Mobutu Sese Seko and the ideology of authenticity

Like the prisoner in Plato's myth of the Cave, independent Africa has been unable to bear the blinding light of the sun that is newfound freedom. But as it can no longer return to the shadow of the cave, it has chosen the ideological veil to conceal the ugliness of dictatorship and the misery of underdevelopment. This Africa in search of itself, in search of originality, has since remained a prisoner of the "word" and the "say", unable to act and submit to the fire of praxis. This led to the emergence of a whole panoply of ideological currents, including Mobutu's: the ideology of authenticity. This ideology was intended to be salutary and liberating, but it was soon to become totalitarian and disastrous. Indeed, not even sport and sportsmen and sportswomen, considered to be one of the essential foundations of the regime's popular support, were able to escape its grip, and the threats and manipulation to which they were subjected. In other words, Mobutu was the very embodiment of his own adage: "Before me chaos, and after me the deluge".