After Pierre Nkurunziza ran for a third term in office in May 2015, even though the Arusha Agreement allowed for a maximum of two, Burundi was in the midst of a new political and military crisis. After weeks of violent demonstrations and a coup d'état, the incumbent president was re-elected and the country became mired in violence. This paper is a study 'from below' where it proposes an analysis of this Burundian political process that is a priori impossible to understand. It seeks to understand why political action in Burundi and acts of violence on a daily basis are so difficult to analyse by focusing on one notion: 'ensilence', by trying to understand the different logics of intention of the actors. This study highlights the contours of an unseen form of silence. A phenomenon is observed where power is certainly authoritarian, but also failing and therefore not omnipotent, leaving room in its interstices for a reappropriation by the populations of authoritarian excesses.  

The paper hypothesises a form of authoritarianism exercises ‘from below’ by peers. In Burundi, it is within society where one can find a ‘Souverain Moderne' (Modern Sovereign, Tonda: 2005) in the form of violent relationships between individuals, a culture of peer ensilence, paranoia, etc. The reading of the logic of oppression here through a ‘top-down’ logic is not fruitful, surveillance takes place through peers and in the interstices. This shows that the threat most often comes from the (closest) relations to oneself, which leads to feelings of betrayal within the population, but which also leads to a logic of silence, self-censorship and great paranoia. ed in order to promote a positive long-term impact on the quality of teaching and research.