Regional Affairs
World & International Affairs
Africa at the Table: Reflections on the 2022 US-Africa Leaders Summit
Poise examines the December 2022 US-Africa Leaders Summit through the lens of key African leaders' statements and commitments. The piece surveys remarks from Presidents Biya, Akufo-Addo, Museveni, and others, marking a moment of diplomatic repositioning and competing visions of African development.
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.
Pardon My French: Language, Identity, and Cameroon's Linguistic Divide
The writer reflects on what it means to speak French as an Anglophone Cameroonian, prompted by a controversy around musician Daphne's acceptance speech at the Canal d'Or Awards. Rather than seeing French fluency as erasing Anglophone identity, the writer argues that speaking French—learned late and deliberately—is itself an expression of that identity, a conscious act of navigating a Francophone-dominated society.
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.