After his brother Abdoul Aziz Ba, who died on May 28, 2012, brothers Mohamed El Bachir Bal and Mohamed El Habib Bal who died on February 24, 2018 and July 19, 2020, Abdoulaye Sow on July 22, 2020, Demba Seck and Satigui Oumar Hamady Sy who died on November 13 and 14, 2022 then his cousin Mohamed Abdallahi Ba died on February 4, 2023, all signatories of the Manifesto of the 19, Mauritania once again loses one of its first executives who had made the choice of dignity, of living far from the dark shards of compromise.
Born in 1939 or 1940 in Gouriki, our late Aly Kalidou Ba died this Wednesday, April 24, 2024 shortly before 1 a.m. in Nouakchott. May Allah welcome him to his paradise. We send our sincere condolences to the family, to his widow Gorgol Ndira Barry, to his children Abdoul Aziz known as Zeus, Mariame, Coumbis, Hamidou and Sidi Mahmoud, his brothers and sisters, and to all those who are near and dear.
Mauritania lost one of its first senior executives “Already in 1966, he was a treasury inspector (finance) trained in Grenoble then he continued further training in Washington. After this, he was appointed director of IT at the Ministry of Finance. A position that he combines with that of deputy governor of Mauritania with the IMF and the World Bank,” explains his son Abdoul Aziz.
The disappearance into anonymity and indifference of Aly Kalidou Ba, like the other authors of the Manifesto of the 19, is the reflection of a racist Mauritania which openly assumes the supremacy and total control of a single community over all levers of power. Assured of its “victory”, the dominant system is no longer pretending.
Time has done its work. One after the other, these pioneers, precursors and visionaries fade away. Not their work despite the determination with which the leadership of their country works to cover them with an oblivion which is the common lot of those who disturb but who have been proven right by history. You’re wasting your breath. Proof of this is that many of us remember.
May Allah welcome these great men into his paradise. Of the 19 visionaries, to our knowledge, there remain Daffa Bakary and Traoré Souleymane known as Jiddou. We wish them very good health.
To pay tribute and immortalize him, we are republishing this text dated February 11, 2022
On February 11, 1966, arrests of the authors of a reference text: the Manifesto of the 19
There are facts to which their immediate evidence gives a singular and lasting force. The Manifesto of the 19 retains, fifty-six years after its publication, an impact which has not only not diminished, but has strengthened. The text has more meaning and reference than ever. Having become a torch and rallying cry, it contains an approach, a historical sequence, a milestone in the political history of Mauritania. Never has a text had such iconic significance. We know to what extent hindsight can be a harsh judge. Why has posterity become more generous year after year?
The Manifesto is a success in many respects
First of all, by the simplicity of the words intended to express reality. “Manifesto”, we had to think about it. No declaration, no resolution, no charter, no appeal…just a manifesto. A text to warn, show and reveal obvious facts in their simplicity and truth and others that smolder under the ashes.
The success of a piece of writing or an approach is never a foregone conclusion. It is time that dedicates it even if, in this case, there were multiple reasons why this text met, not with success, a subordinate expression in this case, but with support. First there is the profile of the authors. They belonged to all the Negro-African ethnic groups as their names testify. Coming from the black African elite, the editors of the Manifesto had a lot to lose from their initiative. And first of all their status or, to be trivial, their place. They actually lost it. Their freedom above all else. It was also confiscated from them. They were engineers, senior civil servants, teachers. They were the backbone of the administration and knew what was going on, what was planned and what was likely to happen.
In a word, and the main thing is there. The facts proved them right. The judgment of history followed. They were right too soon. Which is difficult to forgive. They understood very early on that the trigger for their support for the high school movement that began on January 4, 1966, the haphazard introduction of the Arabic language into secondary education, could not simply be analyzed in terms of reform of the educational system. Far from being trivial, the raw fact was a milestone. It was an essential milestone which gave the signal for what is happening today: a massive Arabization with an assimilative vocation, a discriminatory policy through the instrumentalization of a language, the promotion of a unique, hegemonic, even exclusive cultural and racial identity of a multicultural country.
The strength of the Manifesto is its topicality
Sentences written fifty-eight years ago and whose resonance is such today that we have no need to revisit them. Everything is there. In all its forms, the policy of erasure and invisibility of Black Africans from the public space is described in its supporting mechanisms and figures. The only change that has occurred, more than five decades apart, is the scale of what is described and its now systematic nature.
Among many others, one example shows the insightful vigilance of the lookouts of 1966. And the news proves them right at the very moment when returning horses are selling us their assimilation project under the guise of Islam, “our common religion. A community which, incidentally, has never stood in the way of racism, injustice, pogroms, torture or deportations but which reappears as soon as it comes to the transcription of national languages, the influence of Arabic on the national scene. More than ever, the authors of the Manifesto were right to dissociate what, in fact, must be dissociated: belonging to a religion and the preemption of this religion by a dominant group for hegemonic and exclusionary purposes. The authors of the Manifesto had seen the coming and had announced the proponents of a “civilization policy” having the religious creed as its “fundamental pillar.” To the “You are Muslims, therefore become Arabs” which was whispered in 1966, the editors of the Manifesto responded: Muslims but not Arabs. It was fifty-six years ago. Today, others, assured of their victory, are no longer content with murmuring. They order.
Cire Ba And Boubacar Diagana – Paris, 04/24/2024
