Contribution: Senegal suffers from the map of the crisis of meaning of its actors (POLITICS, CIVIL SOCIETY AND PRESS) By Nicolas Silandibithe BASSÈNE

Pleonas and ideological vacuum inevitably lead a society toward a profound crisis of meaning. The relatively low level of public debate in Senegal attests to the loss of ideological, ethical, and republican bearings. Politicians, civil society, and the press, all trends combined, maintain confusion, personal quarrels, and futile polemics to the detriment of real substantive debates. This strategy allows for the numbing of civic conscience or the fragmentation of public opinion. The direct consequence is that Senegal is in a CRISIS OF MEANING. To frame our analysis to allow for a good understanding, it is important to attempt, in a systematic way, to define what a crisis of meaning is first, then to see the role and mission of each actor, and finally to analyze the consequences. In any case, the crisis of meaning reflects a painful gap between initial ideals (commitments, made promises) and the reality of exercising power, with the consequence being the abandonment of values in favor of the sole preservation of power. As for civil society (NGOs, labor and employer unions, local and community associations, public or private foundations, think tanks, and social movements), their roles would be to monitor public action, demand transparency, fight against corruption, and guarantee the accountability of institutions; to complement the State's action in the areas of health, education, humanitarian aid or inclusion, and to promote citizenship, disseminate information, and encourage active participation in democratic life. To protect individual and collective freedoms, fight against discrimination, and support victims of harm. Regarding the Press, for it, its mission is to make information accessible and understandable to the general public, to control the actions of the executive, legislative, and judicial powers to demand transparency, to allow for the expression of the plurality of opinions so that citizens can make informed choices, and to play a role as a regulator and critical interface between rulers and the ruled. This state of searching for the power of our actors (politicians, civil society, press) highlights two major evils which, combined, have ended up disorienting our social body. These are pleonas (insatiable desire to have more than others, disregarding justice and equity or the hoarding of wealth, corruption, and the frenzied quest for power for purely personal interests) and ideological vacuum (absence of a clear vision of society, coherent collective projects, and shared values), which are shown by political actors, civil society, and the press. As a result, when politics, civil society, and the press empty themselves of their ideals, they reduce to a technique of conquering and conserving power, of seeking privileges and financial gain that push them to disconnect from the common good. Taking everything into account, this crisis (crisis of conviction, crisis of bearings, crisis of values, crisis of spoken word and taken commitments, crisis of ideology and crisis of loyalty and accountability) opens the way to drift. These factual drifts are used as powerful anesthetics to divert the attention of citizens from the real development issues by maintaining a state of constant emotiveness that prevents deep critical reflection. Indeed, with the permanent staging of disagreements, the renunciation of public speech, the frenzied search for power, and enrichment have contributed to the death of political convictions and ideologies while taking precedence over republican action in Senegal. Certainly, when the pleonas and ideological vacuum—these two dynamics—establish themselves in a society, collective action loses all compass. Consequently, merit fades before clientelism, and citizens face a feeling of disenchantment. On this, politics ceases to be a lever for social transformation to become merely a game of personal ambitions. In this sense, the impression of placebos or the repetition of the flaws of the past become elements that must be properly weighed. However, the last political alternation that occurred in March 2024 leaves hanging the immense hope for the end of these tortuous practices to embrace substantive debates on the economy and a return to values in order to find true meaning. Alas, this heresy, although appreciated, was only a pilot light. Renunciation, disloyalty, ingratitude, lack of recognition, and above all greed and avarice intertwined, strengthening the feeling that Senegal remains in a chronic inability to stabilize the values that constituted its cement. Furthermore, the successive alternations of 2000 (Wade), 2012 (Macky), and 2024 (Diomaye) have not succeeded in dismantling the loss of clear ideological bearings due to the game of political alliances against nature that are made and unmade according to electoral circumstances (political transhumance) in the quest and/or conservation of power which prevail over convictions, taken commitments, and loyalty and recognition. Populism and social media, with the increase in invective and the search for buzz, prevail over the confrontation of fundamental ideas and the real taking care of the population's needs, harming ethics and morality by sacrificing them on the altar of pleonas and hubris. In summary, our analysis shows that the crisis of meaning is profound and multisectoral to the extent that social malaise and the loss of collective bearings are immense, where institutions, the media, and human relations are dictated by calculation and permanent suspicion, where the culture of the "void" (form matters more than substance) and convictions change according to opportunities and algorithms. What legacy will we pass on to future generations? Are we aware that the legacy we will leave will be the exact reflection of our current struggles? What shall we do: yield to the ambient cynicism or rehabilitate the courage of convictions? Faced with this venomous and contagious phenomenon, on whose men and women must Senegal count? Nicolas Silandibithe BASSÈNE Coordinator of the Citizen Movement Act Now for a New Emergence (AMEN)