Canute - Chronicles from the Heartland

Cameroon: The New Patriotism

By Canute Tangwa

On the eve of February 11, 2006, President Paul Biya, told the youths that there was need for a new patriotism; Cameroon has to reinvent itself. It was a subtle admission of failure, an inability to forge a nation after forty-five years of independence.

When there is no zeal, no dream, no motivation, no values, no models and no willingness to die for one's country, nothing works; inertia sets in. The President identified inertia as one of the ills plaguing Cameroon in his 2005 New Year message.

A Virtual Mola In The Heart Of Bui

By Canute Tangwa

I traveled to Bui Division after a 12-year or so absence. Do not wince. Prince Nico Mbarga once sang, home be home, though certain developments make me wary about the notion of home.

We are now in Kumbo Town where the late Bernard Fonlon lies in peace. Indeed, just as the first glowing yellowish sun rays pierced the dry pitch-cold morning air at the Njavnyuy Motor Park, I muttered something to Verla Victor that came straight from the recesses of my heart.

French Revisionism: Case Of Positive Role Of French Colonisation

By Canute Tangwa (The Post, March 2, 2006)

What positive role did colonisation play in Africa and Cameroon in particular? On June 30, 1960, late Patrice Lumumba declared loud and clear to the newborn Congolese nation and the world: "We are proud of this struggle, of tears, of fire, and of blood, to the depths of our being, for it was a noble and just struggle, and indispensable to put an end to the humiliating slavery which was imposed upon us by force.

The Lord's Prayer

By Canute Tangwa

At a come together in Douala, the coordinator invited me to lead the group in prayer. I intoned The Lord's Prayer. At the end there was a burst of laughter and surprise. A youngman walked up to me and said, "So you do not know how to say common prayer!" "But we have just said The Lord's Prayer", I thundered.

Say your own prayer and do not say prayers that we already know seemed to be the general refrain.As kids we learnt by rote The Lord's Prayer. As adults we assume a certain understanding of The Lord's Prayer. A reading of Rabbi Marc Gellman's commentary of Psalm 23 jolted me.

John Garang De Mabior: The Last of Africa's Big Men Passes On

By Canute Tangwa (The Post, August 11, 2005)

John Garang de Mabior, a dark-skinned, burly, physically-intimidating Dinka from Southern Sudan, was a big man indeed. He was the quintessential member of the club of Africa's Big Men who sought justice for their people through the barrel of the gun in the bush, neighbourhoods or countryside.

A holder of a Ph.D in Agricultural Economics from the Iowa State University, USA and a product of one of America's finest military academies, Fort Benning in Georgia, John Garang spurned orders from his superiors in the Sudanese army to crush mutinous southern soldiers.

WAITING FOR BARACK OBAMA IN FRONT OF AN AFRICAN VERANDA

By Canute Tangwa

Around Carrefour EMIA in Yaounde, I spotted a plush car with a sticker: Obama 08. It was packed a few meters from the road. Beside the car was a cute and expensively dressed gentleman who was constantly on the phone. The car and the gentleman contrasted vividly with the surrounding immediate environment that was littered with dirt, rubbish, crumbling buildings and rubbles left behind by Yaoundeans and bulldozing caterpillars of the Yaounde City Council; a way of making the city clean!

Cameroon: 26 Years in Power - What Biya Got Right

By Canute Tangwa (Originally published in Cameroon Post (November 10 2008)

In a paper titled What Bush Got Right of August 9, 2008, Fareed Zakaria analysed and dissected the positive points of President George Bush's two-terms in office.

When I was invited to write on Biya's 26 years of stewardship, I thought aloud: does anybody have to wait for 26 years and more to get it right?

Bernard Fonlon Through Today's Lens

BY CANUTE TANGWA*

Professor Bernard Fonlon died on August 26, 1986. This year marks the 22nd anniversary of the death of a “teacher, advisor, sage, writer, philosopher, academic, Africanist, nationalist, essayist, leader, and mentor”. Much has been written and said on the impeccable qualities of Fonlon.

I am beginning this encounter with a point or two less because I never met Fonlon nor was he my teacher. The only weapon I have is an intellectual baggage! I also draw inspiration from Bate Besong’s soul searching question, “what would Professor Bernard Fonlon had (sic) done had he been confronted with the present national tragedy?” in THE BERNARD FONLON REVOLUTION: IF GOLD SHOULD RUST, WHAT WILL IRON DO? (2005).

When A Teacher Dies: Remembering Femi Oyewole

By Canute Tangwa (The Post, November 17, 2006)

I am not a celebrated pamphleteer/essayist like Kevin Mbayu who wrote a matchless-stellar tribute to Bernard Fonlon, the teacher and Mbayu's intellectual sparring partner.

Arguably, the late Mbayu was the one and only Cameroonian who took Fonlon to task in a philosophical debate on morality and the Godhead. Did the revered Fonlon buckle? That is another matter for polemicists.