Often times, the most complicated peace is better than the simplest war. Both Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara are losers and both led the Ivorian people towards a losing path. I pity them both, because I think there is a nucleus of goodness in their souls.
There are tons of lessons to learn from the decade old Ivorian quagmire that ultimately led to the humiliation of a naïve Gbagbo and the crippled ascension to power of Ouattara; one of which is that the arena of African power play or politics is a battle ground of ancient Greek classic proportions, like "The Iliad", where the warriors reel in their bravado, unconscious of the external influences of the greater powers (the gods) in their victories, defeats, survivals or escapes. The Parlement generation of Cameroon, especially those of the later years, suffer deeply from that incomprehension.
France's detrimental involvement in African local politics has been done with impunity, usually masqueraded as French efforts to save lives in areas they controlled in the past and ensured peace and prosperity during their colonial rule. In a nutshell, France and the squabbling successors of Félix Houphouët-Boigny (Konan Bedie, Ouattara, and General Gei etc) saw Gbagbo’s 2000 electoral victory as an unacceptable mistake on their part that needed correction. Developments in the country after that, whether directly or indirectly, stemmed from that conception.
Countries like Cameroon will never be free unless France accepts the error of its ways one way or the other. And some Africans are not helping the process of growth when we come out blindly against those Africans who in their amateurish and short-sighted ways confronted the full machinery of the conspiratorial powers (or god-like powers when analogizing from ancient Greek mythology).
I won't comment deeply on this Ivorian problem. We will face it again in Cameroon; and the rest of Central Africa will be gripped by similar deceptions in the next couple of years. But one thing for sure is that this French pattern has been in application for close to a century in Africa.
The job of the post-independence advocates of change is to study the methods keeping Africans under perpetual helplessness and chaos to the point where the organizers of the chaos end up looking like the saviors. Africans should understand their history, master the levers of power and understand that their salvation rests only in them sticking together and accepting one another as indispensable contributors in a future, prosperous and free country and continent.
I say so with sadness because two days ago, I talked with ex-Zairois who blamed Lumumba for the deplorable state of The Democratic Republic of Congo today; accusing him of taking Congo to independence when they were not ready, of bringing Mobuto to power and for not sharing his vision with the other politicians. It is like blaming Jesus Christ for his betrayal by Judas. And Congo, the sick heart of Africa will find itself trapped for eternity in incomprehension if it does not reconcile itself to its paralyzing history inflicted on the infant nation by the powers that plotted Lumumba's ouster and death.
Equally, in a three way discourse with a Dutch professor in Amsterdam in 2003, a fellow compatriot argued forcefully that there has never been a war in Cameroon, that no massacres were carried out by French and Ahidjo forces, that Biya is a great leader and that Cameroon was doing great, which is why it is better off than most African countries. A fool’s paradise I called it. Or was he gripped by the
Potemkin syndrome at the time? Not until the young man read
Triple Agent, Double Cross afterwards, not until after having had his curiosity aroused, and after doing some research of his own did he lament the degree of brainwashing he and most Cameroonians had been subjected to. He was still brainwashed while studying and living in
Europe’s most liberal country.
Africans need to emancipate themselves from the mental slavery that still has most of Africa trapped in incomprehension and suffering from a lack of sense of direction. The lucky ones, especially those in the Diaspora, should be leading the effort of emancipation.
April 13, 2011
