We therefore learn that not giving the slightest credence to the figures given by the government on the economic situation can result in a summons to the police. Curious, because the documents of the State of Senegal and those of our partners go against a certain propaganda conveyed with the same filthy vocabulary. Moving on to serious matters, I read this from a foreign statesman last week: « The illiberal temptation, which would consist of divorcing democracy from the constitutional and conventional principles on which it is founded, would result in a demonstration of weakness by those in authority and would ultimately lead to a lowering of status… »

Read the column – A Republican Front !

The word abasement, which was the title of my column last week, refers to those who are unfit for the functions they perform, who inspire mediocrity. In addition, I notice that they show a flagrant lack of serenity. Their agitation, despite their arrival in power, is symptomatic of men who are foreign to the affairs they conduct. Their fear is also understandable because everywhere, apprentice despots fear the determination of those who decide to oppose them with resistance whose foundation is freedom in all circumstances. The recent arrests of journalists and media owners, followed by their release without any charge, demonstrate the sterile agitation that is gaining ground among the populists, when their technical incompetence is compounded by their low moral stature. Let them take it for granted: the day before yesterday there were about ten of us unmasking their imposture and their dangerousness; yesterday we were a hundred; today we are thousands; tomorrow we will be millions. The only demand of the People of the Republican Arc is to confront them.

Read the column – Pastef’s destiny is failure. But, at what cost?

On the other hand, regarding the acts marked by frivolity and various abuses, I am concerned by the disappearance of the petitioning intellectuals who animated the public debate between 2021 and 2024.  Suddenly rendered speechless, these spontaneous leagues of great thinkers of democracy, the rule of law and freedoms prefer to look the other way when journalists and politicians are summoned and condemned, some, for crimes of opinion. Even the two lackeys of the Pastef party, Alioune Tine and Seydi Gassama, and the activists of the Y’en a marre movement expressed some timid reservations. That is to say…

I personally know some of the signatories of the many texts, mostly published by Seneplus by my friend René Lake, a site of which I am an attentive and faithful companion. I can even say that among them are friends whose sincerity in commitment I do not doubt. For many, they have been victims of the powerful manipulation apparatus of the Pastef party, of their lack of discernment and their inability to analyse things with greater rigor. Even the most renowned academics can be abused by semi-literate people in ties, familiar with idle talk and public threats and insults.

Read the column – God knows how to recognise His own

I publicly call on these friends in these columns to take responsibility and to exercise coherence and consistency in their approach. I am relaying here many questions about their silence in the face of the excesses of a power of which they were yesterday the objective allies in the name of democracy. Another part of the petitioners was involved in politics but had neither the courage nor the honesty to remove the mask.  This is a bunch of towel carriers, hidden behind platforms and untimely petitions, but whose only driving forces were a mixture of hatred and opportunism. Behind all their gesticulations, they are deep down only looking for glory, however fleeting it may be, privileges and recognition. This need for recognition is a disease of Senegalese intellectuals and sometimes makes them lose the real meaning of their social function as producers of thoughts and bulwarks against excesses from wherever they arise.

It is with gravity that many of us have noted the drift of many Senegalese intellectuals fascinated by fascism, which has exercised a strange attraction on them. This adherence without this reserve, even this cautious prudence to a violent discourse and methods, has prevented them from considering political phenomena with rigor and lucidity. Also, the demand for truth has been lacking in many of our petitioners, because they have put themselves in a binary logic to the point of promoting chaos.

Read the column – Palestine: The awkward silence of Senegalese universities

Those who organized themselves in discreet circles, put in place strategies of struggle, recruited colleagues and sought foreign signatories to better discredit the previous regime in the name of democracy and the rule of law, saw their credibility and prestige collapse on the bed of their accommodation with lies, duplicity, manipulation and the rhetoric of violence and chaos. Their small frustrations fed a contribution to the advance of the fascist horde without any regard for the truth of the facts and scientific rigor. They call themselves democrats, republicans, feminists, pacifists, but have welcomed all the threats to peace and living together, and all the abominations in actions and speeches. Did they sign a petition when the other called Mrs. Adji Sarr a « monkey, victim of a stroke »; when he called for dragging the President of the Republic through the street like Samuel Doe; when he told young people « if you die, your mother will give birth again »; when he called the army « mercenaries in the pay of France »?

Now that they are in power, I have not yet read their petitions on arrests and imprisonments for crimes of opinion, illegal bans on leaving the country, searches without a visible warrant and reneging on calls for applications, the composition of the High Council of the Judiciary and threats to the secularism of the Republic.

No, they didn’t say anything, because some are cowards to the point of being terrorized by insults on the internet, others only dance to the music of political opportunism. Are they waiting like old negroes for their medals of reward for services rendered? Reward, I said, the one who dreamed of being a historian of the revolution ended up as the figurehead of a Théodule committee located in Thiaroye. How mischievous fate is!

Post-Scriptum :  Traverses is now on Monday. I am honoured to be asked to take over from Lundis de Madiambal after two decades as the founder of Avenir Communication. This text is dedicated to him, as a token of my solidarity with the sordid attempts at destabilization that target him. They will be in vain like the previous ones. But as we know, stupidity always insists.

By Hamidou ANNE – hamidou.anne@lequotidien.sn 

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH / Serigne S. DIAGNE