Mrs. Sanou Doussou Condé
May 2011
New York City
"I don’t buy it"
Dominique Strauss-Khan’s sister, Valérie, is quoted in two of her brother’s biographies (one of them unauthorized and vicious), stating that, while growing up, at the dinner table, their parents and their friends would often engage in intense secular “pilpuls.” Pilpul—literally splitting hairs in Hebrew—is a Talmudic exercise consisting in pushing a strand of reasoning in one direction to its extreme limits; then picking up the strand where it was left and running it in the opposite direction. The Strauss-Khan kids were full participants in those evening pilpuls.
After those evening dinners, DSK would often squarely stay put in his chair, continuing “to pilpul” with his parents’ guests, neglecting to help in clearing the table. This terrible habit led his father to nickname him “cul-de-plomb” (butt-of-lead).
That’s why family members and the many friends of DSK didn’t buy the tall tale concocted by the Guinean Sofitel chambermaid-cum-hooker called Nafissatou Diallo aka Ophelia: how could a natural-born “wordsmith,” who went on to become a brilliant professor of economics, suddenly turns into the vicious beast the African Sofitel beauty claimed he’d become?... Btw, in France and in African Francophone countries, there’s no such thing as the American sacrosanct anonymity of an alleged rape victim and accuser. In her native Guinea, in France, and in Africa, Nafissatou Diallo is not only known by name, but her picture is published as well (village photo below):
Village framed photo of Chambermaid-cum-Hooker Nafissatou Diallo
DSK accuser
Nafissatou Diallo was even featured on the cover of the glossy Paris Match:
Some bold friends of DSK—like “new philosopher” Bernard-Henri Lévy (BHL)—went out of their way to stick out their necks in forceful defense of their longtime friend—risking the massive flak that such a move could—and did—draw from American tabloids. In other words: Boldness be my friend!
African journalists and bloggers, just like New York tabloids, “lynched” DSK too. Some African comics couldn’t resist easy jokes to the effect that the IMF had fucked Africa all over again. African leaders, by contrast, were more cautious. And for good reason… DSK has always been Africa’s friend—as France’s two-times minister, and as IMF head. Côte d’Ivoire’s President Alassane Dramane Ouattara aka ADO, a close friend of DSK, invoked the “presumption of innocence” and claimed to be waiting for justice to run its course before he’d come up with a personal opinion. In an interview with Radio France Internationale (RFI) just aired this past June 13, the newly-elected president of Guinea, Professor Alpha Condé, while paying lip service to national solidarity with a fellow Guinean, pointed out that his party was a “member of the Socialist International as the French Socialist party. It is therefore sad for us what has happened. We’re doubly affected: first as socialists but also the fact that she’s a fellow countrywoman.”
Lately, DSK’s life has turned into some kind of his childhood pilpuls. In fact, in many regards, it also has the inexhaustible variety of a smorgasbord for that matter (more on the smorgasbord consistency of DSK’s life below). First consider the turnabout of New York tabloids. Then consider also the copycats coming out of the woodwork to heap fresh accusations upon the embattled man, just as he seems to be off the hook in New York. Like the erstwhile and lowlife groupie (and daughter's friend) turned foe Tristane Banon (photo below), who has just now filed trumped-up charges against DSK for a rape that she said happened in… 2003! Just as with Nafissatou Diallo’s attempted scam, there’s not a shred of evidence to back Banon’s accusation (DSK has already countersued). And in all likelihood, she’ll soon be discredited and her career of bad journalism and awful writing would finally make its way into the list of a season's bestsellers.
Writer-Journalist Tristane Banon and her lawyer David Koubbi
Paris, May 2011
Truth be told: like everyone else, I started believing the lies of that hooker, name of Nafissatou Diallo. Btw, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a hooker-hater. In fact, my position is that prostitution ought to be legalized, like in Nevada, Holland, or in some other civilized climes… But blackmailer is what blackmailer does: evil. It’s just that in this instance, the blackmailer also happened to be a hooker…
I’m a committed feminist and a personal enemy of all those who prey on women: I’ve two daughters myself after all! But I started having serious doubts about Nafissatou Diallo’s crazy story in May when I watched on YouTube the interview of another Guinean woman, Mrs. Sanou Doussou Condé (no relation to the Guinean president), a feminist and activist to boot, also based in New York. Where I grew up, the words of such a woman are their worth in gold.
Below is my translation of a section of Mrs. Sanou Doussou Condé’s interview in which she expresses her doubts on Nafissatou Diallo’s narrative. I must concede that she voiced her opinion rather ramblingly, and at times I frankly disagreed with parts of her rationale for disbelieving the hooker called Nafissatou Diallo:
“I’m devastated as an African woman; humiliated as a Guinean woman. I’m taking responsibility for my words. A statesman of the stature of Dominique Strauss-Khan, Mr. Africa, for we mustn’t kid ourselves, this man, his stint at the IMF has proven that equality is possible, in his fight to help disenfranchised peoples… That one of my fellow citizens should be playing this game… I don’t buy it. In my culture, (…), a mother of family who’s raped, in a hotel, without a witness, and according to everything that’s being said—for we must be careful here—that it was only after several hours that she claimed to have been raped. Without any witness. A big hotel like that, without any cameras… I’m stunned. (…) It is astonishing. I say it from my own flesh. (…) I’m miserable for her. But I’m also distressed that each time, ever since I’m in this country, whenever they talk about Guinea, it’s about humiliation and sadness. And this one is the last straw.”
This is an African woman speaking from her “own flesh” indeed. And, just as BHL was lynched in the US media after his defense of DSK, Mrs. Sanou Doussou Condé was savaged by African and Guinean bloggers…
Though Mrs. Sanou Doussou Condé didn’t allude to it in her defense of DSK, the most astonishing thing about the former IMF head is his Guinean family connection. This is what I call the African-qua-Guinean part of the Smorgasbord called DSK…
DSK’s sister was married to a Guinean named Keita Kara Soufiana aka de Soufiane (his mugshot below). The man was a police commissioner in Conakry, the capital city of Guinea, under the bloody dictatorship of President Sékou Touré. The estimate of the Guineans this madman murdered varies between 30,000 and 60,000! An African Stalin...
On Monday, January 25, 1971, Keita Kara Soufiana was hanged at the bridge Pont Tombo (today called Pont du 8 novembre) in Conakry alongside other Guinean officials for the crime of “treason”—in the photo below, from back to front: Ousmane Baldet (minister of finance); Barry III (secretary of state); Magassouba Moriba (minister); and Keita Kara Soufiana (DSK’s brother-in-law):
Now, DSK’s sister and her Guinean husband had a son, Stéphane Keita. At 53, the Guinean-French Stéphane Keita (photo below) is today the CEO of the Société Nationale Immobilière (SNI), the parastatal that manages the formidable real estate holdings of the French government—after a stint as chief of cabinet of his uncle DSK, when the latter was serving in his first stint in the French government in the early 1990s as minister of industry and external trade.
Franco-Guinean Stéphane Keita, DSK's nephew and former aide
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