Rédaction Africa Links 24 with pierre Dieme
Published on 2024-03-10 12:27:49
Babacar, Modou, Moussa, Cheikh, Mansour, Bounama, Chérif, Famara, Prospère, Sadio, Cheikhouna, Baye Cheikh, Cheikh Wade, Didier Badji… You were the bulwarks of the Republic and the Revolution crushed in blood.
The homeland, a term that is trivialized nowadays. Unheard-of days of freedom. The homeland of old and of better places always retains its essence in certain lands, close yet far from our desires for freedom. I do not know what I am made of. But of spirit and matter. What I do know is that I want to be free from any hindrance. What I do know is that I want to be free from any childish label. From my last hours on this earth that is mine, under the shade of the ancient baobab tree, I want to tell you that a beautiful human odyssey is ending, offering my strong chest to the bullets of gunfire. Cut down like a phoenix in full flight by the prince’s gesture.
Macky Sall and his cohort of soldiers have finally ended my person. Dead of a very young humanity. Here lies the youth who gave his life for the rebirth of the motherland. For a prosperous Senegal. A Senegal of renewal. A Senegal of joy. So that a Senegal purified of its lowly deeds and human waste would emerge. Grateful on this blessed day to the Lord, the shepherd of our souls. Glory and gratitude to these young men who fell on the battlefield in days when the evil dawn reigned. The dawn of the devil.
Man turned devil as Rwanda was born, this beautiful region of a thousand hills, forever stained by the blood of its own sons. Tears and blood pave this land that is so dear to us. Senegal. Sons and martyrs of the nation, you will never be forgotten. Martyrs of the revolution, you will never be betrayed. Are they dead for eternity? No, you will always be in our hearts and in our pious thoughts.
Babacar, Modou, Moussa, Cheikh, Mansour, Bounama, Chérif, Famara, Alassane, Pape Sidy, Prospère, Sadio, Cheikhouna, Baye Cheikh, Cheikh Wade, Fulbert Sambou, Didier Badji… You did not die in vain. The Lord in all His kindness and mercy has decided the fate of these young brave souls who left in the prime of life. The gift of oneself for the homeland. They carried it on their shoulders, defying danger and this life within them. We miss their sweet sounds and they haunt our just sleep; Mom, I want to see the sun; Mom, I want to play soccer; Mom, I want to run after my childhood friends; Mom, I want to see the sunset. Words that recall existence. A fragmented existence filled with joy and hardships.
But free, Babacar was. Free, Modou Guèye was. Free as Birago Diop in Leurres et lueurs was. You will never die because you line our lives and the memory of your beautiful faces and actions are in us and the nation will always be grateful to you for eternity. To Babacar Samba, a relative, your father never ceases to grieve and pray for you. Little shooting star, go and shoot straight into that beautiful firmament that we will soon join. Life is a battle and you have made this battle a gift of self.
You fell, weapons in hand. You fell with the great dream of freedom. A freedom forever found in the firdaws (paradise) of the Lord, surrounded by welcoming angels and beautiful nymphs singing your glory as resistance fighters on earth. You are not strangers. You are true Senegalese, true citizens who had as their creed this gift of self for the reborn homeland. The people sing of you and their hero Ousmane Sonko venerates you. You were poets of life and rebels of an ephemeral existence. You were the bulwarks of the Republic and the Revolution crushed in blood. Against injustice, you rose like a single man to assault the waves of this prince’s charade. People in love with justice and freedom, gagged and bound by orders. You raised our flag high. This symbol of resistance recognized by the whole world. Drunk with a change that is just beginning, you braved the pack of wolves thirsty for blood and tears. The soil of the homeland salutes you and says, o brave young men, rest well in my bosom. And yes, you were a good group of friends, in life and in death, without even knowing each other. But the entire nation knows how to recognize its children who died for the supreme sacrifice. You died so that fraternity among Senegalese could be reborn. Through and through the memory of existence, you will always live among us, damned of the earth that Frantz Fanon celebrated, this eternal misunderstood.
Enter the Pantheon, our Senegalese and African Pantheon, the sixty martyrs. Fighters for freedom so that we can live freely and dignified. Senegal, beautiful little country, must honor you in its own way. An ode to recognition and contemplation, and may your memories among us never perish. On this memorable day of remembrance, the sun shines for you and Senegal, grateful, welcomes you and prays for the peace of your souls even though you will always be among us. Without seeking to be known, we celebrate you, brave young men, our heroes. And allow me to offer you this fiery ode from the poet Birago Diop, a fire among you, brave martyrs of the nation; The dead are in the lightening shadow; The dead are not under the ground; The dead are not dead; They are in the Hut, they are in the crowd. And to those who speak to me of amnesty for your executioners, I tell them this, in an insolence befitting me: I will defecate on this unspeakable law that insults your memories as martyrs of the gift of self for the homeland.
BY IBRA POUYE
Read the original article(French) on Dakar Matin
