Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow, a Senegalese academic and politician. Born in Dakar, Senegal, in 1921, M’Bow grew up in a small town where he learned traditional farming and animal tending skills before volunteering for the French army during World War II and going to study in France.
Prior to enrolling in the colonial educational system, Amadou attended a school based on the Quran. He started at the governor’s office mailroom at the age of 17 after completing an exam to join the colonial government. He worked as a radio operator on the French coast and then as a member of a maintenance crew on an airfield in unoccupied France during World War II with French troops.
After graduate studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, he returned to Senegal to teach Geography and History. He was a former Director-General of UNESCO and the first African to lead an international organisation, is being remembered for his leading role in advocating a New World Information and Communication Order.
In 1958 M’Bow clashed with Léopold Senghor, another nationalist leader and Senegal’s future president, over the issue of transition to independence. M’Bow supported immediate and complete independence for Senegal, while Senghor and a majority of Senegalese favoured continued affiliation with the French community.
M’Bow became a member of the National Assembly, first as a Minister of National Education (1966-1968) and then, as a Minister of Culture and Youth (1968-1970). From 1966, he served as the representative of Senegal in UNESCO, before becoming Assistant Director-General for Education in 1970. In 1974, he was elected the Director-General of UNESCO where he served for 13 years. In September 1980, he won unanimous re-election to a second term of seven years. In 2008, at the age of 87, he chaired the National Conference of Senegal, a large gathering to address the political and social problems of the country.
M’Bow’s ties with the United States and other western nations were challenging when he worked for UNESCO. A large portion of the friction was generated by Mr. M’Bow’s efforts to create the “new world information order” in the 1980s. He established a panel led by Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner Sean MacBride, who was also a co-founder of Amnesty International. The commission’s report, which was published in 1980, contained recommendations for requiring media outlets to post official responses to stories and for a worldwide license program for journalists. Nonetheless, the idea was viewed by Western governments and media organizations as an assault on the independence of journalism and a cover-up for misconduct. Other recommendations in the white paper, such initiatives to advance communications technology in less developed nations, were overshadowed by the outcry from the West.
Mr. M’Bow stated the report strongly opposes censorship in any form, but noted that “official” government viewpoints should be given weight coverage. In 1980, he told United Press International that American officials and media organizations were viewing the globe “not in relation to the realities of the Third World and the aspirations of the Third World,” but rather through the limited prism of Cold War rivalry.
The Ronald Reagan administration said in December 1983 that the United States will leave the organization in December 1984. Also, the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher followed suit, cutting the nation’s connections with UNESCO in 1985. Mr. M’Bow finally withdrew the media proposals, but other issues with UNESCO, including claims the body fostered anti-Israel viewpoints, delayed the United States’ rejoining until 2003. In 1997, Britain also rejoined UNESCO.
Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow wrote six books which were published by UNESCO in Paris namely, Suicide or Survival? The Challenge of the Year 2000 (1978); Consensus and Peace (1980); Building the Future: UNESCO and the Solidarity of Nations (1981); Legacy for All: The World’s Major Natural, Cultural and Historical Sites (1982); Where the Future Begins (1982); and Hope for the Future (1984).
M’Bow has also contributed to the publications of the Académie du Royaume du Maroc through some thirty papers dealing with major cultural, political, economic and social problems of the world, often from an African perspective.
He died in Dakar on September 24 at age 103. M’bow was one of the patriarchs of the Senegalese nation who passed away, leaving an inestimable legacy, marked by his fight for global educational and cultural justice.
