In my father's footsteps

Christian Gazam-Betty's path to his life as a diplomat was many years in the making

The 16-year-old Central African boy sat quietly in the corner of the room, listening attentively to the palaver between men who could shape the world around them.

There had been other rooms and other meetings like this, a long succession of them, so many that the boy found the names and faces and places blurred together.

It was 2001, and Christian Gazam-Betty didn't understand much of what he was seeing and hearing, at least not at first.

The son of the then Central African Republic's ambassador to China, Gazam-Betty was his father's unlikely shadow whenever the diplomat met government officials and business people.

Now 28, Gazam-Betty concedes that if you were to draw a line connecting Beijing's halls of power, the boardrooms of billionaires, and the ballrooms on the embassy circuit, what emerges would be akin to a map of his teenage years.

Less than four months into his tenure as the economic adviser for the Central African Republic's embassy in China, Gazam-Betty says he only recently realized his father purposefully drew that rough sketch, the outline and the shape of which would determine the path his son would walk into manhood.

Sitting in his office in the Chaoyang district of Beijing, he says his father Christophe Gazam-Betty had been grooming him to serve his country.

It is not a job he wanted to do. But like his father, when the time came he felt that it was his responsibility, one his unusual childhood had prepared him for.

"When you're 16 years old, you want to be playing basketball, or going out to party with your friends," Gazam-Betty says. "I didn't know, but my father was training me for the future. He had a vision. He wanted his children to be tools for the future of our country, for its expansion and development. He knew that he needed to train us from the beginning."

The political upheaval and violence that has plagued the Central African Republic in recent years has scarred Gazam-Betty's country, stunted the resource rich nation's economic growth and perpetuated poverty.

There is pain in the young man's eyes when he speaks about the succession of crises; there is hope in his voice when he speaks of a brighter tomorrow.

And his nation's future, Gazam-Betty says, hinges on China.

Gazam-Betty concedes that in many ways he is at the forefront of a new generation of Africans who have grown up on a rapidly changing continent where once distant China suddenly looms large.

The diplomat's father made sure his son would be ready for this brave new Africa.

When Gazam-Betty arrived in Beijing in 2001, 16 years old and nervous, he expected to be the lone African boy his age. He was wrong.

"My first impression of China was shock at seeing so many expatriates," he recalls.

Then his father did something unexpected.

"As soon as we arrived, the next day my father placed me and my little brother with a Chinese family. We lived with them for several months. I used to think my father had abandoned us. It wasn't that; it was training.

"I didn't speak Chinese and they didn't speak English or French. We learnt the language, we learnt the culture; they taught us so many things."

The head of his new Chinese family, whom Gazam-Betty remembers only as Mr Zhang, was a friend of his father and a businessman who had invested heavily in Central Africa's timber industry.

In 2002, the two families, who had shared so much happiness, forged even closer ties when they found themselves plunged into a crucible of shared grief.

"Mr Zhang, who was a friend of my family, who was a friend of my country, he lost his life in Central Africa," Gazam-Betty says.

About one year after Zhang was killed in a road accident, Gazam-Betty's five-year-old brother Fortune died in a car crash in Beijing.

"Mr Zhang and my little brother were so close. He wanted to adopt my little brother. He wanted my brother to be his son. It was crazy: my little brother lost his life here, Mr Zhang lost his life there."

The old grief is still fresh enough to give Gazam-Betty pause. His voice grows suddenly quiet.

"My family, we are bound to China."

Gazam-Betty said that between 2000 and 2006 his father worked tirelessly to try to rebuild the trust and confidence of Chinese investors, many of whom had been burnt when their projects had been damaged or destroyed in one of the outbreaks of violence in Central Africa since the late 1990s.

"When we came here, the embassy was closed," Gazam-Betty says. "Back then, what my father was trying to achieve was to rebuild confidence, to rebuild the relationship between China and the Central African Republic.

"He played his role. When I go back home, I see things that the Chinese built. They were built at the time when my father was ambassador.

"I asked him why he did it, and he said, 'Because I love my country, because I am called to it.'"

In 2006 Christophe Gazam-Betty left China. His son decided to stay instead of relocating to France.

Gazam-Betty studied Chinese and business at the Beijing Chinese Language and Culture University, and later at the University of Science and Technology Beijing.

Planning to go into the private sector, Gazam-Betty received a call from the embassy late last year. It wanted him to come and work for the ambassador as an attache.

When the moment came, he found his father's footsteps easily enough, and chose to follow them.

"I took it as fate. My dad told me, 'Son, we need you to help develop this country.'"

Gazam-Betty may not have seen it, but others around him say he was destined for a diplomatic career.

James Lissant, who is Haitian, met him while studying at Beijing Language and Cultural University. Now living in Guangzhou and running his own export company, he says his friend had a passion for his country that was always evident.

"I'm not surprised about his position now. He was living in China and learning from his dad long before I got here."

Jokay Kayenga, 31, from Congo, who is a school friend of Gazam-Betty and who has gone on to open his own business facilitating investment for Chinese companies in Africa, said Gazam-Betty really did not intend to follow his father, but Kayenga is glad he did.

"As students, we were both looking at ways to become successful businessmen. But he really suits his (current) position. I can't think of anything better for him."

In July the new president, Michel Diotodia, promoted Gazam-Betty to economic adviser.

The world and his country had changed. Gazam-Betty realized the trail blazed by his father had come to an abrupt end. He was suddenly in uncharted territory, but he knew where his country needed to be, and now had to find a way to get it there.

China, his nation's second-largest export partner, needs to be convinced it is safe to come back to Central Africa and help the country realize its full potential.

Gazam-Betty, who has spent almost half his life in China and is fluent in Mandarin, French and English, says he knows the relationship will be mutually beneficial.

Investors are already slowly coming back to the country, Gazam-Betty says, but he is unable to provide solid figures because the grim bill for the latest bout of fighting included national financial records and databases.

"What I'd say to investors that would look to Central Africa is that the last crisis that we had is the last crisis we are willing to see. We have one vision: to be a country that emerges and develops itself. My word to investors is 'Central Africa is totally open for business'."

"I have the economic hope of more than 4 million people on my shoulders. I need to do everything so the economy of my country can be rebooted."

While his compatriots have been fighting each other, Gazam-Betty has been following his father's example, and fighting for his country.

The sincerity of that teenage boy, who sat in the corner of meeting rooms and watched his father work for his country, creeps into his voice when he says the battle for a brighter future will not be won by guns and bullets.

Fighting for peace and prosperity can only be done with the head, and the heart.

"That's the best way to fight."

Gazam-Betty's father is now the minister for communications and national reconciliation. These days, son and father walk side by side, leaving a wider trail for others to follow, as they search for a path into a brighter future that China and Central Africa can travel along, together.

josephcatanzaro@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 09/27/2013 page28)