A religious leader has the right to engage in politics.According to Article 4 of the Constitution, a party cannot identify with a religion, ethnic group, or sect.The words of Mrs. Amy Ndiaye in the Hemicycle are not offensive.In the Parliament, there are no disciples but elected citizens who are subject to the laws of the Republic.These reminders would be useless in a normal country, which Senegal obviously is not anymore.Two fanatical boors from the PUR party have violently attacked a member of the parliamentary majority.In the sea of reactions that ensued, two things struck me.First, the casualness within Bennobokkyaakaar, where we have not noted any strong statement in the face of a historic circumstance that is the assault of an elected representative of the Nation within the Parliament.Their speeches are disappointing and show that these people have neither republican substance nor a sense of height before history.The words of the Minister of Justice were despairing, lacking gravity and solemnity in the face of an act that will go down in the annals of Senegalese political history.Then there is the eloquent silence of the leaders of Yewwiaskanwi.And basically, everything comes from their eagerness to magnify a banal fact: a woman politician who vehemently criticises a man politician.The injunction to her to apologise and the convocation of a press meeting were public calls for the lynching of a parliamentarian.In defiance of the sacred principle of republican secularism, public officials, in a pack, have stigmatised a woman and put a price on her head.These people are the implicit sponsors of the attack on Mrs. Amy Ndiaye.Even with the honour of being elected, MassataSamb and MamadouNiang have chosen to remain talibés, trampling on republican principles, first and foremost secularism.They are unaware that the National Assembly is not a place to show off one’s religious faith and fraternity.They have no right to impose on others what is intimate.This is a serious infringement on the dignity and sacredness of the elected representative whose person is inviolable.These two MPs are symbols of the danger of fanaticism and populism in democracy.The offspring of obscurantism; fanaticism, the inability to exercise restraint, discernment, and judgement, is the cause of thousands of deaths throughout the world.One must imagine the level of moral decadence and the danger that citizens are in when a parliamentarian attacks his colleague in front of all the televisions of the world because she supposedly made derogatory remarks about their religious guide.The idea that our country, on its way towards the abyss, has given birth to fanatical parliamentarians who can kill in the name of their religious beliefs, is terrifying.But I must confess that nothing surprises me about these savages in Parliament.Their attitude during the installation of the 14th legislature was only the first act of a parliamentary tragedy unfolding under our eyes.I see intellectuals, journalists, civil society figures launching cries of an ordeal that are nothing but smoke and mirrors.When these deputies with primitive attitudes ransacked the Parliament and attacked their colleagues on September 12, who defended them?Who supports them when they accuse, threaten and insult magistrates, intellectuals, and army officers?Who is enabling them when they attack journalists, vandalise press groups, and burn down a lawyer’s house?Because they are neither democrats nor republicans, they have allowed the trivialisation of harm, the permanent use of hatred, violence, ludicrousness, and the systematisation of lies in the service of political ambition.I saw two human rights brokers react to condemn the two deputies.They only attack MassataSamb and MamadouNiang because the latter are second-rate.But when the intermittent of the spectacle of the Pastef company, in his endless logorrhoea, insults and threatens at all costs, the same ones either show their support or remain mum.Treacherous!Through cowardice and spinelessness, or because they have bet on a man and his clan in the hopes of a return on investment, many have contributed to sowing the seeds of violence that is becoming a daily occurrence in the public space.Our country sees people of little virtue, vile characters, who symbolise the worst that Senegal has produced in six decades, propel us towards the abyss of politics.To fight them is a republican requirement, because their project is the civil war by dint of dividing the Senegalese and pit them against each other to avoid answering for their own wrongdoings.They are the symbol of the maturation of ignorance.I see many citizens complaining that our country does not deserve this spectacle.At the risk of disappointing them, our country is in the middle of a cycle of degradation.It deserves what is happening to it because these people are unworthyof the title of elected representatives of the Nation and their friends and allies are not from any other nation.They are ours, and they pursue their logic of civil war without a blow.And to reassure no one, their target is the national edifice that they want to see its collapse to implement their temptation of chaos.They have not finished.This is only the beginning.Like in the cult series The Game of Thrones: winter is coming.Chaos is knocking on our doors.The worst in its wake.By Hamidou ANNE / hamidou.anne@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation by Dema SANE