Cameroon: Moving Forward to 2011

By Tazoacha Asonganyi in Yaounde.

With all the distractions around us, like selective arrest of embezzlers of state funds, noises about impending big projects, pompous declarations about the food crisis and more, we should not lose sight of the momentous 2011 that is approaching at a gallop.It is of historical interest that once in a while, extraordinary human beings that stand out head and shoulders above all others appear on the scene. We all had this in mind when we embarked on the politics of change with the return of multi-party politics in the early ?90s.

This was especially so because experience from South East Asia had taught us that one commanding personality could change a country in a generation?Such a personality gets thrust up by forces under the surface and they alter the direction of the forces in their poor, underdeveloped countries and make their life a legend, like Mao, Park Chung Hee and others...It is true that the opposition figures that emerged on the stage in the early ?90s were products of different backgrounds: some were realists, others were idealists, but they seemed to be all aware of the weak foundation on which the country stood. They also seemed to be aware of the forces under the surface that had brought the country to its knees. All of them had one thing in common: each behaved like a star.

It was not long before we became aware of the dangers that had been cast on the struggle by these "shining" stars. Since great stars are only happy in their own unimpeded orbits, it was difficult to put them in one orbit! Each time they were "forced" together, it was more a partnership of circumstances and convenience, than of friendship and cooperation. And so under our eyes, the mission of the struggle whittled down and was departed from. In their dazzling, competitive orbits, they developed "strategies" that were more shell than kernel... As years went by, each developed the myopia of old men that it is difficult to imagine a satisfactory younger successor!So what was the challenge the emergent leaders were bound to meet? Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai has responded with a question: "...why is Africa one of the richest continents on the planet, endowed with oil, precious stones, forests, water, wildlife, soil, land, agricultural products, and millions
of women and men, and yet most of Africa?s people remain impoverished?" (seewww.project-syndicat.org/commentary/maathai1).

Thesimple reason is the lack of serious leaders with vision like Mao Tse-tung (for China) and Park Chung Hee (for South Korea) that truly emanate from within the society to create the appropriate environment for their countries to emerge from poverty, underdevelopment and helplessness. Africa?s false step was taken by the leaders that took over African countries following independence, because of their "limited and conditioned vision".

To paraphrase Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed), the perception of the leaders of the colonised people was impaired by their submersion in the reality of colonisation. They were so inside the system that they could not see themselves in the struggle to free their countries except in terms of raising themselves to the status of those who colonised them.

Although they were colonised and abused, they identified with the colonial forces that denied them what they dreamt to become.Since the coloniser had inspired "admiration", being like the coloniser would also inspire "admiration"!Consequently, the opportunity to rule was confused with oppression; they imitated the use of power and authority by colonisers and ruled their people in the manner of the colonialist they had just replaced.Unfortunately, those who succeeded to replace these "strongmen" or "fathers of the nation", continued in the imitation.

Therefore the mission that faced the "new" opposition parties that emerged in the early ?90s was to end this sterile imitation by providing appropriate leadership to lead our country out of the stalemate of underdevelopment and poverty. As would be realised later, the leaders did not seem to have a single grain of conviction, except in the hope that by some luck, they could grab the country and commandeer it in the image of those they were fighting to replace. Their political attitudes seemed to be dictated by opportunism, rather than by any coherent corpus of belief.

"Democracy" was always their pet slogan, and they invariably included it in the names of their parties, although they had very little idea of what it meant. It was like a password for self-preservation and self promotion?Most of the "leaders" spent precious time uprooting plants from the gardens of ideological certainties and replanting them in the gardens of the outfits they had set up as political parties; giving them funny names like rigour and moralisation, new deal, grands ambitions, power to the people, equal opportunity, republican ethics... and even creating "shadows" that fell into desuetude upon their creation... As expected, the gardens became more and more barren with passing years? and the hungry and expectant people became more and more restive!Although a politician should always be ready to prick the balloon of his own enthusiasm, none of ours allowed their balloons to be deflated.

Slowly, most of them came to believe in the illusion that the people can "rise up like one man" against injustice and frustration without nurture and prompting ... without professional managers of the emotion of change. What is difficult to understand is that although some of them led themselves up futile, blind alleys, they still seem to be persuaded that they are on the crest of a winning wave!After Ahidjo?s 22 years at the helm, it seems the only ambition of the present man at the top in our country is to be remembered for having blown out the highest number of candles in the presidential palace.

As we move forward to 2011, the various "stars" circling their individual orbits leave us only to hope that the year will mark our own "once in a while" when, from relative obscurity, an extraordinary human being with vision and patriotism will emerge on the scene.