Discourse on the Source of Corruption: The Harvest of Decolonization in Postcolonial Africa

Emmanuel Konde 
  
The European colonizer never danced with the colonized African throughout the colonial period until the eve of independence. 

 

It was then that the music began to play, and the colonizer, with deceptive arms stretched as invitation to dance with the colonized, the African, thinking himself equal to his European colonizer readily jumped on the dance floor and began the long waltz to decolonization. 

Little did the colonized African, suddenly in the warm embrace of the European colonizer, saee fit to consider the fact that the colonizer never grants independence to the colony; he merely decolonizes it.  Yes, as colonization is oppression, so independence is freedom.  Decolonization comes from the colonizer; independence from the colonized.  Whereas decolonization is a continuation of the erstwhile state of colonization, independence is the complete ending of colonization. 

Colonialism can be compared to a marriage.  Like marriage, colonialism is a partnership between opposites.  And as a marriage cannot end in de-marriage, whatever de-marriage means, so too colonization cannot end in de-colonization.  All marriages must end in divorce.  All forms of colonization must also end in independence.  The colonizer and colonized must terminate their old relationship, totally.  Decolonization can therefore never result in real independence.
 
The veracity of this discourse is borne out by reality.  All authentically independent countries of the world that were once colonies won their independence from the colonizing powers through armed struggle.  These independent countries were never decolonized.  A principal example is the United States of America, a onetime British colony.  Unlike the United States of America, however, much of Africa was decolonized by the colonizing European powers.  Therefore, many of the contemporary Africans nations are decolonized territories and not independent countries.  These African countries ought not to be called independent but decolonized nations.
 
Decolonization is a mockery of independence.  Independence is power and can only be won through liberation struggle conceived, planned, and executed by the colonized.  Power is always won and never given, so too independence cannot come via the agency of decolonization, which is granted by the colonizer.  Semantics aside, independence is the antithesis of decolonization.  Whereas independence is a totally negation of colonization, decolonization is an implicit affirmation of colonization in the sense that it extends the life of colonization in a new guise. From colonization to decolonization cannot result a state of independence but a new state of colonization or neocolonialism.
 
Colonization had sanctioned the overt oppression and exploitation of the colonized.  Decolonization is a covert, subtle system of oppression and exploitation of the formerly colonized natives through the agency of the native bourgeoisie whose raison d’être is service to the interests of the neocolonial power.  Neocolonialism does not make allowance for the total development of the native, who must remain a worker.  Never compensated enough to rise above poverty and live like a real human being, constantly dehumanized by uncertain conditions of life, the decolonized native must per force resort to corruption to augment his meager wages. This state of affairs, authorized and sanctioned as national policy by the ruling native bourgeoisie who seem oblivious to the conditions of the native worker, the worker has no other recourse than to resort to corruption, which has since become a political culture in nearly all the decolonized nations of postcolonial Africa.

Comments

[na soso me]

From Camnet

Ni Dr,

I am very happy to hear you sound like one of my all time favourite 'Africans',political philosophers, the Martinique-born psychiatrist, freedom fighter and PanAfricanist, Franz Fanon. It is clearly refreshing and in marked contrast to your political 'theories' relating to the corrupt bourgeoisie's stewardship of the state of Cameroon.

I fully agree with you that independence certainly is not Given. An offer by an oppressor of independence is by definition false.. You wrest it from an oppressor or as in the case of Vietnam, your oppressors slinks away in defeat and disgrace like the French first after Dien Ben Phu and the Americans who didn't know better, after.

In the African context, the mockery of this process in the so called decolonisation of Africa was best captured by Fanon who said of Cote d'Ivoire and Gabon, that the French (de Gaul) decolonised so fast, independence was 'imposed' on Cote d'Ivoire and Gabon.

Guinea under Sekou Toure was supposed to have had a nasty divorce from France. That did not spare the Guineans from Toure's paranoia whose long lasting consequences they are still subjected to until today in the person of this mad young man called Captain Dadis Camara, Guinea's new 'leader'.

A blight more insidious than corruption in the post-colony is the perverse concept of leadership we have and have been subjected to. Corruption is only one of the many symptoms and consequences of this disastrous interpretation and understanding of the concept of leading a people.

Leadership as a concepts transcends political systems. So-called democracies can have disasters for leaders(hip) as the Gearge Bush-Dick Cheney combo have fataly proven to the world today. The Ex. USSR had a succession of disasters for leaders. Successors within the authoritarian tradition in the reconstituted Russia such as Vladimir Putin have shown resourcefullness and creativity in leadership that has resulted in the rescusitation of Russia's role a key global player, a role which was in danger of disappearing under the poor leadership of the drunkard President Boris Yelsin.

Poor leadership explains why even in countries with some revolutionary origin such as Algeria, Kenya with Mau Mau origins, regimes of all persuasions and colors on the African continent have been singularly distinuished in their catastrophic performance.

The few stand outs with good leadership have no overarching lessons to teach except for the fact that their good leaders have been drawn from their own people, who have drawn their sources of strengths and inspiration from themselves, their culture and how the interprete and understand the role of leaders in the face of the challenges they confront..

Ghana of today owes it relative calm to a bunch of pissed off angry young men and women (dont' forget the role of JJ Rawling wife!) led by a dope smoking courageous young Lt. 25 yrs ago call JJ Rawlings. Bostwana draws on a long tradition of know how to manage conflict and of kings with an inherited system of responsible management of power. Just a few of the few.

Pa Njakri

[The Entrepreneur Newsoline]

The Guru blames corruption on low wages.
It will be interesting to tell us why in the so called developed west, people earn big fat salaries, but can't survice without credit and
the illusion of owning assets and intangibles that they never actually own.

Perhaps, its just a few power brokers around the globe that have held masses hostage, whose tentacles are seen as neocolonialism when it reaches africa, but are zombies even to their own western brethren, for whom they have deceived with illusory hoplessness that they own property, when in actual fact, they own nothing...

And in so doing, these capitalist zombies suck out their own skin type brethren and unsuspecting African migrants who fall prey to this illusion.....

[Va Boy]

You are on to something, Sir Entrepreneur Newsline. Capitalism is a ravenous monster that has no loyalty and no limit to its appetites. It ate us up and now it is eating its own children. Now its children are feeling the pain and they are reacting. See--http://www.capitalismalovestory.com/ .

Distinguish free enterprise from Capitalism, which is as system in which EVERYTHING including culture and values and government are controlled by the owners and manipulators of capital. In America, big business is muscling its way into every niche and displacing the small operator with roots in the community, hence the death of community itself. This is true of all sectors from hospitals to pharmacies to funeral homes and even to churches.

The global concern of flesh and blood people is how to make capital serve man and not vise versa. It might be too late.

[Alain dipoko, Yabassi Boy.]

EMMANUEL KONDE, YOUR PAPER IS INFLAMMATORY AND IS CONTRADICTORY TO OUR HISTORY.

Reading between the lines, your paper carries a subtle call for a revolution. I find this totally inappropriate to your calling. This is the month of October ,and such postings are totally incendiary. When you talk of decolonization, you are talking in real terms the Anglophone situation with the government in place. This being the month of October that paper is of bad taste, comrade Konde. I know some Anglophones will shout, I am out of context. But there is one thing I have learnt from you Anglophones. You have the habit of writing in coded language.
One does not need to be a philosopher to understand you. The heading is immaterial.

What matters is the context of what you have written. After a good deal of dancing around the subject, you hit it clean cleverly by saying freedom is never given but is snatched. I understand that very well. That is very sad of you. You must be an agent of development rather than one of discord. I know you would want to throw off this school of thought but as I said earlier, I am no stranger to Anglophone writings. Every so often most of you use titles which do not reflect the subject matter of what you write especially when criticizing the government.

I know you being an Anglophone, has a right first to defend your people but you should do it in a responsible manner. You won’t try to convince me that I am not being correct here. Writing incendiary material in codes is just not a smart way to do things.

[VA Boy]

Interpretation. Konde is not being a 100% good CPDM operative. Let me tell you a secret, Mr Alain Dipoko. All Southern Cameroonians at their core are SCNC sympathizers. That includes Dr. Konde and Mr. Yang. You cannot trust what you green jumpers call anglophones. The only difference between The Kondes, the Yangs and me is faith and confidence. I have total confidence and contempt for you amphibians. They have been intimidated by 50 years of your empty braggadocio. It is just a matter of time, they shall all come across. Do not waste your time. Remember, you can never trust an anglo.

BTW, you are wasting your friggin time bull shittin around here. Go raise your tadpoles and stay out of our way.

[VA Boy]

Let me put it another way. Konde is another VA Boy at the end of the day. The man is just a typical kid trying to please an irresponsible absent father. When he gets over this phase, he will return to his roots in Isokolo and forget trying to please Bassas who do not give a shit about him. Never trust an anglo, even if he shares your ethnicity. At the end of the day, his Southern Cameroonianness trumps his enthnicity. Damn.

[Alain Dipoko, Yabassi Boy.]

VA Boy, you are absolutely correct. But Konde is not indispensable to the party. He was not even important. He will be replaced. We have thousands of members in the US who will be elated to take up the job. I have translated his piece of garbage and submitted it to the appropriate authorities of the Central Committee of our great party, the CPDM

. He shall be taken care of. We knew it long ago that Anglophones are wolves not to be trusted. That is the more reason we are laying more emphasis on frnacophones students in lycees in Cameroon to study English seriously. We grant them scholarships to study in the US and Britain while we force Anglos to go to France to be thoroughly indoctrinated.

Do you now see why we, your masters keep an eagle eye on you? You Anglos are unpredictable just like the dynamite. You embarrass us when least expected. It is outrageous.

[The herald]

I wonder which anglophone you will rely on now if as you claim,Konde is rejected.Are they no birds of a feather?

[The herald]

In other words which anglophone will heed to your egocentric froggy culture? Friends today,enemies tomorrow? After all,both of us are flies to the gods,they kill us for their sport!!!