Capitalism has branded February the month of love, and for the past few years, I’ve played along with my musings being love-themed every February. This month, for example, I shared flash fiction I worked on for Brittle Papers’ Valentine’s Day anthology last year. Now that my Christian Musings page means blogging twice a month, I considered what love themed post to make from my Christian experience. There’s so much that faith helps us learn in love and love helps us become through faith. At its core, the gospel is essentially a dramatic love story… so it was hard picking just one thing to focus on. But I succeeded because one of the biggest lessons I feel needs to be learned by Christians is the lesson on loving your non-Christian friend. For a religion which was founded by a man known for breaking convention and loving heretics, rebels and the disliked… Christianity (or rather we Christians) fails woefully to meet that example. We seem to believe we must love those who think like us, look like us, believe as we do. And we often mistake love (philia which we are called to feel for every living thing) with like. As a result, most Christians dish out a fake kind of acceptance of those they deem not of the “yolk”. We often speak of religious tolerance, asking that people of one religion tolerate the other… as though the other person was a bad aftertaste to prescribed medication. You can love someone, as a creation of God you believe in without necessarily liking them. Love them- accepting and celebrating them for who they are, how God made them different from you. You need not be like them, nor agree with them, but you can always respect them. And that respect breeds love because it ascertains you’ll treat the other person with a due amount of consideration. And isn’t that all we need? Some consideration? I think it is. Empathy goes a long way and should be actively cultivated. My friend list spans a wide girth; atheist, agnostics, friends of different religions or different Christian denominations with contrasting doctrine etc. They are all my friends, they all have something about them I truly love and admire, they all better me in some way (even if that way is testing my patience LOL!). We are not “unequally yolked” so much as complementary. They don’t have to be equally yolked with me, they are not Christians, and I respect that. My job is to be the example of what a Christian is for them to see. And that’s it. So how do you love your Non-Christian friend? Love them by respecting them and their wishes, including the wish to not be preached to- there are other ways… Love them by listening to them, including listening to the issues they have with your faith. Believe it or not, addressing those issues will help you strengthen your own convictions. Answering hard questions always enables you to know better about yourself and what you believe. Love your non-christian friend enough to tell them if you feel they are doing what is wrong, but equally, love them as God did and let them have their free will. Love your non-christian friend enough to find out about why they believe what they do or do not believe at all. We are who we are because of our lived experiences. If you believe in a divine being you know we are not the authors and finishers of our lives, so why not find out the back story before you conclude their lack of faith is wrong. Above all, love your Non-Christian friend by being a true disciple of Christ. The one we have been called to emulate would have no problem loving anyone. Be like Jesus.
So This is How it Starts?
When you watch Hotel Rwanda, one of your first thoughts is: this story is incomplete. How did they get there, that early scene? How do a people get to a point where it is ok to order machetes for killing other human beings they had lived with, worked beside, bought from, and sold to? In years to come, you will read of other countries – or courtesy of Half of a Yellow Sun- of countries that were. You will listen to other people, through documentaries and interviews. Like the weathered father on that Al-Jazeera documentary narrating how he now searches for his son, fearing the young man has returned to Somalia to join the Al Shabaab. You wonder how that man could stand by and allow his child be radicalized. Your own parents would have slapped sense into you. With each story, you read or listen to, you questioned how whole groups of people reach that point. You know your people have never known true peace but you still wonder how it becomes normal for people to carry such a heavy load of hate such that they consider and commit murder, such that one can blow up themselves for questionable beliefs? How? Unfortunately, fate decides to help you answer these questions through experience, and gives you the recipe for war you didn’t ask for. *** Mix ¾ silent majority propagating stereotypes and fending only for self 2/3 biased media, journalists reporting for sensationalism, the next brown envelope, or to encourage their own faction ½ inadequate education, teach young people dependency but not proactivity, teach youth the parts of a grasshopper but neither the hard truths of their history nor the laws of their country. Leave them grossly uninformed and depending on which region their school is based, leave them to be further socialized with stereotypes. Add a full measure of fear and distrust of the armed forces, be they police, army or everything in between. Let that fear seep so deep into their hearts and do nothing to erase it. Add tribalism, corruption, religious dogma, and let these mature under an oppressive government with power-drunk, short-sighted stooges of neo-colonialists who would rather repress than dialogue Sprinkle a dash of social media power to inflate everything, and spread incomplete news faster… And there you have it, the perfect conditions for war. *** You were not wrong when you thought Hotel Rwanda was incomplete. No film could capture it all. Wars are like wine; they mature over time but pop out as spontaneously as harmattan rain. The screenwriters had to leave the rest to the imagination or to experience. You are discovering now that it begins slowly, with years of grumbling and anger accumulating, hoarded like an abscess left to fester till it bursts open with an accidental scratch. War began when your aunty was mocked for marrying “Les Bamenda la”. It began when going to French areas became synonymous with going to the metropolis and returning to Anglophone areas was synonymous with rural living. War grew in our hearts when we would go on long holidays to French areas and count how often the power went off, noting that it was less frequent than the times it went off back ‘home’. The seeds of war were sown unwittingly when you soaked in your grandparent’s disdain for all things French such that boycotting French lessons didn’t faze you. You were allowed to fail that subject. No one would question it. War spread as we grew, grew older, and grew tired, as our government didn’t even bother to pretend any longer. As our president would patronize with statements like “apprenti sorcier” referring to protesters, or “better late than never” as an excuse for and tardy celebration of independence and presumed unity. And this is how war began; like a belch after you’ve eaten too much. Taken too much nonsense. Nonsense like regional balance which somehow is always unbalanced. Nonsense like regular news broadcasts which omit the hard truths, twist the soft ones and butcher the language of the minority- news that is ironically old no matter the presenter. Nonsense like government appointments comparable to a game of musical chairs. We all have a chance to sit and eat, then shuffle dance to get another chance. Nonsense like tens of millions disappearing, stolen, they say, from ministers’ homes as though they were national bank vaults. Too much nonsense like fifty thousand people registering to write entrance exams where only two hundred and fifty are needed. A veritable lottery. The battleground was slowly built but the war has been quickly called. As swiftly as the arbitrary arrests of January 17th, 2017. When all of a sudden those who would answer bullets with sit-in protests were replaced with those who could actually wield machetes if given. Now you can tell that war is not a fire, but a bar of soap, able to hold still when dry, but ready to slip out of grasp when lathered. And governments like yours would lather, throw water saying “It is nothing. They will return to court when they are hungry”, “There is no Anglophone problem”…“Those people protesting are terrorists”… and so the foam will build and you will see war tumbling towards you like the unwieldy soapsuds. Yet not everyone will see it. It is funny like that. Soap lathers silently, so it is that war encroached silently, with people accepting the bubbles as the norm. War grows unto people. They begin to take cases of vengeful arson in stride, they make excuses for journalist calling for massacres, they defend all the wrong means using the desired end, even it the desire is hazy. War foams slowly with adaptation to over-militarisation, with alternatives found to ‘inconveniences” like opening up shops on Sundays and sending your kids to other towns for schools. Like securing visas to travel; let those who are poor and unable to leave remain to die. You see now that this is how it starts, the wars you read about, watched
The Silent Majority
August of this year shall make five years of my blogging here on Musings. It was in August of 2012 during a trip to Nigeria for Chimamanda’s Farafina workshop that a friend of a friend, Martin Takha first introduced me to the world of blogging. Helping me with everything from the Gmail account to deciding the first template I used for a couple of years. As Cameroon’s ‘blogosphere’ has become crowded with a plethora of people aspiring to be Cameroon’s Linda Ikeji, I am proud to say I’ve stayed true to myself and the purpose of this blog. A dual purpose actually; to ensure I write regularly and to create platform through which I could share my views, defend my opinions and if possible tell a side of our story which may be otherwise missed as popular mediums echo a single often incomplete story. I have promoted blogging through my youth advocacy as a means for young people to get their voices heard. Through BetterBreed Cameroon I have preached to young people on the necessity in telling their own story, sharing their thoughts on issues they are affected by or care passionately for through Medium, LinkedIn, as Commonwealth Youth Correspondents, via World Pulse and of course through their own blogs. I suppose I should have considered the possibility of an internet ban imposed to hush us. In fact I did consider it, for about 5 mins during two different conversations. First being about six months ago when a friend told me of her experience in Ethiopia under the internet ban and then when we laughed about Turkey’s president need to abate anxiety over the attempted Coup d’état via Face-time? after recently banning social media. My friends and I discussed these incidents shook our heads, shrugged, laughed and let it go. Then it was my turn. Today makes a week since two regions in Cameroon have been denied internet access as the government attempts to quench protests against Anglophone marginalization in these regions via brute force. The protest leaders were arrested that night and smuggled out of the regions, simultaneously internet access was shut down so as to hamper the spread of news. During the last week I’ve had lot of time to think (the absence of social media distractions will do that for you lol), and two quotes came to mind: These two quotes spoke to me as I lamented on how the internet ban affects budding tech-entrepreneurs in Buea’s “Silicon Mountain”, how banks (which pay Cameroon’s exorbitant taxes) are closed for lack of internet access, how those who work predominantly online either for webzines, as researchers or just communicating with clients/business partners are now grounded along with scholars (like myself) who have online classes to follow and participate in. I wondered how backwards our leaders must be to punish over 4 million people in two regions because they didn’t like criticisms of them being spread via social media and couldn’t find another way to solve a problem they let grow out of proportion. But above all I thought of HOW this could be happening. It’s 2017 for God’s sake! Then the above two quotes reminded me that this happened in 2016 and I said nothing. It happened in two countries I know of (three counting Gambia during elections) and I barely tweeted my disapproval. Evil prevails because good men failed to act. A lot of people didn’t stand up in those circumstances, so it happened then, and now it is happening to me. Yet not enough people are reacting. Within my own country, a great deal of Cameroonians in the French speaking regions are either unaware or could care less about the ban. Three days into the ban I ‘crossed the border’ into the Francophone section of the country and when I checked online only a handful of people were talking about it. Some acquaintances online even attempted to justify the government’s actions saying “social media was spurring terrorism and the government had a right to take it away”. When I told one of them he was stupid for that I was told “you shouldn’t bring in insults when we are having a peaceful debate”. How can one be peaceful when they are justifying (and therefore an accomplice in) your suppression? How? Today I’m a bit calmer, I crossed the border this morning to find that voices- online at least- have grown against the internet ban using the hashtag #BringBackOurInternet. Yet there are not enough in my honest opinion, and there is a noticeable lack in Francophone voices. Yesterday it was Ethiopia, Turkey and Gambia, today it is my Northwest and Southwest regions, tomorrow it will likely be the whole of Cameroon as we face the 2018 elections… Please join us to speak up now. Speak now that tomorrow you still have your voice. Tweet to the Cameroonian government, our telecommunication agencies and all those you can using #BringBackOurInternet. Remember: If you are silent, they will kill you and say you enjoyed it- Zora Neale Hurston.
Imagining My President’s New Year Message- A Christmas Wish
I have been unable to do any real writing for weeks now. Between losing several friends and experiencing a peaceful strike turn into a brutal scary revolution, 2016 is leaving me drained. As I assess the year in these last days, I can only compare it to Sour Cream and Vinegar flavored Pringles. It has fed me but left a bad taste in my mouth. My musings this month have ranged from existential questions (Is this life so fleeting, so unpredictable? What’s my Life Purpose again and what’s in it for me?) to political debates (How to best explain to outsiders and the fellow Cameroonians who don’t understand what the Anglophone problem is, Is this revolution on the right course etc.). Several pieces could be written from the thoughts this month has brought. But as I said, I am drained and I just want to think happy, hopeful thoughts. Every year, on the 31stof December Paul Biya, the president of Cameroon for 34 years now, makes a New Year’s speech. In fact the first ‘Musings’ post of 2016 was a review of his speech heralding in this year (read that post HERE). As this year closes and we await another speech. I’ve decided to be hopeful and muse on what I wish my president would say in that speech. I wish he would, as he did last year, look for words to describe the year our nation has experienced. I imagine the suitable words for this year would be ‘fed-up’. It seems his praise of our resilience at the beginning of the year marked our reaching the limits of tolerance. I wish he would express regrets at driving a truly resilient people to this breaking point. In this ideal speech, I imagine my president acknowledging how those he put in power, and the foreigners who he has all but sold us to, contributed to poor maintenance of the Yaounde-Douala road and eventually the loss of lives in the Eseka train crash. I imagine my president apologizing for the laissez-faire nature of his leadership and cabinet which led to legitimate complaints of Common Law Lawyers being ignored and the strikes and protest which followed. I expect him to condemn the violence, arbitrary hoisting of flags and looting done by protesters, but I wish he would avoid branding protesters “terrorists” and acknowledge that had his administration adequately addressed early complaints and the initially peaceful sit-in strike, nipping this in the bud, things would never have gotten this bad. In this ideal speech my president would for once address the nation in English attempting to prove that we are indeed bilingual and equal. Whilst speaking the language of the minority he would equally condemn the spirit of secession and express understanding of its origins. While I expect him to criticize those spreading hate between the Francophones and Anglophones, I pray and wish he is gutsy (or just tired enough) to acknowledge the problem rather than shy from it. I expect him to know that this is not an issue of who gets what ministerial post, nor an issue of what regions are more developed (quite frankly the South region from which the president hails is just as much- if not more- undeveloped). I pray that as president he is informed and conscious enough to know that this goes way beyond Francophones taking opportunities in Anglophone regions though these are the reasons you’ll hear brandied about. I imagine that in his often long-winded speech he takes the time to acknowledge that while people of all regions have problems, the Anglophone problem is unique because it has institutionalized one group as superior to the other. It has made bilingualism an option for one group, while for the other bilingualism is necessary for survival irrespective of which part of the Mungo they reside. After all you could get arrested in Limbe, never knowing your crime because the person arresting you does so while speaking French. I pray my president acknowledges that over the years since 1972’s “unification” there has been a systematic disregard for the minority (English speaking) thus creating a bias in favor of the majority (French speaking). I would be okay with him sharing the blame for this; he could blame his predecessor – Ahidjo- and the setup which was the 1972 referendum, he could blame the bevy of present day Anglophone politicians who remain mute on the problem for fear of losing their positions, he could even blame the citizens who pretend like he’s the perfect president when they meet him, and the numerous traditional rulers of Anglophone regions who have made him “Fon of Fons” and continuously convince him they love his reign with their ‘motions of support’. He need not take all the blame, there’s enough to go around. Heck I wrote an Open Letter to Cameroonians calling them out on this same thing almost three years ago. I shall be lenient as to just how much blame ought to be shelled out to him, but I expect my president to ‘man up” for once. I pray he truly dearly loves his country somewhere deep down beneath those double-breasted suits. That he loves the country enough to condemn the violence his armed forces used on students and other protesters. That he censures ‘forces of law and order’ who have done the opposite of their duty to protect and serve just as much as he does violent protesters who use a peaceful strike to cause chaos. I pray he recognizes that when the people fear the police rather than call on them for help, there is a problem. A grave problem. Make Cameroon Hopeful Again! Finally, I would be most ecstatic if my president would crown his speech with acknowledging that his aged self cannot see us into that ‘land of Canaan’ the government has painted Vision 2035 to be, and declare like Angola’s presidentthat he, Paul Biya, will not be running for future elections. Such a declaration would give Cameroonians
My ‘Returnee Anniversary’: 15 Reasons I Love My Country
The day was 25thAugust 2001. I was less than three months shy of 12 years old, or as I often reminded people- I was a pre-teen. I was also set to board an Air France plane that morning to Cameroon. After the latest fit of pre-teen rebellion, my mother had vowed to “send me back” to Cameroon. A lot like returning a pet you adopted from the shelter but found you couldn’t handle. I was becoming “too American” and need to be sent to the motherland for straightening up. In some ways she was right, in several other ways, she was wrong. My first couple of years were hell, then I adapted. Then after having my ordinary levels I rebelled. Then I grew up, made my own decisions on what I wanted for myself. Grew up. Things work out in the end. I’ve come to realize that both of us just played into God’s plan. Don’t worry, one day I’ll finally finish writing about the journey to and fro and growing to finally belong. Then you can buy the book. For now, I am celebrating my 15th anniversary of being “sent back”. In sending kids back to Cameroon, parents in the diaspora often paint it as a form of punishment, or tough love. From my experience and those of others I know, kids are sent back home in other to get them to ‘straighten up’ or because the parents in the diaspora have issues and can’t take care of them at that time. Either way it doesn’t paint a picture of Cameroon as a place our children should happily return to. More like a boot camp/foster home. Despite the feeling of being here out of punishment than choice, I came to love my home country. You can say Cameroon grew on me. Or I grew to be Cameroonian. My musings this month are all about my ‘returnee’ experience, all the things I’ve come to love about my country and all the ways this country I love makes me crazed. So I decided to make a direct list rather than rant and rave. Here are 15 reasons I love my country, one for every year of my return. 15 Reasons I Love My Country 1. Our history. I am probably biased, but in my opinion Cameroon has one of the best historical tales ever. From the Bantu migrations to the naming of the country after the shrimp Portuguese found in our waters to the scramble for our lands and through multiple colonizations. For a relatively small strip of land, we have a lot of stories to pass down to our kids. I wish someone with a love for history could team up with an artistic cinematographer to bring our story to life. 2. Our ethnic diversity. Cameroon is nicknamed the ‘melting-pot of Africa’ for its cultural and geographical diversity. With over 200 ethnic groups you best believe we put the E in eclectic. 3. Our languages. Cameroon (not necessarily its people) is multilingual. Our country is home to over a 1000 different tongues/dialects. As though that is not enough, our history of multiple colonizations left us with a plurality of foreign languages, names etc. though we have just two official languages (both from the colonizers). Language is a touchy topic to many of us as Cameroonians because one language is obviously valued more than all others in this country- French. Yet I love how we have come to blend the languages by creating slang words like ‘chomecam’ and more. Eventually creating something uniquely ours popularly referred to as Camfranglais. 4. Our religious tolerance (well, relatively). Considering the cultural diversity, the multiplicity of languages, and mixture of religious beliefs (Christianity, Islam, Animism) Cameroon is perfect ground for instability fueled by religious discord. But we’re far from that. I schooled in several Presbyterian mission schools and each of them had Muslim students. My Muslim classmates had concessions during their religious holidays and were not bullied based on their religions. Heck, our Senior Prefect was Muslim. 5. Our laissez-faire simplicity. You know the popular adage “let sleeping dogs lie”? Well you never have to tell a Cameroonian that. We will let everything go on as it is as long as the price beer is not increased, our land still produces its rich variety of food and our football team continues to play. This laissez-faire nature explains why we’ve barely full blown political insurrections till date despite having one of the longest serving African dictators. 6. Our communal nature. If you live in urban areas in Cameroon, you may think we aren’t as communal as before. Well we are still more communal than a lot of other areas. After living in the UK for a year, I didn’t know my neighbor’s name. That would be impossible in Cameroon. You would probably know your landlady’s family history as you move in. You would most likely wake/be awaken by your neighbor at night to help take someone to the hospital. Our interdependence is real, it’s beautiful, and it’s sometimes a burden. But I wouldn’t change it for the world. I imagine that if the USA had our communalism police violence wouldn’t be so common. Everyone is related (friendships included) to at least one police man, that cop would find that his victims family had visited the family patriarch in the village and soon enough there will be repercussions. 7. Our relative economic balance. Yes I said that. No, I don’t mean we have a good economy. What I mean is that unlike other countries I know, the gap between our rich and poor isn’t that large. Nearly everyone has one ‘wealthy’ family member as well as one family member who can barely feed themselves. It has been noted that we have one of the fastest growing middle class factionsin the region according to a World Bank report 8. Our range of possibilities. The saying “L’impossible n’est pas Camerounais” is often used derisively to mark
End of Year Reflection
The end of year is always a time of reflection, as we wonder whether we met those New year resolutions, as we grade ourselves for becoming better or worse, closer to our dreams or not, as we look back in gratitude for seeing the end of a year which many others did not. Whether be are believers in a divine entity of not, it’s a spiritual time. Whether you are a believer or not, you have probably wished someone a Merry Christmas, even if only to respond and avoid being churlish. This spirituality, the warped nature of our world religions and yet the necessity of faith are the musings on my mind at this time. My experiences this past year led me to question and analyze my faith as much (if not more) than I did when I first began believing for me and not as a result of socialization. And though I still consider myself a Christian I must admit many times this year I’ve bordered on Agnostic. Why? What made me doubt my faith? Many things, none of them new, just increasingly alarming. The increase of “men of God” who warp the word of God to suit their motives and are in the business of selling miracles rather than building faith, the ‘believers’ so easily misled because they pick and choose what part of the bible they read, the increasingly popular admonition that we are not supposed to question our faith- just believe, the increasing hypocrisy and judging among faith groups which encourage (even demand) that you condemn another for basically sinning differently from you, and of course the increasing prejudice against other faiths like Islam and lack of tolerance with people who believe differently. Then of course there have been the unexplainable, why a young child would have to suffer so much pain in their short life, why the population of one country is being massacred brutally with no just cause and of course, why Grace would cover me but not another who in their innocence obviously deserved it more. Like I said, the reasons to doubt faith systems aren’t new, there have always been. But for each of these reasons to doubt, I’ve found two more reasons to believe. For every charlatan there’s been one true evangelist (and they are rarely leading a church), for a prejudiced acquaintance spreading messages of condemnation on social media, I have been blessed with friends who know their faith isn’t threatened by another person’s believing differently, for every unexplainable act of evil, there has been an unexplainable act of good. For me that’s enough to keep believing. But for others I know they (with good reason, probably) just can’t believe that easily. They call it faith for a reason. It surpasses logic, BUT- and this is the point of this post- it doesn’t or in my opinion shouldn’t, defy logic. God gave us brains, I don’t think he gave it to us for décor. We ought to use them. These brains question, these brains think things through. How ever they think according to what we feed them, so read, whatever your faith book is, read it but not only with your brain, read with your heart and soul. But not just your faith books of choice please, read everything, every genre you possibly can. Read as widely as possible to learn from humans as much as to learn from God. Aren’t we supposedly made in his image? Why do we discount each other’s divinity then? No religion truly promotes evil, each religion is tainted with cultural norms and the author’s personal bias. After a year of examining all I believe in. I would pick faith and humanity over any systematic religion. I have seen little difference between the the two major world religions and more difference between the denominations and groups within these religions. At the end of it all I must agree with the line in the movie “My Name is Khan”: There are two kinds of people in this world irrespective of what or who they believe in- good people and bad people. So I thought I would end a year fraught with religious intolerance, by spreading a simple message. Forget the religion and find your faith; with it I hope you see reason to believe again despite all. I would also like to take this time to thank those friends who while making practicing their own faith and making it clear why they are believers, also made it clear they are not fools, they are tolerant and (perhaps most importantly) that they are struggling- because believing is a walk not an accomplishment. We’re all trying, none of us perfect. So “thank you” Malaka Grant, Marriam Lally, John Gwan, Lucky Omaar, Elizabeth Elango-Bintliff, Derrick Focho, Ngum Ngafor and many more. Thank you for demystifying religion by practicing faith and in so doing encouraging me to believe in mine.