Bernard Pivot, an emblematic figure in the illustration and defense of the French language, has been gone from this valley of tears since May 6, 2024.

Personally, I bow my head respectfully before his memory, and not just out of respect for this immense colleague: I also want to piss off the sovereigntists, pan-Africanists, independentists, fundamentalists, naysayers, frustrated peckers and all those who are horrified by inferiority complex in the face of French culture…

A journalist, writer, literary critic and presenter of cultural programs, who died at the age of 89, he left a considerable body of work, including a mischievous little lexicon which I have used as inspiration for my forthcoming collection of “Senegalaiseries”.

Colonised one day, colonised always?
The idea is to create a neologism from the surnames of political players. For example, according to a tweet by its creative author: “Mélenchonner. Megalomaniac verb. Definition: to shout loudly ‘The Republique, it’s me! Example: This friend of Marine Le Pen’s Mélenchonne at the moment of orgasm.”

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It didn’t take much for me to transfer competence, as in 1960, when the Senegal of Senghor and Dia became a Republic with the anointment of De Gaulle’s France. And so, in the foreword, I explain: “It was our benevolent colleague, Coumba Sylla, always concerned about our level of culture, who one day sent us this find by Bernard Pivot, the sacred monster of literary criticism in the Hexagon: a little lexicon inspired by the stances taken by players on the French political scene. Not much more is needed for a technology transfer. Our truculent public life could inspire an encyclopaedia. Which is right before your eyes. In addition to a few reminders of the events of this seven-year term, here’s a little glossary to help you understand the long years spent under the thumb of His Roundness Macky. For example, how he “abdoudioufed” Wade, the father. You read that right: “abdoudioufed”. Understand servility until installed in power and unlimited ingratitude…”

I’ll deny it to the last drop of energy…
All this to tell you about the visit of the French rebel Jean-Luc Mélenchon at the invitation of the patriot Ousmane Sonko, who received him at Ucad in an outfit that I’ll refrain from describing in order to avoid joining Bah Diakhaté in preventive detention: the dear gentleman is said to have offended a collaborator of the President, who holds the legitimacy of his boss to enforce article 80 and all that resembles it in the Penal Code.

It’s not a remake of 1994’s “continued flagrant misdemeanour”, but it sure looks like it?

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In the amphitheatre, there’s a crowd of patriots enamoured of their favourite Frenchman, the only one who’ll be allowed to stay under our skies and perhaps the last of the Gauls empowered to help us sell oil and gas when the whole of France leaves, the grumpy, ambassadors, traders, negotiators and tourists included.

We can already see from here the charter that will send them back to France in fourth gear: it’s the Transair cuckoo under the Air Senegal banner that has just run off the runway and will be patched up with wire, zinc and pounded paper by some daring Senegalese handyman. You know, the kind who puts “plumber” on his sign but assures you he’s up to the task of repairing a broken plane.

An authentic Senegalese, in a nutshell.
First news: Mélenchon, who claims to be the first to propose the gay marriage law, is straight. If he’d been gay, would it change the world’s buttocks? This time, the chief Insoumis doesn’t proclaim with fury that he is, all by himself, the Republic, but it’s clear that he’s holding back so as not to thunder: “Sex, that’s me!”

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That would be unseemly: you don’t talk about horns in a cuckold’s house.

Had Bah Diakhaté asked my opinion, I would have advised him to avoid even philosophizing about the sex of angels. There are subjects that give the new regime hives.

And even some expressions that have become suspect: for example, you can no longer consider two childhood friends who were a bit of a scoundrel to be jolly good fellows, or their relationship to be one of ass and shirt. As for bicycle touring, like any activity that requires pedalling, it’s best to avoid talking about it.

The frilly look will also have to change: lace might offend some in high places. Living alone with your mother and having only a parrot, two canaries and a cat for company, better avoid bragging about it either…

More generally, back pain, twisted lumbar vertebrae and sciatica from hell are sensitive information, and physiotherapy, like sociology after May 68 in Dakar, is becoming a banned science: it is no longer a therapy, but a call to insurrection, the teaching of which is a disturbance of public order, and its practitioners, hooded politicians who threaten State Security… To be called Adji and bear Sarr as a patronymic would seem like provocation. As for being called Raby…

Put simply, for some time now, sex in text has been a casus-belli behind our borders.

By Ibou FALL

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH