In Defense of Continuity: A Rebuttal to Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s article: Paul Biya contre l’Histoire: Quand un homme efface un siècle de dignité Africaine (Paul Biya Against History: When a Man Erases a Century of African Dignity).
Abstract
This article is a reply to Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s polemical easy, Paul Biya contre l’Histoire: Quand un homme efface un siècle de dignité Africaine (Paul Biya Against History: When a Man Erases a Century of African Dignity),which holds that H.E. Paul Biya is denying Africa its intellectual and moral inheritance by sticking on to power. I suggest that in this critique, Jean-Pierre Bekolo, an internationally acclaimed film director, known for his bold, satirical, and genre-defying films – confuses symbols with substance, lacks considerations with regards to Cameroon’s socio-political crossroads, and misreads tactical politics as stagnation. By way of African political history, leadership theory, and the likes of Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power, I argue that his cautious and adaptive leadership has kept the sovereignty, stability, and dignity of surrounding Cameroon inviolately intact in ways that deserve even close, more nuanced scrutiny.
Introduction
Bekolo (n.d.) closely depicts President Paul Biya as the living replica of colonial stereotypes: useless, blind, and a negator of Africa’s dignity. Despite its rhetorical force, his analysis fails on both counts by oversimplifying both Biya’s rule and the concrete historical circumstances that led to where Cameroon is today. In post colonial Africa, leadership calls for a mix of the strategic blending of change and continuity, grand vision and discipline, concepts captured in the 48 laws of power as expounded by Greene (1998).
The same author replies to Bekolo’s diatribe in five points: the longevity of Biya and his historical dignity, intellectual endowment and action that is both pragmatic and emblematic, the caricature of stagnation in contrast to the reality of stability, the dignity and sovereignty of Africa, and a final reflection on the fact that rather than being a saboteur Biya has acted strategically.
Longevity and Historical Dignity
Bekolo makes the case that Biya’s staying power is “erasing a century of African dignity” —regression by any other measure. However, African history suggests otherwise. Adherence to power for a long time as leaders based on the ability to keep the state from fragmenting, prevent bloodshed and resist external domination can make, rather than break, national dignity (Mbembe 2001). As Greene (1998) advises:
Law 1: Never outshine the master; Law 45: Preach the need for change but never reform too much at once.
Biya’s durability arises from a consciousness of the fragility of ethno-political balance in Cameroon, despite seemingly innumerable destabilizing shocks that have thrown states such as Libya, the Central African Republic and the DRC into turmoil. His years in power have maintained sovereignty and stability in a region where they are 4 in short supply (Biya, 1987).
Intellectual Legacy: Rhetoric Versus Pragmatism
“By refusing to implement their revolutionary visions, Biya betrays Africa’s intellectual giants — Diop, Fanon, Nkrumah, Sankara,” laments Bekolo. But governance is not assessed by rhetoric, but the ability to adapt ideals to reality. Thus, as even Fanon (1963) told us, undisciplined revolutions lead to chaos. In Greene’s (1998) terms:
Law 3: Conceal your intentions;
Law 36: Disdain that which you cannot have.
Instead of the public demonstrations of ideological fervor people expected from Biya, he has practiced quiet diplomacy and slow development, steering away from the revolutionary excesses that ultimately undermined fellow regimes. Silence is not betrayal; silence is sometimes a means of survival.
Caricature Of Sloth Versus Benevolent Stability
Bekolo argues that Biya reconfirms the colonial stereotypes: laziness, corruption, tribalism, fixation on power. This criticism fails to note how Biya’s skillful courting of patronage networks, moderate reforms, minimalist flirts with change and creative ambiguity had kept Cameroon intact (Mbembe 2001).
What Bekolo laments as immobility is better characterized as managed adjustment. Power vacuums can often degenerate into civil war or bring about foreign intervention — two things Cameroon has not experienced. In Greene’s (1998) words:
Law 23: Concentrate on your forces;
Law 48: Assume formlessness.
In all this, Biya has retained a hold where it matters — national unity — and taken a formlessness that has both confounded internal opponents and external manipulators.
African Dignity and Sovereignty
To leave with grace is Bekolo’s way of equating dignity with departure by citing Mandela’s example. But Mandela bequeathed lingering structural inequities as well. Dignity consists also of protecting our independence and making sure that we withstand neocolonial maneuvering to continue amid fragility (Nkrumah, 1963).
Biya secures his nation against eruptions of horror that have shattered its neighbors and, by doing so, affirms Africa’s sovereignty — a silent, austere statement of dignity.
Paul Biya as Strategist, Not Saboteur
Bekolo’s critique misunderstands a strategy for stasis and silence for complicity. The rule of Paul Biya is not a betrayal of Africa’s dreams but the triumph of the more subtle arts of power. His persistence is not a sign of shame but of a deft ability to maneuver through the perilous postcolonial political landscape. As Greene (1998) reminds us:
Law 4: Always say less than necessary;
Law 15: Crush your enemy totally;
Law 45: Preach change, but never all at once.
Paul Biya has maintained the unity and sovereignty of Cameroon, without the surrounding turmoil in many accommodations. These are not a repudiation of African worth, but what is saved-us to take refuge in terrible times.
Professor Bekolo’s concerns with vision and reform are legitimate and deserve discussion — but his illustration of President Biya as an anti-African figure offers little justice to the intricate politics of post-independence Africa.
References
- Bekolo, J.-P. (n.d.). When Man Shuts History: Paul Biya and a century of African dignity. Unpublished essay.
- Biya, P. (1987). Communal liberalism. Paris, France: Éditions Pierre-Marcel Favre.
- Fanon, F. (1963). The wretched of the earth. New York, NY: Grove Press.
- Greene, R. (1998). The 48 laws of power. New York, NY: Viking.
- Mbembe, A. (2001). On the postcolony. Berkeley, CA: Univ.Of California Press.
- Nkrumah, K. (1963). Africa must unite. London, United Kingdom: Heinemann.
