« Valet soumis », « Indignation à géométrie variable » : Diomaye Président tombe à bras raccourcis sur Boubacar Boris Diop !
“The role of an intellectual is neither to pander to partisan passions nor to serve as a moral alibi for the excesses of public debate. Their responsibility is more demanding: to defend the truth, to preserve the ethics of debate, and to exercise critical vigilance, even when the faults originate from within their own camp. This is why Boubacar Boris Diop’s stance in the face of Cheikh Bara Ndiaye’s repeated excesses is deeply troubling. This is no longer a simple difference of opinion, but a question of moral consistency and intellectual responsibility.” This clarification comes from the Diomaye President Coalition.
"For several years, Cheikh Bara Ndiaye, with indiscipline as his weapon, has been contributing to the degradation of public debate through worrying verbal violence: insults, accusations without evidence, smear campaigns and personal attacks against institutions as well as public figures," laments Lamine Sène, coordinator of MIMI-Thiès, member of the Diomaye President coalition task force.
According to him, this drift makes him one of the most representative figures of a political discourse where provocation passes for argument and invective for reasoning. Consequently, he asks: how can an intellectual renowned for the rigor of his thought relativize such behavior? How can one praise a supposed "strength of character" in a hateful man who contributes daily to the degradation of intellectual discourse?
What is most troubling, in his view, remains the selective silence surrounding the victims of this verbal abuse. He asks: where was this indignation when public officials were the target of unfounded accusations and smear campaigns? Where was this moral imperative when Dr. Aminata Touré, general supervisor of the Diomaye President coalition, was subjected to repeated personal attacks and humiliations?
For Mr. Sène, this silence is not neutral. It reveals a form of selective indignation: certain acts of violence are condemned when they target one's own side, but they are excused, or even minimized, when they serve a political alliance or strategic affinity. Yet, he believes, an intellectual loses credibility when they no longer apply the same principles to everyone. They then cease to be a free conscience and become just another political actor, a pawn subject to the dictates of expediency.
According to the member of Diomaye President's task force, "when a legitimate intellectual figure, even implicitly, endorses the excesses of a polemicist, it confers upon him a respectability that reinforces these practices. A country is not weakened only by its economic or political crises. It is also weakened when those who should embody moral imperative choose silence, opportunism, complacency, or ambiguity."
And to quote Jean Jaurès, reminding us: "Courage is seeking the truth and speaking it. True intellectual courage consists of denouncing the excesses of one's own side with the same firmness as those of one's adversaries. Everything else is a matter of calculation, posturing, or abdication."
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