5 Francs Question

By Clovis Atatah

'What A Man Can Do…'As I penned down these lines in the afternoon of March 8, I heard coupé decalé and Prince Aimé's "Vivianne" blaring from a nearby bar, accompanied by hoots and cheers of women who were quaffing beer and dancing in reckless abandon. Before mounting the staircase leading to the Yaounde Bureau of The Post, I spied the rowdy and raucous group, whose excited cries did little to help me achieve the task of penning down this column.

Some of the women did things with their Women's Day 'kabas' that made a mockery of public decency. They also gyrated with erotic provocation. Call it romantic taunting or sexual terrorism if you please.

But whichever way you describe it, some men were victims. Before returning to the office, I had been to a few government ministries where women were also having a swell time. There is no gainsaying that March 8 'belongs' to women, so they ought to enjoy.

"What a man can do, a woman can do better," it is often said. From what I have observed during previous Women's Days, and the one of this year, it is evident that women are doing their very best to adhere to this creed. It is no secret that a lot of Cameroonian men are slaves to alcohol.

Many of them squander scarce resources almost exclusively on alcohol, instead of investing in their families. Such men usually spend the little change left on women of easy virtue who always hang around bars spoiling for victims. Although women are progressively adopting such bad habits, the bars still remain the strongholds of men.

But on March 8, the women storm the bars like Barbarian invaders and crush everything in sight. The bars are their kingdoms (or is it queendoms?) and their word is law. They get drunk and are easily tempted into infidelity. For a lot of women, Women's Day means mimicking the bad habits of irresponsible men.

In the end, many run into problems with their spouses or are pricked by their consciences long after the curtains are drawn on Women's Day celebrations. See what blindly 'copying from the original' can do?

Women's Empowerment

If there is any UN Day that is taken very seriously in Cameroon, it is the International Day of the Woman, observed every March 8. This day, that is supposed to raise sensitisation on the peculiar plight of women like discrimination and marginalisation as well as to enhance their status, has witnessed some of the worst forms of the dehumanisation and debasement of the female folk.

It is a day when women are reduced to ridiculous objects for the viewing pleasure of chauvinistic men. One would have expected that on Women's Day, the female folk in Cameroon would be up in arms against statutory discrimination and traditional practices that deprive them of basic rights.

The former dictatorial regime of Grand Camarade, always so apprehensive of dissent, did everything in its power to channel creative female revolutionary energies towards the cesspit of recklessness. He did not do this only to women.

Workers too went for his brainwashing bait, hook, line and sinker. For instance, on May Day (Labour Day), instead of workers protesting against their often appalling working conditions, they contend themselves with cheap T-shirts and alcohol.

Similarly, women who were subjected to some of the worst forms of degrading treatment, excitedly donned CICAM loincloths, marched past under the scathing sun, and thereafter went into a frenzy of beer-guzzling bravura and other immoral practices. Today, the mustard seed that Grand Camarade planted has blossomed into a giant tree.

Many women have thrown caution to the winds on March 8 and the practices of drunkenness and sexual promiscuity have simply been 'refined' so that they could become exportable national products in this era of 'grandes ambitions'.

Women's empowerment is interpreted as the right to recklessness and irresponsible behaviour. With this state of affairs, is the Women's Day achieving its objective of raising the status of women?

Full Figure Fashion

Another GCE Crisis

What shall always remain a conundrum is why human beings all too often fail to learn from history. It is a historical fact that whenever anybody in authority has tried to tamper with the Cameroon GCE, he has always ended up licking his wounds.

You can find out the truth of this statement from people like Réné Ze Ngélé and his accomplices like Dr (Mrs) Dorothy Limunga Njeuma. If you are not satisfied, you can meet Dr Robert Mbella Mbappe. The educational system West of the Mungo is probably the only surviving vestige of the Anglo-Saxon heritage of the Southern Cameroons.

That is why trying to tamper with the Anglophone educational system is like playing with fire. So, it came as a surprise that the Registrar of the GCE Board arrogantly tried to push ahead with a hasty reform of our cherished GCE.

And come to think of it, the GCE Board is a child of the collective determination of Anglophones not to be completely assimilated through the politically engineered cultural osmosis in the Cameroon Republic.

Before the GCE Board was created, Anglophones had to take to the streets with some parents losing limbs and eyes in the face of the malicious resistance of Dr Robert Mbella Mbappe with the help of some Anglophone quislings. As a child of a democratic revolution, the GCE Board is supposed to be sensitive to the sensitivities of the people. From what I understand, Dr Omer Weyi Yembe's reforms were in fact desirable.

The problem was its abrupt implementation and the unilateral approach adopted by the GCE Board. Unfortunately for the reputable Dr Yembe, he burnt his fingers in the process of playing with fire. It is important for people in authority to understand that they must consult and sensitise people before carrying out any delicate reform.

Otherwise well-intentioned plans will meet with resistance like was the case with the attempted reform of the Cameroon GCE by Dr Yembe. Meanwhile, kudos to Simon Nkwenti and his CATTU for answering the call of history and reminding any prospective adventurer that Anglophone people-power is still alive. Who said we shall not someday overcome our subjugation?