The violence, which exploded following the verdict in the case between Mr. Ousmane Sonko and Miss Adji Sarr, is intolerable in a democracy. For two years, the dead have been piling up, public and private property destroyed, the authority of the State has been constantly questioned and a culture of rebellion tends to take hold. No verbal or even physical violence can be accepted in a State of Law, and citizens cannot be taken hostage by fires of which they are in no way the initiators. I do not comment on court decisions in the public square, as a matter of principle and in view of my conception of the Republic. But for the political reading of events, alas, nothing that happens in Senegal surprises me. The authorities have allowed a culture of excess and distrust of republican institutions to take hold, which here reaches its climax with citizens taking up arms against their own country.

I don’t know by what logic, the State of Senegal has let a – storytelling, mediocre, manipulative, violent, seditious – citizen rise above the Law to do what he wants, in defiance of the collectively accepted rules and of which the State is supposed to be the guarantor. In the Republic, we do not allow a citizen to insult and threaten magistrates, senior officers, men of rank, call for an insurrection and a coup d’etat, call for the murder of the Head of State, spread lies and discredit institutions without doing anything. What is the logic of arresting a citizen who violates the law on the public highway and escorting him home, instead of sending him to the nearest police station? By refusing to face up to the inevitable, the State of Senegal has trivialized the unacceptable and introduced homeopathic doses to a category of citizens who could raise themselves above the rule of law and to young people to whom institutions were not to be sacralised.

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I recall it for those that it stings: Mr. Sonko is a fascist. Like all those of his political allegiance, he cannot respect the institutions because he is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. He lives on the income of permanent confrontation in the hope of conquering power by force or in any case causing a breakdown in the normal functioning of institutions. Therefore, when we govern a country, moreover a large country like Senegal, we cannot let disorder settle and thus proceed to the devitalization of institutions, because they are the guarantor of our common desire for common life. On this specific subject, it should be remembered that fascism can only be fought by law and republican principles, and not by violence against unarmed civilians, which no cause can justify. Our legal arsenal is equipped with provisions to definitively sanction any anti-republican deviance.

It is also unacceptable to use civilians as auxiliaries to the Defense and Security Forces. A democracy is honoured to always remain in the corset of the Law. Mr. Sonko is an offender sentenced twice in less than a month by a magistrate. His opinions are anti-republican, and his party even on June 2 officially called for an insurrection and a military putsch. These people are enemies of the Republic who must be fought firmly, whatever the cost, otherwise, in the long term, the Republic will collapse, plunging us all into a dangerous cycle and for an undetermined period.

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The Pastef party and its satellites are calling on the Senegalese to take to the streets to end the regime and no identifiable leader is seen in the demonstrations? Where are the representatives of civil society blowing on the embers? In a democracy, hooded individuals are not allowed to walk the streets, regardless of the cause they claim to defend. We are used to seeing familiar faces in protest marches, but where are they? On the contrary, bands of looters, thugs, armed men parade in the streets, kill Senegalese, and no serious voice among politicians, intellectuals and members of civil society denounces these crimes.

This looting, as well as this violence from another age exerted on civilians and police and gendarmes have a specific objective: to scare and shock citizens to incite them either to revolt, or to remain cloistered at home to paralyze the country. 

The Pastef party has imposed tyranny on social networks, and on intellectuals and journalists; consciences crawl on the carpet of denial to escape the fury of the new censors and public insulters. From now on, it is in the neighbourhoods that we threaten and kill to permanently establish terror. Where are the consciences who call themselves democrats and progressives when the university is sacked, when the faculties are set on fire, when the Cesti which trains the manufacturers of the information necessary for democratic life is attacked? They burned the library of the University of Dakar. Books, the path to knowledge, are the enemies of these people who thrive on the bed of ignorance and obscurantism. I think of the Bolivian fascists when they ousted the Left from power. Their first crime was to set fire to the library of the progressive intellectual and politician, Alvaro Garcia Linera, which consisted of 30,000 books.

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Nothing is surprising in this terror, because the enemy of these people is the light which liberates and elevates the human in order to restore to him his dignity as a man who thinks and acts in freedom and responsibility.

Our country is facing an undeniable organized insurrectionary attempt, the beginnings of which have been visible for several years through warlike speeches, manipulation of the masses by irresponsible media, systematic recourse to false news and a desire to acquire power through the street to the detriment of the democratic way. The State has a responsibility in the deterioration of the situation, due to the lightness and the absence of strong acts aimed at defending the Republic. But the so-called republican opposition also played with fire out of political calculation, hatred of a man and greed for power. She sold her soul for seats. I have already written enough about the humbug of a civil society that makes it a point to take sides and bet on a good horse without shrinking from any abjection. I ignore the intellectuals, paralyzed by the idea of taking on their responsibilities and whose favourite activity is to make it easy to hit President Sall, without ever denouncing the use of violent and anti-republican speech by Mr. Sonko who inspires them with a staggering fear that promotes everything against which they have written and acted for years.

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This crisis is the fruit of irresponsibility on the part of the political class, but it is also the consequence of the disintegration of our institutions since 2000. The time to address these basic questions will come, but when irredentists who, in forty years, have never been able to reign over a square centimetre of Senegalese territory, parade in Dakar, we must face and respond to the urgency of moral duty. Out of a sense of the state, out of patriotism and out of republican conscience, my support for our republican institutions in these uncertain times is unreserved. There is, from my point of view, neither the Left, nor the Right, nor the majority, nor the opposition, there is the Republic facing individuals who, against it, have taken up arms.

Post-scriptum: Mr. President of the Republic, your government has announced an attack on our country by armed gangs allied with foreign mercenaries. I choose to believe you, having placed my security and part of my sovereignty in your hands as the legitimate and legal representative of the Senegalese people. In accordance with the laws of our country, I will support any measure that you and your government will take to restore public order as well as the tranquillity of our fellow citizens, to stop armed gangs and to put them at the disposal of Justice, even if I am lucid on the minimal nature of my support.

The government cannot back down in the face of a military-like enemy whose claims have less a political basis than an insurrectional one. Any setback will mean the collapse of the Republic you have sworn to preserve.

Since independence, Senegal has never been defeated. Senegal will again defeat its aggressors today. Mr. President of the Republic, you are seated in the chair of one of the most illustrious Africans, Léopold Sédar Senghor; you have the honour of leading a great Nation whose influence crosses all ages and borders. It is in the name of this honour, the greatest possible, which is to lead to the destinies of Senegal, the country of God, that I ask you to preserve the secular, democratic and social Republic, the indivisible Nation, the strong and prestigious State.

By Hamidou ANNE / hamidou.anne@lequotidien.sn

  • By Ndey T. SOSSEH / Serigne S. DIAGNE