Le Quotidien is publishing a series of reports on the great tragedies that have struck Senegal and tested our nation in all aspects.These reports are full of lessons on the tragedies that have occurred and how we, as a national community, failed to use those moments as catalysts for a new consciousness that would prevent us from falling into the same traps.These tragedies, which range from the sinking of the Joola to the crash of a plane transporting Senegalese troops to Kuwait, including an industrial accident in the Dakar region or even the disappearance of a town from the map of the country, say a lot about our tendency to forget, our propensity for amnesia, and especially our inability to honour our dead and our ancestors with dignity.One would be tempted to shout like Pericles when the anniversaries of the tragic days in our national history come around: allow us to begin by « praising our dead ».They are part of us, they are part of what made us and the preservation of their memories is a lucid beacon in a world where everything referential and sacred is disappearing.« At the gates of Paradise, we were what you are and you will be what we are, » we read at the entrance of the Saint-Lazare de Béthanie cemetery in Dakar.This reminder of the inevitability and impersonality of the Memento Mori, for the living, is also an invitation not to forget those who have gone before us in our thoughts, in our prayers and especially in the way we conduct our present.It is my firm belief that nations are measured in their enduring construction by their ability to honour those predecessors who paved the way and to protect the memory of those who, by the cruel chance of life, may have been victims of tragedy.Senegal must do a better job of celebrating the souls of its departed.A tragedy such as the sinking of the Joola must never cease to be a mobilising memory for us, a source of cohesion and above all a reminder amid pain that the construction of a better country is done by realising that on the way, many people are missing and will be missing.The United States of America have been able to instil in everyone’s consciousness that there are milestones of their nation’s history that no one can ignore.The commemorations in their calendar in honour of their dead or specific events in the history of their country are perfect illustrations of such a state of mind.The symbolism of all the rituals and protocols celebrating the memory of the fallen, from the minutes of silence to the wearing of symbols to mark certain events, are practices that we would benefit from being if they were established in our collective consciousness and habits.It is quite sad that in a country where 8 people died tragically in a soccer stadium during a national cup final (USOuakam-Stade de Mbour), a professional championship is being played five years later, without any serious reminder of this tragedy.What can we say about the elected officials who dare to sulk at ceremonies paying homage to the victims of one of the worst tragedies in the history of the Civil Navy!The tragic death of SoroDiop, one of the souls of the newspaper Le Quotidien, has caused a torrent of tributes, odes and messages full of gratitude and recognition by collaborators of all eras who have contributed to making this publication a reference.The beauty of the testimonies reminds us of those words of Pericles, soaked in truth, addressed to the dead of the Peloponnesian War, as to how, « Praise of other people is tolerable only up to a certain point, the point where one still believes that one could do oneself some of the things one is hearing (…)For the whole earth is the tomb of famous men;not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions in their own country, but in foreign lands there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men ».Through the tributes to SoroDiop, Le Quotidien shows that the propensity to forget can be fought by having faith that there is a divine and poetic character in the action of men embarked on any adventure.Such a belief is what drives nation building, and it cannot ignore the preservation of memories.A speech by Dr.Hiriluk, which has become a classic in the manga One Piece, said that people only really die once they are forgotten, but not by the force of the gun, the consumption of the worst poison or the weight of an incurable disease.Senegal does not have the right to let the memories of its sons and daughters suffer from indifference and sink into the wreckage of collective oblivion.By Serigne Saliou DIAGNE / saliou.diagne@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation by Dema SANE