la fin d'année

New Years was as it should be, celebrated with good friends, good food, mediocre champagne, laughing to the point of hurting, dancing to the point to dropping.

But on a larger scale, the year came to a close in Senegal amidst overtones of blue. The joyfulness of the festival season was accompanied by the mourning of two major public figures whose passing lent a gravity to these weeks of celebrations. And I think the poignancy of it comes really from the significance of the two deaths, or better, of the two men, and what they represented to the people of Senegal.

The first was Chérif Samsidine Aidara, the well-loved religious leader and president-appointed ambassador of peace in the Casamance region who was shot to death in his village home on the eve of Tabaski. The four gunmen are as yet unidentified but are almost certainly members of the rebel separatist group Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques de Casamance (MFDC), which has already brought so much unwarranted grief to this otherwise quiet region of Senegal. After the deaths of some of its head figures and the increasing intolerance it's faced recently from the once-sheltering governments of neighboring Guinea and Gambia, the rebel group was thought to be largely weakened, if not fragmented. I think on the whole, the murder came as less a reminder than a surprise about the continuing problem in the South. A problem which has existed for 20 years teetering between conflict and peace, and which seems to be once again tipped in the direction of the worse. Adding to the bitterness of the deed, the assassination, too, occurred almost a year to the day after that of another peace-promoting consul to the region, Elhadji Omar Lamine Badji.

A less frightening, but equally shaking death occurred a little over a week later, when Serigne Salieu Mbacké, head of the Mouride brotherhood (one of 4 major Sufi sects in Senegalese Islam) passed away, peacefully as 92 year-old beloved religious leaders often do. The Grand Marabout was a direct hereditary descendant of Cheikh Amadou Bamba, a figure who not only created the vernacular Sufic tradition - but who also represented to the people of Senegalese a fixture of resistance against French imperialism. Millions of people traveled to the spiritual center of Touba this weekend to mourn his passing. Millions of people were touched by his insights, spirituality, and leadership. I think most people carry a sense of deep and emotional gratitude for his contributions.

Bear in mind, I meant this to be more reflective than depressing! And while the first death was very cruel and signaled the re-aggravation of a distressing situation; I think the second - like the natural death of any great leader - represented something more venerated. Mbacké was the face of a deeply cherished tradition: something that syncretized the tenets of Islam with the ways of the indigenous to create something profoundly Senegalese, and in that sense, almost nationalistic. His life and death touched almost all Senegalese people, regardless of their religious affiliations.

On a last note, I think this gives form to the idea, the feeling, that we are always fluctuating between these extremes of sadness and joy. The world has its ugly conflicts, galore, but it also has this rainbow of culture that offers us so much beauty and value and dynamism. Maybe one makes the other fuller, complete. And I think, also, this is reflected in the mood this time of year. New Years is all about second chances, rejuvenation, hope, and resolutions, etc. of course, but it also reminds us how quickly time passes. How one year fades so imperceptibly into another, and how unable we are to hold time in our hands and let it go at our discretion.