1. Ben Barka & Mamadou Dia Two African nationalist thinkers: Decolonisation and Development

2. Mamadou Dia a Senegalese and West African socialist Writer and Politician (1910-2009)
Ben Barka a Moroccan and Third World Leader ( )

3. Mamadou Dia Léopold Sédar Senghor
Mamadou Dia: Head of the Government of Senegal After a coup, jailed from
Mamadou Dia Léopold Sédar Senghor

4. Mehdi Ben Barka nationalist leader against French colonialism and Head of the first Consultative Parliament. Socialist leader and main opponent to King Hassan II. He was abducted in Paris in 1965 and diseappeared till today. He is the most known "disappeared" in the World. 30 books and about ten films on his case

5. Morocco about 750 000 square km in North African Population: 34 000 000

6. Senegal about 200 000 square km Population 14 000 000

7. The different fates of Ben Barka and Mamadou Dia symbolize the difference between the regime of Hassan II and that of Senghor (Senegal)

8. Three main ideas of each of the two leaders about Decolonisation, Political regime, Development, Education...World politics etc.

9. Decolonisation
Ben Barka was a political leader against colonialism. He did not use violence against the French. Still he coordinated with leaders of the Moroccan Liberation Army (ALM) in the North befote Independence. He participated also as political adviser to the ALM-southern branch which was leading a military insurgency to liberate the Moroccan Sahara from the Spanish.

10. For Ben Barka it is impossible to realize Economic Independence without three main strategic policies or decisions:
-The unity of North Africa...
- Agrarian Reform and political mobilisation of the population to implement strategic projects and infrastructures: roads, ports, schools, industrial projects etc...Example la Route de l'Unité.
- Education: Ben Barka said: l'instruction publique n'est pas une chose importante, elle est la chose importante. (Topics to be discussed: French or Arabic?, Educational policies? Campaign against "analphabétisme" or illettracy...Government of Abdellah Ibrahim: education ministery etc...)

12. In the views of Mamadou Dia, it will be difficult to make Development and independence a success story without:
- An African Federation, at least in Francophone West Africa ( topic to be discussed: Mali Federation experience).
- un "socialisme autogestionnaire" based on agricultural cooperatives inspired from China and Yugoslavia. Dia is the author of Le Plan du Dévoppement du Sénégal or Development of Senegal Plan.
- Diversification of the international relations of Senegal and Africa (Topic to be discussed: the French and the coup against Dia)

13. Ben Barka and the monorchy
Ben Barka was in favor of a power sharing with the the king in the cadre of an authentic constitutional monarchy. He fought for the election of a Constituant Assembly. He opposed and made campaign against the monarchist constitution proposed to the country by Hassan II in He escaped, during the referendum campaign, an assassination attempt. He was wounded gravely in his neck and was hospitalized in West Germany. He came back to Morocco and led the electoral campaign of the left. He was elected as MP by 90 perct of a popular neighborhood of Rabat.

14. Dia between Islam and Secularism
Dia was a muslim believer but a secularist socialist.
He said one day" I'm Marxist without athéism".
He opposed Maraboutist Islam and considered it as a base of social and intellectual backwardness and econmic exploitation and moral manipulation of the poor population. Because of that, the brootherhood organisations supported the Catholic and pro French Senghor against him. Dia, the muslim, was supported by the Roman Catholic hierarchy of Senegal (social Christianism.)

15. There are a lot of similarities between Dia- Ben Barka and their conflict on one hand and between Senghor- Hassan II on the other hand.
But also curiously between the political evolution of Senegal and Morocco: , 1965, ,