I am jealous of the love black women, African women reserve for men. Their men, the men yet to be theirs, the men who we are not sure exist yet, or who exist but just don’t show up. The sort of love that has us ready and willing to edit ourselves to be what you desire. The love that has us buying fabric and thinking of how we’ll make two outfits instead of one. The love that has us learning skills we wouldn’t need otherwise, just to please/impress you. The love that forgives without neither complete apologies nor changed behavior. The love that hopes in things that are not seen and builds futures on potential I am jealous of that love which has been so normalized evidence of it is no longer considered extraordinary… Like the fact that The Power of a Praying Wife sells out every Sunday outside of church and yet the bookseller hasn’t bothered to restock The Power of a Prayer Husband since he barely managed to sell the last one. Or the fact that you can enter a shop and tell the salesperson “I di find “Papa e Dish’” and they will know what you refer to. A dish reserved for your gender, a status symbol you are eligible for even if you are not sure you want to be ‘Papa’. I am jealous of the love women like me have earmarked as just for men like you; the way we save everything from the best piece of meat to the best seat at the table, to ourselves… just for you. And I am jealous of how easy it is for you to find a place to belong because of this; Jealous of the advantage you have because we believe that we can/should/must earn the love we so eagerly want to give you, because so many of us are convinced you are the ones to fill the reserved spaces we kept… I am jealous of the prayers my kind pray for men. How does it feel? To have all the women in your life praying for you, when you forget to pray for yourself? I am jealous of the kind of love that makes us aspire to be superwomen; that makes us desire to be everything a much less than “super” man desires. I am jealous of the love that makes us plan our aspirations around men who never asked us to. I am jealous of how ready we are to offer what these men are not ready to take. Of how well we have been shaped for a time such as this – years of grooming on how to give love unasked, to accept less than we offer… decades of conditioning that leaves you wondering if what you do is what you want to, or what you know is expected of you… I am jealous of men like you, for being offered such love on the regular. Jealous of the position of power you don’t recognize you have because you think this love is merely an individual choice… blissfully unaware of how that choice in itself is externally orchestrated. I am jealous of your confidence and the corresponding nonchalance that the love we offer you breeds; because our love sees us as the author and finisher of the family, and makes us responsible for all that goes wrong or never goes at all. We are the neck, the rib, the backbone. Anything but the head. I thought I was angry at you, you probably thought so too. But no, what I am is jealous. I envy you for being offered the kind love I wish someone would give me. And if I am angry, I am angry at myself. Because I continue to reserve for you what I wish I could give myself. Because despite love being a good thing, this brand of love is yet another thing I have found that I must unlearn.
Home is [Not] for Everyone…
I used to feel it was my mission to explain to people that ‘falling bush’ was not the answer to all problems. Given how much the ‘American Dream’ is set as the ideal in our Cameroonian society, I always felt it necessary to dispel the notion that the place is paradise on earth and to let those I value know that Cameroon needs them, and should they consider traveling, they should do so with plans of returning home. Fortunately, I’m no longer that person. Don’t get me wrong, my stomach still lurches when I have a conversation with a close friend and they tell me they are planning on leaving for good. I still feel frustrated at the people who say “I am marrying a ‘bushfaller’ as if to denote the fact that they are marrying their ticket out. And don’t get me started on the mentees I counsel who are so obvious that their passion is for residing in a particular country, rather than the academic and career plans they claim to want advice for. But I have become more understanding of my privilege over the past years (or so I think). And so I no longer take up that mission with the fervor I used to. If you want to go, go. I know better now that home isn’t meant for everyone. Not all of us have the calling for it, and not all of us can endure it. This came to me as I returned home last month from South Africa in hope of making it base again upon completion of my final degree. As I spoke with a friend who was also returning home from a different country, I realized we were making the same preparations, taking the same precautions as to how different our lives will be. How do you prepare to endure low quality internet back home? Download all the music/videos you streamed without care while away. Make sure you downloaded ALL the academic papers you cited in your work and have them backed up. How do you prepare for regular light failure? Buy the best power bank(s) you can. Like one witty Nigerian put it “charging your partner’s phone in anticipation of the regular power failures be considered a love language”. How do you take precautions to avoid having to deal with our struggling health care system? Use what insurance you have to do medical exams and check what you can before returning home. Buy drugs you know won’t be available because mental health/learning disabilities are not recognized in our part of the world. How do you prepare for possible kidnapping/arbitrary arrest? Get a stun-gun to add to the pepper-spray you carry because you’re already at risk as a woman. Write your last requests in case of sudden death. Let friends know what to do just in case. [Although this last tip likely applies for many across the globe]. As my friend and I discussed, I came to the realization that the bulging bags and extra luggage Africans and African diaspora are known to travel with is merely evidence of our general attempts to endure/adjust to life where we are. That may mean adjusting trying to make a foreign country feel a bit like home by exporting food from home, or it may mean buying what we know is unavailable for sale at home or extremely expensive. In the weeks following that conversation, and since I’ve been home I have also come to realize that we have lost many people for good. Even those who say/believe they are going to come back. They won’t be able to, not because they do not want to, but because they will not be able to endure after being away so long. To leave behind the lives they have known and investments they have made in other countries. If you’re away for too long you adapt to a different system, such that the reality of home hits your worse than it is when you return. Staying away for too long renders you out of touch with how to live in and love home despite its flaws. I was once asked how we cope with the lack of reliable emergency numbers to call in case of need. I responded that here we can simply call for help, the society is not as disconnected. Here it is odd to not know your neighbor’s name (and too many other details). I write this all to say, I am home now. And even though I am happy to be home, I am looking at it from a more realistic perspective. We need more people who love it enough to make it a better place, one which would nourish the dreams our children have; but I appreciate that it isn’t for everyone. I appreciate that the country makes it hard to love it because our government makes us seem so unworthy of basic decency. But then that government is made up of people like us. People we know, and excuse. So if you’re one of many considering leaving for good. Do what is best for you. I’ll just say proceed with caution. Drop me a comment, question or just a kind wish welcoming me home. It’s always a joy to read from readers.
What Would you tell Your Younger Self?
We’re at the end of 2019 and I, like many others, will be doing the typical end of the year (or in this case, end of a decade) reflection. One of the most common questions people are asked for self-reflection is this: What advice would you give your younger self? Or a variation of what is basically the same question “What do you wish you knew at age 20?” Recently, I’ve considered this question and found it to reek of regret and our lust for perfectionism. Now, I’m not saying wanting to undo certain mistakes made is a bad thing, but it is something I feel we should consider more lest we fail to learn from what we wish to undo. We are constantly growing, changing based on exposure, experiences, hormones and social climes. So it is presumptuous to think what we currently feel we should have known at that time is what we actually needed to know. We are also presumptuous to believe our younger selves would listen to any advice we would give. I could back in time and tell my younger self: believe you can do this because you will make it. But my younger self would not be ready to hear it. Until I would have had certain experiences, I wouldn’t see how I could make it nor why I would need to try. I would need to grow to a point where I can appreciate that knowledge. And that growth would happen via making mistakes. The desire to go back in time to change what we consider mistakes is symptomatic with thinking we should not have failed at all, whereas failure is so very often a part of the process. Please note: I’m in no way trying to suggest that “all pain was worth it because it made us stronger”. I truly dislike that school of thought because it too often justifies abuses against a person. On the contrary, I am referring to what choices we make for ourselves, the various ways we think we could have done it differently/better. Perhaps we could have done it better, but would we have grown as much if we had the cheat sheet? Would we be the persons we are today? Knowing too much of what could happen often impedes our trying. We take fewer risks with knowledge and that is both a good and bad thing. Years of watching Hollywood products and reading pop-fiction based on the good witch spiel has ingrained in me the lesson that every action has a reaction, to change one thing is to change many others and that could be for the good or bad. The mistake we made, the ignorance of this or that, the wrong choice, etc. might have been the best way to learn the lesson we learned. Perhaps it is the ignorance of our younger selves that enabled us to accomplish so much despite the hurdles. We wouldn’t have tried so hard if we’re as knowledgeable (and jaded) as our older selves undoubtedly are. As I do reflection at the end of this year, I have come to appreciate some of the ‘mistakes’ I made and ignorance I had at certain points. I have come to appreciate the outcomes of the experiences I would have warned my younger self about. Some- not all. But enough to know that I would not tell my younger self nothing except- trust the process. I’m telling my present-self the same thing as well. Trust the process.
What is happening Cameroon? II
Dispatches from home read like material for a great historical fiction manuscript. You easily imagine the Whatsapp voice-notes with either news of military abuse of power, chilling threats from frenzied ‘Amba’ fanatics, or worse, news of yet another kidnapping or murder as something fictional characters in the 1970s would have listened to huddled over the lone radio in the house. Because this can’t be happening in now; in the day of intelligence readily manufactured as AI. It can’t be happening in the age of everything smart; smartphones, smartwatches, smart kitchen utensils, yet senseless humans? How can that be? But your inbox proves that it is, that anomaly is possible and real. Four weeks ago, you were informed that the military presence in your hometown has moved your old schoolmate (at the ripe old age of 30) to learn French, the language of the men in uniforms. So she now accompanies her 8-year-old daughter to the house of a teacher who now teaches kids on her veranda because schools are a no-go zone. Your cousin laughs as she tells you “Mo imagine o! If we had known, we would have paid attention to Monsieur Flobeh!” You reply to her statement with laughing Emoji but you think “If we had known, we should have made sure a lot more people paid attention to history lessons. A week later you receive a message from one of your friends-turned-sister as you arrive at your church for Sunday service. It reads: “Sis, I hope you’re well. Please pray for me oo! I received a call from a guy threatening me. He says I should support the movement or else they’ll harm my family” You stand at the doors of the church, immobile but for your fingers readily typing up questions; when, how, why you? She says the call was brief but followed by an SMS of how she should make a deposit to ‘support the struggle’ and she was probably targeted as any other civil servant who people believe have money on the regular. You warn her not to even thinking of making any deposit, lest she is caught and the police arrest her for ‘sponsoring terrorism’. Your mom’s friend is in prison in Yaoundé at the moment on those charges. He had paid ‘Amba boys’ a large sum of money upon receiving threats of kidnapping. Your friend agrees that paying would be dangerous, she can only run away with her kids. You sigh as you read that, and head to a seat for a sermon you will not remember because you were crying silently through the preaching. To think this is what we have come to. When you return home later you check on your friend. She tells you that she’d had the idea to reach out to an acquaintance you both know, a young slightly over-zealous Christian ‘brother’ who is known to have participated in some ‘Amba’ activities. She felt he could help verify if the threats were genuine or just a scam from thieves. And if genuine, she thought he could help her get off their targets lists or at the very least, he would see the error in the company he keeps. No expected outcome came to pass. She tells you that upon narrating her experience, our brother-in-Christ told her that he could introduce her to the guys collecting the ‘support funds’ and explain to them that she doesn’t have much so whatever she can give will be okay. “Just give small money for bullets, sis,” he said. You are shocked. But not for long. You will soon hear that no one can be trusted to be rational now. That irrationality is a norm. You are told that a colleague you didn’t particularly like at your alma mater was attacked recently by ‘Amba boys’, their crime was being from the wrong tribe- Bamileke. Your tribe based on patrilineal traditions which won’t consider other factors of your identity. Suddenly, you feel bad for having disliked this person who is now a victim. You hear that some other colleagues, the educated, the elders at church, the fathers of young children had shrugged at the attack, they saw it as well deserved. After all, Bamilekes are neither here nor there so surely spies. At that moment you determine that Cameroon and its Cameroonians do not warrant your shock. The nation is simply living up to being considered a ‘shit-hole country’. In the days that follow, your inboxes belch out more: Black young men are now an at-risk species in the Anglophone regions, just like in the United States. Are you black, of average to tall stature, possibly aged 17- 30? Then you could possibly be an ‘Amba boy’ and the police (with no questions asked- and even if asked, not in English) would profile you, arrest or possibly execute you at the least provocation. Your neighbor films her daughter, a toddler practicing her hiding technique. Like the fire drills in western schools. Except this is a four-year-old who now recognizes the sound of gunshots and how to hide under the leather sofa even as she has yet to enter a nursery school classroom. You’re told that one of your former neighbors is now fundraising. Asking all and sundry for help as her husband has been kidnapped. The boys asked for 10 million FCFA and the family negotiated the ransom down to half that price. You picture the bargaining over the phone and shake your head. How does one bargain on the life of one’s spouse? By last week, the frequency of the messages had increased, but not their content is different. “Mo I’m in Yaoundé now, I’m safe.” Or “Mo pray for us oo! I am hoping to leave to Douala tomorrow”. Their WhatsApp statuses show they’re okay, the proof is in their taking photos on the sides of the road with and there being no sign of military trucks. These ones had made it safely to the ‘other Cameroon’ despite the risk
Musings on 17th January
The 17th of January will forever hold meaning for me. For one, it’s the birthday of a close friend and founding member of Better Breed Cameroon- the youth development organization I coordinate. Sama Randy, passed away three years ago this month and has since been remembered by the Youth Essay Contest we have since renamed in his honor (please click here to learn more about the Sama Randy Youth Write Contest). Last year, another memorable event took place on the 17th of January. On the evening of this day last year, our government decided to take stifling of opposing voices to another level. It was a Tuesday, around 6pm. We heard rumors- turned fact- of the arrest of leaders of the Consortium who were at the time heading protests against the government over Anglophone marginalization. These arrests were followed by an internet shut-down in the two Anglophone regions where protests were situated. Looking back, I can say that day marked the greatest mistake our government has made in years. With the decision made on that day, our government not only validated our protests but equally gave the opportunity to fanatics to spread and grow leading to the impasse we now experience. See, that day marked a turning point for people of my generation. We of the “android generation” (as they call our 90’ Babies forward) have known our government to be corrupt, our officials to be power-drunk thieves, selfish brownnosers to their core. Yet, we had until this past year only known of our governments’ brutality only through the lens of history, through exaggerated quartier tales we grew up hearing; like “did you know the first lady’s former lover was killed when our president took interest in her or did you know our former first lady died mysteriously?” All rumors we could not confirm but which ensured we looked at our officials with the right tinge of fear. Similar to the way our parents and those generally older and more aware bowed lower in the face of gendarmes and generally feared to talk about politics in certain places. Yes, up until last year we knew our government was bad, but we hadn’t known the fear of those who had witnessed it firsthand. As a Nigerian proverb goes; a child who crosses the river carried on the mother’s back would say the water was not deep. We had read of Ahidjo’s governments’ complicity with the French in crushing the Maquisards and assassinating Cameroon’s early patriots. We had listened as our parents discussed the infamous disappearance of the Bepanda 9 incident following the opposition to our current president’s changing of the constitution. But still, we had been sheltered and had yet to witness our government shutdown a part of the country, arbitrarily arrest hundreds on flimsy excuses and cart them off to Yaoundé as though they were Jews to Hitler’s concentration camps. We had not lived the fear of militarized towns, nor imagined government officials could lie so blatantly about the regions we inhabited. We had not experienced government imposed curfews and ‘states of emergency’ nor had we known that the police we scorned as thieves could also be heartlessly brutal batterers. January 17th 2017 set off a chain of events which brought an end to our relative naivety and unleashed possibilities- possibilities of the worst kind- into our minds. After experiencing months of internet shutdown, closure of free press, brutal repression of protesters (peaceful or otherwise), refusal to dialogue, arrests of those who so much as expressed opinions of the issue online or in public… and even when the internet access was restored, even when some of those arbitrarily arrested were released, even then we saw that our administrators lacked basic managerial skills as they continuously chose force over dialogue, and denial over addressing of the problem. A year later, as I ponder on how things have developed, Langston Hughes’ most popular poem comes to mind. In Harlem, Hughes’ ponders on what happens to a dream deferred. Harlem BY LANGSTON HUGHES What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode? Today I consider the state of my country, the effects of ignoring and then suppressing justifiable protests. I ponder on the consequences of whitewashing our history, denying the existence of two Cameroon’s and of having a government which- like the ill-famed ostrich- have buried their heads in the sand insisting there is no problem… and as I do this, I think of the above poem and I feel I can answer Hughes. A dream deferred shall fester and run. Like the dream of Ndeh Ntumazah’s One Kamerunn party now crusting over as ‘Ambazonia’. A dream deferred stinks rotten like the death of Bate Besong still an open sore in our history as with every other revolutionary who spoke up and was cut down. And by all indications, if the Anglophone dream continues to be deferred…it shall explode. Perhaps we should stop postponing and address the dreams this country was built on before they become nightmares.
So… What did 2017 teach you?
Earlier this year, I wrote on the development of the now year-long crisis which has plagued the Anglophone regions of Cameroon. I outlined the emergence of the struggle and build-up due to utter mishandling from the government and the frustration of a minority, all in hope of our collective learning as a nation. As the year comes to an end and the crisis still rages- with more violence than ever in some parts of these regions- I have wondered if we actually did learn anything. For me the end of year period is meant for reflection; a time for assessing the year about to pass by and preparing for the one about to begin. I have thus considered the lessons 2017 has taught me personally, lessons like: i. Some things/people will never be yours no matter how hard you work, how hard you pray and how much you may deserve it/them. We do not always get what we deserve. That is both a good and bad thing. ii. You matter. Someone impressionable is watching you, looking up to you, believing in you. So act like you matter. iii. Your work matters. Invest in it. Hone your craft. iv. Pain too can bloom things. It’s not the best fertilizer but it works. v. Not everyone you admire is right for you and you are not for everyone. And now I consider the lessons 2017 and the experiences of this year should have taught us all as Cameroonians. In case you’ve been dozing throughout the year, here are some takeaways in point form: 1- Before you start a protest have a plan. Advocacy is targeted, and meaningful. You can be an online activist, your voice is a powerful tool and your social media page is no doubt a useful platform BUT for you to be an advocate, you need to be targeting those in power able to change things or actively following procedure in changing them. Otherwise you’re not doing much. Anger at this government is justified, however misdirected anger and lack of strategy is deadly. We’ve been under this regime for 35+ years… anyone trying to save us from it should have used this time to come up with a good plan. It doesn’t have to be foolproof, but it should be logical. As a friend of mine put it a while back: Before you demand my allegiance to a new order, convince me that what you offer me is better than the last. 2- Hold your heroes to higher standards, this is not a game. A popular adage goes: An unchecked virtue is a vice; meaning what/who is good can easily go bad because of too much praise and too little criticism. I think this is the strongest lesson of the year. In our desire for change we, as Cameroonians have come to crown any loud voice as messiah. However this, the future of our nation and our collective well-being, is not a scenario where we can make do with “a one-eyed man in the land of the blind”. Perhaps because we’re not all that blind, most of us are just suffering from nearsightedness. So please check and double-check your heroes, does your hero/leader of choice make sexist remarks? Is he/or she knowledgeable of the laws/constitution they criticize? Is he or she transparent? Does he or she have lingering scandals? Is he or she a trusted source of verified information? Can he or she handle power without becoming power-drunk? We should have learned that he who cannot handle criticism now will be no better than Biya when it comes his turn to rule. He who would sacrifice others and ignore their real needs at this time, will not suddenly change with power. And not everyone who speaks up for us is meant to be our mouthpiece. Someone can appreciate the general problem, but due to their background and context, be out of touch with the other intersecting oppressions people in different classes, with different levels of education, and so forth experience. 3- Do your research, verify information. Fake news is real; spreading it is not a joke. We may all scoff at the government’s annoying message with veiled threats regarding the spread of fake news- particularly considering how much fake news they spread by lies of omission. Yet, it is an undeniable fact, that unverified information “forwarded as received” caused a lot of destruction of property and loss this year. Unverified information readily shared because it sounds sensational, appeals to our desired outcome or because we’re too damn lazy to cross check sources and possibility, caused a great deal of damage this year. Fake news damaged the credibility of a revolution and led to loss of property and life every time a rumor went around inciting young people to the streets where they were met with certain police brutality. Pray we have learned that not everything is worth sharing. In fact, let me make it clear in our most common language: *holds ear* make this thing sey forwarded as received end this 2017. If you don’t know the source and are not certain the info is true, keep it to yourself.4- In the words of MJ ‘They don’t really care about us”. It is hoped that we’ve learned that no one is coming to save us. That no one owes us more than we owe ourselves. That no one can do for us what we have yet to do for ourselves. This is for those who marched before embassies of France, the United Kingdom, Canada etc. but failed to hold their own ambassadors accountable. This is for those who readily spread rumors about UNESCO canceling a school year only to see some (middle class) children progress to higher institutions with the release of results while theirs were at home. If nothing else, may 2017 have taught us that we must organize to save ourselves. The international community has never been an impartial judge. If we don’t care about ourselves,