We Have Suffered Unspeakable Abuses And Indignities

We Have Suffered Unspeakable Abuses And Indignities Sunday, April 07, 2013 CameroonPostline.com -- For one whole generation the people of the Southern Cameroons have suffered and continue to suffer unspeakable abuses and indignities at the cruel hands of the political leadership of la Republique du Cameroun. It is not in dispute that the said Republique has: - Endangered our life, limb, freedom and property; - Forcibly denied us the right to the pursuit of happiness; - Cruelly outraged, injured and oppressed us in both sexes, in every decade, rank, situation, and condition of life. - Subverted our laws, rights and liberties; - Dishonoured our spirit, character and culture; - Repeatedly and arrogantly betrayed our trust; - Laid waste and desolate our territory; - Depleted our natural resources; and, - Looted and vandalised our property and wealth. It is overwhelming. It is compelling. …We must now take our collective destiny into our hands and shake off forever the fetters of French-sponsored annexionist-cum-assimilationist enslavement and trammels. We should stop wallowing in an orgy of self-pity. Instead of persisting in complaining, weeping, wailing and bemoaning our fate, we should move forward as a people, as one man. (From Angophone Blood, Tears and Grief – Any End In Sight?By Prof. Carlson Anyangwe) Anglophone-Francophone Union No Longer At Ease We are the children of the Plebiscite Generation; we are the survivors of a cultural crusade but though we may be haunted by the memories of a battered past and hemmed by the realities of a bitter present we must not resign to fate. As long as the baby is crying its mother never stops singing. And the Anglophones are crying. They are yearning for respect and recognition; they are asking for the tenets of the Foumban Constitution to be reviewed and revised. The union that holds the Anglophones and Francophones is no longer at ease and the only way forward is to stop for a moment to see how much we have covered since 1961”. In the on-going process of social change and institutional reform, young people would like to receive and be guided by the counsel of their elders. But the elders would be acting in breach of the trust which the young place in them if, as accomplices of oppressors, they were to use their moral ascendancy over the young to reinforce further the state of subjugation into which they delivered themselves and their descendants {52} years ago or since. Men of their generation from other regions of the country occupy posts as First Class or Paramount Chiefs, Roving Ambassadors, Members of Government, Directors-General or Chairmen of Boards of State enterprises, and so on. Many of them do so while openly militating in opposition parties. Some even lead opposition parties. They do nothing to stifle the cause of their own people as championed by their youths. In any case, many who were of the opposition yesterday are in government today along with their parties, thus proving that in the new political dispensation one does not necessarily have to mortgage one’s conscience to the ruling oligarchy to aspire to public office at any level. We call upon our elders of the North West and South WestProvinces (Now Regions) to be like their counterparts of other regions. We implore them, if they would not positively team up with their sons and daughters to strive for the improvement of the lot of their region and of their people, at least not to stand in the way of their sons and daughters or actively thwart the latter’s effort in exchange for a few marginal and ephemeral favours. Finding themselves now in the middle of the burning bush, they should not delude themselves that the fire that is ravaging the outer limits of that bush will never work its way towards the middle and, ultimately, find and consume them too. (From A Time of Hope by Dr. Simon Munzu) First published in The Post print edition no 01422 Source: http://www.cameroonpostline.com/Content.aspx?ModuleID=1&ItemID=9838 Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once. William Shakespeare.

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