No doubt tired of the formal notices that came from everywhere, demanding the unveiling of the “Project”, the authorities ended up throwing us a bone to gnaw. Twenty pages of text and images as a roadmap for 2050. Everything shows that this is sloppy writing, done in haste. They are reminiscent of the copy rendered on a subject that did not inspire you. You scratch so as not to return a blank copy, you write large to fill the double sheet, instead of skipping one regulatory line you skip two or three. In short, you’re not having the time of your life, but that doesn’t matter, you will have submitted a copy like everyone else. Who knows, due to a misunderstanding, the proofreader who reads the rag, perhaps sensitive to non-subject sovereignty, will reward the copy with more than the deserved 2/20. O academic inequity!
It is true that any document outlining a horizon for the country should be greeted by fruitful debates allowing its improvement or popularization. If the famous vision presented a few weeks ago did not have this success, it is because it was orphaned by the realistic and happy excess which is the measure of the refoundation action that the country expects.
Those who hoped for an epiphany of the “Project”, with Ousmane Sonko, like Moses descending from the mountain with the Tablets of the Law, to spell out a doctrine, a method, concrete objectives, have liquefied in front of the lukewarm water tap of clichés rehashed, empty ideas, concepts and catch-all keywords to make it genre. Those who from the start understood that “Project” was just the word, were bruised not only by the inanity of the document, but above all by this new scar on the face of Senegal. With all that Senegal has of capable people, coveted across Africa and the world, we are going to 2050 with 20 poor pages of text and images!
Certainly, I was not the only one, when reading the document, to frown at the ruptures in meaning, the antinomies, such as the anchoring in the future advocated by the President, the redundancies, the use up to the abuse of keywords to sound technical or intelligent without being a penny, and so on. What particularly surprised me, on pages 9 and 10 respectively, were environmental sovereignty and territorial inequities.
If I claim a divergence with the power on sovereignty, I will not challenge it for having a certain idea of sovereignty. On the other hand, by sprinkling all the sauces of sovereignty, we are going straight to sovereign indigestion for which we will not have the sovereign remedy.
In the development specifying “environmental sovereignty”, I was able to read a commitment to protecting ecosystems and biodiversity, attention to the overexploitation of our natural resources. On the other hand, everything else is a mess where foreign notions mingle, from marine areas to renewable energies, including fresh water and the circular economy. Environmental sovereignty is, in this presentation, a no man’s land where, without any community or convergence of meaning, all the liquid and airy lucubrations of the ecology of degrowth evolve. The lack of definition is proof that this document was not ready and that it was thrown at us like a bone to a dog to calm it down.
As I read about “territorial inequities,” I rubbed my eyes to read again. I read “iniquities” correctly. Perhaps the author wanted to indicate the absence of territorial equity. It should not have escaped his reviewer that the word inequity was inappropriate to signify this observation. Inequity is the deliberate perpetration of injustice. Attached to the word inequity is a moral charge of committing an unspeakable act or treatment. By speaking of a lack of territorial equity, we describe a situation in which a part of the population finds itself in fact which does not have access, for multiple and complex reasons, to services and rights in the same way as others. others who already benefit from it in another part of the territory.
To consider that such a situation is an inequity would mean that it is the deliberate work of regimes driven by the sinful desire to assign populations to remain disadvantaged. If the word has purposely resisted rereading and correction, it is because the current power considers that there are parts of the territory which have been deliberately disadvantaged by previous regimes. For anyone who said of the former President of the Republic that he did not like Casamance, this would not be surprising.
For me, the unfairness is having spoken about the state of our finances before the Court of Auditors has published its final report. The iniquity is to have, in front of the Nation and in front of the world, made ignominious accusations against Mr. Mamadou Moustapha Ba, rest his soul. He was an accomplished citizen, devoted servant of his country, and ardent patriot. You have given him the infamous laurels of a forger. Such a blow does not leave an honest man indifferent. Perhaps this violated, injured, trampled honor and the immense pain he must have felt got the better of him. I dedicate these lines to him.
Louis Mory MBAYE
