Violence in political discourse in Africa. An allegory in struggling democracies

Abstract

Since the Baule speech sounding the death knell for dictatorships in Africa, some of the continent’s countries have been caught up in the dictatorship syndrome. Apart from elections that are still contested in most cases, with a few rare exceptions such as Ghana recently, Africa seems to be doing everything it can on a daily basis to delay its entry into history, in a context of geopolitical reframing and geostrategic struggles for influence. Some leaders are characterized by the violence of their discourse, confusing times and circumstances. In the Republic of the Congo, on November 28, 2024, the Congolese president used violence to express his ambitions for his political future, in front of a congress of parliament, as part of the customary and constitutional exercise of taking stock of the state of the nation. Our approach is to analyze the meaning of this speech, the reasons for its expression before parliamentarians and international bodies, and the unspoken words of the President of the Republic in an inappropriate and unsuitable context. The violence of the sorcerer’s imagination reappears here as an allegory in beleaguered democracies, and a technique of intimidation for the leaders of a certain era to remain in power, even though the social contract that was supposed to seal the alliance with the people has been betrayed by the holder of power in view of the meagerness of his harvest.