August 25, 2006

Good news. My computer isn’t going to burn down my house.

I’ve got one of those cheap-o Sony batteries that are giving Apple and Dell owners heartburn. Fortunately, before we left for Africa, I bought a spare battery at Bec’s urging. It’s not a Sony, so I’ve put it in. The Sony is now sitting harmlessly in the closet.

Does that mean that I didn’t sit there and think, “You know, my computer was feeling a little warm the other day.” Does that mean that I didn’t wake up a couple of times afraid that the thing had caught fire, which had spread onto my wood desk and then over to the door and then into our room? Of course not. Sure, I know that only nine people have had a problem with their Macs. And I know that the only problem I’ve ever had was with my logic board. My battery never feels especially warm. But that doesn’t mean I’m not next. You see, I’m a crazy person.

But all is well. I just need to figure out how to get the Sony battery replaced from Yaoundé.

Here’s a thought, though, and it’s a little conspiratorial. Sony has been beaten like a rented mule by the iPod. Did Sony do this on purpose to hurt Apple? I live on a continent where hurting other people at your own expense out of spite is totally normal, accepted and even expected. So what if Sony loses untold money and prestige because of this. It makes sense from here.

…

Not only is Paul Biya the Godfather, he’s the Absentee Landlord.

In 2002, the International Court of Justice awarded Cameroon the Bakassi Peninsula, which Nigeria had occupied for several years. It took four years, but in June, the Godfather, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Kofi Annan came together to sign what is known as the Greentree Agreement, where Nigeria agreed to begin getting out in early August. (By the way, it’s called the Greentree Agreement because it was signed at the Greentree Estate in Manhasset, on Long Island. I explained to a Cameroonian friend that this was also a place where many Jewish people had weddings and bar and bat mitzvahs.)

Anyway, the agreement said that Nigerian soldiers and administrators would get out over two years starting Aug. 14. In return, Cameroon got a whole bunch of oil, natural gas and fisheries, plus around 20,000 angry Nigerians who will probably give Cameroon a bad case of natural gas. One rumor I heard (and if there weren’t rumors, there’d be no information in Africa) is that Nigeria gets to keep the money from offshore oil drilling, which has started and is far easier, while Cameroon gets to explore for oil and gas on land. That is far harder and requires dealing with local populations, spreading wealth and protecting the environment. Ask Nigerians how that’s going.

The point here is that the Godfather didn’t even show up. He was in Switzerland, probably shopping with the credit card for his Zurich bank account (we know he’s got one). One would think his country getting a valuable piece of territory would be enough to get the guy out of his mountain hideaway. Nope.

It’s increasingly hard to take the Godfather or his cronies seriously.

Even worse, it’s impossible the opposition seriously. There is a Social Democratic Front in Cameroon, led mainly by Anglophones from the Northwest, although it aspires to being a national party. Back in 1992, when political parties other than Biya’s CPDM were legalized, the SDF was said to be a party of ideas. They had a real platform and even came close to winning a presidential election, people say (I have my doubts). Only massive, obvious fraud kept Biya in power.

Since then, the party has declined to the point where it is fractured and the leader of the original SDF group is being questioned after the death of an activist of the splinter faction. Everyone thinks both sides are on the take from the government, who has shrewdly split the SDF. Now, the best anyone has told me about what would happen if hell froze over and the SDF took power is that they wouldn’t do much. But most everyone thinks they would just continue to rob and steal. The money would just go to a different part of Cameroon and to a different group of tribes.

Sometimes it seems that politics in Africa becomes a parody of itself. Parties fighting over who gets to divide up the spoils; presidents simply deciding they don’t want to leave office; constitutions ignored, ripped up or rewritten whenever they don’t suit the people in power. But then I watch my own government treat its Constitution like a game of Mad Libs. Maybe the joke’s on us.

….

Along with the nastiness I just described, there are people who spend day and night trying to find ways to improve the country. I met with Father Patrick Lafon, the secretary general of the National Episcopal Conference, today. I’m totally serious when I say that the church here does what you’d expect a religious institution to do. They see problems with elections, so the church decides to monitor them. When that doesn’t work, they draft solid laws that establish an Independent Electoral Commission and other reforms that are presented to parliament. Of course, the Godfather and his gang of thieves block them.

And when they see that corruption is making people poor, the church gets up and says, no. This is wrong. “They didn’t like that, but we had to do it,” Father Lafon said.

Plus, Father Patrick is how I imagine Friar Tuck might look now. He’s round and jolly, with a tight beard and wide face and he dresses like Bill Cosby. He laughs loud and a lot. When I asked him why people don’t rise up here, he said, “We have the same conditions that led to war in other countries. But we have enough food and enough drink. So everybody’s too busy drinking.” He wasn’t talking about milk, just like Friar Tuck.

…..

Finally, I should have the dates for my October return to New York set in the next week or two. I’ll keep you posted.

And even brighter news is that my friend Magnus from Kigali is heading to D.C. and New York come the end of next month. So everyone needs to be on deck to show the man a good time. He knows how to party, but keep your hands and arms away from his mouth when he’s eating.