«L’imposture de la mémoire courte»: Ndiack Lakh répond à Mary Teuw Niane
“Time is the most implacable of judges.” This phrase, chosen by Professor Mary Teuw Niane in his text entitled “The Imposter,” could well backfire on its author. This is certainly the conviction of Ndiack Lakh, president of the Penc movement. He believes that time should not only be used to judge political opponents, but also those who today presume to bestow certificates of virtue and imposture.
In a particularly critical response, Ndiack Lakh first calls on Mary Teuw Niane to examine her own career path before launching a political attack on Ousmane Sonko. "Before looking for imposters in others, one should at least examine one's own career," he writes. The leader of Penc points out that the academic served as a minister for nearly seven years under Macky Sall before becoming chairman of the board of directors of Petrosen.
The author of the opinion piece focuses mainly on the political sequence of January 2024. After the invalidation of Mary Teuw Niane's candidacy for the presidential election, he called on his activists to support the candidate he then presented as being "designated by President Ousmane Sonko".
For Ndiack Lakh, the real problem, therefore, does not lie in the right to criticize Ousmane Sonko. No political leader, he writes, can be placed above criticism. The problem, rather, is transforming a contemporary political confrontation into a "timeless moral dissertation," as if the speaker were detached from the history he is analyzing. "You are not above this history, Professor. You are a participant in it, and a recent one at that," he asserts.
For Ndiack Lakh, simply calling a political figure an "imposter" is not enough to establish proof. He believes that Ousmane Sonko can certainly be challenged on his actions, decisions, or statements, but that criticism must be based on specific facts rather than a collection of labels.
Mr. Lakh also points out what he considers a contradiction in Mary Teuw Niane's reasoning. Niane explains that an imposter can "borrow an image," "adopt a moral code," or "display a virtue" in order to seize power. "Everyone is free to change their mind; but they should explain their own reversals before judging the consistency of others," retorts Ndiack Lakh.
He even evokes a form of "adaptation to circumstances" when political evolution is not accepted as a choice but presented as a discovery or a revelation.
Mussolini, Hitler and Pol Pot: One reference too many?
The criticism becomes more severe when Ndiack Lakh focuses on the historical references used by Mary Teuw Niane, notably Mussolini, Hitler and Pol Pot.
For the president of the Penc movement, these comparisons cross a red line. He sees them as a historical conflation that takes the debate away from political analysis and into the realm of dramatization.
According to him, establishing a connection, even an implicit one, between the alleged excesses of a contemporary Senegalese political leader and the historical mechanisms that led to fascism, Nazism or the Cambodian genocide requires a much more rigorous demonstration.
"The strength of an argument is not measured by the violence of the references invoked, but by the solidity of the facts that allow them to be linked," he writes.
Time, he writes, will judge Ousmane Sonko. It will also judge Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Macky Sall. But it will also judge all those who have gone through the various political phases of Senegal, sometimes alongside the government, sometimes against it, sometimes allied with those they later denounce.
A way of turning the initial argument against its author. "Because in a democracy, there is neither prophet, nor messiah... nor professor exempt from accounting for their own contradictions," concludes Ndiack Lakh.
Commentaires (14)
Du PIT à Kiirlaay, en passant par le PDS, l’APR et Pastef, vous avez traversé différentes sensibilités politiques qui interrogent vraiment sur vos valeurs morales.
Celui que vous encensez aujourd’hui pourrait être l’âge de votre petit-fils. Avec tout le respect que je vous dois, Professeur, je trouve cette attitude particulièrement décevante et indigne de l’image que nous avions de vous.
Vous avez été pour beaucoup d’entre nous un professeur très respecté. C’est précisément pour cela que votre prise de position actuelle nous interpelle autant.
J"ai même pensé que le decret va être signé pour être viré.
Le ridicule ne tue pas.
Qui sont les indiens?
Qui sont les yankee?
Plus vite que son ombre sinon t’es hors course.
Les cavaliers sont sur leur monture pavoisant dans le FAR WEST.
pas de western spaghetti, du vrai western cowboy!!!!
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