Beyond Secularism: Reclaiming Senegal’s Moral Compass

The current chaos in Senegal’s political alliances is but a reflection of the deeper malaise shaking the world today. In our country, Socialists align with Democrats, Communists with Liberals, ideological marriages that were once unthinkable but are now tolerated as long as each party finds its own advantage. We are witnessing nothing less than the resounding failure of the grand ideologies that once shaped the modern world, and ethics have been the primary casualty.

Senegal, in any case, has never truly benefited from this imposed jumble of ideals, most of which have remained antithetical to our ways of life. In the past, our ethical framework was rich with strong values — ngor (dignity), jom (courage), and fulla (honour) — which moulded men and women of integrity. Yet this disorder seems to have been engineered by people shaped by an entirely different system, one that has produced unscrupulous, corrupt individuals who have learned to win without being right. History has shown, however, that humanity cannot thrive without values and virtues; otherwise, we spiral into anarchy and ever more egocentric societies.

More than fifty-four years of so-called independence, what has the secular system, copied from the West, actually brought us? Has its school system, its so-called civilising mission, made our men and women better human beings? One can only observe with dismay the questionable morality of the majority of those educated under this doctrine.

Over time, the secular system has aimed at nothing other than producing citizens in whose minds the word “God” or “Allah” is either absent or meaningless. Wherever this doctrine is enforced, Islam is left by the wayside, if not explicitly excluded from the secular sphere. This raises a crucial question: what is the true definition of secularism? Does it mean the exclusion of a particular religion, or does it imply perfect equality among all faiths? It would seem that the exclusion of one religion in favour of another is the poorly disguised intention behind their strategy and this is evident in our country, where secular education has shown its limits, if not its flaws, when compared to its loyal but underfunded counterpart: Islamic religious education. The starting point of secularism, in practice, has often been the deconstruction of religion.

This method, devoid of spirituality and therefore of values and principles, has produced the paradox confronting the modern world. Its battle cry is what we may call the Triumvirate of Subversion:

• Kill God: “God does not exist; all is chance and evolution,” said Darwin.
• Kill Religion: “Religion is the opiate of the masses” said Marx.
• Kill the Soul: “Our subconscious is entirely linked to sexuality,” said Freud.

Yet God has not perished at the hands of these conspirators. Today, more than ever, He stands firm, for humanity incessantly feels the need for communion with Him, the need to return to its Source.

At this juncture at the so-called “End of History” (Fukuyama) and amid the “Clash of Civilisations” (Huntington), which ideology possesses authentic human values and holds the solution? Islamic ideals, which dominated the world for centuries, have forged and continue to forge upright men and women whom history remembers. The most striking examples are here in Senegal, where the masses venerate the products of this Islamic civilisation and make them their models in all aspects of life, social and cultural.

Let us boldly affirm, in the words of Khalifa al Hajj Mouhamad Niass: “Only Islam’s societal project will fill the earth with equity and justice.” It is in this spirit that this visionary’s call resonates:

“Yā bīdū, yā sūdū, yā ghūrbn wa yā ‘ajjamūn, fā’atū ilayya bi-’aḥzāl al-wirdi wa al-dīnī.” (“People of the West, people of the South, people of the East, and people of the North, come, hasten to enter Islam and take the Wird [Tijānī].)

Islam as a societal project, with Tijānī brotherhood as a factor of social cohesion, is truly the key to salvation and development for our world in general and for our country in particular.

Humanity needs values and virtues; without them, we are heading toward anarchy and increasing egocentrism. Mere civic education lessons, read and repeated, will never suffice. True civic-mindedness can only be built and given real meaning through faith in God.

Our libraries have been emptied to make room for furniture and material goods; gatherings of knowledge are becoming rare, replaced by folklore and all sorts of nearly useless events, as long as they attract crowds and money.

It is time to rethink the ethics of our society, grounding them in the morality brought by Islam while incorporating whatever is good and compatible with Islamic principles from other societies. In doing so, we can address our fear of rupture by unequivocally discarding formulas that betray a certain dishonesty among our populations phrases such as: “kuy xalam di ca jaayu” (He who is in affairs must serve himself first) and “Ku am kudd du lakk” (“To be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth”).