Chronic Q: You say that you are in favour of a recolonisation of Cameroon?
Jean-Pierre Bekolo Obama: After fifty-two years of independence, the time has come for us to take stock of how we've been thinking the world over this past half-century and to draw basic conclusions from this. We have to face up to the fact that the ideologies of self-determination and, ultimately, independence born of the national liberation movements we all supported are no longer in synch with the realities of present-day globalisation. It's for this reason that we are at an impasse. It's become self-evident that we won't get where we want to go by insisting on doing things on our own, because, in some regards, we're just in over our heads.
Q: So you want the white man to come back and exploit us, whip in hand?
JPBO: The whip is already here. Just take a look at Côte d'Ivoire and Libya. Everybody's pillaging, even the Chinese! We can't blame them – we're the ones who abandoned the notion of self-determination, so let's admit it once and for all and make it official. There's no doubt about it: 52 years after independence, Africa in general, and Cameroon in particular, have taken onboard key aspects of the colonial project they once rejected.
In the end, the colonial project turned out to be far more successful than its initiators could ever have hoped – the only difference being that, as he wasn't well seen to be a colonialist any more, the pilot parachuted out of the plane. Another one took over – he's the one at the controls now – and he's a crappy pilot doing his thing without a real flight plan. He pretends that he knows his way around the cockpit, but it's just an ego trip.
He's a puppet pilot, whose only goal is to exploit for his own wellbeing resources that belong to the collective. What we need to do is turn the clock back to the moment when things started to go wrong, to the point where the lying and the hypocrisy began: that is, to the moment of so-called independence. If we get rid of the negatives – exploitation and oppression – the recolonisation project is likely to go over very well with the
people of Africa, who just can't take it anymore. Even when it comes to safeguarding our cultures, it's the white folks who care the most. Our art and our artists get more support from the West than from these parts and, meanwhile, we're dreaming of Chinese doodads, second-hand cars and stuff white people buy. It's like things haven't changed since the days of slavery. Let's thank Jacques Chirac for the Quai Branly museum: at least our heritage is being taken care of.
Q: You revere the white man?
JPBO: It's not me: it's Africans in general and Cameroonians more particularly. Give it a try: go into a public administration building with a white man, see how Cameroonians behave when faced with a European, today. In business, people often seek out a white person to act as a front, just to be taken seriously. If we're going to play that game, then let's get the best whities in here! It's time we dealt with the real issues! Where are we now? That's the question.
Wow!- Ikhide
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