An Excerpt of Flash of the Sun
Jean-Pierre chuckled.
“The current moves by the system we have put in place for Ahidjo to manage
serve as a palliative, not as a solution to Cameroon’s problems in the
country’s chaotic march towards doom.”
“I may need to write that
down.”
“The natives of this land
have a cryptic and witty side that we tend to ignore. They have a saying that
‘If you make or turn yourself into a banana, monkeys will eat you up in no
time.’”
“I will write that down
too. Please give me a moment,” Clement said, ferreted out a pen and a sheet of paper
in the room, and then returned with it to the sitting room.
“Do you want me to repeat
them?” Jean-Pierre asked.
Clement nodded.
The Frenchman did and
watched his American counterpart in silence as he wrote them down.
“Done!”
“Good. I was about to add
that the world of the people you look up to is a world of interest. Clement,
the values they talk about and flash around in the media and public speaking
are for local consumption and literary definition only. National interest or
the interest of the influential class is the technical definition of French
foreign policy, of capitalism and of the big powers of this world.”
“I won’t write that one
down,” Clement joked.
“Believe me, the West
defeated Hitler, but Fascism won,” the Frenchman said suddenly and heaved his
shoulder, shaking his head knowingly like someone with a deep secret that he
found amusing to share.
“What do you mean?”
Clement asked barely above a mumble.
“We learned so many of
the methods that Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy employed to control their
populations and the nations they conquered. And when I say the West, I mean
France, Britain, the USA, Japan, Germany and all the countries that oppose the
Soviet Union. As a matter of fact, the Soviet Union also adopted some of
Hitler’s methods. Let me add something here to articulate my point of view even
further. Clement, our Western democracies are quickly evolving into
plutocracies.”
“Can you expatiate on
that?”
“I will, I will. First,
let me take a breath,” Jean-Pierre said with a nod, exhaled deeply, and then
continued, “You see; our populations have no clue that when the victorious
Allied powers, including the Soviet Union, dismantled the fabrics of the states
Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy created, they took not only valuable industrial
and technological assets home with them but also thousands of Nazi Germany’s
and Fascist Italy’s military and industrial leaders whom we put to work in our
home countries in the development of technologies and means of control. From
the Nazis, our governments also learned the power of the media and the results
that come from weaving big lies that the people are given piecemeal until they
become unconscious of the fact that their way of thinking, their
decision-making process, is the result of the information they got fed with
over the years, tailored information that suits the agenda of the few who are
in real control of our systems. The masses never get to figure out that they are
being taken for a ride or that they are being made to serve the purpose of the
controllers of the state.”
“You are making an
interesting point here.”
“Tell me, Clement! You
are a journalist. What are you going to write about the killing of my wife?
Nothing! She was an African, the wife of a communist. Of course, it is not
newsworthy.”
“I will tell her story,”
Clement said in a constricted voice.
“You said you will!”
Jean-Pierre laughed, throwing his hands in the air, “Clement said he will. How
are you going to do that when you and I know that your bosses will not allow
you to do such a thing? Stories like that do not fit well into their narrative
of the pacification of Cameroon, of the Western Allies’ fight against
Soviet-backed communists in Africa. Tell me, my friend, how many of the
articles you wrote while you were here, and which you sent back home, ever got
published? Or what percentage of your heart-wrenching accounts of the carnage
in French Cameroun made it to print in the US media? Huh? Tell me, Clement!
Which ones? Time magazine, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles
Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Philadelphia Inquirer, etc., etc. I
understand the modus operandi, Clement. My country and your country want our
people to believe that France is fighting communism here in Cameroon. So,
forget about the whole military posturing and chest-thumping, my friend. You
are a tool in the hands of a master you can’t even fathom.”
“I am not. I also write
fiction and nonfiction. I am writing a book on the Cameroonian story.”
“How many Americans, in
your opinion, know where Cameroon is? How many of your trend-driven compatriots
will bother to understand the plight of a people in this remote continent of
Africa, a people who are being told by their government that their French
allies are cleansing Cameroon and Cameroonians of the specter of communism?”
“My story will get
across, I promise.”
“I understand your good
heart, my friend. My concern is the mass media. In totalitarian states like
China and the Soviet Union, the state directly controls them, but in our Western
nations, our bosses, our shareholders, and our secret societies control them.
Uh-huh, Clement! The mass media in all societies are accountable to the
governments in power. So, you see, even our media is still controlled by our
governments, though they exert their control indirectly. So, like the citizens
of totalitarian states, our citizens too are compelled to hear what their
governments want them to hear; they get the information the way our governments
want them to get it, and they get bombarded with this targeted information at a
frequency that our governments deem reasonable to turn them into processed
zombies, into biorobots that will serve the ultimate purpose our governments
have in mind.”
“God!”
“That is the reality of
our world today. The rich and powerful do whatever they want to do, while the
poor and weak folks of this world can do only what they can.”
Clement sat forward and
dropped his head in his hands, an agonized look on his face. “I am not one of
them,” he stuttered, “I hope you can see that. My book will tell it all.
Watch—” he left unfinished and stared at Jean-Pierre with quizzical eyes as the
sound of artillery shells shattered the tranquility of the Banganté evening.
“It is okay. Our armies
start shelling at regular intervals from 17:00 hours every day. It is directed
at the outskirts of Banganté. They do the same thing with the other population
centers here in the Bamileké country with the stated objective of deterring the
partisans from approaching the towns and camps.”
“Camps?”
“Yes, camps!” Jean-Pierre
reiterated, dimming his eyes at Clement. “Mon Dieu, you are not aware of
that development. I am glad you came, Clement,” he added with a short laugh.
“What do you mean?
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