It’s a story that’s been told time and time again. The white man rode in on horseback to save the poor, hungry, powerless African, or to attempt to conquer the unconquerable savage African landscape. In the recent online debate of Kony 2012, Uganda, international press, international intervention, aid, I’ve come to ask myself if I, too, am this middle class, well-educated American who wants nothing more than to solve the “problem” of Africa. Do I count in this group of white saviors? When my dad gave me Earnest Hemingway, I couldn’t swallow more than a few pages. How many times do we need to be fed the image of the rugged white westerner who’s come in a safari vehicle to work as a doctor, to feed the hungry, to stop the poachers, to become romantic with some young, attractive local? This is all so overplayed and trite. And yet all too accurate.
The Kony 2012 debate has just recently caught my attention. I’m not sure if Cameroonians are talking about it, but it seems that the complacency of Cameroonians of living in “peace” is a sort of response to the existence of other African nations living in constant war. I am a critic of this kind of peace that the people of Cameroon have sacrificed for development, living wage, education, community health, gender equality. Even educated Cameroonians will tell you that they are culturally used to rule by social dictator (the traditional chef of the village, the head of the house, etc.), so, “Let us live out the end of his life.” Then they will take a new ruler. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with this idea. Not all societies must be democratic; The American is born with the belief that each and every citizen has rights that are undeniable. People here, too, know their rights, but the acceptance of social order trumps all. The ability to eat and drink at the end of the day is the only important human right.
So why is it that white Americans, white westerners believe that there must be a different reality for Africa today? Can we as outsiders even begin to understand the pain and the tragedy of life in war-torn Africa? Or the complexities and lack of transparency of governing bodies? And does this mean that what we are seeing is not wrong? Complexity and lack of transparency is even seen on a family level that I can’t even begin to comprehend most times. And is it up to us to determine who is just, who is evil? The White Industrial Savior Complex (as written about in The Atlantic) is a very real character complex. I was told to read a Time’s article about the war in Rwanda and write a mid-term report on it for the 7th grade. I couldn’t understand the extent of the war then, and was rewarded with a D- on my report card. To this day, I still can’t understand the war in Rwanda, and as Aidan Hartley wrote about in “The Zanzibar Chest” even the journalists on the ground couldn’t then and can’t now completely understand the extent of the situation. I’m from one of many generations raised to see Africa as a Feed the Children campaign, portraying dirty black children with bloated bellies and flies on their faces. In this way, it becomes simple to see who is doing right (us, the whites), who is doing wrong (obviously the government, which is hard to separate from the people themselves), and who is victim (poor black people).
And the problem is that this oversimplified image is often what brings White Industrial Saviors to Africa. As to not entirely exclude myself from the category, but as to distinguish myself as someone who is not entirely inside, it is worth noting that there is a very real reality of life for white people here in Cameroon. They see life as simple here. They believe that they’ve earned the car that they drive around in, that they’ve worked hard for the expensive imported food they eat, that their elitist education means that they understand what it means to be an African and that they understand the problems the Africans face. They see poverty as a problem that can be solved by international aid, through continuing to believe that the IMF and the World Bank fund good work on the ground, that the environmental protection of the forest can be bought through REDD+ policy design. “If only we could keep Africans away from themselves” seems like such an ingenious international policy. Only it doesn’t work.
And yet we keep playing this game over and over again. Politically, how many times in 2011 did we see the West intervene in African politics? It is a strange reality when you see a political injustice happening in live time, but the Africans around you tell you that revolution needs to be organic, it needs to come from the heart itself, in order for any real change to happen. Look at Idi Amin. Tell me that he wasn’t the chosen leader by the West, the carefully selected and trained hopeful for Uganda’s future. Had the revolution happened once organically, maybe 30 years after it was forced, it would have been effective, just, and democratic, and maybe Kony wouldn’t even be a political player in today’s arena?
But the nuances are so detailed. White people want leaders in Africa that align politically with the West. Western donors, for example, like seeing that I, a white girl, live in Campo and work with the WWF. Other westerners trust me and my sense of reality so much more than the Cameroonians working here. The fact that I believe that perdiem is ridiculous and that I’m not really sure I trust the local NGOS that work on the ground with money is information that western donors LOVE to get from me. And sometimes I have a superiority complex. For example, I laugh when I see the social science research that these guys do. Why would you even consider a survey as being helpful when all you get is to check the box yes or no for 5 simple questions? But I’m a snob, and even though I have the salary of an elementary school teacher here (and can therefore claim to “live like one of the people”), I have a superior education, and I’m a super critic of the analysis of the situation.
I continue to believe, however, that we can judge this reality. We can see nothing but poverty, famine, child soldiers, and war zones, but there are complexities we are missing and will never be able to fully understand. What has drawn me to Africa and continues to hold me here is that so much of what I see is unexplainable. Life is hard for some, so hard. I can try to explain everything I see with science, but the truth is that for people here, so much of life is unexplainable. Black magic, sorcery, power, family… these are some of the major influences that rule the perception of existence. No matter how educated someone may be, no matter how religious or urban, there is always this side of Africa that will continue to be a major determinant in who eats and who goes hungry, in who goes to school and who works at home, in who becomes ruler of a nation or an army and who becomes the enslaved.
In forcing our god on the people of Africa, they have evidently taken it with a grain of salt. I can say that they are more religious than we are, though it may be strange to think of a god-fearing individual as one who believes that their sickness was caused by sorcery. To us, this does not look like a Christian. And to us, these political actions do not look like democracy in action, a country in the process of development. I do not believe it is right to imprison innocent children, to make them into soldiers, to indoctrinate them with the belief that the world is against them. It is so wrong and there is no end in sight when poverty keeps getting worse and power keeps growing continually off-balance. But who are we to believe that it takes a White Industrial Savior to make real change? Yes, we are enlightened. Yes, we are better than them because we stand up for what is right in the world. BUT we know that we take oil from these countries and yet we continue to drive our cars knowing that it is fueling the power and social injustice, but also feeding the nation. The world is complex, it is more than “the bad guy” versus “the good guy”, and while I appreciate the efforts to end the taking of child soldiers in Uganda, this is a bigger problem than Kony, this is a bigger problem that East Africa. This is maybe a question of world racism, of power, of ingrained corruption, of hopelessness… The end of Hitler did not mean the end of Nazism. We need a bigger world view, and we need more critical responses and critical (and importantly, equitable) dialogue on the ground to spread ideas to intrinsically change the world.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Friday, March 2, 2012
Caged bird.
It’s difficult sometimes to understand why and how things happen the way they do. Three Sundays ago I got a call from my old neighbor in Ebolowa, Papa Billy, who was with the husband of my Russian friend, Nadia, who had come to Cameroon shot-gun style after getting knocked up by her Cameroonian then-boyfriend. Nadia’s husband is a pharmacist, is wealthy, is off his rocker. He’s an exceedingly abusive husband who has money (which results in power over just about everyone, including and especially the police) and likes to drink and sleep around. Anyway, Nadia and I became friends a year ago in May. I liked her because she was friendly and, despite having two children, liked to drink beer. It was shortly after this time that I began to learn the realities of her life as an abused wife.
I don’t want to get into all of the details, but I can tell you that it was bad. There were times when she would call me at 1 am from her bathroom, hiding from her husband who was trying to break down the door (all in front of his own mother). I’ve suffered for her, just knowing what she has put up with. I would often wonder why she doesn’t just run away. Get divorced. Request that her embassy send her back to Russia with the children. She made several half-hearted attempts like this while I still lived in Ebolowa. Once, upon her request, I tried to take her to Yaounde to show her where her embassy is (because a sign of an abusive husband is apparently one who doesn’t let you register as an ex-pat with your own embassy), only to have her crazy mother-in-law step in just in time to steal and hide her passport. And then I moved and I worried for her, as all her “friends” in Ebolowa are easily bought by her husband’s green affections.
A few Sunday’s ago, I got a phone call that she ran away with the two young kids. I was so elated! Finally, I thought. Finally, she has planned her get away so carefully that she wouldn’t even tell me. I was grateful to not know anything because when her husband asked, I could honestly say I have no idea where she is. The thought crossed my head several times that maybe he murdered her, but more often than not I imagined her living under a new identity in Douala, or taking a plane in the middle of the night back to Moscow. I thought she finally had come to her senses, she had finally found her inner strength to leave a bad situation.
And then the phone calls from her husband happened. “If Nadia calls, tell her I’m not angry. I just want to know she is ok. I just want to know the kids are ok.” Uh, yeah, right. Why would I ever be so crazy as to try to cajole her to going back to her abusive husband?
...............................................................
Two Thursdays ago, I was woken up by a phone call at 10pm. “Hello, this is the morgue. I’m just calling to tell you that Koyot is dead. Please contact the family.” In a state of sleepiness, and the bizarreness of the situation of having the morgue call you from a number that you don’t have registered makes you think it’s a practical joke or a dream. I tried to wake myself up, to sort it out. I tried calling some people in Ebolowa to find out if my mototaximan is in fact dead.
What makes it worse is that I realized that even though it had been maybe 5 months since we last spoke, he still had me saved in his phone as “my wife”. The last time Koyot was supposed to help me out, he was supposed to come to my house at 5am. I called the night before to arrange the ride. I called him again at 4:30 am to verify that he was on his way. He told me yes, and I waited for him until 5:30, when I finally gave up and took a different moto. I can’t say I was devastated, more annoyed because what good is it to have a mototaximan’s phone number if he’s completely unreliable? After that day I kept waiting for him to apologize. He never did, and I avoided all contact with him because, apparently, situations like this turn me into a middle schooler again.
It was the morning after the potentially-prank phone call from the morgue that my Ebolowa neighbor, Papa Billy, called to tell me that Koyot is, in fact, dead. Hit by a car just 100 meters from my house. It was when I arrived at my old neighborhood last weekend that I saw the blood stain on the road from where his head hit the pavement. The car that hit him, apparently, had only one functioning headlamp, causing Koyot to think that it is another moto. The car, an old beater that wore the impact of a head-on collision with a moto, was sitting in from of the gendarmerie, with Koyot’s moto, now missing the handlebars, sticking out of the trunk. My neighbors described how Koyot’s ears had blood spilling out, how his skull was completely destroyed. And while I wanted, in theory, to make it to the removal of the body from the morgue, I think I subconsciously intentionally arrived 30 minutes too late and only got to see the parade of motos accompanying Koyot’s body to his village for burial. I’ve never handled the Christian tradition of showing the body, and no matter how good of a makeup artist they had, I’m pretty sure Koyot’s face would have been intolerable for me to look at. Better to guard the image of Koyot happily talking to his passenger on his moto driving to the village.
Koyot had a moto helmet- he just never wore it.
.............................................
This past weekend, while on my tour of Ebolowa, I got the news from a mutual friend that Nadia had come back. I keep thinking that Nadia is like my bulimic friend in college who I tried so badly to help. I wanted her to stay because she was my friend, but her depression caused her to transfer to a school closer to home. I was really sad to have lost her as a friend, but only after did I realize it was for the better- for me, mostly, because the amount of energy I put into that friendship was wearing me down. I wanted so badly to help Nadia help herself. I wanted her to see the light and run away, far away, and I wanted to rest here knowing that she was in a safe place with the kids living the life she has been dreaming of. Only now do I think that maybe this is the life she’s been dreaming of; an abusive yet needy relationship, a moto that you ride without a helmet knowing that potentially one day you may get the same fate that many others have suffered.
I don’t want to get into all of the details, but I can tell you that it was bad. There were times when she would call me at 1 am from her bathroom, hiding from her husband who was trying to break down the door (all in front of his own mother). I’ve suffered for her, just knowing what she has put up with. I would often wonder why she doesn’t just run away. Get divorced. Request that her embassy send her back to Russia with the children. She made several half-hearted attempts like this while I still lived in Ebolowa. Once, upon her request, I tried to take her to Yaounde to show her where her embassy is (because a sign of an abusive husband is apparently one who doesn’t let you register as an ex-pat with your own embassy), only to have her crazy mother-in-law step in just in time to steal and hide her passport. And then I moved and I worried for her, as all her “friends” in Ebolowa are easily bought by her husband’s green affections.
A few Sunday’s ago, I got a phone call that she ran away with the two young kids. I was so elated! Finally, I thought. Finally, she has planned her get away so carefully that she wouldn’t even tell me. I was grateful to not know anything because when her husband asked, I could honestly say I have no idea where she is. The thought crossed my head several times that maybe he murdered her, but more often than not I imagined her living under a new identity in Douala, or taking a plane in the middle of the night back to Moscow. I thought she finally had come to her senses, she had finally found her inner strength to leave a bad situation.
And then the phone calls from her husband happened. “If Nadia calls, tell her I’m not angry. I just want to know she is ok. I just want to know the kids are ok.” Uh, yeah, right. Why would I ever be so crazy as to try to cajole her to going back to her abusive husband?
...............................................................
Two Thursdays ago, I was woken up by a phone call at 10pm. “Hello, this is the morgue. I’m just calling to tell you that Koyot is dead. Please contact the family.” In a state of sleepiness, and the bizarreness of the situation of having the morgue call you from a number that you don’t have registered makes you think it’s a practical joke or a dream. I tried to wake myself up, to sort it out. I tried calling some people in Ebolowa to find out if my mototaximan is in fact dead.
What makes it worse is that I realized that even though it had been maybe 5 months since we last spoke, he still had me saved in his phone as “my wife”. The last time Koyot was supposed to help me out, he was supposed to come to my house at 5am. I called the night before to arrange the ride. I called him again at 4:30 am to verify that he was on his way. He told me yes, and I waited for him until 5:30, when I finally gave up and took a different moto. I can’t say I was devastated, more annoyed because what good is it to have a mototaximan’s phone number if he’s completely unreliable? After that day I kept waiting for him to apologize. He never did, and I avoided all contact with him because, apparently, situations like this turn me into a middle schooler again.
It was the morning after the potentially-prank phone call from the morgue that my Ebolowa neighbor, Papa Billy, called to tell me that Koyot is, in fact, dead. Hit by a car just 100 meters from my house. It was when I arrived at my old neighborhood last weekend that I saw the blood stain on the road from where his head hit the pavement. The car that hit him, apparently, had only one functioning headlamp, causing Koyot to think that it is another moto. The car, an old beater that wore the impact of a head-on collision with a moto, was sitting in from of the gendarmerie, with Koyot’s moto, now missing the handlebars, sticking out of the trunk. My neighbors described how Koyot’s ears had blood spilling out, how his skull was completely destroyed. And while I wanted, in theory, to make it to the removal of the body from the morgue, I think I subconsciously intentionally arrived 30 minutes too late and only got to see the parade of motos accompanying Koyot’s body to his village for burial. I’ve never handled the Christian tradition of showing the body, and no matter how good of a makeup artist they had, I’m pretty sure Koyot’s face would have been intolerable for me to look at. Better to guard the image of Koyot happily talking to his passenger on his moto driving to the village.
Koyot had a moto helmet- he just never wore it.
.............................................
This past weekend, while on my tour of Ebolowa, I got the news from a mutual friend that Nadia had come back. I keep thinking that Nadia is like my bulimic friend in college who I tried so badly to help. I wanted her to stay because she was my friend, but her depression caused her to transfer to a school closer to home. I was really sad to have lost her as a friend, but only after did I realize it was for the better- for me, mostly, because the amount of energy I put into that friendship was wearing me down. I wanted so badly to help Nadia help herself. I wanted her to see the light and run away, far away, and I wanted to rest here knowing that she was in a safe place with the kids living the life she has been dreaming of. Only now do I think that maybe this is the life she’s been dreaming of; an abusive yet needy relationship, a moto that you ride without a helmet knowing that potentially one day you may get the same fate that many others have suffered.
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