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May 21, 2007 During the summer of 2005 I was invited over to France, Paris by a young divorced lady I met here in Abidjan when I was doing an intensive French language course at the University of Cocody Abidjan. The lady, Prisca, on professional professorial contract, taught me for sometime before the political crisis here forced her to re-locate back to her country of origin. Then as a single out-going night crawler I remember the day I asked her out on a date and she refused politely but I persisted and she gave in to my "unrelenting love-seeking entreaties". As we were in a bar chatting heartily I was able to intrude into her world: her twisted love life, her academic achievements and her hobbies and views on religion, relationships and white background. Prisca back home in France maintained the relationship as she retreated to Paris returning my calls and emails regularly. She once told me that she was missing Abidjan and the fun and African climate and food. Lady Prisca loves and eats African delicacies and one of her favourites is pounded yam with vegetable fish soup. And the local delicacy here called Atieke and fish pepper-soup. Extending an invitation to me to come over to France for some few weeks of holiday I obliged her. She remains even today a good friend but the issue of carnal relationship has since ceased ever since I found my 'lost rib'. There in Paris the age-long saying "visit Paris once in your life time and die" welcomed me as I was amazed by the splendour and striking beauty of the French capital city. Prisca took good care of me providing me with everything that would make my brief visit both memorable and unforgettable. And indeed in all truism it was! She took me to some monumental places in Paris like the 'Eiffel Tower', 'Champs Elysée' and the sub-way metro park. Paris is indeed a first class city in Europe where I saw and met almost every nationality in the world especially Africans of every origin. There the feeling and meaning of a mega city, a melting pot of complex human co-habitation exist wonderfully. Mixed (interracial) marriages are high and children with different paternal and maternal backgrounds are raised in all understanding. But frictions do occur in marital lives of couples. And racial conflicts sometimes manifest themselves. As we relaxed on a weekend in a cosy restaurant downtown I was asking lady Prisca what difference she found existing between French and English languages and the French and English peoples. The French lady who speaks polished English opened up saying there is little or no difference but in terms of culture and custom a lot of difference could be adduced. She took me down memory lane saying that history had it that in the 17th century or thereabout some French men 'invaded' London in search of expansion of the French language and they came back with plentiful of new English words which were incorporated into the French language. She cited words like 'tourism, education, transport, television, marriage and radio' to mention a few which are spelt the same but written with minor difference but pronounced a bit differently due to slight difference in tongue. While French is a beautiful language of love, compassion and social revolution almost feminine in nature English is a language of international business, beautiful but masculine in nature and manipulative in the extreme usage. Prisca maintained that in terms of behaviourial traits however a lot of difference exists between the French and the English. Their ways of life are not the same. While the average French man or woman is schooled in egalitarian societal responsibilities the English is individualistic and self-seeking. She criticised the Anglophone penchant for material possession at the expense of the general good of the majority. The American-induced unbriddled capitalism got escoriation from her as well. According to this charming babe in her early thirties there's nothing wrong about ambition and persons being ambitious in a competitive world but it becomes unbecoming when people do all kind of things to bend the rules or circumvent laid down rules and regulations in the quest to become rich. French people are not only happy people but proud of their egalitarian society, a heritage which seeks to promote the general good at all times. You see compassion and empathy manifesting themselves on the streets. You see freedom everywhere, you see general satisfaction with the system; you encounter people especially the youth enjoying life as though they are in paradise. You see poverty tamed and isolated, you see justice walking in ubiquity in its blindfolded fury looking out for whom to correct or remove from the society before wanton criminal pollution of others' morals. While the average French man respects the laws of the land and loves his neighbour as himself living within the ambit of 'live and let live' principle the average English man especially the African will rubbish the very essence of living and letting living by his unbriddled quest for wealth and lawlessness. The French colonial state policy is orderly assimilation; that is the colonised is taught over time how to imbibe the French life of egalitarianism and respect for all that is good in the sight of God and fellow man. Whereas the English style of colonialism takes more cognisance of providing subjugated leadership which it releases upon independence leaving behind their African successors with burning ambitions of control and command. Though the aims and objectives of colonialism is about the same, exploiting the exploitable, the French felt more for their subjects tolerating them and treating them more humanely than their English counterparts. That is why soon after independence wars and conflicts became tools of domination in the hands of those who were basking in the euphoria of new-found freedom. When we take a closer look at sub-saharan Africa comparing and contrasting the French and English African countries we see Anglophone nations much more at the precipice torn apart by blind political ambitions and corruption of the worst kind. From Liberia to Nigeria, Kenya to Zimbabwe it is all the same story of leadership vaccuosness ocassioning untold hardships for their peoples. While some of the French African countries has had their share of the continental political turmoils the scale with which Anglophone nations easily embrace political barbarism, the wanton crave to shed each other's blood is a study on how to destroy patrimonies, despoliation of nations some of whom were potentially great at independence but squandered by the worst kind of leadership visionlesssness and diffidence. Alas the search for a balance continues albeit in a climate of intimidation and confusion. There's little reason not to believe that the times are wearing out on those on whose shoulders as it were rest the destinies and futures of millions of people herded together by colonialism. Things are unravelling and by the time another decade rolls by maybe, just maybe, the people would take their nations back from the political clowns and masquerades. ------------ About the author: Sunny Chris Okenwa is a U-K contributor based in Abidjan Cote d'Ivoire. Email: soco_abj_2006_rci@hotmail.fr Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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