Cameroonian lawyer Alice Nkom at her home in Douala on April 24, 2021. CHANTAL EDIE / Portal
Alice Nkom is a lawyer. In 1969, at the age of 77, she was the first woman to practice this profession in Cameroon. Specialist in the defense of LGBT people, she founded the Association for the Defense of Homosexuals in Cameroon (Adefho) in 2003, while the law criminalizes sexual relations between people of the same sex.
Presentation of our series From Dakar to Djibouti, radioscopy of relations between Africa and France
In Cameroon, cases of “corrective” rape, sometimes in public, or lynching of homosexual or transgender people have routinely made headlines with virtual impunity. The files Alice Nkom has defended have earned her multiple death threats. Despite this, the lawyer continues to live in Douala.
She has just been appointed as a member of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent by the United Nations Human Rights Office. The mission of this commission, created in August 2021 following the killing of George Floyd in the United States by a police officer a year earlier, is to fight discrimination against black and mixed-race people worldwide for “the development of a legally binding instrument ” to reach.
What is your personal relationship with France?
Alice Nkom I was born in 1945 in Cameroon, which was still colonized at the time, and my father always told me the history of this occupied country before I was born. Despite this tragic history, the responsibility of the French and all the work that still needs to be done to resolve this past, for me France still represents the free world, the values of human rights, democracy and progress. A fight that’s never over, not even at home.
How would you define the relationship between the two countries?
It’s a rich, complex relationship with clearly understood and sometimes secret interests. What about Paris’ silence in 2018 after Paul Biya’s seventh re-election in another parody of democracy? And the one about Congo-Brazzaville and the stranglehold of Denis Sassou-NGuesso, who has been in power for twenty-five years? That the French head of state will travel to Chad for the funeral of Idriss Déby and to knight the succession of his son Mahamat [en avril 2021] This is not acceptable.
“Of course France has an Africa policy, but Mr. Macron is able to confront the opposition of Africans of his generation and renew that relationship.”
However, Emmanuel Macron, who was born after independence in the 1960s, does not feel responsible for the crimes committed before he was born. It’s a new treaty he offered to the continent as soon as he came to power in 2017, particularly to the countries that France had colonized. He had the political will to open the massive memorial in Algeria, in Rwanda and here during his state visit in July. He publicly promised to open the archives “fully” to French and Cameroonian historians. Take him at his word!
Of course, France has an Africa policy, but I see in Mr. Macron someone capable of confronting the contradiction carried by the Africans of his generation and renewing that relationship.
How was Emmanuel Macron’s visit received when anti-French sentiment was spreading in Africa?
It doesn’t go as far as in Mali, for example. This feeling is essentially crystallized on the symbol of the CFA franc. And President Macron, although constrained by diplomatic rules, has been able to single out personalities such as Yannick Noah, but not only. He visited young people and was not content to remain in the Cameroonian presidency. Returning to France right after visiting the Noah Village and without returning through Yaoundé is a real signal sent to the Cameroonian youth.
The organization of an Africa-France summit in Montpellier in October 2021 without the African heads of state was also a strong gesture.
What exactly do the young French think of a China and a Russia whose influence is growing?
All young Cameroonians I meet invariably ask me how to get a visa for France or the West in general, never Russia. However, they are very sensitive to Russian propaganda. But this sudden clap of thunder is very suspicious. Russia is trying to portray itself as virtuous and the Francophobes are running downright intoxication campaigns here.
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I say to young people: “Don’t listen to what Russia promises you. Judge her by what she actually does for you. The Soviet Union was a major power in the Cold War, but Marxism-Leninism did not bring freedom in Africa. I remind them how Putin blocks political change, how he imprisons his opponents or goes so far as to have them poisoned on the other side of the world.
Episode 3 Joey le soldat: “Nothing will prevent the break with France, that’s the observation of the youth”
That doesn’t mean the French have 20/20. I am not giving France a blank check. But allying with Russia, as President Biya is doing, means putting a big red cross on fundamental freedoms, it means saying goodbye to what little we have here.
Today Moscow provides military support to Cameroon, Central African Republic and Mali in exchange for what? Resources it plunders by murdering the citizens of these countries. Russia mocks the former colonial powers, the Western Bloc, but Putin’s project is to turn that continent into a battlefield, particularly through Wagner’s mercenaries.
Episode 5 Tanella Boni: “The French are not ready to renew their view of Africa”
China continues to do business here, selling its past as an underdeveloped country created by willpower. Our leaders take responsibility for their weakness. After all, it wasn’t Beijing, Paris or even Moscow that triggered the civil war in the English-speaking world. [ contre les mouvements séparatistes des régions du Sud-Ouest et du Nord-Ouest]. Part of the national budget is spent on buying weapons to kill one’s children. It’s up to us Africans to have officials who are able to speak on an equal footing with France, China or Russia.
If you are 25 or even 45 years old and always know Paul Biya as the head of state who has been in power for more than four decades, what can you hope for the future?
Cameroon’s evil is corruption, which pervades all layers of society. She’s not even hiding anymore: everyone has heard of the embezzled Covid funds scandal or that of the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (CAN) organisation.
Episode 6 Elom 20ce: “France sold us her civilization by belittling our African cultures”
Corruption is so inherent in the system that young people find it very difficult to demand accountability. However, they must dare to demand the balance sheet of the last forty years. In what state does Paul Biya leave the country to his children? His death and succession risk a bloodbath.
What must change in 2023?
It is necessary decolonize the voting system, totally locked and fraudulent. It works like it did when we were granted independence, when we were already dead [après une guerre de décolonisation qui avait décapité toute l’élite d’opposition]. Even today, any dissenting voice is silenced. We are in a facade democracy. Before the presidential election, our president doesn’t even bother to campaign, nor does he make any promises. The deal is clear. Even if your name is on the building, he is the actual owner, the land title is in his name.
“We, the elders, must educate young people in implacable democracy, teach them respect for humanistic values, and put this into practice”
We need a leader who cares about his people instead of putting all his energies and the country’s money into upkeep. But we, the elders, cannot be content with telling young people to take power, we must educate them in implacable democracy, teach them respect for humanistic values, and put this into practice so that they are ready when the time has come. Give them courage despite the present. Paul Biya is not eternal.
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But young people are not adequately educated and the diaspora is prevented from returning to their own country. They are deprived of Cameroonian nationals, prevented from investing, even buying land. All of this needs to be deciphered. Let’s prepare for the future so that future elections will finally respect the true choice of voters. Otherwise nothing changes. The cloak of impunity worn by politicians will not fall.
Summary of our series “From Dakar to Djibouti, radioscopy of Africa-France relations”