The Long Revolution of the Global South. Samir Amin

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      The 1970s and 1980s in Benin were characterized by an attempt to “do something.” In the unanimous opinion of Beninese analysts, whether favorable to or critical of President Mathieu Kérékou’s government, the 1960s had been a real farce: a non-state, in fact, a bad colonial administration that had survived the proclamation of independence. This was an administration managed by politicians in the most vulgar sense of the term—their names: Apithy, Zinsou, and Maga—for their personal profit and that of their small, microregional supporters. It is not surprising, then, that in these conditions, the populist project of the army and its leader, Kérékou, had a real and immediate resonance with the people of the country, even if—with some perceptiveness and maybe a little sectarianism—the Marxists of the Communist Party of Dahomey had quite quickly seen the contradictions and limitations of this project.

      At the beginning of this period, in 1975, the IDEP organized a large seminar in Cotonou with really ambitious objectives defined in cooperation with the state’s economic management institutions (that our friend Justin Gnidéhou coordinated) and academics—to contribute to the definition of the social project, the identification of the difficulties it would confront, and the elaboration of a phased approach to push the program forward. I believe that this seminar has remained an important date in the country’s history in the memory of all participants. Not that the responses given to the initial questions were in any way final ones. Far from it. But a full, serious, even contentious debate had tackled them all head on. President Kérékou came himself to close the seminar, not with a formal speech, but as a direct participant in the concluding debate. He then agreed to respond to questions put to him, without knowing those questions in advance. Say what you want, but I have not known too many presidents—in Africa or elsewhere—who would have accepted a challenge of this type. Although the atmosphere was somewhat tense—which proves that the debate was real and serious—I believe that this confrontation was not negative and useless, even if what happened after in practice did not have the desired positive effects.

      Personally, I do not criticize the project for not having been “truly socialist”—besides, there still needs to be some agreement on the meaning of this label. A national popular project seemed to me to be the best that could be achieved in the conditions of this small, vulnerable country. Of course, we need to understand that “national popular” is more than populism because, faced with the predictable attacks from the enemy, there are not, in my opinion, any better ramparts than the autonomous and democratic organization of the working/popular classes. The system remained populist and even slid gradually toward authoritarianism. But it was not terrorist. The Western media, once again, presented a distorted image of the country during this time. The Benin government did not commit criminal acts of repression like its neighbor Togo, which, under the Gnassingbé Eyadéma dictatorship, commonly carried out such acts. Kérékou was presented as a bloodthirsty monster—since he said he was a Marxist-Leninist—while the “liberal” (that is, someone who allows the compradors and multinationals to do what they want) Eyadéma’s continual crimes were passed over in silence.