(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
It is not everyday that a sitting president of an African country writes an autobiography. Now the president of Chad, Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, has done it.
In a country where less than half of the inhabitants can read and write, the market for books is not large. When the 170-page book is also published by a publisher in Paris and costs 16 euros, more than a week's hard work for a minimum wage worker, we understand that From Bedouin to President ("From Bedouin to President") is not intended for the man in the street in Chad. It is probably aimed at a very limited international audience with an interest in Chad, as well as a few people belonging to the rich and French-reading elite in N'Djamena. The capital has one and a half million inhabitants and one bookstore – La Source – which is only open in the morning a few days a week. Books are not common property in Chad.
Nevertheless, Mahamat Déby's autobiography is written completely in line with politician autobiographies we are used to from Norway. We get a good portion of anecdotes that illustrate the head of state's courage, determination and empathy. For example, Mahamat tells in detail about when his father appointed him brigadier general. He was sternly told not to disappoint him, never to flee from an enemy, but always to fight like a lion. Also, his father gave him an amulet that would protect him from dangers.
Mahamat had over fifty siblings.
Proudly, he says that he and his troops arrived in Northern Mali in January 2013 and killed over a hundred terrorists already on the first day, and that the amulet worked. Most people in Chad have amulets that protect or bring good luck. The president thus shows that he is an ordinary man. He reinforces this by telling about his upbringing, as Norwegian politicians have also done. Mahamat says that he did not go to school until he was a teenager, but that from the age of five he was given responsibility for herding the family's 30 dromedaries in the middle of the desert in the north of the country. As a child he did not know French, he only spoke his mother tongue, Goran. Mahamat constructs a story that he had an ordinary upbringing without special privileges and thus establishes an image that it is his ability, more than his family background, that has made him president of Chad.
The country's first lady
Norwegian politicians usually clarify their political ideologies and position themselves within their own party. But it is positioning according to named individuals in the extended family, the bureaucracy and the military that is important to Mahamat. This says a lot about how political power is won and distributed in Chad, a country where the different parties do not have different ideologies, but only party leaders from different religions, places in the country, family clans... For example, Mahamat uses space to explain how disappointed he was Hinda Déby – who was the country's first lady, but not his own mother.
The father had four wives at all times, and the fact that he had married and divorced a number of times is not mentioned in the autobiography. Nor that Mahamat had over fifty siblings. But Mahamat spends a lot of time explaining how First Lady Hinda had tried to remove him from his father and the inner circles of power. A few years before his father's death, Mahamat felt so badly treated by Hinda that he started drinking alcohol in large quantities. After her father's death, Mahamat was even more shocked and hurt by her behavior, towards both himself and his father's legacy. Thus he writes her out of history, out of any position of power in the country. By the time the book was published, most of her close relatives had lost their highly trusted and well-paid positions in the state administration. She herself had been granted French citizenship and moved (or fled) to Paris with her children.
Father's death
As in the autobiographies of Norwegian politicians, Mahamat also attempts to legitimize controversial decisions.
The autobiography came just a few days before the presidential election and was clearly part of the election campaign.
The autobiography came just a few days before the presidential election on 6 May (2024) and was clearly part of the election campaign. Mahamat had been interim president of Chad since his father was killed by FACT rebels in April 2021.
The circumstances surrounding his father's death were unclear, and various rumors abounded. Some would have it that Mahamat, who at the time of the murder led the presidential guard, had been involved in the execution. Others believed the murder was a settlement between different branches of the Déby family.
In the autobiography, we get the official version of the murder almost in the form of a crime novel: "It is 11 o'clock, it is Monday 19 April [2021], and we have won an important battle. I ask General Souleyman where my father is and he says he can drive me to the President. But father is not where he should be […]. We see that one of the cars of the president's bodyguards is on fire. I'm getting anxious... A major says that father is injured and has been evacuated. They send a helicopter for me to get home faster, but before I reach N'Djamena, I am told that Idriss Déby, the president of Chad and my father, is no longer with us." (The quote was translated by the reviewer.)
With this exciting and detailed (I've left out a lot) story, Mahamat Déby has made it clear that he was nowhere near his father when he was killed. He also gives us the names of a number of high-ranking military leaders who testify that his story is true. Rumors about who actually killed the father are thus put to rest. That he does not mention that the murder of his father was never investigated, and that the rebels in the FACT collective were convicted for it, only those who have followed the country's politics very well will understand.
President Déby naturally won the election in May with over 60 percent of the vote. He has written an autobiography which in form is similar to the autobiographies of Norwegian politicians, but which – if you read more between the lines than on them – says a lot about how political power struggles are fought in Chad.
