Benin Politics : LETTER TO MODESTE KEREKOU

Adrien AHANHANZO’s response to the former Honorable MP, Modeste KEREKOU

PUBLISHED IN THE DAILY NEWS PAPER “LA NOUVELLE TRIBUNE” ON FEBRUARY 16, 12009, THE LETTER REJECTS THE ACCUSATIONS OF MODESTE KEREKOU AGAINST RECKYA MADOUGOU.

Modeste, my dear friend, you are a witness to the esteem and sympathy that we have for one each. I discovered later that the blood of King BEHANZIN was flowing through your veins. So how could one wonder this blood appeal for AHANHANZO was the senior brother of Prince KONDO!

They forced me, this esteem and this sympathy, to put to you just a few lines about your media release on the weekend to mark the publication of the excellent book of the excellent Reckya MADOUGOU and about the too little that she tells about your father, President Mathieu KEREKOU.

Your attitude was inappropriate: you are far too young to know the whole political history of Dahomey and Benin in which your father and too few Dahomeans and Beninese have been involved. The October 2, 1972 was not the beginning, and yet it is a day already 37 years old. How old were you, 37 years ago? How old were you, all these “daddy’s boys" who want to rewrite history? All Beninese who were 13 years old at the time, otherwise, are 50 years old today, and who constitute the most important portion of the administrative staff of our government, are not even able to know, therefore to tell, therefore to take a stand.

Then Reckya MADOUGOU said nothing of the essential: the Essential happens when all those who write a book, and I am part of them, will deliver the fruits of their experience. It is indispensable, the duty of memory, it was essential to give the time, time to settle all the unhappy memories of the inevitable subjectivity. But make no mistake: We will write the history of Dahomey and Benin, and everyone will have the opportunity to assess which sufferings some Dahomeans were subjected to by other Dahomeans, simply because of disagreement over ideas, methods, and strategies.

Those who have suffered do not cultivate nor spread hatred. There is even no bitterness in their hearts! They are aware, more than others, of the destructive capacity the hideous beast that lies dormant within each of us. That is why, although they have forgiven, they refuse to forget, in order to maintain the waking state that allowed us from 2004 to 2006, among others, to oppose, PACIFICALLY, the revision of the constitution.

It is essential that Benin take hold of its history, all its history, even the darkest pages of this history, as all major countries of the world did, France, Germany, Japan and son on. We are mature enough to do so. We must move forward.

Mathieu KEREKOU knows better than anyone, the need for all his people to remain silent and to take low-profile ... Then daddy's boy, easy-easy please!

Translated by Alfred CHODATON
alf2chod@yahoo.fr