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A few days before my first election, I write this letter as a cry in the desert. I only knew one president. My vote will not change anything, but my voice must resonate.
Mr. President,
My father is forty three years old: the duration of your reign! I will have eighteen years in a few days, in time for my very first citizen gesture: to vote. A moment supposed to be historic for me, symbolic, important. But in truth, he will have none of this. My vote will be useless, and everyone knows that.
The result of this election is already sealed as a will, even before the ballot box is opened. You are announced winner, again, for the eighth time. And I can only attend, powerless, this theatre where you are both a leading actor, director, producer and public.
My father was born during your reign; Me too. I learned to walk, talk, dream, or rather, not to dream. You've been here so long that your face is no longer even an image: it's a habit. A habit hanging on walls, billboards along our roads, speeches on state television. A habit that looks like a fatality.
I was told you were the "father of the nation." But what father stays hanging at home as his children die of desire to breathe in the open air? You raised us in the shadows, sir. A cold shadow, thick, without seasons or promises.
I write because my voice, like that of all my friends, was lost in the brouhaha of despair. We have no more slogans, no more promises, no more future. We live in a country where the future is a forbidden word, where youth is a folk décor that we go out to dance at national holidays.
We're talking about stability. What stability? The cemetery? We're talking about peace. What peace? The one of forced silence? We're talking about experience. What experience? The one who aged in power while the country is rejuvenating in poverty?
I look at you and your circle of patriarchs, those faces that television paints like statues. You are the gerontocracy in parade, the Republic of wheelchairs, eternal speeches, smiles in formol.
The Chief of Parliament sendort on the laws, the Chief of Staff confuses the microphone with his medicine, the Minister of Justice trembles more than the balance he is supposed to hold.
You lead a people whose faces you no longer see, whose cries you no longer hear. You run ghosts that you call citizens.
You are surrounded by men so old that their memories date from before my father was born. Faces drawn, ironed, painted at each speech. Weary spirits, but still clinging to power like an infusion. The chief of police is 93, the president of the assembly is 85, and you are 92. The country is 18 years of median age.
Meanwhile, our roads break, our hospitals empty, our schools die. Half of my friends dream of Europe, not to live better, but just to live short. Those who remain slowly drown while waiting. We're 18 years old, but we're talking to old people like: « Be patient », « the country advances », « the time of the people will come ».
But, sir, forty-three years of patience is already a form of mourning.
As you age in the soft comfort of your Swiss residences, we age too quickly in the precariousness of your failures. Your nearly centenary ministers rule a people of children. Your generals in wheelchairs command an army of young people who no longer want to fight. Your Republic is a dying place with new ideas, a sanctuary for old glories.
Sir, I don't even blame you anymore. I'm just tired. Tired of this endless reign. Tired of these elections without choice. Tired of hopeless. My friends are leaving, one after another. They board canoes, planes, illusions. Not to flee the country, no: to flee the absence of future.
In a few days, I will vote. Not for a candidate, the real ones were dismissed or silenced. I'll go drop my ballot like we're filing a complaint in heaven. He won't do anything, but he'll testify. I would like to make this bulletin a letter. A letter to you, sir. A plea.
I know you'll probably never read those lines. They were locked in a golden fortress, a thousand kilometers from the real, surrounded by Swiss guards, courtiers and doctors. You no longer hear the noise of the markets, you no longer felt the smell of dust after the rain, you no longer know how much a bread costs, nor how many young people simmer in a classroom without a painting.
They say you're in charge, but you're in charge. You have become the living symbol of a frozen country, a puppet that your entourage shakes to prolong its privileges.
And yet, despite my anger, I feel sorry for you, because you don't seem to understand what you're doing anymore. You seem tired, sir. Your eyes are still looking for applause, but it's the silence you get. The whole country is suspended from your breath, not out of respect, but out of habit. You've become used to a nation. A habit you can't break.
Let us breathe. Let us live. Just leave us alone.
You've had your time. More than anyone. Forty-three years. Eight terms. A political century. History won't forget you, but youth can't forget. We want to move on. You read it forever.
I'm not rebel or militant. I'm just a child of your reign. And today, I am writing to you from this place that you no longer visit: reality.
We don't want you to fall, sir. We want you to leave. Quiet, dignified, voluntary. Before the silence of the people became angry. Before memory turns into forgetfulness. Before your name, engraved everywhere, becomes a graffiti too much on the walls of the past.
I'm young, sir. But I'm tired. And I scream. So you know. For the world to know. For history, never forget.
A son of your reign.
In search of a country he never had the right to choose.
