Food for Thought

Yesterday, we were on our way back from the market and we were stopped by a man on campus. He got our attention by him saying, in English, "are you people from the bible? Are you people from the bible?" After much hemmm-ing and haawww-ing we figured out that he was asking us if we were missionaries, since apparently there was a missionary group here recently. He wanted to discuss religion with us. Being a muslim, he was curious about Christianity and how it told us to live our lives. I explained that not all of us are Christian, some of have no religion, and even within Christianity there is a diverse number of groups which differ from each other. "How can you all live like that? How can you all believe different things and yet be friends?" We tried to explain that we sort of agree to disagree, and respect each person's beliefs, even if they contradict our own. "How can your country survive if nobody believes the same thing?" Trying to explain that sometimes the believe in freedom of expression can override personal opinion. I said, "As a community, we don't live our lives how the bible would like us to. It is each individual's decision to live how they want to, and if someone else doesn't agree, then they just don't talk about it. Live and let live I guess." This discussion was challenging, since the United States separates church from state. Officially, the Senegalese values this separation as well, but it's a little less contentious when 99% of the population is Muslim. It's also hard to explain that American society is incredibly complex. It's not always live and let live. There are still pervasive inequalities around race, gender, and religion. Not everyone agrees all the time. It's a mix if beliefs and norms. And after a 20 minute discussion, I really don't think he understood the idea of it. (Though it's more than possible that our French-English-Wolof discussion was being translated quite as we hoped.)

So we moved on to the other topic: politics. A couple days before I arrived, the current president of Senegal, Wade, proposed a law that would change how the Senegalese government was structured. He wanted to remove the position of prime minister and create a vice presidential position. This would inspirations was based on the American executive branch. He also proposed that in order to win the next election, the presidential candidate would only have to get 25% of the votes. This would take away the double voting system. Right now there are preliminary rounds, followed by a second wave of voting that is usually between 2-3 candidates.

When he proposed this bill, the Senegalese people were furious. To them, he has betrayed them, attempting to change the government system to resemble the US' just so he can get their support/money. There is also the belief that he is simply maneuvering power so his son can succeed him as president. This is a democracy! the people yell, not a monarchy! The day before I arrived, there were riots at the parliament building, and at the president's house. People said they would fight until they died, that death didn't matter to them, because they we're not going to see their beloved Senegal fall to even more corruption and be run by power-grabbing men. (Of course, that is already basically true, and the people seem to have a lot of cynicism for their government.) They said they would fight until Wade was dead. Now. Back to the student we were talking to. His name is Alaj, by the way, he's 6'4" and rather imposing. He was at the demonstrations, participating in the rock throwing, tire burning, etc.

"Those were university students," he said. "It is the intellectuals who know what is happening to this country and it is wrong. We did what we did to send [Wade] a message-that he is a corrupt old man, and we will fight to show him that what he wants is wrong."