Benin is a country that you might locate on a map if you look for its former name. There are several others. What's in a change of name? For decision-makers, it serves to indicate a return to ancestral virtues and, by extension, a rejection of those mores and values imposed from outside. Does not a new haircut summon up a new day? There may be something in this, but not much: the following day, we wake up our old selves. Could it be, then, that instead of the great leaps forward they are supposed to be name changes are simply crude attempts to divert the people's attention and disguise the failings of half-baked and kooky policies which lead to food shortages, unemployment, inflation, external debt, civil wars, revolutions, fraternal relations and whatnots? And, should this be true, is it not time governments began treating the people like grown-ups? Perhaps not. Last year the people waved their country's former flag in the streets of Benin's capital, presumably not at the instigation of the government. Time for a new haircut in Benin? (1989)
Copyright ©2002 Olivier Serrat |
