African Son by Hemminger William J.;

Author:Hemminger, William J.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UPA

Chapter Nine

Out of Country

The health guidebook for State Department diplomats notes that, for newcomers, a feeling of frustration and even mild depression (the French say that they feel dépaysés, “out-of-country”) often follows an initial period of excitement and activity that accompany the discovery of unexpected pleasures and the overcoming of challenges in the new, adopted home. Though I wouldn’t dream of promoting myself to the level of diplomats, I might make a similar observation about myself. My story begins with a story about Cameroon in a year of national elections in both Cameroon and the US.

In 2004 a group of ex-Congressmen from the US came to Cameroon as self-appointed election monitors during the recent presidential elections here. Elderly, courtly, and clueless, the men blew into the country and made numerous fawning appearances on local television, praising the Cameroonians for their fair and open elections and for this fine demonstration that democracy thrives in at least one African nation. The men all wore colorful ties and smiles; they shook hands vigorously everywhere the camera went; television announcers explained casually that most of them hailed from southern states, which might well have provided a primer in non-democratic politics for the ex-lawmakers. Though I didn’t follow the particulars of their visit, they could not have stayed long enough to travel much into the anglophone Northwest Province, where opposition to the Cameroonian Life President has been strong and long-standing and where reports of vote fraud have been relatively consistent. Nor could they have traveled to the extreme-north, where the heat and the difficult weather conditions would surely have withered the elderly statesmen. And, as we all knew he would, the President became the President again.

Most of the international workers I have met—economists and agronomists from GDZ, the German Development Cooperation; health professionals with WHO and Red Cross—claim that Cameroon is one of the most corrupt of countries anywhere. Everyone is on the take; everyone can be bought. A prominent minister quipped to a German friend that he was angry with the Americans for keeping their project moneys off-shore and therefore out of the grasp of people who already, like the minister, lead lives of unrivalled luxury and (perhaps not entirely) unbridled power. Another important official—entrusted democratically with power to act on behalf of the people—clear-cut thousands of hectares of timber, the profits from which went directly into his bank account, people and environment be damned.

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