Scribbles from the Den

Dibussi Tande

Description

This collection consists of 49 insightful essays by leading Cameroonian blogger Dibussi Tande, which originally appeared on his award-winning blog Scribbles from the Den. These essays tackle some of the most pressing and complex issues facing Cameroon today such as the stalled democratization process, the perennial Anglophone problem, the crisis of higher education, the absence of the rule of law, the lack of leadership renewal, a stifled collective memory, and a continued inability to harness technology for purposes of national development, among others. Scribbles from the Den goes beyond the news headlines to dispassionately analyze and unravel the complexities of Cameroonian politics and society.

Sujets

• African Studies

Informations

• Publié par: Langaa RPCIG
• Date de parution: 15 mai 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9789956716531
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

SCRIBBLES FROM THE DEN

DIBUSSI TANDE

Other Titles byLangaaRPCIG

Francis B. Nyamnjoh Stories from Abakwa Mind Searching The Disillusioned African The Convert Souls Forgotten Married But Available

Dibussi Tande No Turning Back. Poems of Freedom 1990-1993 Scribbles from the Den: Essays on Politics and Collective Memory in Cameroon

Kangsen Feka Wakai Fragmented Melodies

Ntemfac Ofege Namondo. Child of the Water Spirits Hot Water for the Famous Seven

Emmanuel Fru Doh Not Yet Damascus The Fire Within Africa‘s Political Wastelands: The Bastardization of Cameroon Oriki’badan Wading the Tide

Thomas Jing Tale of an African Woman

Peter Wuteh Vakunta Grassfields Stories from Cameroon Green Rape: Poetry for the Environment Majunga Tok: Poems in Pidgin English Cry, My Beloved Africa No Love Lost Straddling The Mungo: A Book of Poems in English & French

Ba’bila Mutia Coils of Mortal Flesh

Kehbuma Langmia Titabet and the Takumbeng An Evil Meal of Evil

Victor Elame Musinga The Barn The Tragedy of Mr. No Balance

Ngessimo Mathe Mutaka Building Capacity: Using TEFL and African Languages as Development- oriented Literacy Tools

Milton Krieger Cameroon’s Social Democratic Front: Its History and Prospects as an Opposition Political Party, 1990-2011

Sammy Oke Akombi The Raped Amulet The Woman Who Ate Python Beware the Drives: Book of Verse

Susan Nkwentie Nde Precipice Second Engagement

Francis B. Nyamnjoh & Richard Fonteh Akum The Cameroon GCE Crisis: A Test of Anglophone Solidarity

Joyce Ashuntantang & Dibussi Tande Their Champagne Party Will End! Poems in Honor of Bate Besong

Emmanuel Achu Disturbing the Peace

Rosemary Ekosso The House of Falling Women

Peterkins Manyong God the Politician

George Ngwane The Power in the Writer: Collected Essays on Culture, Democracy & Development in Africa

John Percival The 1961 Cameroon Plebiscite: Choice or Betrayal

Albert Azeyeh Réussite scolaire, faillite sociale : généalogie mentale de la crise de l’Afrique noire francophone

Aloysius Ajab Amin & Jean-Luc Dubois Croissance et développement au Cameroun : d‘une croissance équilibrée à un développement équitable

Carlson Anyangwe Imperialistic Politics in Cameroun: Resistance & the Inception of the Restoration of the Statehood of Southern Cameroons

Bill F. Ndi K‘Cracy, Trees in the Storm and Other Poems Map: Musings On Ars Poetica

Kathryn Toure, Therese Mungah Shalo Tchombe & Thierry Karsenti ICT and Changing Mindsets in Education

Charles Alobwed’Epie The Day God Blinked

G.D. Nyamndi Babi Yar Symphony Whether losing, Whether winning Tussles: Collected Plays

Samuel Ebelle Kingue Si Dieu était tout un chacun de nous?

Ignasio Malizani Jimu Urban Appropriation and Transformation : bicycle, taxi and handcart operators in Mzuzu, Malawi

Justice Nyo’ Wakai: Under the Broken Scale of Justice: The Law and My Times

John Eyong Mengot A Pact of Ages

Ignasio Malizani Jimu Urban Appropriation and Transformation: Bicycle Taxi and Handcart Operators

Joyce B. Ashuntantang Landscaping and Coloniality: The Dissemination of Cameroon Anglophone Literature

Jude Fokwang Mediating Legitimacy: Chieftaincy and Democratisation in Two African Chiefdoms

Michael A. Yanou Dispossession and Access to Land in South Africa: an African Perspevctive

Tikum Mbah Azonga Cup Man and Other Stories

John Nkemngong Nkengasong Letters to Marions (And the Coming Generations)

Amady Aly Dieng Les étudiants africains et la littérature négro-africaine d’expression française

Tah Asongwed Born to Rule: Autobiography of a life President

Frida Menkan Mbunda Shadows From The Abyss

Bongasu Tanla Kishani A Basket of Kola Nuts

Fo Angwafo III S.A.N of Mankon Royalty and Politics: The Story of My Life

Basil Diki The Lord of Anomy

Scribbles from the Den

Essays on Politics and Collective Memory in Cameroon

By Dibussi Tande

Langaa Research & Publishing CIG Mankon,Bamenda

Publisher: Langaa RPCIG Langaa Research & Publishing Common Initiative Group P.O. Box 902 Mankon Bamenda North West Region Cameroon [e-mail] www.langaa-rpcig.net

Distributed outside N. America by African Books Collective [e-mail] www.africanbookscollective.com

Distributed in N. America by Michigan State University Press [e-mail] www.msupress.msu.edu

DISCLAIMER

ISBN: 9956-558-91-5

© Dibussi Tande 2009

All views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Langaa RPCIG.

Scribbles from the Den: Essays on Politics and Collective Memory in Cameroon

Content

Dedication .................................................................................................. ix Preface ........................................................................................................ xi Foreword .................................................................................................... xv

Part One: The Anglophone File 1. Language as a Tool for Exclusion: Reflections on Cameroon’s National Bilingualism Day ..................................................................................... 3 2. Culture and Political Statehood: Another Perspective on Southern Cameroons Nationalism ......................................................................................... 7 3. The Politics of Pidgin English in Cameroon ..................................................... 11 4. Cameroon Literature in English – Vibrant but Invisible ................................. 16 5. A Baobab Fell in the Forest But Did They Notice? Bate Besong or the Symbol of the Cameroon Divide .......................................................... 19 6. Cameroon Unification: Were Southern Cameroons Leaders Inexperienced and Illiterate? ................................................................................. 24 7. Revisiting The Legacy of Dr. EML Endeley ..................................................... 28

Part Two: Citenzenship in the Global Village 8. Brain Drain: Why are Cameroonian Medical Doctors Leaving? ................... 35 9. Dual Citizenship (I): Time for a Long Overdue National Debate ................ 40 10. Dual Citizenship (II): A Win-Win Situation ........................................................ 44 11. Citizenship in the Age of Globalization .............................................................. 49

Part Three: Collective Memory 12. Individual Memory and Collective Amnesia: Where are the Political Memoirs? ............................................................................................ 53 13. The Cultural Alienation and Historical Amnesia of Public Spaces in Cameroon ............................................................................................................... 57 14. France’s Dirty War in Cameroon: The Assassination of Félix-Roland Moumié ................................................................................................................... 60 15. Once Upon a Time… Osende Afana ................................................................. 65 16. Repaid in his Own Coins: Ahmadou Ahidjo and the Politics of Ostracism ........................................................................................................... 76

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Dibussi Tande

Part Four: The University in Crisis 17. When History Repeats Itself: The Government Spin Machine and the UB Crisis ........................................................................................................... 83 18. Deconstructing Regional Balance and Higher Education in Cameroon ........................................................................................................... 88 19. University of Buea: What is the Cost of Quality Education? ......................... 92 20. Regional Balance, Educational Quotas and (Under)development in Northern Cameroon ......................................................................................... 96 21. Stuck on the Fringes of the Knowledge Economy ........................................ 100

Part Five: Presidential Politics 22. President Paul Biya: 25 Years and Counting ..................................................... 107 23. How to Eliminate Presidential Term Limits (Notes from the Biya Playbook) ....................................................................... 112 24. Biyaism Without Biya? The Battle for Regime Change in Cameroon ......................................................................................................... 115 25. «La Politique de Pourrissement»: Why Biya Remains Defiant ........................ 117

Part Six: Political Pluralism 26. Indigenous Minorities and Political Pluralism in Cameroon .......................... 123 27. Cameroon: Why So Many Political Parties? ...................................................... 126 28. State Funding of Political Parties: A Democratic Imperative or Hush Money for the Opposition? ............................................................... 130 29. Social Democratic Front (SDF): A Dream Derailed? .................................... 134

Part Seven: Profiles of Courage 30. A Dream Deferred: Emmanuel Njela Nfor ................................................... 139 31. Isaac Menyoli: Living Up to the Olympic Creed ............................................ 141 32. Sita Bella: The Final Journey of a Renaissance Woman .................................. 143 33. Joe la Conscience: Cameroon’s Forgotten Prisoner of Conscience ............. 144 34. Jean-Marc Ela – Remembering Africa’s “Liberation Theologian” .............. 147

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Scribbles from the Den: Essays on Politics and Collective Memory in Cameroon

Part Eight: Law, Justice & Corruption 35. Trail of Death: Maintaining Law and Order in Cameroon .......................... 153 36. Can Cameroon’s New Criminal Procedure Code Deliver “Justice with a Human Face”? ........................................................................... 156 37. The Untouchables (Politically Mediated Loans and Political Impunity in Cameroon) ...................................................................................... 160 38. 100 Ways to Pilfer a Public Corporation: Notes from the Trial of Gerard Ondo Ndong ................................................................................... 163 39. How Cameroon Auctioned Its Internet Namespace ..................................... 169

Part Nine: Random Notes 40. Gerontocracy in Cameroon – These Old Men Who Govern Us ............... 175 41. Football and the “Burden of Patriotism” in Africa ........................................ 179 42. When Private and Public Spaces Collide: Power, Sex and Politics in Cameroon ......................................................................................................... 181 43. Political Rumor in Cameroon: The “Weapon of Mass Destruction” of the Masses ........................................................................................................ 184 44. Mystery and Intrigue in a Tropical Paradise – Revisiting the Speedboat Attack on Limbe ....................................................................... 187 45. The Government of Cameroon on a PR Offensive in the United States .............................................................................................. 192 46. The Lake Nyos Disaster 20 Years After: Revisiting the Israeli Connection ............................................................................................................ 196 47. Zimbabwe at 27: When a Fairy Tale Becomes a Gory Nightmare ............. 200 48. Obama and Africa: Change and Changelessness in US Foreign Policy ...................................................................................................................... 204 49. In Search of the Elusive “Big Foot”: Where are the Cameroonian Bloggers? ............................................................................................................... 208

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Scribbles from the Den: Essays on Politics and Collective Memory in Cameroon

Dedication

To Mokali and Terese

for the unconditional support

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