October 5, 2006

A couple of friends – old Africa hands – recently were talking about some of the people who have been running countries on the continent.

Idi Amin, to these friends, was a misunderstood and maligned anti-imperialist hero. Ditto Robert Mugabe.

They then went on to say how Westerners shouldn’t be imposing their view of governance on Africa and that elections weren’t necessary – Africans didn’t want them. Forcing transparency in governance and openness in politics? That’s just the man coming back and further destroying African culture.

Huh?

I’ve written about the sham that most African elections turn into, so I’m not a big fan of them. Elections should be the last thing to come into a democracy, not the first. Iraq had elections. Is it a democracy? No. People voted solely along ethnic and religious lines. There aren’t politics outside of ethnic and religious politics in Iraq. And I’d say that’s true in much of Africa as well. (By the way, the Zambian opposition candidate I wrote about recently has a wonderful nickname: King Cobra. He’s got my vote!)

I’m not a fan of imposing what I think is right on people. The American political system works, except when leaders feel their only job is to scare people, for America. The British system works great for Britain, as does the Canadian for Canada (am I right, Blake?). So I don’t want to see the National Democratic Institute or the International Republican Institute coming into Cameroon to show people how things are done.

But our friends are blind if they think people are happy with what they’ve got here. They’re not. What one of the friends in question calls “a Cameroonian guy grooving” is actually a guy without a job because there aren’t jobs to get, in the minds of most Cameroonians. And they’re not happy about it. I have yet to meet someone outside of government or without significant ethnic or political ties to it who likes the people in charge.

People want change. The right way to help that along is to ask where Cameroonians want to go and how do they want to get there. The Catholic Church and CRS do things like citizenship education, which teaches people what their rights and responsibilities are; what they’re entitled to from the government; how to resolve ethnic conflicts and form responsible, multi-ethnic political groups; and that in a democracy, you sometimes lose.

Our friends think that this is imposing something on Cameroonians. I say it’s the Cameroonian Catholic Church that asked for it and Cameroonians in charge of the programs. This is, to the best of my knowledge, what many Cameroonians want.

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Now, onto the “anti-imperialist leaders.” I’ve written about Mugabe before, so I’ll keep it short. He turned one of the best-off countries in sub-Saharan Africa into a basket case; killed thousands of his citizens in one of the under-reported ethnic massacres of the 20th century; and has destroyed the homes and lives of most of his urban, African opposition. This is an anti-imperialist hero to our friends.

I’ve also written about Idi Amin, and most of you have heard of him before. This great anti-imperialist leader killed his enemies, fed them to crocodiles and started a disastrous war with Tanzania. Uganda was so badly destroyed by this point that Tanzania, which had no army before the Ugandans invaded, routed the invaders once they roused a fighting force.

To be fair to Amin, he did prove my “eating the citizens” theory wrong. The theory was that once a ruler ate his subjects, he automatically became the worst ruler in that country’s history. I thought that ended the debate. But many of the Ugandans I met said Milton Obote, Amin’s predecessor and successor, was worse. They said many of the people Amin killed were probably enemies of the regime. Under Obote, soldiers would just stand on a street corner and kill any random person unlucky enough to be on the street at that time.

Good times.

I deliberately used the pronoun “he”. I have my doubts that a female head of state would resort to cannibalism. I think they have every capability to slaughter their citizens. I just have my doubts about cannibalism. However, if someone brought me evidence about Margaret Thatcher eating some hapless Scot or Welshman, I’d be willing to listen

Our retrograde friends with discredited ideas remain our friends, despite our differences.

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Hockey starts tonight. The NHL opened last night, but the Rangers don’t start until today. So it didn’t count. This is one of those times where I feel cut off from the things I care about, like when I miss a wedding or a birth.

In honor of tonight’s event, here’s the opening-night line-up for the Yaoundé Rangers.

We play two lines, four defensemen and a goalie. There are three bench players, a backup and a third-string goalie.

First line:

Center: Pavol Demitra, Right Wing: Daniel Alfredsson, Left Wing: Ilya Kovalchuk

Second line:

Center: Joe Sakic, Right Wing: Jarome Iginla, Left Wing: Brendan Shanahan (Rangers!)

Defense:

Brian McCabe, Francois Beauchemin, John-Michael Lilles, Philippe Boucher

Goalie:

Vesa Toskala, Cristobal Huet

Bench:

Matt Cullen, Petr Prucha, Scott Hartnell, JS Giguere

Yahoo! wouldn’t even let me into the draft, so most of those players I got by luck (except for Prucha, Cullen and Beauchemin).

The foil is on.

I’m not sure if the sound I’m hearing is the construction site next door or my loyal readers stampeding away from the site.