Biya, Sarkozy And Us
During what was described as a working visit to the Cameroun Republic earlier in the month, the Secretary of State of the French Ministry of Cooperation (the former Ministry of the Colonies), Jean Marie Bockel, announced a meeting between Presidents Paul Biya and Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris at the end of the month.
Given Mr. Sarkozy’s expressed view about us, Africans, as a people yet to make an appearance in history, indeed as a non-people whose natural inclination rhymes with those of animals than those of men, we are offering this quote for Mr. Biya to present to Mr. Sarkozy. The quote, from a study called “Gaullist Africa: Cameroon under Ahmadu Ahidjo” published in 1978, we feel encapsulates the essence of the historical and ongoing relationship between the French state and us, Africans:
“As World War I threatened, French military and political strategists sought ways of supplementing the limited manpower available for the French army due to the earlier fall in the national birth rate. They did not have to look far. There was Africa with its peasants and cultivators already subjected to the military dictates of local administrators and their indigenous “chiefly” subordinates. Africans conscripted into the French Army serve twice as long as French recruits. During the war itself, of the 211,000 conscripts from Africa, 163,952 saw battle in Europe and 24,762 “died for France.” It is estimated that the total number of Africans, combatants as well as workers who directly served the French cause was nearly one million. This contribution by African colonial subjects to the France that had made a science of under developing their economies to shore up its own was to be repeated in the way of men, foodstuffs, and raw materials during the Second World War.”
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And it continues unabated today, regardless of the narrative of France not needing Africa, but visibly contradicted by the French always seeking ways to insert themselves in the African environment, as reported elsewhere in this issue.
The French insist on distinguishing themselves on the continent in ways that no one will mistake with the recent American, British and Dutch initiative in questioning the credibility of the last electoral masquerade in our nation. French initiatives have been limited to interventions under the cover of dark or the nebulous “international community” with armaments and propaganda that serve to plunder, kill and maintain servile authoritarian governments at the service of the métropole.
However, Mr. Paul Biya, we urge you, in 2007, to behave better than one of those “indigenous chiefly subordinates” and use your meeting with Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy to give him a brief lesson and assert the humanity of Africans. As the first French president born after the Second World War, he may very well need a lesson from a long-serving experienced statesman like you. The fact that when you became president of the then United Republic of Cameroon in 1982, Sarkozy was merely 27 years old could serve as a psychological advantage for you to really be yourself, be a man, and speak frankly to the new French president. Speak like President Laurent Gbagbo of Côte d’Ivoire does, and of whom you said during the just ended United Nations 62nd General Assembly meeting in New York, makes Africa proud. We would like you to make us proud.
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