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Policy · Revelation
Episode #37
Reminder of the dilemma
A — To accept the pact: to develop quickly, even to muzzle democracy.
B — Refuse and build righteous institutions first, even at a slow pace.
If you chose A
You choose bread before the word. It is the authoritarian Asian bet transposed into Africa: growth first, freedoms then. But history shows that « then » Rarely happens without a struggle.
If you have chosen B
You choose dignity before the emergency. This is the Senegalese bet of the patient rule of law. But can you ask a hungry child to wait until the institutions mature?
This dilemma is the one that haunts the continent since independence. On the one hand, the model that some Asian countries — Singapore, South Korea, Rwanda closer to us — seem to have validated: concentrate power to accelerate economic transformation, discipline the state apparatus, attract capital through authoritarian stability. The results are sometimes spectacular. But at what cost? Freedoms suspended « temporarily » have an unfortunate tendency never to come back. And without a free press or independent justice, corruption settles in the shadow of growth, eating up the foundations of the building.
On the other hand, the democratic path — the one Senegal tries to borrow with its judicial and institutional reforms — offers profound legitimacy. A strong rule of law protects citizens, ensures predictability for serious investors and builds sustainable social peace. But this path is slow, with parliamentary obstacles, exhausting compromises, institutional blockages. And in the meantime, children die of malaria in clinics without medicines. As the American example shows, even older democracies can fail to treat their people fairly when institutions serve the powerful rather than the people.
The real question may not be « democracy or development » but « Who do you really rule for? » Developmentalist authoritarianism can feed a people, but it often ends up feeding an elite. Patient democracy can frustrate a people, but it gives them the power to correct the course.
Baobab knows this secret: he does not choose between his roots and his canopy. First, he sinks his roots — deep, obstinate, invisible — in the arid land. For years, nothing seems to grow. Then, one day, it deploys an immense crown that feeds and harbours an entire ecosystem. The roots are the institutions. The canopy is development. Cutting the roots to speed up flowering is to condemn the whole tree.
To go further
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