in Dakar, the chapter demonstrates the interconnections between activism, government, the state, and religion.