Basketball player, cartoonist and drawer, Hervé David Honla is a journalist who rarely laughs. As pleasant as he is simple, this naturalized Burkina Faso from Cameroon is constantly at the center of controversy because of his outspoken criticism. Meet this “misunderstood” cultural journalist from Burkina Faso.

The journalist is a 2.1m tall, calm gait, imposing silhouette. Behind this physique is Hervé David Honla, a journalist and father of three daughters. The man is known to all cultural and media actors in Burkina Faso. After 22 years of living in the country of the upright, the man makes one observation: “the very natural hospitality of the Burkinabè”. “I found people who love their country, who have integrity and who keep their culture. They love foreigners more than their own compatriots. The proof is that they are the ones who gave me lodging and established contacts with me. As a proof of solidarity, he testifies: “I had a problem with my foot that put me in the hospital for 6 months and when people saw the pictures on the web, they thought I was going to be amputated. But I got such an outpouring of solidarity that I wonder if anyone else got as much as I did. It went all the way to the top of the state. They took full responsibility for me. Some contributed anonymously. All of them contributed. And even when I had just arrived in the country, some of them gave me lodging and others paid my rent four months in advance”.  

How did he end up in Burkina Faso? “In Cameroon, I was a member of an association of presidents of basketball clubs, coaches and leaders of Central Africa. In the contract, I was supposed to go to Senegal and Burkina Faso to share my experience and also to co-opt young basketball players to send them to France for basketball camps and eventually to recruit them. Everything went well in Ouagadougou. We even played some games. I was supposed to go to France afterwards but due to circumstances I did not get a visa. It was a contract to be renewed in three months, which was no longer possible. And the project came to a halt. I could no longer go to France or return to Cameroon.  

In the country of Thomas Sankara, the ebullient child of Daoula will become a caricaturist and cartoonist.  Because of these talents, the newspaper L’Indépendant of journalist Norbert Zongo recruited him. A year later, he became a freelancer for the newspaper Le Pays, a general news daily. Then he joined the daily L’Observateur Paalga. “L’Observateur Paalga was a real trigger for me,” he says, adding that the public was very interested in his writings, which were art reviews because it was a new style in Burkina Faso.

After a seven-years experience in this newspaper, he created Oxygène Mag, an online cultural information newspaper.

Risks of the job

Over time, Hervé, nicknamed the Cat, became a renowned cultural critic in Burkina Faso. He is consulted on any issue related to culture, whether it is in cinema or music. “I am like the barometer of culture,” he says proudly. But the journalist-chronicler of television channels informs that there are enough risks in this form of journalism. “It has not been easy for me all this while because I had to go to prison. When I started in the criticism there were low, many low because people did not understand well at the time this form of analysis,” says the Cat, who reveals that the list of setbacks is as long as the arm: “I was threatened, assaulted, robbed on several occasions. I wanted to stop but I told myself that it is my identity. And I continue in this direction. But I admit that my family is often afraid”. 

A great defender of Burkinabè music, when Hervé goes to a maquis or a nightclub, the DJ automatically changes his playlist (usually made up of songs by foreign artists) to play local Burkinabè music. 

Art critic, publication director of Oxygène Mag, journalist consultant, holder of a DUT in Industrial Maintenance, Hervé Honla is a multi-tasker who says he is “misunderstood”. He is also the promoter of the 12 PCA (12 cultural personalities of the year), a major cultural event in Burkina Faso. For this man of culture, culture is a lever that can contribute to the integration of peoples. For that, it is necessary “to put the culture in the center of the debate, for example the joking kinship which exists in Burkina Faso. Cultural inequality makes certain problems persist”. He advises to follow the path traced by Thomas Sankara who, in his opinion, had foreseen everything.

Despite the distance that separates him from his native Cameroon, there is always a look. The political system that governs the country revolts him. “I can’t accept injustice. I am against the current politics in Cameroon. I don’t like the way my country is run. He still appreciates the refusal of Cameroon to install its embassy in Burkina Faso following the death of Sankara. My country Cameroon has refused to set up its embassy in Burkina Faso since the death of Sankara because he was the emblematic man of Africa. I appreciate this Cameroonian decision which is noble and legitimate”.

Fruit of immigration, the adventurer Hervé encourages migration, but that consists in going to seek knowledge and experiences and then return to serve his community. According to him, the African youth has the right to go and take back what the West has plundered in Africa, but on the condition that they come back. “It is true that after studying, they will make you promise a lot of money with cars to pay on credit and many other advantages, but always come back to invest in Africa,” he advises, while advising against illegal immigration which, in his opinion, carries enough risks. He is optimistic about the future of his continent: “I know that the next migration is to Africa,” he concludes.