Aubameyang (pronounced obameyang) comes from the same Bantu language root as the name of the USA’s last President Obama, whose father was from Kenya and came to the USA on a scholarship. The “yang” part most likely is from an ancestor brought to Gabon by the French from French Indochina* for labor in the last half of the 1800s—about the same time that the USA brought Chinese from Canton Province. They were essential for the work on the Central Pacific Railroad.** Yang is a common Chinese surname that belonged to the royal clan during the Zhou dynasty (8th—5th century BCE). The “Yin-Yang” philosophical concept that depicts interconnected opposite forces, is more commonly recognized. Another descendent of laborers brought by the French to Gabon is Jean Ping who is a prominent Gabonese leader. He ran for President in the last election but did not win.
As I write this op-ed, Gabon’s President Ali Bongo Ondimba is hosting an ‘Africa Climate Week’ in the capitol ( Libreville) with leaders of 42 African nations and some United Nations personnel. The conference is to prepare a unified approach at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) taking place in Egypt in less than three months. Gabon is known in Africa as the leader in taking climate change seriously and has six large reservations where animals are safe, and trees cannot be removed.*** Gabon is the combined size of Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey with a total population around two million—approximately the population of people incarcerated in US prisons in 2022.
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*French Indochina is today primarily Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
**Between 10,000 to 20,000 Chinese laborers were brought to work in the USA. Between 1865 and 1869, they were 90% of the workforce.
***Dominated by France since the mid-1840s and then a colony of France until its independence in 1960, I was stunned to learn that just last month Gabon joined the British Commonwealth of Nations!
My thanks to Wikipedia for some data in the above op-ed.