The accusation: “Defend gays.” The campaign “Félicitations retirées”, compliments withdrawn, against the author of “La plus secrète mémoire des hommes” started on social media
When he received the Prix Goncourt in Paris last Wednesday, the Senegalese writer Mohamed Mbougar Sarr aroused in his homeland a wave of national satisfaction and pride: for the first time the most important literary prize of the Francophonie was awarded to a writer originally from sub-Saharan Africa. Newspapers and TV in Dakar retraced the story of the 31-year-old elder of seven brothers, the son of a doctor and a housewife, formerly a model student, winner of the title of “best high school student in Senegal” and first in his class also in France, where he was transferred after high school to undertake literary studies and where he still lives with his partner.
But the unanimous joy for Sarr’s victory with the novel The most secret memory of men (which will be published in Italy by and / or) lasted a few days. The writer’s past has been scrutinized and analyzed and some have re-emerged taking a stand in defense of homosexuals, who are discriminated against and persecuted in Senegal. National pride quickly gave way to irritation, and the campaign was launched on social media “Congratulations withdrawn», Congratulations withdrawn.
Among the sentences reproached to Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, an interview with “Le Monde” in 2018 in which he declares that “a good homosexual in Senegal is a homosexual in hiding, or someone who makes the audience laugh, or a dead homosexual. Unfortunately, religious power has a very strong influence on consciences. Even politicians or university students must first of all declare their fidelity to religious power ”. A statement that seems to be confirmed by what is happening in recent days, with the Islamic non-governmental organization Jamra which denounced on Facebook “the (suspicious) Western hyper-mediatization” of the new Goncourt prize.
For some time Jamra has been watching over “respect for traditional values” and against “perversions imported from the West such as homosexuality and Freemasonry”, managing to ban unwelcome films or TV series. As for Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, Jamra points out that “before now none of the great sub-Saharan authors, from Cheikh Hamidou Kane to Amadou Hampaté Bâ via Cheikh Anta Diop, have ever been awarded by Goncourt”. The insinuation is that the award went to Mohamed Mbougar Sarr is a western plot to promote homosexuality. The Islamic NGO assures us that “the novel will be read by us in full and with great attention” and then threatens to take a position publicly “as has happened in the past with The satanic verses by Salman Rushdie ».
Only the award-winning novel The most secret memory of men it ignores the theme of homosexuality, present if anything in the previous one Pure men. But the hate campaign has now started. With great calm the writer reacted during an interview with ITV Senegal, in which he evoked “misunderstandings and misunderstandings” by adding “I am a writer and I try to do my job as a writer”.
November 8, 2021 (change November 8, 2021 | 08:51)
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