April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

acks down.
An electoral victory, a victorious insurrection or a successful putsch? It
remains but the taking of power by Gbagbo, which gave place to pogroms,
the massacre of more than 300 protestors, of which at least 200 republican
militants whom the party had called to challenge the presidential
elections, and a mass grave of 57 victims. After Djeny Kobena (general
secretary of RDR)[4] had been declared Ghanaian and consequently
stateless and ineligible in 1995, after the candidature of Alassane Ouattara
had been rejected for ‘doubtful nationality’ in 2000, the ‘Ivorité’
enshrined in the constitution produced these most terrible effects. People
didn’t want to see so as to see nothing. In the end, it seems that it was the
retreat of Guei that allowed Côte d’Ivoire to avoid a similar scenario to
that of today.
October 2000 appears in this way like a dress rehearsal that was paving the
way for the current situation. Yet the most likely hypothesis today is that
the showdown is a conscious and systematic strategy of the taking or
preservation of power by the principal political representation of the
Ivorian petty bourgeoisie and of its boss, Laurent Gbagbo. This, along with
his political practice, leaves one to think that Gbagbo would not have
obtained a majority in an open and transparent electoral process free from
violence. From this hypothesis follows that after noisy and principled
condemnations, with the self-interest of those involved coming to the
fore, the ‘international community’ would end up aligning itself with the
opinion of whoever held real power, which in this instance would be
Gbagbo. Gbagbo imagined that he could, as in 2000, proclaim himself
elected. To do so he was hoping not only to use the weaknesses of his
enemy and the opposition to the ‘international community’s’ interests, but
also the aspirations of the African people to the freedom and total
independence of Africa. This explains the deceptively anti-colonial
propaganda and of the pseudo-nationalisations that have been flowing like
a flood since 28 November 2010.
Although strange, unsettling and desperate, the situation of the two
‘presidents’ at the head of the same Côte d’Ivoire is not simply the
reproduction of a situation already seen in October 2000. The current
situation is the immediate consequence of the failure of various efforts to
politically neutralise Ouattara, implemented by men and political parties
who, for the needs of the survival of their regime and to prolong their own
presence at the head of the state, present themselves to Ivoirians dressed
in the banner of red, white and blue. As with Bédié and Guei yesterday,
Gbagbo today does not represent the interests of the hurting Ivorian
people. He is neither anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist nor patriotic in the
sense that to be patriotic means to defend national interests. An
examination of Côte d’Ivoire’s economic development since 26 October
2000 is enough to realise this.
Even if Ouattara will not resolve all the problems facing Ivoirians as his
campaign slogan leaves one to believe,[5] at the least – hope the Ivoirian
masses who still believe in a true democracy – his rule will establish the
permanent collapse of chauvinism draped in the coat of patriotism,
otherwise known as ‘Ivorité’, and a return to peace. The Ivoirian people
undeniably aspire to freedom, justice, peace and bread. Ouattara is
suggesting to them that they ‘live together’. It’s the belief in this
campaign promise, but above all the aspiration to change which explains,
for right or for wrong, the popular support he receives. The future will tell
us if this support is justified. As for the real question of freedom, justice,
peace and bread, the answer remains subject to the recovery of
sovereignty and independence, the liquidation of the domination of the