Lucien Houédanou analyzes the relationship of Africans to history and democracy
With his work, « L'Afrique, des pharaons à la démocratie buissonnière » (“Africa, from the pharaohs to truant democracy), published by Editions Continents, Lucien Houédanou has just taken part in the debate by feeding it with his fine reflections. Indeed, the essayist, president of the Cenacle of Senior Journalists of Côte d'Ivoire and an informed observer of Africa for four decades, offers us his perception of the relationship of Africans to a mode of governance considered as the boulevard that can lead peoples from here and elsewhere to a certain fulfillment.
This book, an anthology of chronicles, articles, reading notes, reports of colloquiums and conferences, by this renowned journalist, is devoted to African researchers who, through their intellectual productions, have highlighted the immense contribution, from the cradle of humanity to humanity as a whole. Based on the work of Cheikh Anta Diop, Pathé Diagne, Léopold Sédar Senghor and many others, Lucien Houédanou notes that "The civilization of Pharaonic Egypt was built by Blacks who, through Greece , transmitted to the Western world in particular and to humanity in general, a capital of highly elaborated knowledge, in the fields of science (…) Capital that humanity continues today to make bear fruit” (p. 19).
Throughout his essay, Houédanou teaches us (re)teaching that Africa has not always been this continent that bends under the weight of various ills that undermine it. Paradise lost will not be lost forever, if and only if Africans themselves come to understand that they must draw on their immense cultural and scientific heritage which once made their continent great.
Published between 1980 and 1990, the articles that make up the book have not aged and are strikingly topical. The author, incisive, confronts us with our contradictions: “We pretend to practice democracy like those kids who pretend to go to school and who are said to be skipping school. Democracy behind the bush is this sham political life which consists in tricking democracy, adorning oneself with the outward signs of this political system (multiparty system, more or less regular pluralist elections, etc.), while maintaining a spirit and practices instituting, in reality, the confiscation, by the minority, of the power and of the Indus benefits which are derived from it” (p. 142).
« L'Afrique, des pharaons à la démocratie buissonnière » (" Africa, from the pharaohs to truant democracy") is a brilliant and erudite analysis by an attentive witness to the contemporary history of Africa, which offers its readers keys to deciphering and understanding the problems that constantly arise in African “democracies”. It has the great merit of opening up perspectives for reflection on the future of the continent, taking the past as a starting point, to better shed light on the future. Despite the not very complacent overview that he paints, it is with a note of hope that Lucien Houédanou puts an end to his work: “Truant democracy certainly does not lack imagination in the creation of its evil avatars, but dictatorship is never inevitable! (p. 149).
This important and fascinating political essay constitutes the first part of a triptych that the author devotes to his literary "Memoirs of criticism".
Moriba Sanogo
Lucien Houédanou: Africa, from pharaohs to truant democracy, essay, Lomé, Continents editions, 2022, 156 p.
