Sunday, July 24, 2016

The Game of World Domination as explained by the Good Frenchman (An excerpt of "Flash of the Sun")



Flash of the Sun




....It was a Thursday evening when Clement, Delphine, and their little boy waited at the Douala Airport to board a plane for the flight to the United States. Jean-Pierre Ribery was there with his wife and two children to see them off. The Frenchman could see that Clement was still agitated, even though take-off was an hour and a half away. He knew why the US defense attaché Peter Atkins was taking so much time with the Cameroonian and French security and customs officials in the police commissioner’s office inside. The bureaucracy in the new country was cumbersome and greasing the palms of government officials was getting to new heights since January 01, 1960.

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.”

Your Delphine is good too. She would do anything to make you happy. Now take my advice on this one. Take some time off your routine of the past years and enjoy the ride of being a father and husband. And above all, stay out of trouble.”

“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.”

“I will.”...
       

 

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