Equatoguinean Exiles

The third of the country that fled — Equatoguineans who left during the Macías years, when schools closed, the word intellectual became an accusation and the president declared himself the country's only miracle, and whose descendants live in Spain, Gabon and Cameroon.

Identity

Population: Estimated over 100,000 abroad, including descendants; roughly a third of the population fled between 1969 and 1979

Location: Spain (Madrid, Valencia), Gabon, Cameroon and, more recently, the United States

Language: Spanish, with Fang, Bubi and Pichinglis maintained variably in the diaspora

Language family: Indo-European → Romance → Spanish; Niger-Congo → Bantu (Fang, Bubi)

Traditional governance: Opposition parties, cultural associations and human rights organisations abroad, largely banned or unviable at home.

Clans, Sections & Sub-groups (3)

Most African peoples are federations of named sub-groups — clans, sections, chiefdoms or sub-tribes — each with its own dialect, territory and traditions.

Spanish diaspora

The largest, in Madrid and Valencia, with the deepest institutional and literary presence.

Gabonese and Cameroonian communities

Those who crossed the nearest borders, often on foot, and stayed.

Post-1979 political exiles

Those who left under the current government rather than under Macías.

Culture

Clothing: Contemporary dress in the countries of residence; Equatoguinean dress at cultural association events, which is much of what such associations do.

Food: Pepesup, cassava and plantain cooked in Madrid kitchens; the food is one of the most durable markers in a diaspora scattered across three continents.

Ceremonies: Independence day observed with deliberate ambivalence; commemorations of the Macías years; cultural association gatherings; the balele and other dances performed abroad.

Marriage customs: Marriage within the diaspora and into host societies; families are frequently split across Spain, Gabon and the country itself.

Initiation rites: Education, which is the point: the generation that fled did so because education had become dangerous, and the diaspora's investment in it has been correspondingly heavy.

Stories & Oral Literature

The Only MiracleHistorical account

Francisco Macías Nguema ruled from 1968 to 1979 with a title that translates as the country's only miracle. He closed schools, banned the word intellectual, had the national library's holdings destroyed, and presided over killings and disappearances on a scale that emptied the professional class. Estimates of the dead run into the tens of thousands; around a third of the population left.

Writing From Somewhere ElseLiterary account

Equatorial Guinea is the only sub-Saharan African country whose official language is Spanish, and nearly all its literature has been written in exile. Donato Ndongo, María Nsue Angüe and Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel have produced a body of work in Spanish that is read in Madrid and largely unavailable in Malabo, which is itself the subject of a good deal of it.

Proverbs

“They closed the schools and called it independence.”
The Macías years, as remembered in the diaspora.

“We write in Spanish because we could not stay to write in Fang.”
A literature produced abroad.

“Oil found the country and did not find us.”
Wealth that did not reach the exiled or the poor.

Mythology & Spiritual Beliefs

Creation: Roman Catholicism, from three centuries of Spanish presence; Macías banned Catholic worship outright in 1978, which is remembered as the point at which the regime turned on the last institution standing.

Beliefs: Roman Catholicism, restored after 1979 and dominant; Fang and Bubi ancestral practice, including bwiti, maintained variably; the diaspora's associations function as quasi-religious centres of continuity.

Ancestors: The dead of the Macías years are frequently unburied and unlocated, and the absence of graves is a defining grievance of the exile community.

Gods, Goddesses & Spirits

The Christian God

Worshipped in a Catholicism banned outright in 1978 and restored afterwards

Bwiti

The initiatory tradition of the Fang, carried into exile in fragments

Ancestors

Honoured in a diaspora where most graves are unreachable

Architecture

Traditional settlements: Apartment districts of Madrid and Valencia; border settlements in Gabon and Cameroon; nothing built, which is the point about exile.

Building techniques: None distinct: the community builds nothing of its own abroad and has had no say in what is built at home, where oil money has produced a purpose-built capital at Oyala.

Village layout: Dispersed. The community's geography is a list of cities rather than a place, and its institutions are associations rather than buildings.

Artifacts

Exile literature in Spanish

Literature

The country's literary output, nearly all of it written and published abroad.

Human rights archives

Historical Timeline

1968
Independence from Spain; Francisco Macías Nguema becomes president.
1969–1979
Schools close, the professional class is killed or driven out, and around a third of the population flees.
1978
Catholic worship is banned outright; the last independent institution is closed.
1979
Macías is overthrown by his nephew Teodoro Obiang and executed; some exiles return.
1995–present
Oil is found in quantity; the country's per capita income soars while political exile continues.

Sources & Further Reading

Open sources

Britannica: Equatorial Guinea — historyEncyclopaedia Britannica
Human Rights Watch: Equatorial GuineaHuman Rights Watch

Premium & scholarly sources

Equatoguinean literature in Spanish — scholarshipJSTOR