Anglophone Intellectuals Lost In the Crowd
If done regularly, public intellectual discourse and debates
could stimulate development and help the country move forward. Of course, they
can only be made by the highly educated people in our country. But for long
years now those of them who are English-speaking have refused to play this
edifying role. They are rather interested in helping to advance an iniquitous
system whose only mission is to impoverish the innocent masses and subject them
to a life of perpetual servitude
By Douglas A. Achingale*
Have you ever pondered over the intelligentsia in Cameroon?
If your response is in the affirmative, then you must have realized that our
country has them in torrential abundance, Anglophones and Francophones alike.
They are everywhere: in academia, in government, in the civil society… And most
of them who have terminal degrees and other superior qualifications are
exhilarated to be distinguished by the somewhat intimidating titles of
‘Doctors’ and ‘Professors’ that are attached to their names. But those paper
qualifications and titles seem to be all what they have to show as highly
educated people. When they are called upon to ruminate about issues of national
well-being, make right judgment and educate the public so as to help move the
country forward, they glide uncannily into torpor.
Regrettably,
this phenomenon is more noticeable amongst Anglophone intellectuals. In the
early 1990s when the wind of change coming from Eastern Europe was blowing
across Africa, the Cameroonian public had a feel of the ‘intellectualness’ of
some of them. If they were not in the audio-visual media – even if against the
wishes of the powers that be – to raise public awareness on important state
issues and make incredible recommendations on the way forward for our nascent
democracy, they came out forcefully in the print media to do the same edifying
job.
And so
we enjoyed either listening to the thought-provoking arguments or reading the
incisive write-ups of fearless nation-builders such as Tata Mentan, Sam Nuvalla
Fonkem, Bate Besong, Rotcod Gobata, Ntemfac Ofege, Boniface Forbin, George
Ngwane, Akwanka Joe Ndifor, Christmas Atem Ebini, Churchill Ewumbue-Monono,
Larry Eyong Echaw, Julius Wamey, Tande Dibussi Jabea, Jing Thomas Ayeh, Taadom
Sultan, Victor Julius Ngoh, Boh Herbert, etc. For those of them who were
journalists of the state-run Cameroon Radio Television Corporation (CRTV),
their contributions came mostly through the analyses they made on the TV
program ‘Minute By Minute’ and radio program ‘Cameroon Calling’ which today has
unfortunately been reduced more or less to a panorama of government activities.
But feeling uncomfortable with a regime they considered
hostile, many of these intellectuals have gone on self-exile abroad. Some
others have simply ‘eaten soya’ or seemingly been intimidated to submission and
so have stayed mute ever since, while one or two others have died. For someone
like Boniface Forbin, he continued with this activity for as long as his sorely
unique and imposing newspaper, The Herald, lived on. Having worked under him
for many years, I also understood that he tried in vain to involve some members
of the academia in this noble endeavour.
There
is therefore the absence of meaningful intellectual discourse and debate in
English in Cameroon today, be it in audio-visual and print media organs whose
numbers have significantly increased over the years, or in other public forums.
If Anglophone intellectuals must go out to talk, it is to portentously justify
a system in which a privileged few are seated at the high table devouring tasty
chunks of boneless beef, and the majority crowded under the table rummaging for
crumbs and sleeping rough. It is to invidiously fly the faded flag of a groggy
epicurean, who, despite his being riddled with bullets of senility by the rifle
of time, refuses to relinquish what should otherwise be in the keeping of a
more active, adroit and perspicacious patriot.
It is
indeed to directly or indirectly defend their bloated bellies and questionable
bank accounts to the detriment of the hoi polloi.
An
adage goes that when the stomach is full, the head is empty. Anglophone
intellectuals today generally have a bovine expression; they cast the image of
overfed layabouts, who, like drooling sedated porpoises, are almost permanently
in deep slumber. Rather than actively enlightening, their activities are
mundane and humdrum. They seem to have pocketed their heads and now reason only
with their stomachs. That is why all they are interested in is to sing the
silly song of a senile potentate who has lost touch with the urgent realities
of our society, and get ‘gombo’, appointments and promotion in return.
Today,
we can count with the fingers of our hand those who stick out their necks and
keep the hope alive in the newspapers. If it is not the acclaimed public
intellectual and erudite Harvard scholar, Valerian Ekinneh Agbaw Ebai, it is
the virulent and insightful former politician, Tazoacha Asonganyi. And one or
two others.
A few
politicians, civil society actors and journalists of the private press who participate
in programs like ‘CRTV Club’ and ‘Press Hour’ on CRTV television and who have
the Cameroonian people at heart, often make an effort to say things that are
meaningful and helpful to the vast majority of their compatriots. Unfortunately
their speeches and ideas are most of the time suffocated by the coordinators of
the said programs who would tell you off the microphone that they are seeking
to toe the line ‘for obvious reasons’. Whatever obvious reasons they may be
talking about.
Meanwhile
we commend the unalloyed efforts of the presenters and some participants of the
morning talk show on CRTV radio ‘Morning Safari’ to enlighten the public on
certain pertinent issues of state. At the same time we deplore the decision of
the management of the house to stop the firebrand duo, Alice Esambe Tata and
Kange Williams Wasaloko, from presenting the program just because they were
doing their job well.
Scenario different amongst Francophones
The
scenario is different amongst many a Francophone intellectual. There is no
doubt that a good number of them, like their Anglophone colleagues, equally
accept to be led by the nose like asses, owing to sheer greed. But there are
many others whom you cannot stop from feeding the minds of Cameroonians with
progressive ideas.
Watch
the Sunday afternoon debate programs on TV channels such as Canal2
International, STV and Equinoxe TV, and read some of the French language
papers. You would agree with me that the Mathias Owona Nguinis, the
Babissakanas, the Bobiokonos, the Pius Ottous, the Henriette Ekwes, the Alice
Nkoms, The Sousthene Foudas etc. are gritty Cameroonians to be reckoned with.
Many
would hasten to say that the foul-mouthed and garrulous Charles Ateba Eyene
belongs to this category of Francophone intellectuals. To my mind, he only
partially does, for he is someone who raises the problem of a fish but refuses
to talk about its head. He fails to understand that a fish starts getting
rotten from the head!
*The author is a Yaounde-based critic, social worker and
freethinker
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