Prominent Writers: Candide Massocki Seeking Asylum in Asia
I’ve seen the beaten looks on other travelers faces. The look of “I hate this (country, city or town), but I’ll pretend I’m enjoying it anyway, at least for my Instagram” face. Their eyes always deceive them as do their obsessive hands gesturing in pockets for a phone to dull their time away.
Gratitude is hard to come by with white, privileged travelers. When you have money to spend, and the entitlement to jump from country to country relishing tourism but pretending you’re an authentic Indiana Jones in a foreign country, boredom comes quickly.
Candide Massocki wasn’t such a man. When my eyes touched his, he greeted me with the warmest smile I’d seen in weeks. Surrounding myself with the usual hostel dwellers from Germany, Britain or Australia, it was refreshing to speak to someone who enjoyed being in Bangkok. And then I’d learn why. Traveling from his hometown in Doula, Cameroon, Africa, he was attending a UN conference in Bangkok, but while there, the military invaded his home in Doula. Massocki is a prominent social activist and human rights writer and his latest book “Paris’ Summit: States Against Boko Haram: Legal Terrorism Against Illegal Terrorism” lead to serious misconceptions including death threats. Though the novel was meant to inform the public of the atrocities Boko Haram was spreading, the military in Cameroon misread that thematic overtone and assumed he is a spokesman (and thus part-of) the Islamic extremist terrorist group. Raiding his home, they told his family he will be a dead man (or if he’s lucky thrown in jail) when he returns home.
Massocki knew the repercussions of his work as a political journalist. He wrote his book, packed his things and left for Bangkok to attend a very timely UN conference. Fast-forward and I find him at a 24-hour bar, a strict non-drinker, sharing his story with me in the haze of Bangkok’s oppressive heat. We brainstormed ways to help him figure out refugee status in other countries in Asia because Bangkok won’t allow non-residents to apply for refugee status. His tourist visa was ending, money his family was sending was thinning each day and choices narrowing in. I tried in vain to seek help from friends back home, but no one wanted the burden of dealing with government policies regarding a refugee seeking asylum in their home. Adding to that, if his Bangkok visa expired before he left the country, he could be thrown in jail in Thailand, one of many nightmares for travelers in that country. In sad tones, but with ever-surprising cheerful eyes, he admitted he wouldn’t see his family again until the regime that has been running his hometown since ‘86 changes.
So here we were, stuck at this party hostel with a buncha college kids huffing nitrous oxide or others who have lost passports or morale, and he just felt happy to be talking to someone who cares. Despite his informal exile from his hometown, his purpose in life never altered. He never spoke of not continuing affairs in taboo political topics because he never thought of that as a option. His only path in life is to speak the truth even if it meant his own death.
The magnitude of Massocki’s joy was (and is) truly admirable. It stemmed from the small gratitude of meeting a new friend and sharing visions to write the truth of world on the invisible walls of illusion and facade. Other western travelers were writhing in their bedsheets sweating out last nights booze, while we plotted through words and fantasy what we can do to make the world a safer place. Eventually, my efforts waned as my selfish desires to pursue travel outside Bangkok tore us physically apart. But with the help of friends of mine, he made it safely to the Philippines and now remains as an exiled Cameroonian social activist, furthering his writing with eight completed books and founder of the ANTI TERRORISM PRESS that can be followed online at: www.candidemassockiantiterrorismblog.wordpress.com.
We can learn many things from Massocki’s story: the importance of compassion towards refugees, the danger of being a writer in a war-torn country/dictatorship and the vanity of western writers (myself included) who talk about surface issues and petty travel problems while others are risking their lives to share reality with the world. At the very least, let us share the stories of those, like Massocki, who are writers talking about big topics because of a social need. Traveling writers taking national or international steps for change through their own words and courage. Let’s share their voices because they’ve put their lives on the line to be heard.
Massocki’s writing can be found online and purchased through Amazon. Recommended read: “The Pride of an African Migrant: In Remembrance of Jimmy Mubenga,” regarding asylum seekers/refugees in the United Kingdom (based on his own experiences there), speaking of imperial policies.
