Of Terrorism and Patriotism: Tribute to Ndeh Ntumazah, Nelson Mandela, et al.

Ndeh Ntumazah, Cameroon’s long serving “maquisard” or terrorist for 60 years was ‘rehabilitated’ in a presidential decree signed by President Paul Biya of the neo-colonialist République du Cameroun granting him a State Burial. This crusader for the union of the populations of Cameroon , who never benefited from the Cameroonian state except negative categorization, will posthumously be raised to the status of Patriot Number One, as such erasing the fairytale images of a dangerous terrorist.

Last year, Madiba Nelson Mandela, South Africa ’s first majority president, branded terrorist for over 40 years saw his name removed from the list of terrorists, and given a special day in the history of the community of nations by elevating his birthday to a United Nations Day. Few former terrorists in their lives have been so lucky to be rehabilitated and celebrated. Needless reminding ourselves that Ndeh Ntumazah, Ernest Ouadie, Um Nyobe, Wambo Le Courant, Patrice Lumumba et al, all fought for the liberation of their people from an oppressive neocolonial dispensation.

Even at the end of colonialism, the departing colonials made sure they installed neo-colonials to continue their plunder of Africa . Under such pseudo-nationalists the true sons (patriots) of Africa , who fought for the survival of the continent were hunted and assassinated like mad dogs. Africa lost hundreds of its most valuable sons in such circumstances, in what Jean Ziegler terms the depersonalization of a people. Indeed, most Africans allowed themselves to be used in very inhuman ways and some of their brothers worked and continue to work as accomplices of the colonialists.

For all their perceived crimes against the peace of the people, John Stuart Mill, in On Liberty published in 1859, states, “No argument, we may suppose, can now be needed against permitting a legislature or an executive, not identified in interest with the people, to prescribe opinions to them and determine what doctrines or what arguments they shall be allowed to hear.” This is in tandem with the redefinition of our history and aspirations.

Neither the French nor Ahidjo had any reasons to stop the members of the UPC (Union of Cameroonian Populations) from arguing that it was best to reunite all the populations in the former German Kamerun. Ndeh Ntumazah and his associates were all justified in their wishes and history has proven them right in this anniversary year of Cameroon ’s independence. The Unity of Cameroon is celebrated today, in total forgetfulness of those who fought for it. When Yaounde cited people to be honoured for the independence of Cameroon , valuable patriots like Ndeh Ntumazah, Um Nyobe were not considered. Yet without the pressure and guerrilla tactics they used, Cameroon ’s quasi-independence will still be undergoing negotiation, today.

If Margaret Thatcher has been reduced to obscurity, it is not because she is lackluster or sick but because she is haunted by her actions of despising Nelson Mandela. On an official trip to South Africa , an impetuous reporter asked her whether she would visit Nelson Mandela in Robin Island . Margaret Thatcher replied that “The prime Minister of England does not talk to terrorist.” A few months after, Mandela was freed from prison and became the first South African majority President. As president, Margaret Thatcher sought an audience with him. In typical Mandela outspokenness, he replied, “Terrorists don’t receive the Prime Ministers of England.” Poor Margaret Thatcher has never recovered from this shock.

It is quite a marvel how some celebrated terrorists metamorphose into venerated patriots. I am forced to go into the nuances of who is a terrorist and who is a patriot. A patriot is a person who loves his country and defends and promotes its interests. He is also one who remains loyal to his country when it is occupied by an enemy. A terrorist is an advocate of terror as a means of coercion. Ndeh Ntumazah, Nelson Mandela et al were all people who loved their countries passionately and were ready to defend and promote their interests. For Ndeh Ntumazah he understood that the formidable French colonial regime could only be defeated if the populations of Cameroon united to chase them out. This was frightful to the French above everything else. It provoked terror as they were frightened imagining the eventuality of losing all the wealth in Cameroon . But for pa Ndeh and his friends they were simply defending their beloved countries.

The wonder is why it took so long for their compatriots to recognize that they meant all good for their country. Pa Ndeh died on 21 January 2010 in St Thomas Hospital , London , destitute, senile and demented. No Cameroonian authority paid him a single visit or provided the basics for this historic patriot to survive. Ndeh Ntumazah was not so lucky like Nelson Mandela to see larger than life-size statues erected in his honour.

As Ndeh Ntumazah will be flown back to Cameroon for a State burial on 27 March 2010, his persecutor Ahmadou Ahidjo will be turning in his grave in Senegal . The irony is that since his death in 1988, Ahidjo remains a fugitive on the run from the country he prevented Ndeh, Ouandie, and Wambo from having a quiet enjoyment in.

Today, of the many lessons we learn, we will learn not to be conformers to common place. It is not because everybody is condemning an idea or a movement that it becomes trendy. Timeservers for truth will remember Socrates was put to death, but the Socratic Philosophy rose like the sun in heaven and spread its illumination over the whole intellectual firmament.

In University environments expected to be intellectual laboratories, the same political intolerance that characterizes the mundane world is manifest. Dissentients afflicted by the malady of thought, prescribe a convenient plan for having peace in the intellectual world, and keeping all things going on therein very much as they do already (undisturbed by vigorous debating). But the price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind. Professor Nyamjoh and others were chased out of the University of Buea for simply passionately believing that there was an Anglophone problem. Today, I join the chorus of the blacklisted and hunted for truly believing there was a problem in Cameroon and the University of Buea , where impostors and pseudo-intellectual s brand patriots as terrorists.

I have been articulating this Anglophone problem since 1990, to the surprise of people like the veteran political anarchist Sam Nuvala Fonkem. He is surprised that I was never witness of the Southern Cameroons period, yet I am able to command the courage to articulate its concerns. For this vituperative approach to the Southern Cameroons problem, some faculty at the University of Buea elected to brand me terrorist, while those who have sold their souls to the occupiers are hailed as patriots. Yet, today’s patriots will be portrayed and spared from the hang post tomorrow only by humanitarian considerations.

May the rehabilitation of the patriots falsely branded terrorists begin on 27 March 2010 with the honours due a real patriot like Ndeh Ntumazah. I am not waiting for a posthumous honour because people like Ateba, Tiayon Boromee et al have said I am a threat to the lethargic minds of moribund intellectuals. We, today’s blacklisted terrorists, tombstone for the destroyers of our patrimony, simply want to be given the opportunity to fight and defend the interests of our beloved country and people.