THE NEW AFRICAN DIASPORA

About the Book

European colonization of Africans in the late 1800s replaced European enslavement of Africans from the 1450s to the 1870s. Colonization and enslavement were two sides of the same coin. Both were involuntary. In both the European was the master and beneficiary and the African the enslaved and exploited. Barely half a century after European decolonization of Africa, new voluntary wave upon waves of African migration have reached global dimensions. The agency of change seems to have shifted from Europeans to Africans. “Bushfallers” is the Cameroonian designation for this new African agents of change—the restless-young unemployed and unemployable at home, who migrate abroad in search of greener pastures. Cast within the context of defining moments in the political history of contemporary Cameroon, The New African Diaspora… draws from the colonial experiences that predated the emergence of decolonized Cameroon and offers glimpses into the impact of neocolonialism on the existing situation and analyzes how bushfallers are struggling to navigate through the confining tempest by venturing outward in preparation for executing the role that history seems to have pre-determined and designed for them. What will become of Cameroon’s bushfallers when after having exhausted their energies “bushfalling” abroad decide to turn their attention to politics at home? It is toward this end that Konde rises to the apex of originality by prescribing “DISDEFORG” in the Postlude—a “Three-Ds’ and One-O” formula for achieving success consisting of four principles: Discipline, Discovery, Definition, and Organization.

About the Author

Emmanuel Konde is Professor of History at Albany State University (ASU) in Georgia. Prior to joining the faculty of ASU, Konde taught at Tuskegee University, Morris Brown College, Morehouse College, Spelman College, Clark Atlanta College, and Knoxville College. Emmanuel received the United States Senior Fulbright Scholar award for teaching and research in Sub-Saharan Africa for the 1998-1999 academic year, and spent his Fulbright year abroad teaching and researching at the University of Buea in Cameroon. Born in Cameroon, West-Central Africa, Emmanuel moved to the United States in 1978 to pursue postsecondary education. He earned the B.A. in Political Economy from Hillsdale College in 1982, the M.A. in Political Science in 1984, from Northeastern University, and the B.A./M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in History in 1985 and 1991, respectively, from Boston University. Konde is the author of six book length monographs: The Bassa of Cameroon (1917, 1998); European Invention of African Slavery (2005); African Women and Politics: Knowledge, Gender, and Power in Male-Dominated Cameroon (2005); Bassa Antiquity in Contemporary Limbe (2010); African nationalism in Cold War Politics (2012); and The New African Diaspora: Anatomy of the Rise of Cameroon’s Bushfallers (2012). Emmanuel has contributed several articles to scholarly journals but his most cited are two specialized working papers in African Studies: “The Use and Abuse of Women in African Nationalist Politics: The 1958 “Anlu” In Cameroon” (1990), and “Reconstructing the Political Roles of African Women: A Postrevisionist Paradigm” (1992).