Cheikh Ahmed Tidiane Sy does not hide his concern. Since the events of March 2021 which killed fourteen people, this religious dignitary at the head of the Unitary Framework of Islam in Senegal – an organization which represents the main brotherhoods of the country – has not let go of his pilgrim’s staff. To “save the peace”, he probes, discusses relentlessly with President Macky Sall and the opposition.

While the country lives to the rhythm of the protest against a possible third term of the Head of State in 2024 and the possible elimination of Ousmane Sonko, his main opponent, the religious leader wants to believe that a lull is still possible. And proof of this is the successful mediation of 2021 which saved the country from the abyss.

This March 7, 2021, the air is unbreathable in the streets of Dakar. Tear gas, burnt cars, blaring sirens… The capital has turned to urban guerrilla warfare since the arrest of Ousmane Sonko four days earlier. The opponent has just been accused of repeated rapes and death threats by Adji Sarr, an employee of a massage parlour. Convinced by the thesis of the state conspiracy relayed by the opponent and intended, according to him, to exclude him from the presidential election of 2024, his supporters demonstrate, burn and loot gas stations and stores. The clashes with the security forces left fourteen dead.

In this explosive context, a group of religious dignitaries crossed the doors of a villa nestled in a residential area in the evening. Macky Sall, the Senegalese president receives them. “We came to the rescue. Civil society had failed in its mediations. We were the last chance,” recalls Cheikh Ahmed Tidiane Sy. The delegation comprises about ten people, including three emissaries from the general Caliphs Tidiane, Mouride and Omari, the highest religious authorities in the country.

Offside the great Sufi marabouts?

The urgency is then to calm the anger of the street and to loosen the judicial vice around Ousmane Sonko. The next day, he escaped the warrant of committal and obtained conditional release. According to several observers, the voice of the religious has weighed. Proof that the brotherhoods, historical support of the Senegalese power, are able to contain the latter in the most tense moments.

To avoid a new conflagration as the local elections of January 2022 approach, the Unitary Framework of Islam in Senegal is developing a charter of non-violence. A document that Ousmane Sonko at the head of the Pastef refused to sign, believing that by calling for calm, the religious mediators played the game of power. “How do you get mediation when you have two camps locked in the logic of survival? Asks Cheikh Ahmed Tidiane Sy. The regime is pushed to its limits, even if it means trying a third term according to some. Opposite, Ousmane Sonko, Khalifa Sall and Karim Wade are also playing their future, their eligibility. The equation is difficult. »

Twenty-six months after the March 2021 earthquake, history threatens to repeat itself. Excited supporters who besiege Ousmane Sonko’s residence in Ziguichor, the city of which he is now the mayor, to prevent him from being forcibly brought before his trial for rape. A massive police force. Clashes and deaths. At least three people, including a policeman, were killed in the capital and in Casamance. The religious authorities, they shine by their discretion.

Out of the game, however, are the great Sufi marabouts? Not quite. In recent hours, the country would have narrowly avoided a conflagration thanks to the mediation of the Caliph General of the Mourides. The Senegalese newspaper Walf claims that the religious guide sent a delegation to President Macky Sall on May 16 to suspend the arrest of Ousmane Sonko, who has been in Ziguinchor for several days.

Ousmane Sonko perceived as anti-brotherhood

“The impact of the religious is to be put into perspective”, nevertheless moderates a negotiator from civil society on condition of anonymity. “The regime backed down on its own to avoid a bloodbath. Dislodging Ousmane Sonko while women and children were protecting his home would have been madness,” he said.

The role of religious mediators is all the more complicated as the Pastef maintains tumultuous relations with the brotherhoods. Even if, like many of his supporters, Ousmane Sonko claims to be of Mouride obedience, one of the most powerful Sufi orders in the country, the mayor of Ziguinchor continues to be perceived as Salafist and anti-brotherhood. A tenacious rumor maintained by his opponents since his beginnings and fueled by his past membership of the Salafist tendency which rejects brotherhood Islam and secularism.

Before becoming a tax inspector, the opponent was part of the Association of Muslim Students and Students of Senegal (AEEMS), an organization inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood. “Today, he attracts people from the middle class or Salafists for whom he embodies the break with the system. For them, Salafism is a tool of liberation in the face of acquaintance with power – marabouts. Young, poor people in search of meaning also find themselves in him, especially as they feel excluded from the redistribution enjoyed by the elite and religious leaders. They sanctify Sonko, call him “mou sell mi”, “the pure”, while desacralizing the brotherhoods”, analyzes Bakary Sambe, teacher-researcher at Gaston-Berger University and director of the Timbuktu Institute.

In February, Pastef member Ngagne Demba Touré came to prominence when he told a press conference that the party’s plan was “to put an end to the veneration of man for the exclusive veneration of God and period “. An exit perceived by the maraboutic families as an attempt to discredit. A few days later, Ousmane Sonko tried to clarify his position.

Aversion to religious guides

“These days, there is a controversy that has come back to the forefront, saying that the Pastef party is a political formation against religious brotherhoods. To say that the Pastef is against the brotherhoods is like saying that it is against Islam,” he said at the launch of the Doomu Daara Patriot Movement (Mondap), a wing of the Pastef which brings together religious from various denominations.

Still, in Senegal, distrust of religious leaders is not new. “The credibility of the great caliphs with the people went down from the first generation after their death. Their children were challenged. Today, their influence is threatened by the third generation embodied by worldly marabouts, with an opulent lifestyle, very present on the sets and in politics. They have finished discrediting the maraboutic word, ”analyzes historian Mamadou Diouf.

Online, some Pastef supporters echo this rejection by publicly displaying their aversion to religious leaders whom they do not hesitate to call “thugs” in the service of the regime. A mistrust that pushed the Caliph of Niassenes, an active mediator, to no longer want to express himself online, for fear of invective.

“The role of religion in conflict resolution is undoubtedly waning in Senegal,” laments Cheikh Ahmed Tidiane Sy. The next few days will be worth testing. The rape trial of Ousmane Sonko, which is due to open on Tuesday May 23 in Dakar, risks reigniting tensions. The opponent, still entrenched in his Casamance stronghold, cast doubt on his arrival.