“Loyalty to one’s country does not find its source in the genealogy of an individual”

Tribune. A bill aimed at locking out so-called sovereignty functions, in particular the supreme magistracy, the presidency of the Senate and that of the National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), to reserve them for the Congolese “From father and mother”, is at the heart of debates in the Congolese political class.

If the initiators and supporters of this bill can claim, hand on heart, their patriotism or their indisputable nationalism given their original identity, one can wonder about the merits of their approach.

Should we cure a sick person by inoculating him with another disease that could win him over? Is being Congolese of father and mother a sufficient guarantee of dedication to the general interest? In reality, loyalty to one’s country does not find its source in an individual’s genealogy.

A lesson from anthropogenesis (study of the appearance and development of the human species) could enlighten us: the fact of being a humanized being is not transmitted naturally from parents to children as it is with plants. or primates, hence the importance of the processes of socialization, sexualization and personalization through which humanity, education and culture are transmitted. How then could loyalty as a political virtue be transmitted naturally from parents to children? Is it not rather a conscious, voluntarist value which is not already given, that is to say, unattainable spontaneously?

Finally, what is sovereignty today, when we think that we have sold it off and continue to do so, to quote the Cameroonian philosopher Eboussi Boulaga? Yesterday, in the exclusive hands of the former Belgian colonial power, the reality of power today lies in those of donors, investors, “Structural adjusters”, networks of arms traffickers, corrupters and “embezzlers” of public funds.

“Demonization of the adversary”

Assessing the political situation and the capacity for action, determining the right moment to initiate reform, requires taking into account the prevailing expectations in society. However, today, the challenge for the Congo as a nation-state lies elsewhere. Even those who have already announced their candidacy for the upcoming presidential election in two and a half years, thus showing an exceptional genius of anticipation among Congolese politicians, are no doubt aware of this. Resorting to the old techniques of personalizing and demonizing the adversary, amalgamating and dividing is a sinister diversion.

The vital expectations of the Congolese are security in the east, where peaceful citizens are slaughtered like game, the end of generalized insecurity, medical care, justice in the distribution of social products. Are they not the inalienable obligations of a State which cares for its citizens, those by which it assures its authority on a daily basis, makes itself loved and respected, even by other States? The breaches of these rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights push those who are wronged into despair and, subsequently, destruction, even disloyalty.

The wise are those who learn from the past, from their own as well as from that of others. There has already been “ivoirité”, this concept forged in Côte d’Ivoire advocating to reserve for “Native Ivorians” preference for job or election. Its fruits are known. They are not enviable.

States have at their disposal the tools to cultivate loyalty, a sense of belonging, and give everything necessary to sincerely participate in the management of the city, of what we have in common. One of those tools is definitely education. The supreme duty of a community which is organized to last in history and transmit humanity, the reasons for living, the meaning of existence, is to educate. Education, said Eboussi, is the place where a human community becomes aware of itself. It is there that it defines itself, declares its values ​​(and therefore its prohibitions), its conception of itself, of man and of its accomplishment.

Doesn’t that have to do with sovereignty? Isn’t this the place to act, reminding ourselves that “It is the city that makes man” ? Without this, the Congolese state risks playing the game of tribal particularities. If we have “entered” into the State, it is because we find there what our tribal or ethnic particularisms, within their limits, cannot offer us.