Culture 13/09/2024 - 14:02 / Comments

CULTURE/BOOK : A child of Benin standing or unconditional love for his country?

"I will be more useful to you outside than inside". This is the answer that Deo Gratias Kindoho gave when he was offered a position in the presidency, the day after the victory of the candidate Talon in 2016. This no to such a proposal, at that time, perfectly paints the personality of the former journalist of Radio Benin. Turning his back on a lucrative political function, you have to have strong principles to do it. So here we have a man who does not sell his fights. One of the few who can still be publicly identified in this nation.

In his second essay, after the famous Hors Antenne, Mr. Kindoho first proved the consistency in his ideas and opinions. The verb "prove" is exaggerated here, but I assume its use to facilitate my argument. The author obviously had nothing to prove to anyone. But when you turn the last page of Un enfant du Bénin debout, you are sure to have read virulent chronicles aimed at the defects of Yayism and Talonism.

Here is the observation, if you did not see me coming: this is not a man who dealt with the Yayi regime, whose rupture would have cut off the bottle at its advent and who would justify his anti-Rupture activism today. He also participated, at his level, in the fall of the "refoundation" coupled with the "change". We do not have the impression either that he was (or is currently) financed by the opposition to these two regimes to write what he wrote (and continues to write) with such audacity. The proof is that he directed his pen against the reprehensible acts of opponents during all these years. He spared no one. And that is admirable.

Admirable especially since at one point, the columnist that he was, said to himself that spending his time only denouncing is too easy. He will have to make a choice and assume it for once. He made a choice for 2016. He gave himself with energy and conviction to a societal project. He opposed funding in this direction. He supported the New Start because it was the project that was the most successful in his eyes. In the end, it paid off. But it was by counting (with imprudence all the same?) on the chameleon nature of politicians. Between the candidate and the man who now has power, the gap quickly widened. Which is what meant that today we have a Deo always ready to draw his pen again and again against the failings against democracy and the rule of law.

534 pages for 534 shares…

Sharing these distant and recent state affairs that could have led our country into irreparable ruin. Sharing these historical moments, when people wanted to take the Beninese for bricks of fifteen. Sharing the courage of the Beninese people in certain difficult situations. Sharing the names of these personalities who have shown unspeakable stupidity or proof of courage. Sharing unconditional love for the homeland. If some think that time would erase the despicable acts they committed and which would have cost us dearly, A Child of Benin Standing is there to remind us that not everyone has forgotten. Each reader who picks up their copy will remember certain things if they were already an adult in those past times, or will read the story, if they were still young or a child. There are passages that revolt, that make you sad, that make you smile, or laugh with anger.

This book is a common thread that presents us with the birth and fall of Yayism up to the birth of Talonism. Putting things in context is necessary in a world where the culture of the moment takes precedence over reflection and history. Deo seems to tell us through his writings that we have come a long way and that making the same mistakes will produce the same effects. Do we want to evolve or go backwards? Our living together absolutely depends on the awakeners of conscience, who do so mainly out of conviction.

Even if you are alone and no one follows you, always defend what seems right to you.

Defending what is right means first fighting what is unjust. And what is unjust is often obvious. To remain silent while trampling on others is to run the risk of being crushed in turn. Defending others is above all to defend oneself. To remain silent and play apolitical while ruffling and flouting the laws of the Republic is to take the risk of losing everything. If you don't do politics, it will make you. Because it is everywhere, it is everything. Keeping quiet is what Mr. Kindoho does not know how to do. Turning a blind eye while injustice is committed next door, in fifteen years of activism, he has not been able to do it. Unlike others who yesterday denounced one thing and today applaud the same thing but worse, he has remained constant. Straight and standing in his boots. I finished reading this book written with a remarkable pen. I keep a main lesson from these 500 pages of demonstration of love for his nation by a citizen. This lesson is not delivered explicitly in the book but can be read in every line. Here it is: do what you do well, be sure of your skills so as not to give in to the temptation of easy money to the detriment of your own happiness and your principles and values. It allows you to remain honest and unwavering. I will be told that these are the values of those who want to die poor. Deo will probably answer them: I prefer freedom to indignity! Yes, it is the one who is not sure of himself or his skills who will lick the heels of the first person who comes along.

By Mahussi Capo-chichi

*This article has been translated from French into English by Marcus Boni Teiga

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