  Nothing probably is more indicative of the difference between Léopold Sédar Senghor and his friend Aimé Césaire than their respective reactions to the widely celebrated book by Father Tempels. While Senghor embraced it as going along the same lines he was exploring in his 1939 essay, Césaire’s reaction was one of rejection. It is not that Césaire did not accept the substance of Tempels’ theses. In fact the summary he makes of them is perfectly adequate: “Now then, know that Bantu thought is essentially ontological”, he writes in his 1955 Discours sur le colonialisme [8],“that Bantu ontology is based on the truly fundamental notions of a life force and a hierarchy of life forces; and that for the Bantu the ontological order which defines the world comes from God and, as a divine decree, must be respected” (Césaire 2000b, 58). In fact what provoked Césaire’s skepticism and sarcasm vis-à-vis Tempels’ work was its implications as a tool to justify and perpetuate the colonial order. “Since Bantu thought is ontological”, he tittered, “the Bantu only ask for satisfaction of an ontological nature. Decent wages! Comfortable housing! Food! These Bantu are pure spirits, I tell you …” (Césaire 2000b, 58) Above all, there is for Césaire, the way in which the colonial order is made by Tempels a new part of Bantu ontology and therefore legitimized and even sanctified in the eyes of the Bantu themselves: “As for the government, why should it complain?” Since the Rev. Tempels notes with obvious satisfaction, “from their first contact with the white man, the Bantu considered us from the only point of view that was possible to them, the point of view of their Bantu philosophy” and “integrated us into their hierarchy of life forces at a very high level” (Césaire 2000b, 58). The final result being then that “the Bantu god will take responsibility for the Belgian colonialist order, and any Bantu who dare to raise his hand against it will be guilty of sacrilege” (Césaire 2000b, 58).