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Gilbert Soba
Born in Cameroon to a prominent royal family, Gilbert Soba grew up content amongst a large family. His mother was a policewoman, and his father was a young educated plantation cler...view moreBorn in Cameroon to a prominent royal family, Gilbert Soba grew up content amongst a large family. His mother was a policewoman, and his father was a young educated plantation clerk. Gilbert’s strict Catholic school childhood was not short of challenges. At a tender age, he admired freedom fighters and longed to live the American dream inspired by movies and his ancestral slavery bloodline in the United States.
He moved to Cape Town, South Africa, in 1997, searching for a better life. Gilbert speaks of his shocking experience in the rainbow nation during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He was terrified as xenophobia was on the rise. African immigrants were harassed predominantly by white police officers. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu were the keys to hope.
Gilbert Soba landed in Norway in 2006, chasing romance with his Norwegian exchange-student girlfriend. He experienced the cold reality of the country, compared with the warm picture drawn of Norway abroad. The country gives the Nobel Peace Prize with one hand and abuses human rights with the other by deporting refugee children to danger and depriving black citizens and so-called fourth-generation immigrants from equal opportunities. He questions this double moral.
He worries about armed police on the streets and the prejudices that the right-wing government portrays of non-natives. The terrorist attack on July 22, 2011, made Gilbert rethink his destiny in Norway and the future of his children. Integration had failed in his adopted nation, as in the rest of Europe.view less