Daily Inspiration Quote by Omar Bongo

“Duty of solidarity” is the kind of phrase that sounds like moral clarity while leaving just enough room to do politics as usual. Omar Bongo, Gabon’s long-ruling president, deploys it as a binding principle: solidarity isn’t a feeling, it’s an obligation. The compression matters. “In short” signals impatience with debate; we’re meant to accept the premise as settled wisdom. “Among African countries” draws a circle around the audience, a rhetorical move that turns critique into disloyalty and frames outside pressure as intrusion. It’s continental family talk with state power behind it.

In context, Bongo’s career sat at the intersection of post-independence African diplomacy and the hard realities of regime survival. Solidarity, in that world, can be noble (anti-colonial coordination, regional integration, mutual aid) and transactional (non-interference pacts, bloc voting, shielding leaders from scrutiny). The subtext is that unity should outrank accountability: support your neighbor’s government, don’t amplify internal conflicts, don’t invite external arbitration that might one day be used against you.

The line also carries the memory of how Africa has been talked about from abroad: as a set of “failed states,” a humanitarian problem, a strategic chessboard. Bongo’s formulation pushes back by insisting on an African-first ethic. But it also conveniently centralizes incumbents as the authors of that ethic. When solidarity becomes a “duty,” it can legitimate both pan-African aspiration and the quiet protection racket of power.