Jean-Pierre thought he
would have been able to facilitate things with the local authorities by being
by the defense attaché’s side, but the American official had turned down his
offer of assistance. Diplomatic protocol forbade that; he had explained in
concise words. But now, after watching from a distance as Peter Atkins spent so
much time in there trying to talk some sense into the heads of the local authorities,
Jean-Pierre became convinced that the diplomat was yet to understand the real nature
of Francophone bureaucracy. It would be a
learning process for the naïve American, he thought.
He snapped out of his
thoughts to find his wife Rachel whispering into Delphine’s ear and a broad
smile spreading across the young woman’s face. It was the first time he was
seeing her unfettered smile, unencumbered by the worries of her daily life as a
target in Cameroon. His nine-year-old son Jean-Jacques was playing with the
baby Delphine was carrying on her back, and his older brother Marcel was
swinging Rachel’s arm. They cut such a happy image that he took some shots of
them with his camera.
“I will post some of the
pictures to you next week,” Jean-Pierre
said.
Clement replied with a
nod. “Thanks for everything. I look forward to your visit with your family.”
“I try to live up to my
promises.”
“Be careful.”
Jean-Pierre nodded.
“Rachel wouldn’t let me venture anywhere close to danger.”
“You have got a good
woman.”
“Advice heeded,” Clement said. “After experiencing the joy of
life that reigns in the family you and Rachel created, I concluded that
happiness can also be found in our culture, out of the setup we have always known.
All we need is our sense of humanity.”
Jean-Pierre grunted and rubbed his brows, nodding
thoughtfully as he did so. “Let me confide in you about this experience I had
with my father and brothers. Perhaps it would explain something to you,"
he said and licked his lips:
"It was the summer of 1937. My father took my brothers and me to a
village in the south of Cameroon, a village not far from Sangmelima in Betiland,
in the Bulu area precisely. It was a place he had been paying frequent visits
to over the years. That was where I met a pigmy for the first time. The man was
in his forties, and he was walking around practically naked except for the
scanty material covering his manhood. My
youngest brother Jacques, who had just turned eleven, thought the fellow looked
and acted funny, that he was behaving like a clueless child. My knucklehead
brother who didn’t know any better, made known his perception to us with a
chuckle that had an insulting ring in it. He drew immediate ire from our father
who yanked him away to the edge of the village, cursing and threatening. My
other brother Jules and I were initially taken aback by the rapid developments,
but then I remembered that our father always thought highly of Jacques. So,
this sudden idea that my father taking his anger on the knucklehead would be
fun to watch, after all, had a wonderful appeal to me at the time. We knew our
father could become unpredictable in a hurtful way when his adrenaline level moved
up; so, we trailed him and Jacques with a great deal of trepidation and awe, if
not curiosity. My old man was breathless when he finally came to a stop. In
fact, he had to take a deep breath before he mustered the words to address my
brother:
‘I never want to hear or see you run down or
undermine another human being again; do you hear me?’ he told Jacques in
between gasps in the most threatening voice I had ever heard coming out of his
mouth.
“My brother nodded, still lost for
words, looking like he was about to pee in his pants.
‘That man you just insulted is the
best native doctor I have ever known. He knows the right herbs for the cure of
so many ailments that he deserves to win the Nobel Prize in Psychology or
Medicine. The good fellow is even far better at curing people and animals than I
or any other French doctor alive. And guess what? All this while, he has been
showing me the herbs and passing over other useful knowledge to me without
asking for anything in return. Can’t you see?
I have learned much from him that can make us rich for the rest of our
lives if I decide to put the knowledge to use in France or if I decide to
monetize it, to commercialize it.’
‘If he knows so much, then why is he
so poor and miserable-looking?’ My brother stuttered with a look of
stupefaction on his face.
‘Mon Salopard!’ my father raged, shaking his head incredulously, ‘Young man; he is what
he is today because he attaches no value to wealth as we know it. The good
fellow is happy. And he doesn’t derive his happiness by depriving others of
theirs,’ our old man said, looking at my brother for a moment, and then at us
before adding in an incongruous voice, ‘Boys, follow me.’
“We did. He took us for a short walk
into the forest, into the jungle, to put it plainly. The sun was up and very
bright that afternoon, but it was somehow dim down there. You see, we stopped
close to a small river, and I noticed that the vegetation lining the riverbank
was not only very dense but very lush as well.
‘Do you know what the tallest tree in
the world is called?’ he asked us finally.
‘The sequoia in California,’ Jacques
replied with a smirk on his face.
“It is good to know that as an
adolescent, Jacques had this knack of saying and doing unbearable things.
Anyway, the walk must have affected my father on the positive side because he
responded to his answer graciously. ‘Good, good, good, Jacques! Now tell me:
why is this forest dark; why is it dark in here?’
‘Well!’ Jacques muttered, turning his
head around, apparently to get our input.
‘Well, what?’ my father asked.
‘I think is because of the canopy.’
‘And what is the canopy?’
‘This!’
‘What do you mean by this?’ my father
asked in a teasing manner.
My brother shrugged, moved his body
around, looked at us, and then turned around again and faced my father. ‘Isn’t
the roof of the forest made up of its largest trees such as these mahogany,
iroko and sapele trees?’
‘Is that all?’
‘I guess so,’ my brother replied with
another obnoxious shrug.
‘Listen to me, Sons! Listen to me
very well because this piece of information is going to be very useful to you
in real life. If you fly over this area, your aerial view of this forest would
be dominated by the tall trees forming the forest canopy. From that picture,
you are likely to think that the forest is all about these imposing trees when
they are just a decimal of the forest ecosystem, of the plant life if we need
to be precise about it. As you fly over
this forest, you are most likely to fail to take the other three layers of the
forest structure into account, layers like this forest floor with its sparse
vegetation and smell of decay caused by the less than two percent sunlight it
receives,’ he said sweeping his arms around, ‘You are also likely to miss the understory layer over there which
is made up of small trees, vine, shrubs,
and herbs whose heights cannot amount to a quarter of those of the canopy trees
because they hardly receive more than five percent of sunlight,’ he added with
a nod, ‘Now, let’s get out of here.’
“My father must have wanted us to
reflect a little because he did not utter another word to us throughout the
short walk that brought us back to the edge of the forest. I wasn’t the only
one who found it odd, but I guess each one of us decided on his own volition to
leave him alone for a moment to grapple with his thoughts. Believe it or not,
if we thought that was all about the matter, then we were badly mistaken. We
were close to our destination when he stopped, held my shoulder, and then
gestured for the others to stop too. ‘Sons, do you see the few large trees over
there that are sticking out above the canopy?’
‘Yes, Papa,’ we responded in unison.
‘They form the fourth layer. I
consider them the movers of the forest since they prevailed over the others,
since they managed not to be suppressed by the canopy. We Europeans and the
West, in general, are like the canopy that dominates the forest and prevents
light, the source of energy, from reaching other forms of life occupying the
forest floor and the understory layer. Our actions cause decay or stagnation
for some and force others to scrape an existence that is nothing more than a
fight for survival. That is what we the colonizers, the imperialists and the
capitalists have done to the rest of the world we dominate, to the rest of the
world that we can liken to the forest floor and the understory layer. The
status quo prevails because most of the deprived people of this world are
unconscious of or are indifferent to the machinations that have led us to the
top of the power chain and that have been keeping us there ever since. They are
unaware of the schemes we perpetuate in order to emerge as winners in this rat
race of world domination. Now, I want you to know that of all the survivors I
am talking about, the pigmies are the best equipped.’
‘And what about the tallest trees,
the emergent layer?’ I asked my father.
The old man did not respond to my
question right away. Instead, he looked at me with a sweet smile on his face,
and then nodded. ‘They are the true winners in the forest; they have the best
survivor instincts. If given the opportunity to grow, they end up towering above
the canopy. Imagine our pigmy friend becoming enlightened or imagine him
getting the exposure I was privileged to be born and raised in. He would be
considered a genius; he would make tons of money. If given the room to maneuver,
the underprivileged people of this world who never allowed their will to be
broken will dominate like the emergent layer which you find so puzzling. Now,
is our world ever going to give these natural survivors of life the room to
exploit their potentials, the room to maneuver?’ my father said, more as a
statement than a question,” Jean-Pierre intoned and took a deep breath.
“That was intense,” Clement said, realizing just then that he
was holding his breath, but for how long that lasted during the narration, he
could not tell.
“I couldn’t think of an answer to that question at the time,
Clement. My brothers did not offer a response either. I even doubt if my father
had one for us. All the same, he did not brooch the topic again and I never
forgot that day in the forest. Whenever I ponder the developments in France and
its former colonies, especially the things that Charles De Gaulle and his group
are implementing in Africa today, I get to understand even better what the old
man was trying to tell us. The Colonial Pact my country imposed on Cameroon and
the other peoples of Francophone Africa through the puppets the venerated
Charles De Gaulle and the furtive Jacques Foccart put in place in France’s
former colonies before granting them their so-called independence is a crime
against humanity because it deprives them of the means to live up to their
potential in just the same manner that the canopy deprives the other forest
layers of light and life. The truth is that this pseudo-independence we gave
Francophone Africans is meant to keep them in perpetual bondage. The whole
scheme makes France parasitic on its former colonies like the canopy trees that
feed on the nutrients of the decay of the forest floor and even the understory
layer.”
“Huh!” Clement exclaimed with a contemplative look on his
face.
“Don’t fail to have that in mind as you write your book.”
“I wouldn’t.”
Just then Peter Atkins emerged from the commissioner’s office
with a serious look on his face. Clement edged forward and met him. “You have
been cleared to fly home with your wife and son,” he announced.
Clement hugged his compatriot tightly. “Thank you, buddy! I
don’t know how I can ever repay you for having my back,” he said in an
emotion-choked voice.
“I am doing my job, Clement! Now, go home, take care of your family,
and stay away from trouble.”
By Janvier Chouteu-Chando, author of Flash of the Sun amazon.com/Flash-Sun-Comp
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