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“Allo, La Californie? Has he won?”

on November 7, 2008

Par BAGASSI KOURA

Nov. 6 — O.N.’s Bagassi Koura, whose home country is the West African nation of Burkina Faso, worked hard throughout voting day last Tuesday.  But his cellphone kept interrupting–one after another, calls from Burkina Faso, demanding updates on the American election.  We asked Koura, a former Agence France-Presse reporter, to describe in French his efforts to reassure his friends that all would be well.   An English translation follows.

Le mardi 04 novembre, les Américains se rendaient aux urnes pour élire leur 44ème Président. C’était une journée très chargée pour moi. En tant que reporter je sillonnais avec un collègue les rues de Oakland en Californie, allant d’un bureau de vote à un autre afin de recueillir les impressions des électeurs. A 15:32, heure locale, alors qu’on s’apprêtait, dans un café du coin, à envoyer des photos sur notre blog, mon téléphone sonne.

Oakland North's Bagassi Koura, at work.

Oakland North

Un de mes meilleurs amis est en ligne d’Afrique.

Quelque part dans un quartier aux rues non éclairées de Ouagadougou, la capitale du Burkina Faso, des amis se sont retrouvés sur des chaises en bambou au beau milieu de la nuit  pour célébrer ce qui semblait être à leurs yeux l’un des événements les plus importants de leur vie.

Alors que la nuit avançait et que les résultats des élections américaines tardaient à venir, ils se sont retrouvés pris dans une certaine anxiété qui a fini par éclipser leur fête. Et la seule solution pour avoir l’esprit tranquille c’était de me téléphoner, constamment jusqu’à la proclamation totale des résultats. Il était alors 4:00 du matin à Ouagadougou, une heure un peu trop tardive pour une belle fête.

Mon ami Lassina Traoré, 35 ans, n’a jamais voté dans sa vie. Il ne croit pas à la transparence des élections dans notre pays, dit-il. Mais pour ces élections américaines, il a réuni une vingtaine d’amis, des cadres de banques comme lui et des fonctionnaires sur la terrasse de sa maison de trois chambres à Ouagadougou. Dès 22:00, heure locale (5:00 Pm ET), ils étaient tous là pour suivre les résultats des élections américaines diffusés en direct par des chaines de télévisions françaises.

Le jour avant, il m’avait parlé de cette fête.

Le thé, la bière, le whisky, la musique, la danse, le barbecue, tout avait été prévu pour une belle célébration si Barack Obama est élu président. Mais en réalité, alors que la nuit avançait, personne ne semblait croire à cette éventualité.

Comme Lassina Traoré m’a expliqué, l’atmosphère était tendue. Assis autour de la télévision, chacun faisait son petit commentaire, mais tous étaient inquiets. Vers minuit, heure locale, (4:00Pm in California) les premiers résultats n’étaient pas encore disponibles. Et les commentaires des télévisions françaises qu’ils regardaient les rendaient de plus en plus nerveux.

A 3:32 PT (heure locale en Californie), quand mon téléphone sonne alors que j’étais assis donc au café d’Oakland, c’était donc Lassina Traoré qui voulait savoir la situation des élections. “Est-ce que tu penses qu’Obama va gagner,” me demande t-il. “Nous, on est assis ici et on est très inquiet,” me dit-il.

En fait, dans les dernières semaines de la campagne, me dit-il, ils avaient appris que les sondages s’étaient resserrés entre John McCain et Barack Obama. Ils avaient aussi entendu parler d’un certain “effet Bradley” qui ferait perdre les Noirs aux Etats Unis lors des élections.

Je lui ai expliqué que les bureaux de vote vont fermer dans moins de 30 minutes en Virginie. ” Si Obama gagne en Virginie, il sera difficile pour John McCain de gagner l’élection,” lui dis-je pour le rassurer.

Quand je suis retourné sur le campus de Berkeley pour monter mon reportage à l’école pour le site web oaklandnorth.net, mon téléphone a sonné de nouveau.

“Est-ce qu’Obama a gagné la Virginie.” Je reconnais la voix de Lassina Traoré. Je lui explique que même si à cette heure  le résultat n’est pas encore donné, Obama est en bonne position de gagner. Généralement Lassina me fait confiance et il semblait rassurer. Mais 5 minutes après il me rappelle.

“Donc tu penses qu’Obama va être élu?”, demande-t-il. “Il n’y aura pas de surprise?”

Une nouvelle fois, je le rassure.

Il utilisait tout ce que je lui disais pour alimenter leurs conversations et rassurer ses amis qui étaient tout autant inquiets que lui. Quelques minutes après, il me rappelle de nouveau:” Ecoute, j’ai un ami ici qui ne croit pas tout ce que tu me dis, je veux que tu lui parles.”

Son ami en question n’a pas le temps de se présenter. La seule chose qui l’intéressait, c’est de lui expliquer ce qui ce passait.

Je savais que les gens en Afrique s’intéressaient beaucoup aux élections américaines. Durant les deux derniers mois, pas un seul jour ne s’est passé sans que je n’aie reçu de coup de fil ou des emails d’amis me demandant l’état de la campagne. Mais j’étais loin d’imaginer le degré d’anxiété qui pouvait les animer.   “Donc s’il perd la Virginie Obama est éliminé?” me lance t-il. Non, lui dis-je, ca ne change rien. En fin de compte je me suis rendu compte que je n’avais pas assez d’argument pour le satisfaire.

Le soir à 20:00, je devais me rendre à la International House (un centre d’accueil pour étudiants étrangers où j’habite) pour couvrir l’élection pour notre blog. Lorsque j’arrive là-bas, je n’arrive pas à me concentrer. Mes amis continuent de m’appeler.

A un moment donné j’ai même pensé à bloquer mon téléphone pour pouvoir effectuer mon travail. Mais je ne pouvais pas  laisser mes amis tomber sachant dans quel Etat d’esprit ils se trouvaient. N’ayant jamais eu aucun intérêt réel dans la politique de notre pays, ils semblaient avoir trouvé dans ces élections lointaines américaines un évènement unique qui les rendait, pour une fois, fier de la politique.

Lorsque Lassina Traoré m’a appelé pour une dernière fois autour de 20:00 PT, il m’a demandé pourquoi on dit qu’Obama a gagné la Californie alors qu’on n’a pas encore compté les voix. “La Californie est un Etat ou les gens votent généralement pour les démocrates, c’est pourquoi on dit qu’Obama a gagné. On comptera les voix plus tard,” lui ai-je expliqué rapidement. J’ai senti enfin qu’il était content. “Chacun est content ici,” dit-il. “C’est maintenant qu’on va commencer notre fête.”

On Tuesday, Nov. 4, Americans streamed to the polls to select their 44th President. I was busy all day, in my role as a reporter, wandering through Oakland with a colleague from one polling place to another, absorbing impressions of American voters. At 3:32 local time, just as we’d stopped for a time at a corner café to send photos to our website, my cellphone rang. One of my best friends was on the line—from Africa.

Somewhere in the badly-lit streets of Ouagadougou, the capital of West Africa’s Burkina Faso, my friends from home were relaxing on bamboo chairs in the beautiful evening, to celebrate what from their perspective was one of the most important events of their lives.

The night was advancing, and the American election results were late arriving, and they had found themselves gripped by anxiety that was beginning to eclipse the merriment of their party. So the only solution, to calm their spirits, was to call me, in Oakand, constantly, until the proclamation of the final results. It was 4:00 in the morning in Ouagadougou, just a little late for a fine party.

My friend Lassina Traoré is 35 and has never voted in his lfe. He says he doesn’t believe in the transparency of elections in our own country. But for the American election he had pulled twenty friends, civil servants and bank functionaries like him, onto the terrace of his three-room house in Ouagadougou. From 10:00 at night on, they were all there to follow the American election results broadcast live by the French television networks.

He’d told me the day before about the party he was planning.

The tea, the beer, the whiskey, the music, the dance, the barbecue—everything was ready, if Barack Obama were elected President. But as the night advanced, now that it was real, nobody seemed to believe it was possible.

As Lassina Traoré explained to me, the atmosphere was tense. Seated around the television, each of them wisecracked, had their little say—but they were all uneasy. Midnight approached, 4:00 in California, and the first results still weren’t available. The French television commentators they were watching made them more and more nervous.

So at 3:32, when my phone rang at the café in Oakland, it was Lassina Traoré, wanting to know what was going on. “Do you think Obama’s going to win?” he demanded. “We’re all here. And we’re very anxious.”

During the last weeks of the campaign, he told me, the polls were tightening between John McC ain and Barack Obama. They’d also been hearing about a certain “Bradley effect,” which as they understood it makes black people lose elections in the United States.

I explained that the polling places were going to close in less than 30 minutes in Virginia. “If Obama wins Virginia, it’s going to be hard for John McCain to win the election,” I reassured him.

When I got back to the Berkeley campus, to deliver my reporting to Oakland North, the phone rang again. “Obama’s won Virginia?” I recognized the voice of Lassina Traoré. I told him even though the results still weren’t certain, Obama was in a good position now to win. Lassina seemed reassured. But five minutes later he called me back.

“So you think Obama’s been elected?” he asked. “There’ll be no surprises?”

I reassured him once more.

He passed on everything to his friends, who were as anxious as he was. Then a few minutes later, he called me again. “Listen, I have a friend here who doesn’t believe what you told me. I want you to tell him yourself.”

The friend didn’t even bother introducing himself. The only thing he wanted from me was an explanation of what on earth was going on.

I knew Africans were intensely interested in the American elections. Over the last two months, not a day had gone by without a phone calll or an email from home, pleading for news about the state of the election. But I was a long way from imagining just how distraught people could get. “So if he loses Virginia, Obama is eliminated?” he pressed. No, no, I said, that won’t change anything. I gave up, finally; I didn’t have enough argument in me to satisfy him.

That evening, at 8:00, I had to go back to International House, Berkeley’s gathering center for foreign students, to cover the election for our website. But my friends kept calling me. I thought about blocking my phone, just to get my work done—but I couldn’t let down my friends, knowing the emotional state they were in. They’d never shown even the most remote interest in the politics of our own country, but they seemed to have found, in these distant American elections, a unique event that just this once made them proud of the possibilities in politics.

Lassina Traoré called me one last time, at 8:00. He demanded to know why they were hearing that Obama had won California, when they hadn’t yet counted the votes. “La Californie is a state that votes Democratic,” I said. “That’s why Obama’s won. They’ll count the votes later.”

And I could tell, finally, that he was happy. “Everyone is happy here,” he said. “Now, the party begins.”

translated by Cynthia Gorney

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1 Comments

  1. yesil kart on November 16, 2008 at 7:05 pm

    Pourquoi ce site Web n’ont pas l’autre appui de langues ?



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Oakland North is an online news service produced by students at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and covering Oakland, California. Our goals are to improve local coverage, innovate with digital media, and listen to you–about the issues that concern you and the reporting you’d like to see in your community. Please send news tips to: oaklandnorthstaff@gmail.com.

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