A woman of mature age, who is clearly not matured herself, attacked President Macky Sall on a Royal Air Maroc flight from Casablanca to Paris. You can’t learn at the age of 62 what is supposed to be taught at the age of 4: “You don’t talk to strangers.” To take on a man in front of his wife and in front of a hundred passengers in a cabin, you have to be seriously lacking in education. Especially since her vulgarity forced the person to spend an unpleasant time with the Moroccan police, to the point of missing her connection and appearing before a judge.

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As soon as the incident was announced, I knew that the person was a Pastef party militant or at least a sympathizer. It is the only party in which insults are considered an entry ticket. You have to know how to insults, slander, threaten, and fabricate to make yourself worthy of being a recognized militant. In this movement, putting on a show is second nature. They are only happy when they film their dishonour themselves flaunting their lack of attire and decency. They can even film themselves crying… A staggering lack of class.

After the Casablanca attack, the incident was supposed to be closed.

The insulter, who surely relieved her conscience still filled with hatred, left, proud to have displayed her vulgarity in front of everyone. President Sall, for his part, took the road to Hamburg to participate in the Conference on Sustainable Development. But that was without counting on the press release from the Senegalese embassy in Rabat which said it had received from the Minister of Foreign Affairs an injunction to provide “legal assistance” to a compatriot, forgetting that she had insulted another compatriot, moreover a former head of state, in front of witnesses, in foreign territory.  I can only imagine the distinguished Senegalese diplomats, particularly from the embassy in Rabat and the consulate in Casablanca, in their little shoes in front of the irresponsibility of Yassine Fall. I imagine them all the more embarrassed because the relations that bind us with Morocco are exceptional; so, having to defend a 62-year-old Senegalese woman because she showered insults on her former President is very embarrassing.

The project of these people, to promote everywhere the desacralization of what we have taken more than a century to sanctify in the country and abroad. 

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As for Yassine Fall, she may be a good lady, but she reminds us of Justin de Selves, Minister of Foreign Affairs under the Third French Republic, and who was said to be « the minister foreign to Affairs ». After the « Senegalese and bread », and the unintelligible remarks on the Francophonie, among other curious postures, she persists in remaining very summary in the exercise of important missions.

With these people, the foundations of living together are weakened, Senegal’s signature is depreciated by sordid accusations about public finances, religious harmony is undermined by provocative positions on the veil. Diplomacy, which has been Senegal’s prestige since 1960, has been entrusted to a lady who I still say is undoubtedly brave, but does not have the minimum required in terms of competence, composure and talent to carry the voice of Senegal.

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Because Pastef is a party inherently linked to violence, the diplomatic services’ press release surprised me very little. Let us recall the calls for “Mortal Kombat,” the Molotov cocktails, and the physical threats against the President of the Republic, among other violent speeches and acts. They also exported violence abroad by making Senegal the only country in the world whose citizens ransacked embassies and consulates. One of their most important executives has just called for the “cleansing” of APR activists and officials.

This pure and simple genocidal vocabulary is unacceptable in a civilized society. By refusing nothing, by not setting any limits, we are witnessing, on the part of these people, the trivialization of evil. For them, it is a way of rising very high in the hierarchy of the State. The Cheikh Oumar Diagne jurisprudence is still fresh in our memories.  I hope, to prevent our country from reaching a new level in the lowering of public debate, that this attack on President Sall in Casablanca is a very isolated incident, that it does not happen again. The trivialization of acts of this kind could have dramatic consequences. It is not every day that a man or a woman will allow themselves to be attacked in this way without reacting.

By Hamidou ANNE / hamidou.anne@lequotidien.sn

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