Lucien Minka is a student at the University of Oldenburg. Alongside his studies, he works with children and young people from socially disadvantaged families. His father, too, had found his way from Cameroon to the University of Oldenburg – in the 1970s, under conditions that are almost impossible to imagine.
The story begins with an extreme experience. It tells of how a young man from Cameroon travelled to Germany in the autumn of 1973. As a stowaway, without a passport, without an entry visa and without any German language skills. He disembarks in Bremen and wanders barefoot through the city. Eventually he finds help, but that is no longer the beginning of the story.
The story really did happen. Anatole Minka recounts it in retrospect in his book *A Black African from Oldenburg*. It marks the start of a ten-year stay in northern Germany – the journey of a man who was determined to learn. And who enrols as one of the first international students at the University of Oldenburg.
Forty years later, his Cameroon-born son Lucien is sitting on the square in front of the university canteen at the same university. His seminar is about to begin; the semester break is approaching and exams are coming up. “My father told me a lot about Germany whilst we were in Cameroon. He gave me some contacts who helped me a great deal in the early days. And he taught me how important education is, and the commitment it requires.” The 26-year-old had already learnt German in Cameroon. “I made a conscious effort and completed my Abitur whilst still in Cameroon. It was clear that, unlike my father, I wouldn’t make it here without a higher school-leaving qualification.”
In 1975, there were 27 international students at the University of Oldenburg; it was the university’s second academic year, and the campus consisted of just two buildings. Lucien’s father chose Protestant Theology, Social Studies, Politics and Educational Sciences. In 1982, he successfully completed his degree as a qualified teacher and grammar school teacher. He became a senior civil servant in Cameroon’s Ministry of Education, where he managed infrastructure projects.
In 2015, the University of Oldenburg campus no longer consists of just two buildings, but two campuses; and the university now educates not 27, but more than 1,000 international students. Lucien is studying social sciences and economics as part of a dual-subject Bachelor’s degree. “I want to know how the economy works and understand the social structures in Germany.”
A lot has happened since Lucien arrived in Oldenburg four years ago. He has left the comfort zone of the hall of residence, where fellow students from his own country tend to keep to themselves. He has made German friends, he has got married, and he has found a cause that is important to him. “Many people aren’t properly integrated,” says Lucien, “and many don’t even try to get to know the system in the first place, but the fact is that everyone has to reach out to one another.” He observes this across the whole city. “If people don’t integrate, what will Oldenburg look like in ten years’ time?”
The question weighs heavily on his mind. Alongside his studies, Lucien is involved with the Youth Migration Service, and he also works as a street worker for the Youth and Family Support Service (Jufa). He spends a lot of time talking to children and young people from socially disadvantaged families. His skin colour works in his favour here, says Lucien. “I’m a foreigner myself; I’m not from social services, so I can speak plainly with the young people, help them believe in themselves more, make something of themselves and get involved.”
He regularly speaks to his father on the phone, telling him how his exams are going and what his work involves. He visits Cameroon once a year. There are things you only find there, and things you only find here. “In Cameroon, you meet up after school, you talk and talk, mixing everything together – you never run out of things to talk about,” says Lucien. It’s different in Germany, he says; it’s perhaps the only thing he sometimes misses – that aimless spontaneity, that joy of chatting that leads nowhere.
His father used to feel the same way. He would sometimes marvel at the fact that there are care homes where only elderly people live, that children aren’t allowed to run about freely as they do in Cameroon, and that Germans are ‘insured up to their teeth’. Some, writes Anatole Minka, would check to see if black dye was stuck to their hands after he’d greeted them with a handshake. At the same time, he repeatedly emphasises how much his German friends and acquaintances stood up for him – for example, professors and other university staff who accompanied him to the police station to have his residence permit extended.
Lucien also reports that he received a great deal of support in difficult situations. “I’m very grateful for that.” He can imagine staying in Germany for longer, and eventually working full-time in the field of social integration. “But that’s for later. You can’t view life in such a mathematical way.” That sentence could just as easily have appeared in his father’s book. Perhaps there’ll soon be an opportunity to show him the new, different Oldenburg – Lucien’s Oldenburg. “My father’s probably coming to visit in March.” It would be lovely to organise an event with and about him then, says Lucien. “But first, there are exams.”
