Post-Colonial Studies
World & International Affairs
The Unfinished Reckoning: Colonial Debt and African Self-Reckoning
A reflection on a staged play about the Nso people's heritage held in German custody, this essay argues that restitution of colonized artifacts is not a distraction from 'real' problems but foundational to addressing them. The writer contends that colonial extraction persists in every contemporary crisis facing Cameroon and the continent.
Land, Livelihood, and Lessons from History: The Baka and the Weight of Precedent
Poise draws a sharp parallel between the historical dispossession of Native Americans through the reservation system and ongoing threats to the Baka people's ancestral forest lands in Cameroon. The piece argues that assimilation policies, whether imposed in 19th-century America or through industrial development pressure today, carry predictable and devastating consequences for indigenous communities.
The ABCDs of the Colonial Pact
A 2019 essay examines the Franco-Cameroonian colonial pact signed in 1959, tracing how France secured control over Cameroon's mineral wealth, currency, and economic policy through agreements negotiated by French citizens rather than Cameroonians. The writer catalogs the pact's terms, its renewal, and the fates of African leaders who resisted French economic dominance.
The Colonial Pact: On France's Grip Over Former African Colonies
This post examines the economic structures binding former French colonies to France, tracing their origins to post-independence agreements and detailing the mechanisms—currency controls, resource rights, military oversight—that perpetuate French dominance. The writer argues that African leaders who resist these terms face removal or assassination, and that genuine independence remains blocked without deliberate challenge to the arrangement.
The Bwana and the Mtu: A Reckoning at 35,000 Feet
A Zambian writer recounts a confrontational conversation with an American former IMF official on a flight to Boston, in which the American articulates—with deliberate provocation—a thesis about African passivity, Western dominance, and the persistence of superiority hierarchies even in the face of genetic sameness.