Africa is not a country

Many thanks to all of you who are keeping this blog exciting. I received many positive and constructive feedbacks through comments, emails and in person. I would like to seize this opportunity to make my position clear in response to some questions that were asked. 1) I am not an Afro-pessimistic; I am an Afro-optimistic. I believe in the future of Africa and know that Africa has a lot to offer. 2) I cannot tackle all the problems of Africa and find the magical solution in this article. The following is an excerpt of the first chapter of my book:

[I am a Cameroonian and Cameroon is one of the fifty-three countries of Africa. When I was growing up, I was told that Africa was the cradle of civilization and the place where life originated. The teachings I received were about the pride of Africa as the rarest place where life and nature were still respected and where love and peace reigned. I became quickly disillusioned when I opened myself to the world. For many people, Africa was just one big country; a reservoir of war, famine, corruption and diseases, a place crippled with lack of education, sanitation and civilities. I also learned that Africa was a useless leech crying with desperation for assistance. Now I had two conflicting views of my continent: how I saw it from inside out and how people saw it from outside in.


Far from me to deny my “Africanity”, I am simply exposing my “Cameroonity”. I am all for Kwame Nkrumah’s suggestion of the Unites States of Africa and Pan-Africanism currently advocated by Muammar al-Gaddafi. I strongly believe in African Unity and now African Union. I just feel the urge to emphasize the complexity of Africa and the uniqueness of its countries.

In the summer of 2006, a group of young American Christians came from Dallas, Texas, to train Cameroonian kids in leadership. Some of them struggled with the confusion between Cameroon and Africa. Each time they wanted to talk about Cameroon, they referred to it as Africa. I got a little annoyed by that confusion and reminded them that Cameroon was a country and Africa was a continent. One young American girl came to me and said:

“Thank you for that distinction, I didn’t know the difference before.”

“You are welcome, I am happy to help,” I said. “Could you do me a favor?”

“Of course and what would that be?” she asked.

“When you go back to America, if people ask you ‘where did you go last summer?’ please tell them ‘I went to Cameroon’ instead of ‘I went to Africa’, and when they ask you ‘and where is Cameroon?’ tell them ‘Cameroon is a country in West Africa’ then they would be able to find Cameroon on a map as a country and realize that Africa is actually a continent.”

“Yes, I promise that from now on I will no more call Cameroon Africa and will explain to people that Cameroon is a country in Africa.” She promised.

As I continued to talk to people about Africa and Cameroon, something absurd was happening. The so-called “Sommet France-Afrique” – a kind of summit between one country in Europe, France, and an entire continent, Africa – was expanding. France would summon all African leaders and pontificate them on their progress, and they would be listening like little obedient servants. I then questioned myself why France, as one country, thought it had the power to dictate fifty-three countries on what to do? I had never heard the super power and mighty United States arrogantly say that there was a US-Asia summit or US-Europe summit not to mention US-Africa summit. Even though giant China was invading Africa economically and population-wise, I was still craving to see what would come out of the increasing China-Africa summit.

A few years earlier when South Africa proposed their bid to organize the soccer World Cup championship in 2010, there was a big skepticism; people said that Africa wasn’t ready to organize a major event. They said there was too much poverty, disease, war, insecurity and inexperience, not to mention the lack of infrastructure. Nevertheless, since all the other continents had already organized the event many times in the past, they pitifully offered the bid to South Africa like a father who had five children and realized that four of them had always benefited from his largesse, then, he decided reluctantly to trust the discriminated last child. The whole world cried to boycott the games in South Africa after an incident that happened during the African Cup of Nations in Angola in January 2010. A few rebels in the Cabinda enclave trapped and machine-gunned two buses carrying Togolese players and staff and killed some of them. People began to say that Africa wasn’t safe and they should strip South Africa of the World Cup. The answer from the South Africa officials was that they shouldn’t be punished for something that happened 1543.64 miles away from them. They argued that if there was war in Angola, it didn’t mean that people should not feel safe in South Africa, in the same way that if there was war in Kosovo –which is even closer to Germany – that should not prevent Germany from organizing a World Cup.

The entire world was positively surprised by the tremendous success of the South Africa World Cup 2010. The president of the soccer governing body (FIFA), Joseph Sepp Blatter, said that South Africa had exceeded all expectations: the ten stadiums were excellent and better than those in Europe and elsewhere, the organization was flawless and the security impeccable. The game itself was of good quality with fewer cards than the previous World Cups, not to mention the fantastic exhibition of culture and joie de vivre. If there were any hitches at all, they came not from the organization, but from FIFA itself: poor refereeing, i.e. a clear US goal against Slovenia and a clear England goal against Germany both denied, just citing those two.

I am always intrigued by the consistent and permanent image of desolation projected onto my continent and the generalization attached to it. There is civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but there isn’t civil war in Cameroon even though some people would argue that the absence of war doesn’t mean that we are at peace. Ghana is democratically more advanced than Zimbabwe which is still crumbling under a dictatorship regime. What about the Maghreb and the Nile – our Arab neighbors in the North? From Morocco to Egypt, there are huge differences. We are all Africans and happy to be, but there are intrinsic distinctions in our aspirations as individual countries. It is true that we have some corrupt leaders in Cameroon, it is also true that we have a dysfunctional government, but does that make me any different from, let’s say, a random child in a more advanced country? As a Cameroonian, am I really an anathema, or Godforsaken, or gone in the wrong direction or doomed to perdition as people who see me from outside in want me to believe? It is true that I struggle with poverty; it is also true that I don’t have the latest technology and the most advanced science, but does that make me less human than those who have it? As a Cameroonian, what can I then bring to the gathering of the world’s nations?

I then realized that, of course, I do have something to bring to the give-and-take meeting of the world’s nations. It might not be the latest iPod or PlayStation or cancer cure or any of the things that make developed countries so special. It might not be luxury and opulence, imposing skyscrapers and magnificent highways, latest fashion or stunning scientific discovery. What I have to offer is simply what makes me a human being: my story, my culture, my world vision, my journey as a Cameroonian in the world.]

Now, to answer people who asked me to suggest solutions to the African problems, I will simply say that I don't believe that violence is the silver bullet here. It will only bring chaos. I don't also believe that we can influence the current African leaders; they are corrupt to their core. Like I said in my previous article; the solution to the African problems is not going to come from the West or from the East. It will come from us, Africans. We need to change our mindset and our mentality. We need to get rid of all the lies that were forged in our brain. We need to change our culture of dependency and unaccountability. We need to change ourselves before changing what we want to change. We need a generation of young African leaders and get rid of the current leaders with their colonial mentality. Those who think they must stay in power until death removes them need to go. Those who spend their time changing the constitution every day to remain in power need to give way. How can you explain that a country like Cameroon that obtained its independence on January 1, 1960 had only two presidents? The first stayed in power for more than 20 years and the current one has been in power for more than 25 years. How can we change that? I will tell you how.

Before the US became what it is, it was a bunch of British colonies that decided to expand and build this magnificent country. Before the European Union became what it is, it was a bunch of wealthy European countries that came together as a block and imposed conditions and requirements to the little European countries if they wanted to join the Union. We can also copy that system. It might or might not work, but we have nothing to lose in trying. The wealthy and stable countries in Africa need to come together as a group. I mean those that have shown some real signs of democracy and development. I am thinking of countries like South Africa and Ghana and to some extent Senegal. Cameroon is stable, but not democratic, so it shouldn't be part of that group. Nigeria is rich, but not very stable, so it can be on the wait list. Those wealthy, or I would say those democratically stable countries, would call themselves "The United Countries of Africa" and then they would impose some requirements and conditions for other very corrupt African countries to join them. That might be the solution we need.