It’s very cynical to think of DJ Arafat now as a “victim.” I mean, the man is dead and gone and nothing can harm him physically or emotionally. Yet, after the macabre scenes we saw on Saturday afternoon on social media of his grave being desecrated and his being given a final unrest, one can certainly victimise him.
I was very careful in my last article to not raise him as an icon, hero, or legend as I saw many people going about it on social media. In that article I actually portrayed him as a pawn on the grander chessboard of coupe-decale music and showed how the music left its mark both in Cote D’Ivoire and in other African countries; pitching him as an actor in a grand play or as a clarinet player in a large orchestra.
Truth to tell, I was not a fan of his music for a very long time. I found it too scattered, too erratic, too loud and noisy and certainly not to my taste. I did not follow him on social media either, but occasionally, I would hear about his clashes with other actors of the Ivorian pop culture.
In Africa we do not speak ill of the dead, but we always do so in loud whispers. Arafat lived rather violently, died rather violently and was laid to rest violently. To deny that is to either be of bad faith or to have lived in the same society as the one portrayed in the movie Mad Max. He was loud and it somewhat written that he would go out with a bang. We just never thought that final bang will be this loud, with hundreds of youths that adored him digging him out of his own tomb.
But beating a dying horse (and in this particular case, a dead one) perhaps isn’t the way out. We could say all what we want about La Chine and how perfectly idiotic their reasoning is, but that would be looking in the wrong direction.
We need to start asking what kind of fractures we have in society that caused such a state of denial in thousands of young people. Arafat somewhere can be blamed. His most devout fans were very much hooked on this constant ‘buzz’ that he served them on social media. His whole platform and promotional machine was built on that, as a matter of fact. But was that, alone, enough to cause such a state of denial, his fans thinking that this was one of his usual ‘buzzes’? I certainly doubt so.
What we saw on Saturday and continue seeing is something deeper than that. This is a clear case of young people feeling disenfranchised and cut off from the system of rule and law; not that they do not believe in it nor are aware of it, but that they simply do not think it serves them. Despite official and other media channel communications, people still believe that Arafat is not dead; to the point of vandalising public and private property.
It also raises the question of what and whom we prop and allow to be heroes to young people. Arafat came from the streets and the children of streets and just about anyone who thought themselves to be marginalised in society identified themselves in Arafat. They imitated him in every way imaginable. Even the ‘peacocky’ je m’en foutisme of the numerous dances he created were all symbols and codes of that. Look at me. Look at me. I am taking center stage and this what I can do. This is how well I can dance.
And how that energy canalised and the direction to which it is projected into can become a source of either catharsis or destruction.
The dance could either become an exutoire of pent-up frustration, eventually becoming a means of livelihood and even deliverance OR it could show its ugly side and push thousands of angry youths to dig up the grave of their “hero” and still deny he is the one even after almost undressing him and checking his tattoos.
This whole saga also poses the problem of education and what is it we teach the generation of children that are in school or that left school within the last 20 years. There is a marked difference between going to school and being educated. Amongst the people of La Chine, many are in school, but few are educated. And many are given few options to dream of. Arafat for many of them, was the only model to success. You can also throw in Drogba in the mix. But that makes just two options. That is certainly not enough for a country’s youth.
What Cote D’Ivoire has in its hands today is a ticking time bomb. The war may have ended, but there is yet to be peace. What La Chine demonstrated yesterday is clearly a sign post to that fact. And if the authorities do not think deeper than what the problem seems to be, that bomb might explode any time soon.
And while us, in Cameroon, watch with binoculars and shake our heads, let us not forget that we have the same bomb ticking in our own backyard too. One that is even bigger than the one in Cote D’Ivoire. Heaven forbids a certain footballer, idolised by many, comes to a sudden and tragic demise. We might have the same thing on our hands. It seems far-fetched until it happens. And the reasons for that are not very much different from those in Cote D’Ivoire.
Arafat is gone. A lot of people still have to come to terms with that and quickly move on. I hope for them that it happens very soon. But I hope more that our governments take care of their youth.
- Wandji Wilfred.