THE DEMANDING TASK FOR THE POST-INDEPENDENCE GENERATIONS
The
principal problem weighing hard on the general psychology of the
majority of the peoples of Cameroon and Africa today is the worry of the
path their frustrated, disillusion and dehumanized children would take
to advance their wellbeing. By the word children, I mean those born just
before and after the years of independence for many African countries
in the early 1960s. This is a generation that was born in the atmosphere
of hope and expectations that had gripped Cameroon and Africa just
before and just after independence, a positive feeling based on recently
realized reunification and independence made all the more dazzling by
the goals harangued by its leaders.
However,
getting to four decades after, we are still nowhere close to the dreams that had sustained our hopes. Poverty, disease, illiteracy, repression,
ethnic divisions, corruption, underdevelopment and external domination still plague us, and in many aspects, even worse than before independence. Yet, we thought that ridding ourselves of colonialism through quasi-independence would automatically give birth to the broom that would clear up all aspects of our underdevelopment. Our post-independence leadership and pseudo-intellectuals fooled us because they lacked the will and vision to utilize the potentials of the lands they were leading. They failed us by not mastering the Archimedean point of our underdevelopment and development potentials. The self-serving
systems put in place by colonial masters like France and the lever they
conceived and hoped to spin the different African countries to greater
heights was a reflection of their egos and delusions than of their
intelligence, will, and rationale.
In
Cameroon today, we are faced with the colossal task of starting from the
scratch, which involves demolishing the failed and unprogressive
anti-democratic and exploitative French-imposed system and putting in
place a new, progressive and compatible system that would be the
reflection of the original goals of Cameroon’s union-nationalism and
the genuine aspirations of the people. This would be a system that would
place the country firmly among the community of progressive,
democratic, representative, enlightened, and advanced nations.
Today,
the history of humanity has reached that great scale of change where
the keywords of technological progress, freedom, liberty, development,
solidarity and integration are making great strides to be parts of our
everyday lives. It has been observed with clarity that the Cameroonian
people are being left behind in this great advancement of humanity
because of the selfish objectives and actions of the oligarchy that
stays in power through the deceptive French-imposed system. This
autocratic, minority, pseudo-representative, corrupt and unpatriotic
regime cannot alleviate the poverty, disease, despair, illiteracy,
corruption, rising ethnocentrism, brain drain, and incomprehension that
against the sake of humanity is being accepted as part of our everyday
lives. The unacceptable nature of the five-decade system can best be
explained by Dmitri Ivanovich Pisarev’s denunciation of autocracy:
On
the side of the government, there are only the scoundrels bought with
money squeezed by fraud and violence from the poor. On the side of the
people, there is all that is fresh and youthful, all that is capable of
thinking and doing. What is dead and rotten (the autocratic government)
must of itself fall into the grave. All we have to do is give it the
final push and cover the stinking corpse with dirt.
Comparing
Dmitri Ivanovich Pisarev’s observation with the Cameroonian reality, we
would realize with clarity that getting rid of all aspects of this
French-imposed autocratic and oligarchic system is our first task. It is
only after the complete and irrevocable burial of absolutism shall it
be possible for us to set aside our despairs and harness our hopes,
strengths, determinations, and potentials to realize the all-embracing
dream for a great Cameroon and Africa. It would be a hard and merciless
task, but the only path that that would lead to our salvation.
This
demanding task is especially on the shoulders of Cameroonians of the
post-independence generations. It is from their ranks that the forces,
backing, and attention to realize the dream of the New Cameroon would
rest. These forces would be the workers (agricultural, industrial and
service or tertiary), the intellectuals, academicians, politicians,
religious bodies, civil movements, artists, business class,
functionaries, students, and even the unemployed. Cameroonians would be
led by the advanced representatives who would have mastered the
selfless, humanizing, unifying, and progressive principles and goals of
the country’s national idea embodied in its Union-Nationalism and the
basic tenets of its social and democratic program. It is through its
union-nationalism that Cameroonians would realize the historic mission
providence had placed on their shoulders for their well-being and the
advancement of the nation and Africa.
We
shall be able to boast that we have established the foundation of the
New Cameroon, one that is capable of marching forward along the road of
the democratic tenets of its union-nationalism that has been revised
over the years and found to be compatible with progressive world ideas
only when:
· The advanced representatives of the various forces would have made the new and humanized Cameroonian ideal to be widespread.
· They would have realized enduring organization, order, competency, discipline, and self-discipline within their ranks.
· They
would have extended their arms beyond their confines to consolidate the
harmonious cooperation of all the development forces of the land.
It
would be on this foundation that we shall transform the present
anachronistic system into a modern, progressive, and technologically
oriented one; and then invest in new ideas, know-how, and efforts to
build a great producing nation that shall ensure accountability and an
efficient production, distribution, and service network. As an indispensable part of this advanced system would be the justifiable
social benefits— the eradication of poverty, elimination of poor housing
and housing shortages, reduction of diseases to acceptable limits, good
sanitation and the provision of the necessary amenities and modern
infrastructure.
Politically,
this advanced, humanized, and progressive system would ensure the total,
complete and universal human rights of its citizens. It would be the
upholder of their rights, pride, freedom, and equality, a commitment
that shall ensure the prevalence of a democracy that is truly compatible
with the Cameroonian reality, one that shall ensure the eternal burial
of absolutism. This modern, progressive and advanced system shall direct
the Cameroonian people in cooperation with the progressive forces of
other African countries towards the realization of their fraternal dream
of harmony—the actualization of the economic union and political
integration of Africa. It is along this path of our union-nationalism
that we shall realize the all-embracing-century old Cameroonian dream
and be led towards the all-embracing junction that shall realize
Africa’s unity through the harmonious cooperation of its union forces.
It would be at this stage that Cameroon and Africa shall take their
merited places in the world community, while working with other worldly
forces to make this world safe and conducive for our children. This extended task is entirely on the shoulders of the post-independence
generations.
JANVIER TCHOUTEU FERUARY 15, 1995
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