Dear Mark Bareta and Tapang Ivo,
 |
| Franklin SoneBayen |
Come let us reason together. I should have
said this on CRTV Press Hour where I was invited yesterday, but I was held down
with other engagements.
Listen
guys, any actions we take against the GCE, eg. ghost towns, be they
"ManchoBibixy ghost towns" or "AgborBalla ghost towns" or
"NebaFontem ghost towns" or "TilariousAtiaAzohnwi ghost
towns" or "Amos Fofung ghost towns" or "Tim Finian ghost
towns", or "#AllOurDetainees ghost towns" they will only be half
measures.
GCE
will be written and it wll be marked. Francophone exams are being written even
in our homeland, we haven't raise a finger. Why are we enjoying this
self-inflicted punishment?
Some
kids, or all who seek to, will write the GCE, come what may. Some kids in the
homeland and a multitude of our kids in the other regions will smart into their
uniforms tomorrow and go to exams centres.
Nothing
will obstruct the GCE for the kids of English High School, Oxford, etc in
Yaounde whom I have seen wearing clean, well ironed uniforms, anglo-saxon ties
to march with their skirts and trousers and waist-coats throughout this
academic year going to school unperturbed by the upheavals in our homeland and
the tribulations we have plunged our own children into. Most of them are our
own kids.
In
all this, some or all of the scripts will be marked, come what may. Some kids
will pass the GCE, come what may. Those we seek to obstruct from writing will
be the victims. They won't smile at us.
If
you want to show someone your anger, through stool at his door, not at yours.
Look
guys, it hurts to see the heroic ManchoBibixy turn up for trial looking as
haggard as he was. It also warms the heart to see my secondary classmate
Ebenezer D. M. Akwanga looking so jolly, celebrating life, the progress of a
son he mght never have seen, after the tribulations he went through where
Mancho is now. (Not even half Akwanga's tribulations have been narrated).
We
are in this fight to hold our own. We won't let up until we get our due – a
decent existence for our people here. The road is long. There are many ways to
do it. One-track thinking is like driving a train on rails, no room for
maneouvres.
This
battle is not a spectacle. We ought to put human beings, not persons, not
indivduals, at the centre of our strategies. Julius Ndi might have died in
Kondengui, but Akwanga did not and Mancho will not. God forbid!!
We
will strive ceaselessly, restlesly to obtain the freedom of our detainees. But
our struggle is not just about obtaining their freedom. Our rights won't be
restored automatically the day they are all released. They were all free before
we started fighting. We shouldn't lose focus and start placing their release on
top of our agenda as if that were our top priority.
The
South African struggle was not about obtaining the freedom of Nelson Mandela;
it was about obtaining the rights of the oppressed Black people.
I
want to see our kids enjoying their rights by writing the GCE prior to, during
and after the Day of The African Child on June 16, this coming week, marked in
remembrance of the Soweto Massacre, when South African children were gunned
down for demanding better education.
Questionable
Yaounde policies are denying our children the quality of education they
deserve. That's bad enough. However, anyone going out this coming weeks to
obstruct or harm any child for going to write the GCE (in pursuit of their
educational dreams like the Soweto kids) will go down in the same dark pages of
history as the apartheid regime in South Africa.
Fraternally,
Franklin SoneBayen
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