I saw a lot of young Africans leaving the motherland. I saw many Cameroonians searching for a better future somewhere else.
For lack of a better way to die, some chose to drown in the sea, not knowing how to swim—just like this author. For lack of a better way to live, you sold yourself as a slave for your family, thinking of it as a noble act. But for what? To die as a hero? A martyr? Trying to better one’s life?
“Life is sacrifice,” one would tell me. “To live is a choice,” says another. You did offer yourself as a form of sacrifice. When I came to Europe, I thought it would better the condition of my family. I lived under the hope that, in one way or another, I would be able to change the situation in my country and for my family. I dropped out of college not just because I didn’t have money, but also because I thought that taking more money from my family would literally ruin them, or put them into even more debt.
I tried as much as I could to properly assimilate into French culture, by speaking with a French accent, eating, and even thinking like a French person. I made the choice to focus on my assimilation in France at the expense of my own culture. I realized how much I had changed when a Cameroonian friend invited me to a Cameroonian party. Everyone was aware of the trends going on in the country, except me. I had become a stranger to my own country.
Strangely enough, while I had been working on my assimilation into French culture, I am still not fully versed in certain aspects of French life. I became too French to understand my culture, yet not French enough to be considered French. Right now, I’m nowhere to be found, having one foot in France and another in Cameroon. This has been my personal form of suicide. It became even clearer when I lost my student visa after dropping out of college.
In Africa, we don’t know suicide. In fact, we consider it vile. But crossing the Mediterranean, although a form of suicide, is considered noble, for one does it in an attempt to save one’s life and the life of the family. Although, in most cases, it is driven by vanity—to prove oneself, to be accepted. In my ethnic group, to be a noble was the highest prize. You were respected throughout all the villages. Today, a person from Europe is considered the ultimate noble. We aspire to that nobility.
Europe, by the way, represents an unbelievable form of hope. Have you ever had everything stripped from you to the point where there are absolutely no options left? No other way out? The last thing you will want is some idea that contradicts everything you’ve been building in your mind. We believe in it not only because we need it, but because there is no other option.
How much blood had to flow for most people to stop believing in what they believed? How much time did it take for the ideas of the past to die? How many mistakes have we committed, and how many do we still have to correct? What about those who are leaving? Do we really think we have a cure? This is a belief, an anchored belief: moving to Europe, or any other country outside of Africa, will change things for us. It takes a lot to change a belief.
Identity? 