DIPLOMACY AS HYPOCRISY: THE BIYA SYSTEM IN ROME AND THE VATICAN!
Great read from Father Ludovic Lado, I found jumping around WhatsApp groups and thought I should share.
To write this text is for me an effort of Lent, an act of penance for the cause of my people. As I write these lines, I am sitting in a hotel room in Rome, responding to an invitation from a university for a scientific activity, an international symposium. On the sidelines of this conference, I was distracted by a curious coincidence, notably the state visit of President Paul Biya to Italy on the same dates. This is called diplomacy in technical language….
I learned that during this visit, President Biya received the gold medal of the Conference of Rectors of the Italian Universities (CRUI) during a ceremony showered with a very complimentary speech on his “great achievements” in favor of culture and higher education in Cameroon. But, what is the state of higher education in Cameroon? Why has Italy become the first Western destination for Cameroonian students? Precisely because our universities are not doing well! What do we honor by that fact? Mediocrity or excellence? By hearing them praise the achievements of my President (I distinguish the person from the office), I wondered whether the Italian academics were really talking about Cameroon or reading a speech written for them and for the occasion? Speaking to Italian investors, we heard President Biya. joke, amusing in passing the gallery of his Italian listeners, over his more than thirty years of longevity in power, a little as if it were a feat. Yes, it is better to laugh not to cry! Let us not forget that political power is a matter of life and death for our peoples. But basically, Western economic interests mock democracy and human rights in Africa. So much the worse for those who have not yet understood it and continue to rely on Western chancelleries to help them find the path to freedom.
How can it be explained that at such a troubled time in Cameroon’s history that the Biya system shamefully represses Anglophone resistance to Francophone assimilation, crushes every form of dissent and tramples on the public freedoms that Italian rulers, thirsty for Investments, have chosen to make President Biya a hero of culture and higher education? Who do you finally laugh at? Of course, these millions of poor Cameroonians are the victims of the political economy of violence that fuel the world economy. This diplomacy of hypocrisy punctuated by compromises and guilty silence feeds on human blood as can be seen with the ongoing genocide in eastern DRC where human dignity is shamefully sacrificed on the altar of economic interests of multinationals and some neighboring countries. This diplomacy of hypocrisy makes the global political and economic order a true structure of sin in the sense in which the social teaching of the Church is understood. Have the Italian rulers forgotten the drama of Lampedusa? And if they have not forgotten it, do they not know that it is mediocre regimes like those of Mr Biya that push the young people to the migratory adventure through the deserts and the seas? Under these circumstances, a diplomacy of complaisance is a diplomacy of complicity.
Still from my room in Rome, when I learn that President Biya will be received by Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, I can not help thinking about the dialogue between Jesus and Pilate during his passion. Jesus who said to Pilate: “I was born and I came into the world to bear witness to the truth. Whoever is of the truth hears my voice. And Pilate said unto him, What is truth? (Jn 18: 37–38). I wondered whether the dialogue between President Biya and the Pope will be centered on truth, the one that will liberate Mr Biya and his people (Jn 8:32). I wondered whether Vatican diplomacy with its network of apostolic nunciatures with its network of nunciatures, is at the service of this truth which must be witnessed by the Church, the body of Christ, in time and at the wrong time. What do the nuncio say to the Pope about our heads of state who will smile at him in the Vatican while in their countries they trample human rights, public freedoms, and human dignity? When the Pope receives a head of state like Mr Biya who is 84 years old, has been in power for nearly 35 years, remains silent about the end of his reign, tramples on public and democratic freedoms in his country, What did he say? It depends of course on the apostolic nuncios, the ambassadors of the Vatican in our countries. Unfortunately the nuncios have the ungrateful job of doing their utmost to preserve good diplomatic relations with the State, which would be useful for the mission of the Church; Paradoxically, this is sometimes done at the cost of his prophetic role. It is also called diplomacy and I often wonder what it has to do with the gospel, the service of justice and truth in time and at times. I will be told that it is up to the local churches, not the nuncio, who is often a stranger, to assume this prophetic role in relation to the political insanity of our countries which costs thousands of lives. But that bishops and priests are also afraid of the reprisals of Pontius Pilate.
Here, then, is the Church taken, in the name of diplomacy, in a system whose very essence is hypocrisy, this play of masks and images that overshadows the truth and feeds on human lives. I dream of the day when my church will distance itself more from this diplomacy of complacency that hurts the poor. What happens when every head of state who goes to meet the Pope, a bishop or a priest feels that he will hear Jean Baptiste’s prophetic message on human rights: Have not the right to take your brother’s wife, “said John the Baptist to Herod (Mt 14: 4). We know that Jean Baptiste ended up in prison and then was beheaded.
The church has no right to silence the truth for fear of persecution. To conclude, I dare to believe, but without any illusion, that a benevolent reader will not have difficulty understanding that the target of my dissent is not Mr Biya as nobody but the unhealthy political system he Represents and has caused so many of my compatriots to suffer for decades. It is this organically well-oiled system that every Christian has the duty to subvert, even if it is delivered by the high priests and scribes to Pontius Pilate to suffer and die like the Master. It is better to die for love of truth and justice than of malaria? I expose myself to the unleashing of hell but I do not worry because Easter is near!
*Father Ludovic Lado, sj*
