With the Farba Ngom affair, the syndrome of ethnicity once again enters the political debate. Instead of turning a blind eye, the question deserves to be addressed to assess the extent, in terms of warning signs of a social malaise with unpredictable consequences. The war of identities, through the politicization of ethnicity in the African context, has had sufficient impact in many African countries facing structural identity crises today. Still in this strategy of savagery of social networks, under a background of hatred and manipulation, the ethno-identity argument is increasingly present in political quarrels in Senegal.
The analysis of the causal factors at the origin of ethnic wars in countries experiencing conflict provides information on the impact of ethnic debates in the genesis, maturation and emergence of identity conflicts. The scale of ethnic conflicts in Africa has today given new life to primordialist theses on the irreducibility and immutability of “African ethnicities, quick to re-emerge in certain political and media discourses”. The creation of identities of resistance against a political order based on the ethnicization of political conflicts has led to abuses with incalculable consequences. Through the artifice of the politicization of ethno-identity sentiment, Africa is a continent exhausted by systematic violence of all kinds. A brief reminder of the consequences of this modus operandi in certain countries should alert us to get out of this ethnicist drift. Moreover, the crises which shook the Great Lakes regions find their explanation partly in this ethnicization of political-social crises. We can mention the civil war in Uganda, the genocides in Rwanda and Burundi, the conflict in South Sudan and finally the rebellions in the eastern province of Kivu. We remember the terrible Rwandan genocide estimated at more than 5.5 million deaths. In two days, April 11 and the late afternoon of May 14, 1994, 50,000 Rwandans were killed with machetes by their neighbors on the hills of Nyamata. From April to July 1994, it was estimated that between 500,000 and one million Tutsi Rwandans were victims of systematic extermination perpetrated by militiamen (the Interhamwe). The other example is the dramatic post-electoral situation experienced in Côte d’Ivoire, with the introduction of the concept of “Ivoirité” by Henri Konan Bédié. During the five months of violence and armed conflict which marked the 2010-2011 post-electoral crisis in Côte d’Ivoire, 3,000 people were killed.
In an article on the geostrategic issues of ethnicity, I argued that the symbolism of identities, as an element of political strategy, has marked the trajectories of three figures in the Senegalese political field since 2000, namely Abdoulaye Wade, Macky Sall and Ousmane Sonko . Everyone used the identity of belonging as a site for political mobilization. Through the ideological staging of identity clientelism, everyone has constructed elements of language in the communication of conquest or preservation of power. It is true that the exemplary example of Senegal, whose first designers of the postcolonial State took into consideration ethnic pluralism in the mode of governance, taking into account identity balances, can be considered a textbook case. Good management of ethnic, religious and even brotherhood differences, and their balanced presence at the level of state spheres, has so far preserved Senegal from the war of ethnic and religious identities. Senegal has established its unity and stability on the basis of diversity and plurality of beliefs and reference values. From Senghor to Abdou Diouf, the option for the construction of the Nation-State took precedence over identity affiliations. It is established that in the 1950s, Senghor certainly relied on the territorialization of primary identities, categorizing the colonized into French citizens (nationals of the 4 communes) and indigenous people (considered as kaw-kaw, citizens of Senegal from interior living in a rural context). But, this preponderance of identities crystallized around the terroir has not experienced an identitarian instrumentalization. During his mandates, and this in continuity with Abdou Diouf, political debates were conducted, despite strong adversities assumed, in the space of citizen neutrality, around programmatic issues and governance indicators. The storms of violence which have, at times, swept the Senegalese political landscape have not led to ethnicist or religious excesses. We can assume that the quality of the political personnel at the time (trained in political parties having made the ideological training of activists a priority) contributed greatly to this. At this level, Senegal stands out from most countries in Africa which have experienced the war of identities around issues of power and control of resources through strategies of ethnicization of ideological and political polarities.
The political changes that began in 2000 reveal ethno-identity influences on the electorate in certain localities in Senegal. It was with President Wade that the political dividend of local identities through the exploitation of his membership in the Mouride brotherhood really began in the electoral strategy. His ostentatious allegiance to this brotherhood has served, at times, as a lever for agitation and political mobilization in areas where the Mourides are representative. Concerning President Macky Sall, the enunciation of the notion of “land titles”, an element of language strongly used in the political communication of his supporters, to mark the political predominance of his coalition in two regions where his ethnic group of origin Hal Pulaar and the Serer adoptive one are strongly present, is indicative of the emotional and ethno-identity vote linked to its dual ethnic belonging in a political and electoral context crossed by the unthought of the ethnic debate. The results recorded during the 2019 presidential election in Fouta, cradle of its Hal Pulaar ethnic group (Matam 93, 26%, Podor 93, 40%) and in the Fatick region (79, 78%) mainly inhabited by its adopted ethnic group (Serer), reveal the impact of ethnoidentity affects in political and electoral mobilization. The Sonko phenomenon is not exempt from the ethnoidentity imprint, given the electoral performances of his political coalition in his region of origin. Sonko built himself, in record time, a political base in the natural region of Casamance marked by ethnicist and regionalist sentiment strongly maintained by the presence of a rebellion fighting against the State of Senegal for more than four decades . During the last two local (2020) and legislative (2022) elections, the alliance led by Sonko achieved an unprecedented political breakthrough in this southern region. Of the 30 municipalities in the region, the Benno bokk yaakaar presidential movement only won the rural one of Boutoupa-Camaracounda. The strong mobilization and the passion expressed by the populations of the South during the trial between Ousmane Sonko and the masseuse Adji Sarr are part of this symbolic anchoring of origins.
-This detour on these three most emblematic political figures over the last two decades aims to show how fragile ethnic balances are in Africa. Each time political issues and those linked to the seizure or retention of power reach a certain level of conflict, the balance of political forces can cause ethnic bases to waver to become levers of partisan mobilization. The unthought of discourses on ethnicity situates us in the ritual of the ideological diversion of African political elites for the purpose of diverting opinions from the systemic poverty faced by large social layers and, above all, the youth who live in precariousness and who is haunted by the uncertainties of tomorrow. For Senegal, nothing is won, we must be vigilant. It is through intelligence in the governance and management of our institutions and, above all, transformational leadership, that we can induce a deepening of democracy by taking charge of the daily lives of the Senegalese. The challenges are multiple for the architects of the third alternation, whose implementation of the promised systemic transformations constitutes an imperative established with regard to their commitments for the triumph of the Big Evening so dreamed of by young people in a hurry.
Pr Amadou Sarr DIOP
Sociologist teacher-researcher at Cheikh Anta Diop University
