moniquekwachou

    March is International Women’s Month, I knew I would write something in relation to the women’s movement, a sort of state of the movement speech, but till a recent argument with a friend I didn’t know what exactly I would be writing on. The argument wasn’t important, but a statement made during it is. The particularly chauvinist statement being made by one who calls herself a feminist, who has studied gender and is often quick to declare herself equal to or more than any man (not that the fact is disputed) was a revelation of what she really thought within her about the status of women: To be seen no heard. As I pondered on the hypocrisy her statement, I realized it was normal. Yes, normal.  You see my friend is one of many and we, I included, are all a bit like her. These are the kind of feminists we are, the kind we have cultivated. The African feminist, particularly the Cameroonian feminist is a fickle one.  How so? We are feminist when it concerns us, when it suits our sensibilities, when it is socially “OK”, or when we feel like we are being observed. We are feminists when, where, and how we like. Let me illustrate this; the typical Cameroonian feminist has does not like, and has argued against the socialization which demeans a woman to no more than a cook or mother, but she is OK with the young men being socialized to pick up the bill, be undomesticated, strong and would criticize her son for not being man enough to catch and kill the chickens her daughter has to cook just as she would criticize her daughter if the girl left her brother to change the baby rather than do the “feminine” chore. The average Cameroonian feminist is against her sexuality being used to define her rights to life and the quality of it, but cannot relate and does not bother to if the sexuality of LGBTQ persons determine their right to life or freedom to be. The typical Cameroonian feminist is one who still won’t talk about sex unless in relation to rape, harassment or childbirth. I recently told someone the use of statements like “coming out of the closet” would be redundant in Cameroon because either straight or gay, you are in the closet. Our feminism does not extend to sexual freedom. Then there are the Cameroonian women who believe they should have equal rights, believe they should be allowed to do any job they want to for equal pay, believe they should wear whatever they like and have no fear of harassment etc. Sounds feminist right? But they don’t want to be called “feminist”. They don’t like that word, and don’t want to be part of the movement even if they are currently enjoying the fruits and protection of that movement. The Cameroonian feminist man is quick to assert his daughters equality to any boy in her class; he would tell her she can do whatever she aspires after, she is “his princess”. Yet somehow he cannot see his wife’s equality to himself. He cannot be expected to do equal house chores, if any. There cannot be two heads, only one head and a neck he would say, forgetting that it is the neck which holds up the head. And by the time he passes away he would have conveniently forgotten to clarify in his will that it is “his princess” and not the brothers or uncles who would control the property he left behind simply because she is more capable. The Cameroonian feminist is the single mother who after doing it all, raising her daughter with blood and sweat would look for the girl’s father or a distant uncle who never lifted a finger to collect the bride-price offered on the day of her traditional marriage. The typical Cameroonian feminist is our Minister of Culture who would convene an inter-ministerial meeting to discuss the policing of girls’ dressing as an attempt to address harassment. Our feminism is like a “get out of jail card” when playing monopoly. It is convenient. We remember we’re feminist when we want something then forget it when the inequality or bias favours us. We interpret our feminism the way we do our religion. Choosing what parts of the bible or Quran to respect or brandish.   I recall learning of the section of Cameroonian law which denies a woman the right to take someone out of prison on bail as a surety when a mother I knew was unable to bail her teen son who was unjustly imprisoned and had to scout out a male relative to do it. I criticized the law to a female lawyer friend and was told “to stop being impractical” what if the women were given that right and the person they took on bail took flight? That would mean arresting the woman. She rationed that the law considered women delicate and so it was OK. She conveniently forgot that as a single mother she was raising two kids, and was not at all physically “delicate”. Why didn’t I know about this law before? I certainly know about the bias laws on adultery and marriage and grounds for divorce because those laws discriminate against women in favour of men. But this one, which is considered in favour of women is not mentioned. In the end it seems most of us either don’t know what feminism is:  “the belief (or movement which believes) in the equality of ALL irrespective of sex/gender particular in terms of rights, opportunities and justice. Or we have conveniently warped the definition of equality to suit us so it is not something akin to Orwell’s Animal Farm: All are equal, but some more equal than others. In our kind of feminism a prostitute being raped is not equal to the pristine daughter of the community leader and should “our” movement be supporting her? Still it could be that at

Reposting this interview I had for a Nigerian blog Romance Meets Life.. Romance Meets Life: RML Woman: Monique Kwachou – Cameroonian Writer, Y…: Monique Kwachou is a Cameroonian writer, youth advocate, blogger and currently a Chevening Scholar. She is studying for an M.A in Educati…

Hello once again to my little niche in the cybersphere.This time around I’m ranting on a plethora of things. I just couldn’t stop myself despite having promised a reader I was going to shorten my posts :/ Earlier this month I knew exactly what I would blog about. I had scribbled down brief opinions on the uprising in Burkina Faso and later on contemplated doing a tourists comparison between London and Paris. But since that time, too many things have happened. Too many different hurts have been felt, questions raised. Some of us walk around with our hearts wrapped in bubble paper, you know, the ones they use to package porcelain and other delicate, fragile items. And others still walk around forever in shades that make everything look a little better than they are or a little less harsh than is real. Optimist they’re called. I have been both these people in and out of time, and it hurts like hell whenever something pushes through the buble wrap or I lift the shades and reality slaps me in the face.  Where am I going to with this? Certain truths exist which have come into focus recently: On Burkina Faso Let me start from home. Compaore is down, who is up. Sankara they say has received “justice”. No. The downfall of your murderer or enemy is not justice it’s merely the most popular form of revenge. Justice will come when What Sankara stood for, believed in and hoped for his people comes to pass. So all those who have been calling on the spirit of revolution to come down to Cameroon, especially online, particularly from out of the country. I ask you to tell me who will be put up. You may say of course there is the opposition.  I ask you, were you here during the last elections? Did you enter the voting stations? Did you see what I saw? Can you name a single contender of the president who was worth it. Could you show me a single one who without the title of president. Just as an able bodied, financially capable citizen was doing something anything to make a change in their community? Tarring a road, mentoring youth, creating jobs etc. Just giving of themselves without eternal donations of which only a percentage may actually be rightfully used? Could you name any of those candidates actually being a leader NOW. Have you heard any news of them NOW that there is no elections? But yet you’ll hear of a list of over 200 political parties when it comes time to distribute funding to the “opposition” to “run against” the ruling party. Yes. We want the Spirit of Sankara. But not the spirit of revenge. If bringing down one bad seed to plant another in the seat is some people’s idea of change they need to face reality. Things will not get better by just eliminating one man. The problem is much deeper. On Equality or the lack thereof I was just telling my friend inequality began in Heaven when God gave certain genes, talents and skills to one person as opposed to the other and how we should just stop fighting for the illusion of equality down here and face the music. It was mean as a joke. But in truth, when I see the way people of different nationalities are treated at Boarder Patrols because of the color of their passports, when I think on how much we are defined by our genders, by our race, by our body shapes and facial features. It’s clear we were never meant to be equal. The idea that we can be different yet equal is idealist especially given that we certain things give people advantages over each other in certain ways and different points in time. It will take more than several lifetimes to undo what has already been done. And the only way for two groups to ever be equal would be to stop the progress of one so the other can catch up and they both go on together. And who would agree to that? 1-      In Kenya a woman was stripped and beaten for wearing a mini skirt. Have you ever, will you ever hear of same happening to a man because his baggy pants were exposing his backside? 2-      In the same region of Africa a man could probably be beaten by a man and might go to the police where he would be laughed at and told to go handle his wife. 3-      Think on this: we have called Thatcher Iron Lady, but male leaders who had similar ideologies and enforced similar policies, Reagan and Bush to name a few were never called anything. Why? Being a man is explanation enough for “Iron”. Think on the fact that when a a woman with a PhD is threatening but a man with the same qualification is good husband material… 4-      Think on the fact that we are considered a global village where a foreign company can come in and by vast properties of land in your country at probably a lower cost that you would in the name of free world trade, but you can’t get a visa to visit their country with even half that ease. Suddenly we aren’t such a global village, there are boarders.  5-      Think on the fact that recently Bill Cosby a popular Father figure of American tv. Has been accused of sexual molestation and rape. On one hand fans of his have disparaged the women, they are lying obviously. They are all white. Why are they saying this after 30 years etc. and on the other hand a large number of people have called him out, supported the allegations, his show has stopped running and generally they believe the allegations against him because he’s a man and he is therefore “probably wrong” After all thirty women can’t lie. No one it seems needs the women to actually file a case

 Two days ago during one of my classes we discussed the Structural Adjustment Programs; policies enforced as a way to get indebted countries (mostly former colonies) to repay loans given to them by international financial institutions (dominated by former colonial masters). Needless to say, these policies set many African nations back in such a way that they have still not been able to recover. During the class I brought up a question which I hoped would irk others and make them feel as pissed as I was about the fact all thought it is just that, a fact- already done, already past. My question?  Why were these former colonies paying debt? Why were they even considered debtors? Did these former colonial masters forget that for decades they had looted the resources of these nations, benefited from the free labor of their people, grown empires off their backs, won wars over their dead, raped their women, and minimized them in every way possible. How then could they consider that whatever money they gave to the “new nations” just granted independence was a loan? How can you loan to someone you have robbed? If anything that money should have been an attempt at compensation. And the new leaders, taking the money under the term “loan”, had they no sense to think about it. Had their memories been wiped out so suddenly that they would borrow anything from people they had just fought and died to be free from? That is our history. Two days ago, uproar ensued on social media and the media in general as yet another act of racial discrimination occurring in the USA was widely broadcasted. The death of Mike Brown and the police officer who shot him for “feeling threatened” is not going to go through fair trial. “He was a thug” some say, “He attacked the police officer”. That may all be true but when you think about it you wonder why the thug had to be shot rather than arrested. Are their lives worth less?  Some people say African Americans make everything about race, yet while claiming racial injustice curse themselves shoot themselves hinder their own progress. Similar things have been said about Africans “who blame the Whites/West for everything but are corrupt and dictators who abuse their own and practice genocide etc. Likewise the thought could be warped to criticize women who seemingly blame patriarchy and men for everything but are the ones who hold the knife that does female genital mutilation and when given the power abuse it. The above two instances made me think about this. Think about why the anger at the West is still there, why I could still feel furious in a classroom in the very heart of the United Kingdom years decades after SAP had been done, done when I hadn’t even been conceived. My musings turned to why the dichotomy of black and white still exists in one of the world’s super powers despite the progress they have made. Why does the pain of slavery, the murder of Dr. King, the lynching still make the youth of today who never witnessed it boil such that people still play Malcom X’s videos with alarming regularity on Youtube.  Why is there still anger within us as women who were born in the 21st century far removed from the days where we had no one to fight for us, no way to vote no alternatives in our wardrobes and no permission to move an inch without a man. We have all come a long way right? Why is the pain still there as fierce if not more so? I have a theory, bare with me while I play it out. Growing up most of us were taught the magic words; please, thank you, and sorry/forgive me. More often than not the slave, the colonized, the oppressed and the disadvantaged have been the one saying these words rather than receiving them. Particularly the word sorry. This word will not change anything immediately. It would not undo what was done. But they acknowledge the wrong was done. It begins the healing process. It gives the due to the wronged and marks the correction of the wrong doer. We ask the guilty in court to make a plea deal. Several plea deals should have happened in our history. There were many words left unsaid. And those words and the acknowledgement they hold leave a vacancy in us that shall not be filled till they are uttered. We never got a sorry for the slave trade. For the bodies, our bodies thrown over ships into the ocean like waste. We never got a sorry for the abuse the slaves went through for years of hard labor and rapes. For those killed fighting for freedom and for what was right. Remembering them with Black History Month is not enough if the sons of the wrong doers never told the sons of the wronged “We did this and we are sorry, how can we make it up to you?” We never got an apology for the fact that our continent and its people were divided, partitioned like assorted candy in a goody bag to be split amongst spoiled children, mindless of the values, mindless of their past. We never got a sorry for the Kings and Queens who were cut down trying to preserve their sovereignty or for the minerals we robbed of, the cultures we were forced to throw away in favor of another’s. We never got a sorry for involving us in your wars for the lives of unwilling soldiers. The poppy just won’t do.  We never got acknowledgement (not to talk of appreciation) of the fact that our resources our labor made these countries what they are today by hook and by crook. We never received apologies for the self-hatred you sowed within us with policies like “Indegenat” or for the disunity you bred with “Divide and Rule”. We study it in our

  Hello everyone, it’s been a while right? Well, Monique of Musings has been blessed to be awarded a Chevening Scholarship. YAY! J This prestigious scholarship will sponsor those selected to study for a one year masters degree in the UK at any university of their choice. In my case, I’ll be studying for an M.A in Education, Gender and International Development at the Institute of Education, London. This opportunity has of course streamed my musings to flow in a new direction. Without further ado; welcome to this pioneer travelogue edition of Musings.\ Here are my random thoughts on the journey and the experiences so far. Superstition and the Traveler It is a tacit (though sometimes explicitly stated) norm in African communities in general and our Cameroon in particular that one does not tell people they are traveling. Oh, you may tell all your colleagues you are headed to Bamenda for a wedding, but you do not and I repeat do not tell them if you won the Green Card Lottery. Yes, we are that superstitious that afraid. But more, the travelers’ superstition exposes the inferiority complex we pretend we don’t have. You see we would readily tell people we are to travel to Botswana, Nigeria, Ghana “and them” but a trip to S.A? No. You just go and call home later.  Let me break it down for the foreigners reading this. The purpose of your traveling abroad (also known as bushfalling) and the step by step details ought to be guarded as covetously as one guards the due date of their first baby. Like telling people the baby’s name before birth is considered a taboo in some other cultures, telling someone you may not be sure of (which would be everyone who has not invested in your progress so far) that you plan to take off to Germany on the 16th of August could open your child, err correction- visa, to evil forces beyond your control./ A Green Card to the USA? That means you are leaving for good? Heck no. You’ll post pictures in a month or two and they’ll know you’re now a Bushfaller as simple as that. The former countries are mushrooms in our eyes, just a step up from going to Saddle Hill Ranch/Resort Bamenda or spending a weekend on Kribi Beach; we might not even need a visa to get in. But the latter countries have been given 1st class status we don’t want to risk the visa for which we suffered degradation at the embassy to receive.  It occurred to me recently with the disappearing of planes, that if a plane was to go missing with ones cousin on it, no one would be searching, because no one would know that cousin had gotten a visa to “fall Bush”.  You see the more important the milestone the less information you give about it. Its subject to questioning, to unwanted attention, to threats of failure even to loss of life (as dramatic as that is) so we keep mute and bury the secret in our hearts much like the child in the womb who will remain nameless no matter how wanted because the world isn’t ready to know it yet, and its parents are willing to risk it. The World- A Global Village 18 years ago I travelled internationally for my first time. I was a scrawny little girl with badly shaven head because of the ringworm. I wore jean overalls to look as American as possible in lieu of arrival. On the plane- Air France, I was offered Ranch Salad, Escargot A.K.A snails cooked in lemon juice and of course cheese and crackers. Imagine a child raised up on Fufu and Eru, Gari and Okro, and the occasional dish of Rice and Stew. That was me. Of course I rejected everything offered to me, and the kind hostesses appeased me by giving me more than my fill of those short cans of soda pop… but that’s another story. Flash forward to present day. This journey should have been the same; it was still a foreign airline- Brussels. But it was not. Our menu consisted of halves of White Yams (albeit stupidly cooked with butter) and fried plantains a.k.a Dodo with chicken stew. I couldn’t help but turn my head this way and that to see if the few Caucasians aboard the flight reacted in with the same distaste that I had when  I was presented with “their kind of food” all those years ago. This is what they mean by the world becoming a global village and what a friend of mine refers to as the revenge of the colonies… Culture Shock One of the questions I was asked during my interview was how I would cope if given the opportunity? I was told that many experienced culture shock and it could make it difficult and a struggle for them to perform their best out of the familiar. Prepared for that question; I answered reflexively: I would adapt just fine, it certainly won’t be the first foreign country I’ve been in, and I find myself very capable of “doing like the Romans do”. I certainly would not break down because I saw people driving on the wrong side of the road or because I’m being teased for enunciating the “W” in Greenwich. I knew this as fact and it is truth. However what I didn’t figure while responding was that while I may not break down or even experience that much of a “shock” some of the little things, silly things would piss me off which ultimately boils down to “culture shock”. In this way I have experienced that culture shock is not all that “shocking”. It entails the expression on your face at seeing several people carting around kids who can walk aged five to seven in strollers as though they couldn’t. Culture shock includes the pout face you made in the bathroom because scooping water out of a bucket with your

I have wondered about what to blog about this month. Wondered because though Musings is all about my stream of thought sometimes our minds are riverbanks flooded and no single thought molecule can be given the attention and feeling it needs to be penned down satisfactorily. That has been the case with the news surrounding us of recent. The news is rarely uplifting, but more recently it has been downright depressing. From planes falling out of the sky (or out of sight all together) and Gaza bombings being heralded by warning bombs to Ebola, to the shooting of an unarmed black boy suddenly made just because he allegedly stole a box of cigarettes… There is a lot to wonder about. With this post I invite you to wonder along with me. This contemplative piece is entitled… This Too Shall Pass I wonder if another generation ever saw something like this. If it is true that things are spiraling out of control -That humans are losing their humanity with every new gun model, with every nuclear development I wonder if this time is the last time, a black boy would be shot down with trial, Just prejudice and a jury of one  I know it isn’t the first time, but I thought we had evolved, you see, I hoped. I wonder if the majority shall ever see Or if this is what it meant when Ecclesiastes said “It is all chasing the wind” If we can see that to embrace knowledge is not to reject God, that science is a miracle in itself? And I wonder if we could step beyond the conspiracy theories  If we apply imaginations to finding the cures Rather than positioning the blame I try not to wonder about human greed, selfishness, injustice, the vices must exist. I just wonder if we’ll ever bring good and evil to a 3:2 ratio at least And wonder if the undecided can see there are no grey areas on issues of war and peace. I wonder not about the countries at war, but at the individual, the man born of woman who once crawled cried and was carried, Who now pushes a button to bomb a school; I wonder at what happened to him in-between I wonder not at the leaders who loot, and fail us again and again in their inactivity, Nor do I wonder at the manipulative and pretentious puppet masters who supply arms, fund wars, then send relief packages. I do not waste my musings on them I wonder at my own, the militant who if his lineage be traced may be my third cousin twice removed or might be found to be the grandson of the man my great grandfather rescued from drowning in the village river. I wonder at how he became Boko Haram, how he became ISIS, I wonder how the twice removed created a gap in his humanity I wonder at how many versions of the Bible or Koran there are? Which one does the jihadist read before sending a child out on a suicide mission? Which one did the prophet read before claiming God sent Ebola to kill the homosexuals? I wonder where they can find new editions I wonder what those of us who feel can do? Those of us who know you can’t win by shooting the shooter I wonder where do we start and where does the evil end… And I remember other generations have suffered slavery, withered away in apartheid, the dehumanization of segregation, the obnoxiousness of genocide… I remember and all I can think is: This too shall pass- I hope **** As you wonder along with me and think of what to do.  Let me show you a place to start, spread love those around you and if possible make a donation to this little girl who is not around you. .. Sangha Mua who was diagnosed with brain cancer a day before my 4th birthday needs help raising funds for her treatment. Follow this link and please show your support.  http://www.gofundme.com/bvn2uk