Author: Alan Tacca. PHOTO/FILE
There is a proverb that is shared in many African folk traditions. Rendered in English, its variations go more or less like this: You do not discuss bones and graveyards in the presence of very old people.
When Joe Biden beat Donald Trump to the White House in 2020, it was clear that the mischief of biology would probably not be on Biden’s side, should he seek re-election four years later.
Aged 81 in the 2024 election, Biden would be 85 before completing his second term.
The seduction and sweetness of power are often stronger than common sense. One year ago, Biden could have started defying the sweetness and deployed reason to fight the delusion that he was the only Democrat who could beat Trump.
Since putting himself forward again, but especially during the last few months, Biden has tempted many Americans to talk in whispers when the conversation is about bones or graveyards.
It was intriguing to follow the delicate steps Democratic bigwigs were improvising in the dance that was building pressure around the president without appearing to demand his crucifixion.
From what brain scientists tell us, there is a very dynamic game of interconnected electric switches and chemical movements going on in the brain.
Different chemical concentrations, (fast or delayed) switching speeds and (correct or erroneous) chemical/signal pathfinding variously determine or affect our behaviour. And they have no special respect for people who have power.
Very likely, the signal game in President Biden’s head is far less coordinated than it was when he was younger, causing him to mix up things too often.
That usually happens. Our genes also cut their deal with age, helping us or making our fate worse. Our enlightenment and social environment are also constantly in the picture. Then the endless flow of random coincidences that we call ‘luck’ and sometimes ‘God’ is added to an already very complex dynamic.
What we call common sense suddenly looks not so common after all. That is one reason why powerful people need serious advisors, and society’s strong institutions to restrain the delusions of those who cannot stop power from going to their heads.
That is how an 81-year-old Biden ends up in his present position, leaving the American democratic system fairly secure.
By contrast, preferring to learn nothing that even remotely disturbs the delusions of their dinosaurs, many African nations have crashed, and clambered back to their feet, before staggering to the same wretchedness that was designed 20, 40 and 60 years ago.
So, if in 2025 Cameroon’s then-92-year-old Paul Biya, or in 2029 Equatorial Guinea’s then-87-year-old Teodoro Nguema, stand for re-election, we should not be surprised. A senile Kamuzu Banda, a foggy Robert Mugabe and other deplorable exhibitions were there before. And many others will follow.
That certainty notwithstanding, Mr Biden has not done Africa’s dinosaurs a favour. Some will feel he has betrayed them.
If he had stayed in contention, and especially if he won the race, he would be a wonderful icon to parade as a package of grand old-age wisdom whose kind even a rich smart democratic country like the US could not do without.
Instead, Africa’s dinosaurs could conceivably end up with a 59-year-old youngster called Kamala Harris, who, after scrutinising their records, might be undecided whether to pity or despise them.
And if they end up with Donald Trump, who had characterised Biden as ‘Sleepy Joe’, he could now very well target them, mocking them as icons of a sleeping continent whose proper place on earth is the graveyard.
Alan Tacca is a novelist, socio-political commentator.
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