In one of his novels, Chinua Achebe recounts this story of a British army officer in a Nigerian village looking for conscripts to join the British army in the Second World War. The village chief asked the officer: “What is this war about? Why do you need my people to go fight a war against Germans we have never met in our entire existence, Germans with whom we have no dispute?”. The British officer replied: “Because Germans want to conquer and dominate the world and we must stop them.” And the village chief asked: “How about you the British? What do you gain by defeating the Germans? And how are we concerned by the struggle between the both of you on who gets to rule the world?”
This is what the journalist Wazizi would have termed the ability to “Hala your own matter”. The reactions to George Floyd’s gruesome murder and calls for justice along the slogan “Black Lives Matter”, in Africa and Cameroon in particular, give me the feeling that we are (conveniently) losing this ability to draw the line between the serious problems faced by others and our own VERY serious problems.
Before you get me wrong, I am not attempting to downplay the gravity of the appalling black condition in America. What I salute is the hypocrisy of those Africans in Africa who have their two knees on the necks of their fellow Africans while screaming “Black Lives Matter” at America. The mock indignation of the ones who look past the brothers and sisters in their own street/countries who cannot breathe but are quick to be advocates for our cousins who cannot breathe thousands of miles away. The ones who will not hala their own matter but are ready to carry other people’s matters on their head like a badly stitched grèffe.
As Cameroonian, it may resonate with you that last month, black people killed a 36-year old black mayor full of promises after someone ordered the murder of black-elected officials in our black country. Yet, we are the same who will break our thumbs on twitter calling on white America to treat blacks better. Black people are also responsible for the alleged death in custody of the black journalist Wazizi. That is the full extent to which black lives matter in our beloved black country. The question is shall we hala our own matter or do we prefer to tweet about how black lives of our distant cousins in America should matter?
Yes, America has issues and they are working towards fixing them. It is perfectly ok for American citizens, black and white, to protest the treatment of blacks in America. It is THEIR society and THEIR responsibility to improve it. It is THEIR reality. And like Barack Obama once said, bad as it is, today is still the best time in history to be black person in America. Blacks may be second class citizens in America today but a few centuries back, they were not citizens at all. They were the property of the white man. It took several battles for American society to get to that level, and they continue to struggle and progress in race relations. And how about us in Africa? What is our own progress in terms of giving value to black lives? We celebrate and clap for blacks in America when they obtained the right to vote and even had a black president. Yet, in a black country somewhere on the black continent, black people are not shocked that a black man said that other black people “from XYZ tribe cannot be president”. We call out Europe and America for racism when they deny us or our cousins visas, asylum, permanent residency or citizenship. At the same time, in our black countries we reserve the right to distinguish between “settlers” and “natives/autochtones” and to even murder “foreign” blacks and order them to return to their countries. Yes, we need to Hala the matter of how we treat black lives in our black country.
When I raised this double standard, someone told me “No, it is not the same. What happens between us is between us. It is unacceptable for WHITE PEOPLE to treat BLACK PEOPLE like that”. Really? I strongly disagree. In fact, I believe that saying such a thing reeks of a colonial mindset which considers that white people are superior and should be held to higher moral standards than the “inferior” black people we are. To such a colonized mind, it is unacceptable for the “highly evolved” white person to treat black people in a certain way. To that kind of a black person with a colonial mentality, since we blacks are just a bunch of uncivilized negroes, it is somehow normal and acceptable if we treat each other in the most despicable manner possible.
So, the fact of the matter remains that Africa is still the place where black lives matter the least on the planet. Proof is there are thousands of Africans in the forests of south America and on the shores of the Mediterranean trying to get OUT of Africa, not trying to get into Africa. The saddest part is that, we are not investing our energies in building our immediate environment so that our black lives would matter on our continent. No. The popular strategy is to seek personal escape routes to those places where black lives may not matter, but at least they matter better than in Africa.
The less fortunate among us take the Sahara Desert route, but our so-called elites are not different when it comes to escapism from our reality. Why do you think these Ajebota people go abroad to have babies who will conveniently grow up with American, Canadian, etc papers? Why would they send their black kids to those countries and pay fortunes as tuition rather than fixing our broken education systems? Why would they export their own black bodies to go obtain medical treatment in those countries where black lives don’t matter? Because they know that despite the flaws, black lives matter more in all those places than on the black continent.
The irony is that the people capable of taking this high-price escape route are usually the ones in a position to transform the reality of the black condition in Africa. We just do not want to hala our own matter.
French far right politician, Jean-Marie Lepen, was once criticized for being insensitive to the sufferings of people fleeing hardship when he argued that Europe should throw immigrants out. Defending himself, he argued that France has known oppressive regimes and hardship in its history. The French did not flee their country in those times. They did not run to other peoples’ already fixed countries to join them and make those other countries better.
Rather, they stayed home and beheaded their tyrant Kings, deposed their illegitimate rulers, reformed their imperfect systems and fought off German colonialism.
Just imagine a world in which it was impossible for these ajebotas to secure foreign passports for themselves and their offspring. A world wherein those youth dying to leave their African countries were stuck with only one option: fix your country or suffer its imperfections. Imagine that COVID-19 was permanent and everyone had to face our excellent health systems. Then we would certainly hala our matter!
So, in my opinion, if you are an African in Africa and really think that black lives should matter, redirect your indignation at those who have firmly placed two knees of injustice, corruption, tribalism, hate speech, war mongering etc on the necks of our compatriots. Hala your own matter.
Ngochi Moun’Afese Mor’mbeuwing for PS
Note: “Hala ya matter” is the name of a pidgin TV show hosted by Wazizi, who died in the custody of security forces.