It is as if many important voices of the media, civil society and the political opposition have suddenly come out of a long collective hangover to finally discover the true face of the leader of the Pastef political party.  Or it could be that these people are caught up by the phenomenon of the sudden return of a denial of a reality, which, according to Freudian readings, is the attitude of refusing to see things as they really are.  This could also be because of ideological reasons if reality goes against one’s own opinions. The novelty is that Ousmane Sonko is finding less and less grace in public spaces. Lately, his attitude, escapades and other outlandish statements are more than just ruffling feathers, they are inducing outrage even in the circles that enabled all his excesses or rudeness.

Ousmane Sonko represented the perfect fit for this bunch. He was a big scarecrow set up against the regime of President Macky Sall. Opponents found in him the person who could say everything unscrupulously, such as lying, slandering, fabricating, and thus provoking the anger of the populations to turn them against Macky Sall.  The result justifying any and all means. Civil society, in a position of “controller of tensions or crises”, to use the expression of Yoro Dia, found in Ousmane Sonko an arsonist capable of maintaining, fuelling political tensions, and thus justifying the intervention of rescuers to save a Senegal in danger.

The media found in Ousmane Sonko their best client because his thunderous declarations are regularly the talk of the town. So, are they now all discovering that their creature has grown in stature and has turned out to be frightening?  Indeed, we realize, on the day after the legislative elections of July 31, 2022, that this new monster is at the gates of power and panic seems to be setting in! It’s akin to the allegory of Frankenstein’s Monster! In a fiction by the English novelist Mary Shelley (1818), Dr. Victor Frankenstein made a being, a humanoid as we would say in modern language, from different corpse limbs. Once his work was finished, the ugliness and hideous character of his creature frightened him so much that he abandoned it, and fled.  The creature entered a phase of revolt and sank into murderous madness to attack and kill its creator who no longer accepted it, and against a society that rejected it. « The moral of this story is that we often create ourselves the monsters that haunt us (…) All things considered, society creates Frankeinsteins every day. »  But the phenomenon of Ousmane Sonko will also have the advantage of being a relevant indicator of the perjury, denials and cowardice of the media, civil society and the political class.

What do journalists think they will finally discover about Ousmane Sonko?

The media is offended that Ousmane Sonko insults them, despises them and considers them as less than nothing. Frankly, what’s new under the sun? Ousmane Sonko has always called corrupt all journalists who wrote or said things that did not conform to his own vision. Already, before entering politics, in 2014, he insulted journalists who mentioned the land prevarication operations carried out by the former director of the Cadastre, Tahibou Ndiaye, who was arrested and finally found guilty by the Justice. The media had finally discovered the strong ties between Ousmane Sonko and Tahibou Ndiaye. In 2017, Ousmane Sonko poured out his bile on the media, which pointed out the inconsistencies, the lack of evidence and the lack of rigor of his book « Oil and Gas, Chronicle of a plundering ». He did not hesitate to make false accusations against journalists and exposed them to the vindictiveness of his militants. He handpicked the journalists admitted to his media appearances. In 2019, he managed to stop the publication  of presidential election results by radio and television stations that broadcasted results unfavorable to the opposition. Hordes of militants he had whipped up attacked media houses and brutalized journalists. They did it again in March 2021 to prevent the media from reporting on the accusations of rape and sexual abuse made by the woman Adji Sarr against their leader, allegedly committed in the « Sweet Beauty » brothel where he was a regular. The media have been incomprehensibly cautious in this case and have even espoused, with eyes shut, the conspiracy theory brandished by Ousmane Sonko and his entourage. In some columns, one could even read glowing articles that gave him a hero’s mantle, a sanctity that could could allow him to cast the first stone at Mary Magdalene. Moreover, since this story broke out in February 2021, Ousmane Sonko has never accepted any interview with a Senegalese media. The few interviews he has given have been to foreign media and have been limited to talking about his political career and casting aspersions on the regime of Macky Sall. There is no editorial office in Senegal that has not been denied an interview by Ousmane Sonko.

The man organizes his media outings as he pleases in the form of statements, without any possibility for journalists to ask him any questions. Thus, these media remain mere sounding boards for his diatribes. It remains true that everyone can be master of his mode of communication but the media that are indignant today of Ousmane Sonko’s way of doing are not under any obligation to cover his press briefings. In the same vein, these media are not forced to systematically relay statements that they know to be totally false. How professional is it for the media to peddle false statements while refraining from any act of « fact checking »? By taking the responsibility of relaying information that they know to be totally false without correcting it, journalists are absolutely complicit in the fraud and gross manipulation of opinion. Every journalist has been able to count several times the lies and manipulations orchestrated by Ousmane Sonko, so how can they continue to give any credit to his claims?

The most astounding thing about all this is that these same media and other journalists, who, whilst on their high horse, have roundly criticized their colleagues who dared to denounce, for example, the ethnic and regionalist excesses of Ousmane Sonko’s rhetoric.

If it is any consolation, these new reactions and postures may be a signal that people are waking up, because “you can’t fool all the people all the time”. Have the media realized that they have more to fear from Ousmane Sonko than from any other political actor?

‘Civil society’, which has enabled him at every turn, finds itself in his line of sight

Prominent civil society leaders have come out to criticize the latest statements made by Ousmane Sonko on the situation in Mali, which have provoked a strong reaction from military authorities. Have they just discovered that Ousmane Sonko has never respected anything? Had he not already accused the Senegalese government and its military of ethnic cleansing in Casamance under the pretext of security operations? It is now indignant that Ousmane Sonko is attacking the National Army while he has always insulted the judiciary, the magistrates, the President of the Republic, his fellow MPs, the police and the gendarmerie. This spooked civil society had never found anything to object to. Ousmane Sonko insulted religious and customary authorities and played on ethnic and regionalist sentiments. He advocated the questioning of the integrity of our national territory and went so far as to endorse the claims of the armed rebellion under the aegis of the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC), without angering this civil society in the least. Who can fail to recall the attitude of Ousmane Sonko in the face of the murder of four soldiers and the hostage-taking of seven of their comrades by MFDC members in January 2021? His supporters said it was a plot to justify a military operation in Casamance! Ousmane Sonko will never distance himself from this travesty. And when we asked to condemn this humiliation of our national army and he was questioned about certain murky links with the MFDC, it was the same personalities of the civil society who chastised us, asking us not to involve the army or the Casamance question in what they wanted to see, with disconcerting dishonesty, as political attacks against Ousmane Sonko. One can have fun re-reading some of the tweets and other publications, even though these are the same personalities who acted as representatives to Ousmane Sonko with the President of Guinea Bissau, Umaro Sisoco Embalo, to help cover up the Adji Sarr case. These are the same people who helped to make the connection or strengthen ties with the putschists in Conakry and Bamako, whom they applauded in chorus.

In another posture, this Civil Society, on more than one occasion, has called for the laws of the Republic to be set aside to satisfy the whims of Ousmane Sonko, such as the burial of his judicial file with the lady Adji Sarr, or the twisting of electoral laws to erase the own turpitudes and faults of Ousmane Sonko and his camp, and to allow them to take part in elections. Thus, to preserve a civil peace y viewed as threatened by Ousmane Sonko, who was publicly calling for violence, insurrection and the removal of the President of the Republic, the Civil Society has advocated somehow to apply the laws based on who teh concerned was. This same Civil Society that speaks of watching over the State’s land holdings has never sought to delve into the countless plots of land granted to Ousmane Sonko, to the executives of his party and for the financing of the trade union he headed and up to his current party Pastef. This even though some media had published titles of properties unduly granted in these operations of land grabbing.

In fact, the outburst of violence, invectives, and insanities against the personalities, who had the nerve to commit the crime of lèse-majesté by seeking to put Ousmane Sonko in his place, will certainly have shown them that they are dealing with a band of thugs who are in a position where they could subvert the Republic. Civil Society seems to discover the fate of the hunter when the rabbit has the gun.

When feminist leaders beg Anna Diamanka to remain stoic in the face of domestic violence

Above all, The Adji Sarr affair will have ruined the lifelong struggle of women who were at the forefront of the struggle for women’s rights. They are numerous to have looked the other way and plugged their ears; all this to carefully avoid joining the fight of this poor woman almost abandoned to herself. Without listening to her, hearing her out and approaching her, feminists, who have made their reputation defending women’s rights, have called Adji Sarr a liar, an embellisher and a conspirator. Such an attitude is undoubtedly convenient to spare themselves from insults and from being taken to task by the mob loyal to the Pastef leader. But we have also seen tried and tested feminists working to save the household of Ousmane Sonko with Anna Diamanka, who is a victim of repeated serious domestic violence. They asked the grieving wife to remain stoic, resilient and to stay in her home as « a good wife », especially since her man would be promised a great future. Anna Diamanka still laughs at one of them, a member of parliament who used to give her such advice with a cigarette in her hand. One cannot be more emancipated from the Senegalese societal codes for a woman to smoke in public. What marches or demonstrations did these good ladies not organize in this country to denounce domestic violence? A cheeky friend of mine, with ties in the field, remarked, « How do you fight for feminism or women’s rights when you call your servants with a bell? »

Gabrielle Kane is right, the State of Senegal has been cowardly!

With to her interjecton last week in the newspaper Source A, we can only hope that the activist Gabrielle Kane will have succeeded to shake-up the authorities of the State of Senegal into dealing with the judicial treatment of the case Adji Sarr. Yes, Mrs. Gabrielle Kane is right when she speaks of cowardice and spinelessness of the State of Senegal which has not taken the necessary measures to bring the presumed author of the repetitive rapes and sexual abuse before a court of law, whereas all the other protagonists have, for a long time, finished being heard by the investigating magistrate! This situation is all the more unacceptable as Ousmane Sonko continues to defy the law and to violate (no pun intended) the conditions set by the judge when he was placed under judicial supervision in March 2021. What of those opposition members who, after discovering late in the day the failings of Ousmane Sonko, denounced his cynicism and urged him to respect the institutions of the Republic? They were able to experience that Pastef and its henchmen use against opposition members the same weapons of insult, slander, manipulation, intimidation and threats, as they do against the camp of President Macky Sall. Finally, everyone has finished measuring the risk of having a fascist of this caliber at the head of Senegal! It is never too late!

By Madiambal DIAGNE / mdiagne@lequotidien.sn