Twelve kings from Cameroon visit the HSZG

On the visit of the twelve kings from Cameroon to the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences and the students' art festival "Culture and Management Görlitz" and "Childhood Education" was published in the Litterata from June 18, 2018 the following photo and text reportage Johannes Eichenthal.

Klingewalde is located near Görlitz, between wooded hills and ripening cornfields. Where an avenue meets the village road at a right angle, there has been a small castle for many hundreds of years. The building stands sublimely and silently before us, as if abandoned. We enjoy the solitude, the rustling of the ancient trees ...

... but then we hear the sound of engines, a coach stops and a babble of voices. Suddenly the old castle courtyard is full of people from Europe and Africa. The Africans are dressed according to the traditions of their country. The interesting patterns of the fabric indicate the origin and affiliation of the wearer. And suddenly there it is, the "Market of Kings", a presentation of associations dedicated to cooperation between Cameroon and Germany. Host Matthias Theodor Vogt, Professor of Cultural Policy at the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences and Director of the Institute for Cultural Infrastructure Saxony, is delighted to welcome twelve kings and a large number of princesses and princes from the Republic of Cameroon.

The day before, the delegation had been received with extraordinary interest at five Dresden schools and at the TU Dresden, followed by talks at the Saxon State Chancellery and at the State Art Collections.

Today and tomorrow they will be guests in the European City of Görlitz-Zgorzelec. Saxony's Minister President Michael Kretschmer has the idea of entering into a partnership with one of the African countries, like Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia. This is no longer about one-sided development aid. Rather, it is about jointly tackling similar problems at state, municipal and civil society level in the interests of both sides. And in the interests of One World. Prof. Friedrich Albrecht, Rector of the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences, was present at the meeting of the kings in the Saxon State Chancellery; the university is to play an important role in the future state partnership.

Prof. Vogt invites the kings into the foyer. Guests and hosts line up in the foyer of the palace, behind an impressively large table eight meters long. Renate Schwarz, representing the Görlitz city council, gives a short speech. She is joined by Radosław Baranowski, Mayor of the Polish part of the European City of Görlitz-Zgorzelec, who asks for an entry in the Golden Books of both cities.

The guests complied with the request and signed both books of honor in a dignified ceremony. 

In addition, host Prof. Vogt asked to sign some posters for the patrons Andreas Lämmel MdB and Frank Heinrich MdB as well as for the Saxon Cultural Foundation and its president, Ulf Großmann. This gave the official act the poetic character of an art event.

In the "Blue Salon", host Prof. Vogt spoke to the guests about the distant country of Cameroon. The country's name comes from Portuguese seafarers who named a large river after the numerous "blue crabs" (Portuguese: camarão) that lived here in 1472. From this coastal river name, the Europeans absurdly derived the name for an entire country the size of Sweden. Today, the country of Cameroon is the epitome of diversity. On the one hand, this applies to the landscape, from the tropical jungle with its goriallas and chimpanzees to savannahs and high mountains over 4,000 meters. On the other hand, there are around 240 different ethnic groups and languages.

The colonial states defined borders and areas of influence in Africa at the Berlin Conference of 1884/85. The German Empire attempted to establish a "protectorate" for German traders in Cameroon. However, the maximum number of Germans living in Cameroon was 1,000. In the course of the First World War, the majority of Cameroon was occupied by French troops and became francophone, while a small part went to England and became anglophone. In 1960, the "key year" of the national liberation movement, the northern part of the Anglophone areas joined Nigeria. The two southern Anglophone regions received the never-fulfilled promise of a federation of equals with the eight Francophone regions of Cameroon.

The German colonization of the country is still relatively well remembered in Cameroon, with many pupils learning German. The Goethe-Institut in the country's capital Yaounde ranks fourth in the world for successful German degrees. The large Cameroonian diaspora in Germany is remarkably well integrated.

The Federal Chancellor's Commissioner for Africa, Günter Nooke, undertook a delegation trip together with Professor Vogt and other specialists in February 2018. The delegation's report attracted a great deal of attention because it pointed out crucial shortcomings in development policy to date (see here). Today, it is important to look for cultural and religious elements of sustainability in human development in order to strengthen the cultural essence of Africa and stop the massive exodus of young talent. 

The current situation in sub-Saharan Africa is that the village communities collect money to send the particularly strong young men to Europe. However, this method is a financial investment. The community demands the remittance of a large part of the emigrants' income. The sum of remittances to Africa is higher than the EU's development aid. Realistically speaking, stopping migration is therefore by no means in the interests of the often authoritarian rulers. It is necessary to go deeper and promote development in the villages themselves.

Previous practice has not led to the creation of communal property, the most serious deficit in Cameroon's infrastructure. It is therefore necessary to develop joint projects to create infrastructure so that people in Cameroon can have a human existence and not continue the current practice. However, this is only possible if the currently prevailing polarity of tradition and modernity is overcome. Saxony and the Erzgebirge region have experience with this problem, because here, too, talented young people are migrating to the big cities or abroad. Why not learn from each other?

The young graduate engineer Nadele Akamba from Cameroon, who has been living in Germany for ten years, then gave a talk on "The wisdom of kings". The traditional "wisdom of kings" is both philosophy and religion, as in Persia, India and China. In Europe, on the other hand, people tend to separate reason and faith. She began with a Cameroonian proverb: "He who passes the same place twice on his way has lost his way." In her interpretation, the proverb is telling us that we should not repeat our mistakes. She formulated the question: "How can we ensure that what went wrong in history between Europe and Africa is not repeated?" A second proverb read: "We are only here because we are standing on the shoulders of our ancestors." This applies to the whole of humanity and its cultural heritage. In Europe, she sometimes experiences the opinion that the whole world was invented. But the heritage of mankind is a common one. Africa has also contributed a great deal to it. She concluded by quoting the proverb "The child that the community does not care about will eventually set the whole village on fire in search of a little warmth." Ms. Akamba concluded that the African community must ensure that no major problems arise. But we should also take care in Europe. The only way to find solutions to humanity's problems in the 21st century is to include Africa. Without Africa, there will be no solutions. In the discussion, Ms Akamba emphasized that the French-dominated education system was not suitable for promoting the cultural education of the people in the long term. Independent structures are needed in order to preserve cultural tradition and develop self-confidence.

A tour of the Market of Kings took place at this time. Fred-Eric Essam from IBM Germany and chairman of the ident.africa e.V. association (right), whose aim is to promote independence, introduces the individual associations. Here it is Dr. Peter Schnupp from the company AIQ - go (left). He deals with search methods on the Internet. When we ask him what characterizes his work, he replies: "We research where Google alone can't find anything.

We actually want to go to the next stand, but the host, Prof. Vogt, is already inviting us to a theater performance in the castle park.

The audience gathered on the lawn behind the castle, against a backdrop of ancient trees, and the royal highnesses enjoyed the privilege of sitting on chairs in this open-air theater so that they could follow the action of the student ensemble. In a wonderfully light summer comedy, they took up the controversy that arose in Berlin over a poem by Eugen Gomringer: "Alleen / Alleen und Blumen / Blumen / Blumen und Frauen / Alleen / Alleen und Frauen / Alleen und Blumen und Frauen und / ein Bewunderer". Students at a Berlin university, who obviously know little about art, had complained of sexism; the poem had to be erased from the facade of the university. In Görlitz, the local students, led by Moritz Manuel Michel, had added an alternative version with a little red pencil: "Alleen / Alleen und Blumen / Blumen / Blumen und Männer / Alleen / Alleen und Männer / Alleen und Blumen und Männer und / eine Bewunderin" and depicted everyday situations: Women-to-women and women-to-men and men-to-women and men-to-men. Admired by the lecturer Frank Stein.

In pre-colonial Africa, women always played a key role. For example, there is the so-called Reine-Mère (King's Mother), who is neither the mother nor the wife of the king, but his deputy and the one who appoints the next king. In colonial Africa, however, the colonial 'masters' always communicated with the men. As a result, gender relations became askew, which, among other things, encouraged the corruption that is endemic today. Only Rwanda has now become a "women's wonderland" (Barbara Achermann, Reclam 2018). Using the means of a light summer comedy, the students from Görlitz presented the royal highnesses with the European attitude to gender balance, which is also an old African one.

At the end, the audience thanked the young actors, who bowed in the evening sun in front of the park side of the palace, with enthusiastic applause. The Market of Kings thus ended with what appeared to be an art performance.

But it was the African guests who really brought the event to a close. Full of joie de vivre, they allowed us to take part in a theatrical ceremony in which a dignitary was created: Günter Nooke, the Federal Chancellor's Commissioner for Africa, was appointed "Grand Vizier" of the twelve kings, and Prof. Matthias Theodor Vogt and Fred-Eric Essam were appointed his companions and notables of the twelve kingdoms. And so the Market of the Kings came to an end with a colorful, spirited event.

Comment

We experienced an event in Klingewalde with a high density of information. It was hardly possible for the individual visitor to absorb everything. Nevertheless, an informative impression remained, because theater and art took over important mediations. The task set, to help stop migration from Africa through improved cooperation, is apparently as obvious as it is difficult to realize. What does it mean to overcome the polarity of tradition and modernity? Cooperation on an equal footing can only take place on a common basis. For Europeans, this means saying goodbye to some of the dogmas of the past. The human society of the future will not look like the West today. The particularities of cultures and religions will remain. It is not about leveling out the differences between cultures and religions, but about competing to see who can contribute the most to the future of humanity. Religions, in the sense of spirituality, constitute cultural self-awareness in their language. Peace in faith can be established if we build on the coherence of the religious narrative of humanity, on the retelling of the story of creation and other fables by different peoples. Conversely, it must be possible to enable cultures to act together in a humane and humanitarian way through religiousness. Europeans should also abandon their hypertrophy of greatness when it comes to forms of ownership. At the latest since Fernand Braudel's "Civilization matérielle", it should be clear that family businesses are a fundamental element in the "ocean of history", from which large companies rise like islands and sink again after their time has elapsed. It is in the diversity of forms of ownership that stability must be gained, not in external grandeur. If Europe understands that spirituality, decentralization, self-administration and independence are also its own tasks for the future, then equal cooperation with countries like Cameroon can succeed, and then Europeans can also learn from African culture and religion. We would like to thank the organizers and active participants of the Market of Kings. It was undoubtedly an event.

A report by Johannes Eichenthal, which you can also find here.

The organizers would like to thank Mironde-Verlag for their kind permission to reprint it!