In our culture, failing the Baccalaureate is a tragedy. For the person concerned and for his tribe, that is to say his family and his neighbors. For what? Because the Baccalaureate is considered a transition to adulthood. When a teenager shouts in front of you, and his thoughts annoy you, you say to him: “Pass your Bac first, and come see me later».
Pass your Baccalaureate, that means proving yourself. Be a man, be a woman!
And that’s not all. The Bac also sanctions the family, starting with the parents. Behind every high school graduate, there is a dad and a mom. When the little one passes the Baccalaureate, it is proof that mom and dad have done a good job. You imagine: parents who spend their time feeling guilty, fearing the worst, and to whom we finally say, at the end of the day: “Well done, you succeeded!».
Obtaining the Baccalaureate is proof that, somewhere, things have been done well. In the education of kids, of course, and in everything else. The fallout even affects the neighbors, the neighborhood, the derb, the big tribe.
Conversely, and dramatically, failing the Bac means that there is a worm in the fruit. That something is wrong. The original sin. A damnation. A curse. A divine anger, necessarily just and deserved.
Let me tell you a personal memory. In the derb, at the end of the 1970s, when the names of the lucky high school graduates were published by the country’s main daily newspapers, I remember the extraordinary party that was organized by a neighbor when he read his son’s name on the newspaper.
This neighbor had a bad reputation. His son’s Baccalaureate offered him a new virginity, a second chance in life, a rebirth. Some put the son’s success down to the father’s “Tawba” (redemption, return to the right path). They said: “Despite everything, the father had to do his religious duties in secret, that’s why God rewarded him!».
Can you imagine the consecration? The gratitude? The incredible leap forward for the neighbor and his entire family? The fairy tale as sudden as it is spectacular?
On the evening of the party, people said, referring to this turnaround: “All he (the neighbor) has left to do is make a pilgrimage to Mecca to seal his reconciliation with God in stone!».
A dramatic turn of events, two days later, when we learned that there had been a mistake. It’s not the neighbor’s son who passed the Baccalaureate, but a perfect homonym. The son was failed. The logic, divine if you like, has been well and truly respected…
No need to describe the scope of the drama. An atmosphere of mourning reigned at the neighbor’s house. Worse than the day he lost several members of his family in a car accident…
And I’m not even talking about the person who (re)takes the Baccalaureate for the 20th or 30th time. They are already settled in life, but they need this damn diploma, they still have something to prove. Maybe to themselves, for starters. The Baccalaureate, this Grail…
Back to the present. It is an understatement to say that the “gesture” of Safi’s teenager makes sense. For those who grew up in a “collective” atmosphere, among others, neighbors and relatives, where each success or failure takes on monstrous, crazy proportions, they know what it’s all about.
And, as the song says, God only knows. Only he knows!
