Remembering the Father of the Nation, in Silence

I was nine when Felix Houphouet-Boigny died. The news fell in the mid-afternoon, and I had gone out to buy sweets at the corner shop. I might have been with my sister; my memory is fuzzy on that point. But I remember that as I turned the corner towards our house, my father was already at the gate, beckoning us to hurry inside.

Why is he moving his hands instead of using his voice? I wondered.

“Houphouet is dead,” he said, when we were safely inside the compound. He bolted the gate. I might have said “Oh.” I can’t remember.

What I remember is the eerie silence, in our household and enveloping the entire neighborhood. The sun would have been at its peak, so there wouldn’t have been many people in the neighborhood anyway. But on that day, there seemed to be no one at all. No one on the road. No one under the mango trees in the open compounds of the houses between the shop and our home behind its walled gate. No women under a tree removing grains of sand from the millet which would be used for the evening porridge. No men drinking tea. Nothing. Just silence.

In my language, Yacouba, when the father breathes his last, his children inform the community thus: Gbli a da! War has broken! The pillar and defender of the family has gone. What happens when a pillar goes? The house no longer holds up. Gbli a da.  

Houphouet was dead. Côte d’Ivoire was teetering, but we were careful not to say so. I eavesdropped on adult conversations and his many achievements were extolled on television. But one question was un-asked on everyone’s lips: What is going to happen now?

The bold ones who asked it were quickly and quietly shut down. Five hundred kilometers from Yamoussoukro, where he breathed his last, and eight hundred kilometers from Abidjan, the capital, the death of the man who led Côte d’Ivoire with an iron hand, for thirty years, was being felt, everywhere, in silence.

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When does a President become a dictator? Is it as clear-cut as with Charles Taylor or Idi Amin? Or Sékou Touré? Is it when The West says? As with Paul Kagamé’s Rwanda, where the roads might be clean and the security might be high, but The West Says. In our African context, The West always has something to say. Remember Emperor Bokassa I of the Central African Republic, who plundered his country, but his coronation was financed by France? The diamonds must have helped.

More here : https://popula.com/2018/08/13/war-has-broken/