On this side of the Atlantic, the press, with its excesses, continues to shelter and referee from a distance the debate between the two candidates for the presidency, waiting for the Trump-Harris face-off on September 10. On the other side of the Atlantic, our Prime Minister, still in his excesses, continues his losing battle against the press. By launching his attack section of lawyers on our colleague Madiambal Diagne, our Prime Minister has confirmed two obvious facts: his weakness and his fear, but also and above all the Nazi character of Pasteff, because the Nazis also had an attack section of the right wing. Contrary to what the lawyers’ group wants us to believe, the Prime Minister is not indifferent to the comments, he is afraid of them. When I compare the Nazi project to the Pasteff project, Sonko’s Fedayeen and other intellectual thugs scream in horror. Naturally, the purpose of both projects is different, but the methods and trajectories are similar. The Nazi project: populism, failed coup attempt, prison for Hitler (9 months), early release for political reasons, elections, power. The Pastef project: populism, failed coup, prison for Sonko (9 months), political liberation (amnesty), elections, power.
When Hitler came out of prison, in order to destroy democracy, he had to suppress the press and domesticate the judiciary, which was transformed into an assault clause of the law for the benefit of the Nazi project. After taking power, Hitler silenced the press through physical terror and Gestapo violence. Today in Senegal, the Pastef Project has replaced the assault clause of the right to physical violence, as was widely used to terrorize the press during the 2021 riots. The Pastef State, which Alioune Tine talks about, if we do not take the note guard, would be the resurrection of the Nazi State, which was a party-state due to the assault clause at the core of the law of 2 January 1937, which stated: “The civil servant is the executor of the wishes of the State, the incarnation of the National Socialist Party.” This law had legally made the German State Nazi. The notion of the rule of law, which was born from the desire of German jurists to subordinate the Bismarck state to law, disappeared with this law which was the work of eminent jurists who sacrificed law at the altar of ideology. Since April 2, we are witnessing the pasteurization of our state in all areas, as Badara Gadiyaga very well says, “project magistrates”, “project journalists” and soon project ambassadors …
The Nazi project was fundamentally and essentially Manichean. So is the project of Pesteff, and the exile of magistrates who had given judgments unfavourable to Sonko in the opposition proves it. A final reminder: when Hitler came to power, he was only No. 2 because he was appointed Chancellor by President Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. We know the rest. Eventually he would be legally given full powers, destroying the rule of law in favour of a purely legal state. History shows that Hitler’s rise was not inevitable. Mr. Sonko’s position is even less certain because to continue his rise he would have to win the war against the press. Which is impossible. So the press, which was Sonko’s springboard, is today the last bastion of our democracy. Hitler had won his war against the press because at that time the press was limited to the written press, radio and television which were still in their infancy. It was easy to shut him up. Today the world has changed with the Internet and social networks. Censorship is not only anachronistic, but also impossible. It is a mistake for Senegalese to think that the fight for the press should be only for journalists. It is a fight for everyone, because press freedom conditions all other freedoms. And press freedom and pluralism are one of the pillars of the Senegalese exception. Destroying this Senegalese exception is yet another proof of the clear desire to deny Senegal and its values.
Whenever I come to the United States, I delve into the writings of one of the founding fathers of the great American republic, which established itself as a new Jerusalem (city on a hill) and a new Rome. The company of Benjamin Franklin (too bad this superior mind could not become president) was intellectually very enriching during these holidays. This great soul, whose image adorns the hundred dollar bill, says: “No one preaches better than an ant and does not even speak.” Our Prime Minister, who behaves like the cicada in Jean de La Fontaine’s fables, should take inspiration from this. Another name among the founding fathers is Alexander Hamilton, who long ago laid the foundations of American economic power by understanding the centrality of the economy and the need for a neutral and permanent administration that is beyond political choices. The Diomie-Sonko duo who want to make our administration plastic ignores this.
In Senegal there is neither a political nor an institutional problem, not even an administrative problem, but an economic one. Unfortunately, all the decisions taken by Dioumé-Sonko since April 2nd, aimed at satisfying the resentment, the spirit of revenge, of Pasteur’s radical wing, have destroyed our economy. In 1992, a certain Bill Clinton, the governor of Arkansas, came from nowhere to defeat George Bush, who was crowned with glory for winning the Cold War, liberating Kuwait, managing the disintegration of the USSR and succeeding in the reunification of Germany. Clinton said, “This economy is stupid.” The Americans elected him because they were convinced that the really essential thing is in the economy. In Senegal, too, the main thing is the economy which is treated as an incidental question, ignoring the wisdom of Franklin who says that “when you buy the unnecessary, you will soon sell the necessary”. The Diomiye-Sonko duo buys the surplus of permanent tension to fuel the industry of resentment of the radical base. They will soon have to buy solutions at high prices because they neglected the essential question of social demand. We need a prime minister who preaches like an ant, not sings like a cicada. The ant preaches by example, and our prime minister, through his excesses in opposition and in power, is far from being exemplary. It is difficult to preach good citizenship and respect for the values of the republic when we have asked the youth to storm the palace to replace our president with Samuel Doe, insulted magistrates, threatened generals, accused the president of the Constitutional Council of corruption by name. For example and for once, we are still waiting for him to release the report on Prodac, of which he said he had a copy on his desk. It was because he did not present it that he was convicted of defamation.
Populism, like the French and American revolutions, has also become transatlantic. Populism is a threat to the republic because it seeks to destroy or circumvent the representative system, hence Sonko’s moves not to run for the National Assembly. This populism, which has become transatlantic, includes the face of Sonko in his crusade against the press in Senegal, the face of Trump stigmatizing the mainstream media in the United States, and the face of Nigel Farage in Great Britain. This triangular populism is soluble in the institutions of these three great and old democracies because populists, although they can win power, rarely have a governance project. This gave rise to the Nkhembe project in Senegal and the regret of the British after Brexit, because Farage and Co. had no project the day after Brexit, while Trump in the United States limited the project to his person, who “mobilized more people than Martin Luther King” during the attack on the Capitol. Naturally, it is fake, but it is a good idea to unite their base who still believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. Populism is a form of old age disease of some great democracies that turns into this political nihilism. If the Britons followed courageous people like Farage in Brexit, the Americans, who have the most Nobel Prizes, chose Trump, then the Senegalese people should not feel guilty for choosing Pastef. The rebel gap was closed by the police, who demonstrated this Friday in Ouakam that maintaining order has no political color, so there is no need to start populism in the barracks once again. The Pastef’s rebel gap is being closed, now it remains to close the democratic Pastef’s gap during the legislative elections, by imposing coercion on President Faye, who, like President Hoover, would have raised hope before failure in the same mandate.
Dr. Yoro D.I.A.
political scientist, former minister