On Tuesday, December 6, 2022, millions of spectators, especially Africans, who were in front of their television screens, after holding their breath, exulted with joy when Achraf HAKIMI sent the Atlas Lions to the quarter-finals of the Cup world playing out in QATAR. The only African team after the failure of Tunisia, Ghana, Senegal and Cameroon, the Moroccan team, which emerged first from its pool, remained the only hope of a whole continent that loves football. Faced with the exploits of goalkeeper Yacine BOUNOU who even saved Sergio BUSQUETS’ penalty and who showed all his talents to the Spanish team led by the great coach ENRIQUE, it was not only the Moroccans who gave cries of joy but a whole continent. After Cameroon in 1990, Senegal in 2002 and Ghana in 2010, here is Morocco, in 2022, which, with a Moroccan coach, Walid REGRAGUI, reached the quarter-finals as the fourth African country. Honor to Sofiane BOUFAL’s teammates who showed their determination and above all their self-confidence on the field.
Believing in yourself, setting goals, in a collective that values every talent, and working together to give shape to a collective dream, is to believe that the possible becomes real when you give yourself the means, the first of which is the will to really accomplish what one sets as an objective. In order for everything possible to come true for those who believe in it, it is imperative to set clear, precise and reasonable objectives. It is essential to set, through the thought that defines us, an objective, grasped as a present to come and to bring about. “Making it happen” means that we cannot be passive, on the contrary we must get involved through anticipatory thinking that leads to action. And at the moment when this present to be brought about is posed, it is a to-come that we give ourselves and this orients the present in which we are and which we want to change and transform. This implies the requirement of a thought which, like a compass, orients, enlightens and sorts, indicates paths to take, proposes strategies to be implemented, mobilizes the capacities and skills necessary to achieve the objective set. .
The present is then lived according to a future, a not yet visible but existing. It is the present, seized and posed, which traces the line which connects the future to the present which is lived and on which we act. The future, anticipated by thought, consequently transforms the present into a moment of action. Consequently, the future, which becomes a present to be realised, is anything but a coincidence. Nor is it the result of pure luck, which owes nothing to the rigorous implementation of talents through hard work. It clearly and consciously requires self-sacrifice and work in taking into account all abilities. The victory of Morocco cannot therefore be the result of chance in front of a team from Spain, sure to beat Morocco because it represents the country where we find all the great players from all the continents.
If we decided to talk about the victory of Morocco, a symbol for an entire continent, it is because we saw in this event the application of the logic that sets in motion and allows us to hope for a different tomorrow from a present. not very shiny. If the victory of Morocco is not the fruit of chance nor a simple exaltation of a despised, dragged, humiliated continent but a valorization of capacities and talents, an opportunity to give oneself reasons to believe in a better tomorrow, it is that the victory of December 6, 2022 obeys the logic of the Present born of the Future: set goals and change in your present what must be changed in order to make the future a present of tomorrow. The present of December 6 (Moroccan victory) was anticipated, it was possible because an objective was set, we gave ourselves the means to achieve it. In Africa, therefore, it is not capacities that are lacking, but choices to be made wisely. Critical thinking is, in this sense, forward-looking thinking that anticipates because “it is the renewed questioning of meaning, (a) permanent questioning, (a) constant call to surpass, (a) tension towards the future (Maurice Kamto in The Urgency of Thought).
Morocco’s victory, after analysis, reminds us of the key phrase of a civil society organization which since December 8, 1991 has adopted this slogan “The Present is born of the Future”. It has become her road stick. It is therefore both its philosophy and its spirituality. It is a Togolese association called Le Rameau de Jessé and the weekly forum, which has been broadcast since November 2018, is a work of the members of this association which has made culture its field of commitment.
What is the context of the birth of this organization? No one can deny the immensity of the problems facing the African continent for decades. On all levels, political, economic, social, cultural, scientific, educational, health etc. the challenges are immense and everything appears to be a priority. In such a situation where changes are slow to come, despair wins the hearts especially those of young people who only think of an elsewhere but how to make them admit that the elsewhere is at home to transform as an actor? How to make them believe that another way of living together is possible in the pooling of differences in the service of a future to bring about as a present that is desired, desired, built collectively? How to transform the hopeless situation comparable to an old stump, from which nothing is expected anymore, into a strain bearing hope? It is at this moment that a word arises which makes the scales fall from the eyes to make it possible to note that in each of us “a new world is in germ” if we change our gaze and our representation. The stump, in fact, carries something that is in the making and you have to know how to see it and observe it.
To take the name of the Branch of Jesse is to refer to a text, that of Isaiah 11, 1-11 but fundamentally, it is to be a bearer of hope from what is in the making in each of us. It is discovering oneself as the bearer of a hope that makes everyone an agent of change. And being an agent of change for a better togetherness while respecting the harmony of differences means discovering diversity as a source of wealth, it means understanding that our differences (ethnic, cultural, political, religious, etc.) should not be sources of conflict and division if we grasp plurality as the expression of the singularities that make up existence. In the text of Isaiah 11, 1-11 we read: “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down near the kid, the calf and the lion cub will be fed together, a young one will lead them. The cow and the bear will have the same pasture, their young will have the same shelter. The lion like the ox will eat fodder. The infant will amuse himself on the nest of the cobra, on the hole of the viper the child will stretch out his hand. Isn’t this a beautiful and pure dream? Where did you see all this once? Perhaps in films we will be told? But where before the 19th century did we see a big and heavy machine, the plane, remain stable in the air and manage to travel hundreds of kilometers from one continent to another? Isn’t imagination a source of creativity?
The invention of a well-being together is also possible, it is of the order of the possible to achieve. It’s like utopia but in the true sense of the term, that is to say something that has not yet existed and that must be made to exist. It is not then a question of a dream in the sense of something illusory but it is a question of setting out for the realization of a society seized, by creative thought, as a framework for the development of each and of all with the fundamental principle of justice. The fruit of this justice, which keeps individuals linked to each other in a relationship of solidarity, is peace. Isn’t holding together through justice and social justice while respecting differences what we all seek for political well-being, because to exist is to co-exist? Isn’t giving a future to our countries and to our continent making use of thought as a faculty that allows us to transform our living conditions by anticipating a future that mobilizes us now and prevents us from being passive ? The Present is born from the Future allows us to know that our future belongs to us despite all the historical determinants. [email protected] Lome, December 9, 2022