The visit that President Diomaye Faye paid to Paris last June to former President Abdou Diouf deserves to be greeted as a mark of respect and consideration, but also as an expression of recognition of a sort of “birthright” anchored in our traditions, and finally and above all a solemn affirmation of the republican principle of the continuity of the State.
In doing so, President Faye wanted to break with this disastrous “tradition” which meant that each new regime felt almost obliged to act as if the history of the country began with it.
This harmful and counterproductive practice has made many of our compatriots citizens devoid of any memory. However, a society made up of citizens who have forgotten their traditions and who are prevented by bad political practice from being able to refer to their immediate historical memory has no chance of founding civilizational values on which to anchor its destiny. In truth, to believe that the arrival of a new person to the supreme office of Senegal can alone, whatever its value, explain the international prestige of our country, is to refuse to face the truth. It also prevents the younger generation from understanding that the great civilizations that we admire today were built stone by stone.
The prestige and influence of Senegal, the reality of its Soft Power, we owe it to the foresight of our leaders who knew how to inspire experienced diplomats to actions based on our fundamental values of civilization. The prestige of Senegal at the global level, we also owe it to the wisdom of its Nation, to the lucidity of its political class, to the high consciousness of its citizens who, in the space of a generation, have been able to show their maturity by achieving three alternations of regimes, with panache, in a continent where political instability is the rule. Finally, we owe the prestige of Senegal to the perception that its people have of the teaching and practice of the various historical and current guides of the country's religious communities.
For all these reasons, we must accept, with lucidity, that each of the different personalities who have presided over the destinies of Senegal, depending on the economic and political realities of the moment, tried to keep the country on the rails of stability without which no no hope of development is possible. Thus from Senghor to Abdou Diouf via Abdoulaye Wade and Macky Sall, the desire to keep Senegal standing and proud among the nations has been the anchor of their respective policies. This is why, in the name of an intellectual and patriotic upsurge, let us try to recognize each of them for their contribution to the cultural, political and human development of our nation.
Selective amnesia, the snobbery of all-out protest, are a danger for any people who aspire to play in the big leagues. On this subject, the collective work that Senegalese and foreign jurists have written, in homage to Abdou Diouf, which has just been published by the “Librairie Juridaire Africaine editions*” has inspired us to make some remarks and reflections on the similarities between the presidents Diomaye Faye and Abdou Diouf in terms of background, visions, postures and convictions, which testify to their commitment to political and diplomatic leadership of Senegal at the African and international level.
In this regard, it should be noted that both presidents belonged to the high administration, and that if President Faye, at the age of 44, is undoubtedly the youngest elected president of Senegal, President Diouf, at the time where he succeeds Senghor, who voluntarily had shortened his elective mandate, was 45 years old. The most significant act of President Faye upon his election was to relinquish all responsibility in his Pastef party which had just brought him brilliantly to the head of Senegal. Let us recall that despite the tumultuous context of the time, Abdou Diouf judged in 1996 that if Senegal wanted to be a modern democratic state and play in the big leagues, the President of the Republic should no longer be a party leader. In this sense, it is fortunate that President Faye, after a long parenthesis, has taken up this trademark of great democracies.
The desire to establish the rule of law, so that justice safeguards the rights and freedoms of citizens, was immediately affirmed by the new government of Faye and Sonko by organizing its first major event, the “Assises de la Justice”. and by proclaiming accountability and the fight against impunity as the two sides of the coin of the new regime. On this point, if President Diouf did not succeed in achieving his objectives with the CREI, he insisted that Senegal was the first country to ratify the Rome statute which founded the International Criminal Court.
The two men also agree in their firm desire to be driven by patriotic considerations alone, when it comes to bringing to the international arena the most deserving sons of Senegal who seek their support. This is how I understood all the solemnity with which Mrs. Yacine Fall, Minister of African Integration and Foreign Affairs, surrounded the support of the former minister, Amadou Hott, candidate for the presidency of the AfDB, by inviting to join the campaign team personalities who have proven themselves in the former regimes.
This approach may be the expression of a desire to revitalize long-term Senegalese diplomacy, the reminder of its achievements seems useful to us in this period, when our continent is seeking the means to speak with a strong voice to be heard. where the fate of the world is decided, at the UN Security Council. In this sense, it is appropriate to remind the younger generation of the prowess of Senegalese diplomacy over time.
In 1974, Amadou Mactar Mbow was the first African elected to head UNESCO. That the opening of the International Court of Justice to African Jurists will take place with the election of the Senegalese magistrate Isaac Forster in 1964. Which will only be a step in the demonstrations of the capacities of the diplomats of Senegal who will succeed in having a second one elected once a Senegalese in the person of judge Kéba Mbaye in 1981 at this same Court. Which for a country the size of Senegal was undoubtedly a feat.
Senegal, a predominantly Muslim country, which has given great scholars to the Islamic Ummah, should be, according to its leaders, more visible in the international governance of the Islamic world and ensure more presence in its cultural and political activities. Thanks to the interpersonal skills of its diplomacy, Senegal succeeded in electing its former Minister of Foreign Affairs Karim Gaye in 1975 as Secretary General of the OIC before organizing a few years later, in 1991, the Summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Senegal.
This determination to place the Senegalese in the galaxy of Administrators of international society will be reaffirmed by the election in 1993 of Jacques Diouf as Director General of the FAO.
Finally, the new President Faye noted, upon his accession to power, his determination to mobilize his diplomacy in the service of the consolidation of African integration as shown by his commitment to safeguarding the integrity of ECOWAS, an organization of which one of the most important achievements, the Protocol on the free movement of goods and people, was signed in 1979 in Dakar. This commitment worthy of the role that Senegal has always wanted to play in favor of the unity and development of Africa deserves to be supported.
The pan-African desire to support the great causes of our continent by intellectually and morally rearming our compatriots through the incarnation of self-determination and sovereignty based on the reappropriation of our history, certainly explains the initiatives of President Faye and his government in relation to the massacre of Thiaroye or the inauguration in Thiès of the statue of Lat dior Damel du Cayor.
It was in the name of the triumph of the black cause that Senegal was the first country in 1976 to support the demands of the provisional government of Papua New Guinea. Which made Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka say that this support made Senghor a president who “deserved a place of honor”.
It is this same patriotic fiber that led Senegal to stand up against the Apartheid regime which allowed a minority of whites supported by certain Western countries to perpetuate a fierce domination over the black majority.
So when Mandela visited Senegal before his arrest by the South African regime, Senghor decided to recognize his movement, the ANC, by granting his representative office in Senegal diplomatic status. Abdou Diouf will follow this path of continuity of the State and the perpetuation of the values of active solidarity and Téranga by offering, for the first time to members of the ANC and white liberals, the opportunity to engage in dialogue , in Dakar in 1987. This meeting earned Senegal a lot of international prestige and friendship from Nelson Mandela.
The direction that President Faye and his Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko have begun to give to Senegal's international relations deserves to be consolidated by the mobilization of experienced patriots of good will, because it can, without a doubt, strengthen the Soft Power of the country by allowing a very significant redeployment of Senegalese diplomacy based on the continuity of the State and on patriotism in the service of African integration.
The Diomaye-Sonko tandem, the brightest star in the constellation of new African sovereignist forces, whose success of the “Project” could be the first milestone towards the rebirth of Africa, must try to base its action on the achievements glorious bequeathed by the elders, on the competence and goodwill of a patriotic youth.
Benoit S Ngom is president of the African Diplomatic Academy.
Tribute to Abdou Diouf, African Legal Library Editions, December 2024.
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