Up Station Mountain Club

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    The term ‘dissent’ may be used with equal validity in portraying the ideas, writings and the activities of individuals who refuse to jump unto the bandwagon of praise-singers of all stripes. Three fundamental assumptions underlie this book. Firstly, an understanding of the past is relevant to any nation’s search for self-identity. Secondly, in acquiring this understanding, minority viewpoints are as important as the ideas of members of the dominant social classes whose ideas resulted in the formulation of national policies. Thirdly, to criticize one’s country is to do it a service and pay it a compliment. Simply put, dissent means opposition to the status quo (Giffin and Smith, 1971). There is no gainsaying the fact that dissent raises questions of patriotism and loyalty to one’s people and nation. Be it as it may, as J.W. Fulbright (1966) points out, to criticize one’s country is to do it a service. It is a service because it may spur the country to do better than it is doing; it is a compliment because it evidences a belief that the country can do better than it is doing. In a similar vein, Edward Said (1994) notes that whereas we are right to bewail the disappearance of a consensus on what constitutes objectivity, we are not, by the same token, completely adrift in self-indulgent subjectivity. Given the limitations of the human brain, no one can speak up on all the issues that plague a given society at a given time. However, it is our conviction that each one of us has a special patriotic mandate to address the constituted powers of one’s own society, which are accountable to its citizenry, especially when powers vested in elected representatives are exercised in a manifestly disproportionate and immoral fashion, or in a deliberate program of discrimination, marginalization, repression and collective cruelty.

            The raison d’être of speaking truth to power, therefore, is mainly to project a better state of affairs— one that espouses a set of sane moral values, namely peace, love, reconciliation, abatement, patriotism and accountability. The purpose of dissent, therefore, is not to show how right one is but rather to endeavor to induce a change in the moral climate in a society where aggression passes for the norm, the unjust punishment of members of a society is aided and abetted, and the usurpation of fundamental human rights is glossed over with impunity. To back away or simply to toe the line in the face of such injustices is to be unpatriotic to say the least. Said lends his voice to this assertion when he notes that “Nothing is… more reprehensible than those habits of mind in the intellectual that induce avoidance, that characteristic turning away from a difficult and principled position which you know to be the one right one, but which you decide not to take”(p.100)

          The reason some intellectuals sink that low is because they do not want to appear too political. Some are afraid of being controversial. Others are galvanized by thirst for gratification—their hope is to be on a board or prestigious committee, and to remain in the good books of the powers-that-be; someday they hope to get an honorary degree, a big prize, perhaps even a ministerial position. As far as we are concerned, for a genuine intellectual, these habits of minds are corrupting par excellence because they are lethal to the intellectual’s raison d’être. To borrow words from Said again, “If anything can denature, neutralize and finally kill a passionate intellectual life it is the internalization of such habits.”(101) Personally, I have encountered such intellectuals in one of the toughest of all contemporary post-colonial imbroglios—Cameroon, where the Anglophone Question has hobbled, blinkered, muzzled many intellectuals (Anglophone and Francophone alike) who know the truth and are in a position to serve it. In our opinion, despite the abuse and vilification that any outspoken supporter of the Ambazonian Revolution earns for him or herself, the truth deserves to be spoken, represented by an unafraid and compassionate intellectual. Yes, the voice of the intellectual is lonely, but it has resonance only because it associates itself freely with the reality of a movement, the aspirations of a people and the common pursuit of a shared ideal.

In sum, dissent is no Panglossian idealism. It is carefully weighing the alternatives, picking the right one, and then intelligently representing it where it can do the most good and occasion the right change. To attain this objective, the intellectual need not climb a mountain or mount a pulpit in a bid to declaim from the heights. The sensible thing to do is represent human justice in such a way as to influence persuasively. To abandon the defense of truth or to tolerate any tampering with any of its foundations is in effect to betray one’s intellectual calling.  Lending his voice to our stance throughout this book is Saif (1994) who contends: “One of the shabbiest of all intellectual gambits is to pontificate about abuses in someone else’s society and to excuse exactly the same practices in one’s own.”(92) In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith. Like medication, the test of its efficacy lies not in its taste but in its effects. Ultimately, what matters is not how it makes people feel at the moment, but how it inspires them to act together for the betterment of the status quo. The genuine intellectual ought to be too confident to conform; too strong to be silent in the face of injustice and too decent to be cowed into submission.  Dissent, in short, is more than a right. It is an act of patriotism, a higher form of patriotism than the familiar rituals of national adulation. Slowly but surely, our leaders are succumbing to the arrogance of power.  In so doing, our nations have failed to live up to their capacities and promises.  The measure of these failures is the measure of the patriot’s duty of dissent. The essays that constitute the kernel of this book lend credence to these assertions.

 

BOOK COMMENDATION

In Dissent: The Highest Stage of Patriotism" Dr. Peter Vakunta stirs the hornet's nest and calls a spade a spade, regardless of whose horse is gored. Students and professors of political science would find this book a welcome addition to their prized reads."(Dr. Peter Ajongwa Ngwafu, Professor of Public Administration and Political Science, Albany State University, Leesburg, Georgia, USA)

 

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HONOR AMONG THIEVES

By Peter W. Vakunta

In this book of poems, the poet speaks in a confident tone of apocalyptic utterances: advising, warning, denouncing, protesting, and lamenting. This long poem has the twin virtues of relevance and clarity of diction. The poet willfully eschews the irksome ineloquence and syntactic sophistry characteristic of traditional poetry. He adopts the tone of African Guardians of the Word, the griots. Passion, energy, and incisive irony are the hallmarks of this didactic work.

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REVIEW

"Honor Among Thieves is one more expression of Africa's disaster and dilemma. The long poem chronicles the "dance macabre in the putrefaction" by "metamorphosed nitwits" feeding "feces to the poor." Vakunta's words flow feverishly in a harsh, harrowing rhythm, like blood gushing out of the bodies of innocent victims of Africa's reprehensible dictators. Cameroon is the particular site of the tragedy, but it could be Kenya, or Somalia, or Sudan..."(Dr. Femi Ojo-Ade, Professor Emeritus of French & History, St. Mary's College of Maryland, USA)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Peter Wuteh Vakunta is a native of Bamunka-Ndop in the Northwest Region of the Republic of Cameroon. His education is global. He studied in Cameroon, Nigeria, South Africa, France and the United States of America. His research interests are cross-disciplinary and straddle the tufts of applied linguistics and second language acquisition.  Professor Vakunta  is a prolific writer with over forty works on literary theory and fiction under his belt. He is an Associate Professor at the Department of Defense Language  Institute, Monterey-California, United States of America.

THE CLOTHES OF OUR NAKEDNESS: A REVIEW OF NTARINKON BY PROF VAKUNTA

 

REVIEWER: DR. EMMANUEL FRU DOH

By titling his volume Ntarinkon, Peter W. Vakunta makes a declaration as rich and complex as it is varied in implications.  Ntarinkon is not only a neighborhood but can be said to be the founding base of multi-party politics in post-colonial Cameroon. On May 26, 1990, despite opposition by the incumbent government headed by Mr. Paul Biya, the social Democratic Front (SDF) was launched in Ntarinkon, a gently boisterous business-driven quarter in the heart of Bamenda, the capital city of the North West Province. The membership's defiance of the dictatorial regime along with its forces of coercion, coupled with the willingness, at least at the time, of the party's leadership to change Cameroon in spite of all the risks involved, made the SDF the darling political party of the suffering masses. Without the trailblazing launching of the SDF, it is true, many of the political parties in Cameroon today would have been nowhere. After the SDF and its members, along with neutral sympathizers, had fought back through blood, severed limbs, and death even, to convince the recalcitrant regime that it was the hour for multi-party politics, only then, in its wake, did other parties begin emerging reticently; hence, the loaded implications surrounding the title Ntarinkon.

Against such a backdrop, it is not surprising then that Vakunta's title and long poem touch on virtually every aspect of that socio-politically infested and shaky structure called Cameroon. Cameroon, however, is the runway from which the poet's imaginative flight takes off as before long he is briefly reviewing Africa as a whole, and the world at large. Vakunta's immediate concern is to figure out what is wrong with Cameroon before transcending the national boundary. Thus, he employs those lines from Igbo weltanschauung, popularized by Achebe, by wondering: "Where did the rains/ start to beat us?" (1). Guided by Igbo philosophy and wisdom, Achebe had made known the fact that if one fails to identify one's problem and its origins, one cannot effectively apply the solution even if it is made obvious. Hence, Vakunta laments the fact that Anglophone-Cameroonians ("the lost generation of Ambasonia" 1) and even the nation as a whole, are "... a people [who] grope around/ In pitch darkness" (1). Besides Cameroon's problem as a nation, Vakunta, emphatically, bemoans the Anglophones' bane in their native Cameroon where they have been treated as though they were aliens. The poet then assembles a litany of woes that haunts the Cameroonian nation as a whole, an example being the irresponsible military that loves to kill its own citizens as revealed in "Some have christened/ the children of this land/food for military canon" (1). He wonders if such irresponsibility is not a pointer to the despair that will typify the future life of the Cameroonian youth before pointing out that Cameroon's political wilderness is characterized by "demagoguery" and "tribalism" (2) which have given birth to instability. As a result, Vakunta points out with discontent, that there comes a time when the oppressed must stand up and fight back; after all, "Die man no di fear bury grong" (a loser has nothing to worry about in a fight as there is nothing else to lose. 3).

As if to confirm the source of his title while re-emphasizing to the oppressed lot of Cameroon in particular his message of the need for an uprising, the poet goes back in time and explores the forced birth of multi-party politics in Cameroon. Almost like a Caesarean section, multiparty politics was ripped from the oppressed, frustrated, and politically pregnant atmosphere of the nation. The result was the birth of the SDF, which became the albatross about the neck "of Mbiya Mbivodo/ Absentee tenant at Etoudi" (3). Vakunta laments those who were killed during this "storm in the tea-cup/" (3). The government made so much ado about the launching of a political party by having civilians killed and others arrested and detained in Cameroon's torture laboratory, the Brigade Mixte Mobile (BMM), where they claim "Dieu est Mort" (God is dead, 4). This clash with the military was nationwide, leading to more civilian deaths as well as death wishes against the powers that be. The dream was to smoke out of his palace at Etoudi, a leader and his "Ali Baba Gang" (6) who like termites have destroyed a once towering socio-economic bastion of a nation. In the face of mounting social unrest, the nation's leader resorted to the use of charms:
megang which he carried on his person
day in day out/night and day/
as backup for his European-tailored/
bullet-proof jacket/. (10)

Notwithstanding efforts to protect the body, the ghosts of the victims of the quest for freedom will always be a part of this leader's tortured psyche; it is he who unleashed his zombies in uniform--mbere khaki--to terrorize and kill citizens fighting against "municipal vampires" (11). The populace was not deterred as professional groups after groups of the disillusioned, used, and abused proletariat--students, civil servants, black marketers, taxi drivers, and bendskin (motorcycle-taxi riders)--took turns against those in power. This hour is one of nonsense as the social order has collapsed; Vakunta shows this in the paradoxical clash of events:
There's decadence/
There's depravity/
There's je m'enfoutisme
We live in a world of impunity.../
Common sense has become nonsense/
Good food has become poison/ (12-13)
Beyond Cameroon, the poet's wide experience delves into the international realm again as he explains the conflicts and consequences of his self-exile during which he has encountered Africans blindly aping the ways of the West.

In a section that brings to mind Okot p'Bitek's Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol, the poet contrasts life at "home" as opposed to the diaspora, with nude clubs where women dance with men watching, the smell of sex in the air, the racial awareness, the overall debauchery. Of a sudden, Bate Besong, the late Cameroonian teacher, poet, playwright, and virulent social critic is called upon and praised. One would think Vakunta is summoning the spirit of this literary icon and symbol of the cleansing traditional spirit, the Obasinjom, to purge the world of his people, but it is the poet's way of lamenting the loss of cultural leaders while exploring a nation's tortuous political journey from independence through neo-colonialism to globalization and the status quo. In this light, the poet proceeds to heap praises on other Cameroonian heroes, from the legendary Reuben Um Nyobe, a symbol of Cameroon's struggle for genuine independence, and hence the "Bête noire of Gaullist Africa" (22) to the symbol of proletarian resilience of a nation hungering for true freedom, Albert Womah Mukong, "Ennemi numéro un of inept regimes" (23).From time to time, Vakunta displays the plight of the Anglophone Cameroonian in his poem. However, he is primarily a Cameroonian even as he laments his nation's lot, before remembering he is an Anglophone who has been denied his rightful place in society. Accordingly, after lamenting as a Cameroonian, Vakunta decries the plight of the Anglophone Cameroonian in a manner that seems to question if our national heroes did not die for nothing as today Cameroonians, as a people, permit alien values--Anglophonism and Francophonism--to tear them apart.

Vakunta then emphasizes every genuine Cameroonian's wish: that every Cameroonian ought to feel at home in Cameroon "Because here nous sommes tous chez nous" (26). The poet addresses the Cameroonian society as a whole, from the wolowoss (whore) to the bard. This is a poet overwhelmed by the man-made problems besieging his people: from the lack of portable water in parts of Cameroon, through poor health facilities even as the Head of State owns and operates a well-equipped private hospital in Baden-Baden: "Hospitals in Baden-Baden/But not one in Mvomeka'a" (34). Vakunta is simply wondering at the kind of logic guiding most African leaders. Why own a hospital in Europe when even one's own village has none? The poet thinks of the penury ravaging his people only to remember the people's stolen wealth "stashed in Swiss banks/ And in Banque de France/" (35) away from their reach as there is "not a cent in Cameroon Bank" (35). As if this is not tragic enough, the citizens are not at peace with each other:
Bassa against Beti.../
Bangwa against Bali/
Bamileke against Bafaw/
Drought of reciprocal love/
Fulani against Fang/
Banso against Banja (35)
The poet registers his disillusionment with human ways when he considers half-heartedly "to turn and live with the birds/" (42) with their lifestyle that, unlike human beings, is without unnecessary complications. Vakunta's poetic focus shifts from Cameroon to South Africa and the world as a whole. After lamenting over more of Africa's tragedies like Dafur, the genocide in Rwanda, blood diamonds in Liberia and Sierra Leone,/ the Cameroon-Nigeria conflict, Vakunta calls for African unity. He argues that contrary to Howard W. French's convictions as per the title of his book, Africa is not a continent for the taking. In the same vein, the poet dismisses Afro-pessimists as of little consequence comparing them to mosquitoes, their prejudices notwithstanding.

Once more, Vakunta zeroes in on Cameroon where again he laments the goings on in the residence and lives of the first couple; he then catapults his concerns to the larger world panorama as he ridicules current creeds and mantras that have hijacked recent and current world thought and trends: "Green Rape," "Earth Day," "Clean Air Act," (72) and the likes. After shuttling from Cameroon to Africa as a whole, the rest of the world, and back, Vakunta is certain human beings are a failure as per their deeds, which amount to mere illusions and at best paradoxical distractions:
Sometimes it feels like/
The life of humans is but a paradox/
We have very tall buildings/
But very short tempers/
We have extremely broad freeways/
But terribly narrow viewpoints/
We spend more but earn less/
Buy more but enjoy less/
More degrees we've amassed/
But not a modicum of common sense/
More savvy but less judgment/
More experts we have/
But a myriad of problems unresolved/ (74)

This situation the poet blames, implicitly, on the forced marriages wrought between African communities as colonialists were arbitrarily forming nation-states. Vakunta, simply put, is overwhelmed by the chaos engendered by alien-based constitutions and institutions. The total negative portrait notwithstanding, like Martin Luther King Jr. Vakunta dares to dream of a better tomorrow which will bring about a "rejuvenated Azania" (41). Accordingly, having identified where the rain began beating Cameroon, Africa as a whole, he points out where to begin drying our national and continental bodies as he urges a return to traditional government structures:
Time for examination of conscience/
High time for the intervention of
Qwifon/
Of Ngiri/
Of Ngumba/
Of rain makers/ (37)
To convey his nagging and sometimes disturbingly tragic message, Vakunta's style amounts to a challenging yet refreshing stroke. It displays his restlessness over the issues tormenting Africa, humankind as a whole, but mostly Cameroon. Accordingly, like the restless spirit that he has become in an effort to deal with the vicious forces destroying his native soil, Vakunta, like one of Achebe's proverbial personae trying to get a better glimpse of a performing mask, cannot afford to stand in one place stylistically. He keeps shifting from setting to setting as now his concern is Cameroon only to move to South Africa and beyond before returning to Cameroon as he displays his trepidation for the human predicament at large--social inequality and misery. In like manner, at one time Vakunta is shouting and praising; at another lamenting quietly while ridiculing and insulting; yet at another, almost desperately urging the oppressed to rise against the forces oppressing them. This shift from Cameroon beyond and back, the obvious lack of geographical and temporal sequence which hints at structural incoherence since one is tempted to think he should have dealt with one scene completely before engaging the other, is instead proof of the overpowering spasmodic spontaneity of his poetic recollections. That he refuses to rework the structure otherwise, leaves one with the feeling that the poet is out to expose his tortured awareness of his native country's predicament. Thus, like a typically troubled mind, his anxious id is inconstant as he continually revisits in recurrent rhythms the different sources of his melancholy only to confirm their slow but steady deterioration.

The main fountain of Vakunta's stylistic inspiration is everyday life in Cameroon, the oral traditions of Africa, and world events. Like a raging mask in search of the spirit of evil in society, Vakunta is all over the place thematically and stylistically. Like the bard, for example, he present chants reminiscent of characters that people the streets of Bamenda--kum-kum Massa (58). There is "H-u-r-u-j-e!" (57) also, a pep expression for people carrying out challenging manual tasks as they channel their individual energies into a mighty and wholesome force with which to accomplish their chore:
Leader: H-u-r-u-j-e!
All: Hey!
Leader: H-u-r-u-j-e!
All: Hey!
Leader: H-u-r-u-j-e!
All: Hey!
Everybody: One time! Ya-a-a-a-a!
And so the job is slowly but steadily accomplished in due course.
Another remarkable stylistic quality of Ntarinkon is how in theme and style it spans a generation. This is displayed by the all too frequent encounter of ideas, titles, and lines from core text in African literature and world struggles as a whole, echoed by the poet as a way of drawing attention to already established problems on the continent and beyond, hence the historical and geographically expansiveness of the poem. Vakunta's very first lines echo an idea from Achebe: "Where did the rains/Start to beat us?" (1); "Mimboland" (5) is Francis B. Nyamnjoh's fictional name for Cameroon in his novel A Nose for Money; "Prison graduate" (28) is from Herbert Boh and Ntemfac Ofege; "I am black and proud" (13) is a line from the legendary American king of Soul James Brown; "Beasts of No Nation" (19) is the title of Bate Besong's play; "Swamp dweller..." (38) echoes Wole Soyinks'a play "The Swamp Dwellers"; "To be or to be not" (28), is a distortion of the famous expression from Shakespeare's Hamlet "To be or not to be"; whereas, "I Have a dream" (41) brings to mind the words of the late American human rights activist, Martin Luther King Jr. and so on. That Vakunta's lines cover decades amounting to a generation, and space spanning the globe, shows the frequently recurrent and widely relevant nature of his themes while confirming the historical quality of the poem.

Notwithstanding, Vakunta's diction is mostly simple, yielding forth a poem that is largely accessible. In spite of his frequent use of slang and in-group lingo which sometimes obscure his meaning to a stranger to Cameroon's daily life, this is, in fact, the source of the uniqueness, strength, and refreshing quality of Vakunta's verbal brilliance and linguistic jugglery. Yet a total understanding of Ntarinkon calls for that reader who has been in touch with the changing socio-political atmosphere in Cameroon as Vakunta's frequently specialized diction, display of scenes, and the occasional tossing about of historically significant expressions indicate. The volume can be said to amount to a test on one's "Cameroonianess" as to read and immediately understand his message is to declare at once a synchronous existence with the national essence. Vakunta is the literary Lapiro; he has done in the academic realm what Pierre Roger Lambo Sanjo alias Lapiro de Mbanga has done in the Cameroonian musical arena--successfully communicating in one breadth with the classy as well as the gauche. This then, is a poet who can be as refined as he can be uncouth, as sophisticated as he can be rustic, thereby indicating a personality who is abreast of the daily rhythms of his people's experiences.

Yes, Ntarinkon, true to its oral influences, segues from time to time into song, and so along with its attendant concern for the human ethos and well-being, is bound to touch someone somewhere sometime. Hence, in spite of the painful and equally frustrating thematic concerns of the poem, it is refreshing and pleasurable to read thanks to an effective combination of rich metaphors that conjure up fertile scenes loaded with different shades of feelings that bring about an occasional smile of recognition, acknowledging grunts, and grimaces triggered by frequent, frustrating real life encounters in the poem. Vakunta's exploitation of daringly fresh imagery evokes a certain satisfaction in his local reader especially, who at once identifies with the poetic flights of this true Cameroonian patriot; this truly concerned human being. This is why there is sometimes that shocking emotional exchange and recognition between Vakunta's scenes and the reader's personal life that leads the reader to agree with the poet ever so often, culminating at times in loud laughter, the mortifying nature of the humor notwithstanding.

Ntarinkon, with sure influences from Okot p'Bitek and another Cameroonian forerunner, Francis Wache in his Lament of a Mother, is fascinating from the uniqueness of its language to the universality of its concerns. It is a long poem one enjoys reading as one (the Cameroonian in particular) is suddenly steeped in one's past as though it were a renaissance of historical occurrences in a powerful poetic whole. Yes, Vakunta's attention to diction, semantic precision and the evocative play between events, the intellect, and the emotion, create an exceptionally stimulating version of the poetic art form--Ntarinkon.
*Dr. Emmanuel Fru Doh is of the Department of English at Century College, Minnesota, USA.

BOOK REVIEW

 

 

 

Paul Biya’s Machievellian Reign over Cameroon: A Review of Michel Roger Emvana’s Les Secrets du Pouvoirs. Paris: Karthala. 2005.  290pp.Paper Back $58.45. 2-84586-684-4

Reviewer: Peter Wuteh Vakunta, Ph.D.

Emvana’s book titled Les secrets du pouvoirs is a walk through the crevices in the mind of a compulsive despot—Mr. Paul Biya, the tyrant that has misgoverned Cameroon for over four decades.  Emvana creates an interesting parallel between Paul Biya and Niccolo Machiaveli when he compares the machinations of Cameroon’s President with the shenanigans of Machiaveli’s protagonist  in The Prince (1977): “Le comedien du pouvoir est bel et bien assis sur son piedestal depuis plus de deux decennies, avec cette   dose de machiavelisme qui le rend insaisissable”(10). Those who have read Machiaveli’s The Prince would be familiar with the diabolical precepts that this Italian writer propounded as a modus operandi for monopolizing political power in perpetuity. Paul Biya is a prototype of Machiaveli’s political strategem: “Paul Biya est la doublure du prince de Machiavel, imprévisible, attache a son trone et attentive”(34).   Envana underscores the fact that Paul  Biya is a bicephal political animal who  appears to be what he is not: “Biya gouverne avec une cagoule. Il n’est pas celui qu’il parait être, d’où la difficulté à le caractériser “(11) The bulk of Cameroonians find it hard to paint a credible portrait of the man that has governed them for four decades. This is because Biya is a political comedian. Emvana portrays the Cameroonian President as “celui que les Camerounais connaissent mal, et les ministres, à moitié.”(27) In the author’s own words, “Biya sait autant jouer le rôle d’un felin dévorant que celui plus ruse du renard”(211). To put this differently, Paul Biya excels in the cat and mouse game. Emvana’s neologism “le Biyaisme” is a label that describes Biya’s political comedy of abstraction, governmental ineptitude and subjectivity. Biyaism, as the highest stage of Machiavelism, is anchored on the banishment of moral scruples from his thought patterns.As Emvana would have it, “Certain sociologues attribuent dès lors à Paul Biya cette dose de machiévelisme fondée sur une absence de scrupule au service d’un intêret singulier”(37).

Biyaism is an anti-people code that breeds apathy, dereliction of duty, and resentment of the governed:  As Emvana puts it, “Le biyaisme est une théorie immanente, complexe, ondoyante et iconoclaste. Une théorie dont l’étude en surface conduit inéluctablement à l’apathie, à l’absentéisme, à la fainéanantise…”(27).  Emvana notes that Biya is a “Roi Fainéant” who listens to no one’s voice but his own. Biyaism as a governemental paradigm draws its strength from ontological sadism. According to Emvana, Paul Biya is a sadist who “…aime voir les autres paniquer.”(243). As Emvana sees it,  it is probably  this sadistic penchant for deriving pleasure from the sufferings of others that has driven Biya to have recourse to occultism: “Chez Paul Biya, la relation avec le pouvoir est mythique…”(29).

Les secrets du pouvoirs is an interesting in several respects but the aspect that captivates the reader’s attention the most is the ambivalent nature of the Cameroonian Head of State.  Emvana notes: “Mais tout le monde le sait, Paul Biya et ses ministres ne parlent pas toujours le même langage[i]”(81).  It is not just consensus that is lacking between the President and his henchmen. They do not even meet periodically to discuss state affairs. Little wonder nothing works in Cameroon. Emvana does not mince words in his diatribe against Paul Biya who he describes as the task-master of a lame duck regime. This writer calls a spade a spade when he labels the Cameroonian Head of State an opportunist: “Biya est un opportuniste. Mais son opportunisme politique est imbibé et voilé”(77).[ii] One other intriguing aspect of Biya’s persona is his ability make believe;to dine with God and Mammon at the same time. According to Emvana, Biya believes that his governmental inspiration comes from God Almighty: “C’est Dieu  qui lui a donné le pouvoir…”(77).[iii] At the same time, Biya is an afficionado of occultism. He is a member of the Rosicrucian Order. Emvana points out that Biya perceives the Rosicrucian Order as a source of  protection on which he relies to hang onto power eternally: Paul Biya conçoit la Rose-Croix, peut-être, comme une protection dont se sert tout homme politique pour pérénniser son règne…”(160).[iv] This double allegiance is so mind-boggling that Emvana cannot help but ask the rhetorical question: “Comment Biya peut-il appartenir à la Rose-Croix et en même temps se vouer au culte du Christ?”(157)[v]  According to Emvana,  Biya is portrayed in the Western media as one of the most generous financiers of the Rosicrucian Order: “…les journaux français présentent Paul Biya comme l’un des grands financiers des temples rosicruciens…;”(157).[vi] Paradoxically, Emvana observes that “Des messes chrétiennes ont toujours lieu à Etoudi avant et depuis l’occupation des résidences présidentielles par Paul Biya”(157).[vii] According to Emvana, this is typical of Paul Biya, a man who dresses up in borrowed robes most of the time:” C’est le propre de Biya. C’est un comédien politique qui va sur une scène avec une attitude d’emprunt, et qui une fois dans les vestiaires, se débarasse de son rôle”(158).[viii] Thus, the Cameroonian Head of State is  nothing else but a political chameleon that changes colors incessantly.

At the same time, Les secrets du pouvoirs is a scathing lampoon on the crippling presidential incompetence that has rendered the  Republic of Cameroon dysfunctional.  According to Amvana, Paul Biya nurses a morbid fear of the press in genera because he has no track-record to discuss with the media. He likens Biya to a hermit who lives abroad far longer than he lives at the presidential palace at Etoudi or in his home village of Mvomeka, As Emvana points out, “Il fuit les interviews… Il se méfie de la presse dans sa globalité”(202).[ix]  He adds that Paul Biya perceives himself as an indomitable lion. The Cameroonian Head of State goes by the sobriquet of ‘l’homme-lion’ or Lion-Man.  Emvana notes that “Biya a emprunté la métaphore de ‘l’homme-lion’ lors de la présidentielle de 1997”(211).[x]  The significance of this nickname is that Biya subscribes to the doctrine of the law of the jungle. His political opponents acknowledge this fact. Frédéreic Kodock, for example, has described the President as “un serpent” or snake in an interview he granted the press. This metaphor compares Paul Biya’s sly nature to that of a green snake in green grass.

The succession question is a hotly debated theme in Les secrets du pouvoirs. Who will succeed Paul Biya seems to be a leitmotif that preoccupies Emvana considerably in the course of his narrative. Without offering a convincing response, the writer has the hunch that “… le successeur sortira du cercle des biyaistes. Le choix du successeur de  Biya ne sera possible que dans cet entourage très réduit…”(236).[xi]However, he cautions political observers against ruling out the possibility of an outsider emerging as Paul Biya’s successor: “Toutesfois, il ne faut pas exclure totalement l’émergence d’un outsider non programmé dans les prognostics politiques”(236).[xii] In the meantime, Paul Biya is contented with simply keeping a close watch on those junkies who are vying for succession in the post-Biya era.  However, the 1996 amended constitution of the Republic of Cameroon makes it abundantly clear who becomes president in the event of power vacancy in Cameroon. Article 6, section 4 of the constitution states: “En cas de vacance du président de la Republique pour cause de décès, de démission ou d’empêchement définitive constaté par le conseil constitutionnel, le scrutin pour l’élection du nouveau président de la République doit impérativement avoir lieu 20 jours au moins et 40 jours au plus après l’ouverture de la vacance”(Quoted in Les secrets du pouvoir, p.230). The 1996 constitution designates the President of the Senate as the legal successor of Mr. Biya. However, the President of the senate cannot ran for the President: “Il ne peut être candidat à l’élection organisée pour la présidence de la République”( Emvana, 231). The question that begs to the asking at this juncture is why there is so much brouhaha about presidential succession in Cameroon if the constitution leaves no room for ambiguity in the succession question).  Emvana observes that this agitation stems from the fact that Paul Biya, in his quest for a strategist like himself may not respect the supreme law of the land in his ultimate choice of a successor. As Emvana would have it, “Sur les textes, Biya, en bon républicain et en parfait légaliste,, a déjà son successeur et les canons existent depuis 1996. Mais le papier ne remplace pas un président. Pour sa succession au plan humain, pratique et pragmatique,seul Biya sait. Secret d’Etat”(231).

In a nutshell, thanks to the publication of Les secrets du pouvoir, Michel Roger Emvana joins the ranks of writers like Gervais Mendo Ze and Jacques Fame Ndongo who remain firm in their belief that Paul Biya is God’s gift to Cameroonians. The book is replete with ambiguity and hyperbolic statements about the invincibility of President Biya. In his preface Emvana states upfront that his intent in crafting this book was neither to produce a panegyric laudation nor a vitriolic diatribe of Biya’s regime: “… cet opuscule n’a pas de but apologétique ou panégyrique.Il ne sert pas d’alibi à un laudateur supplémentaire, de même qu’il ne dresse pas de réquisition”(12).[xiii] Whether or not Emvana has remained true to this objective remains a moot point for readers. Les secrets du pouvoir is book that causes both grief and glee. It is should be read with a level head by politician and students of politics.This does not debar the rank and file from reading it for political awareness.

 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Professor Peter Wuteh Vakunta teaches at the U.S. Department of Defense Language Institute in Monterey-California. He is author of scores of books on linguistics, politics, second language acquisition and culture.

Notes

[i]  But everyone knows that Paul Biya and his ministers do not speak with one voice.

[ii]  Biya is an opportunist but his political opportunism is soused and veiled.

[iii]  His power comes from God.

[iv]  Paul Biya probably perceives the Rosicrucian Order as a source of protection to which every politician has recourse in a bid to stay in power perpetually.

[v]  How can Biya worship the gods of AMOK and Christ?

[vi]  French media portrays Paul Biya as one of the most generous donors of the Rosicrucian Order.

[vii] Christian masses have always been celebrated at Etoudi before and after Paul Biya became Head of State.

[viii] This is typical of Biya. He is a political comedian who enters the scene wearing a fake costume and soon abandons his role once on stage.

[ix]  He evades press interviews… He is wary of the press in general.

[x]  Biya adopted this nickname during the presidential elections of 1997.

[xi] The successor shall emerge from the close circle of Biyaists.  The presidential choice will be made from this small group.

[xii]  However, one should not rule out the likelihood of an outsider emerging as a political successor to Paul Biya.

[xiii]  The goal of this book is not to serve as apologia or panegyric. It is not an alibi for extra praise, nor is it intended to be an indictment.

WHAT GOD HAS PUT ASUNDER

Book Review: What God Has Put Asunder by Victor Epie Ngome

(Spear Books, 2021, 80 pp. Paperback $18.00. ISBN 978-1942876809)

Reviewer: Peter Wuteh Vakunta, Ph.D.

 

Ngome’s fictional work titled What God Has Put Asunder is a parody of a contemporary postcolonial African country, perhaps the Republic of Cameroon. Set against the backdrop of conflictual co-existence within the confines of an orphanage, this skillfully crafted drama takes the reader down memory lane. Ngome conveys his vision of postcoloniality and its vestiges throughout the play by means of two compatriots, namely Reverend Gordon, rector of the orphanage and Sister Sabeth who serves as Gordon’s assistant. These individuals run the orphanage according to their whims and caprices to the utter detriment of inmates.

The play eggs the reader onto drawing some significant parallels between the messy governance of the orphanage under the aegis of Reverend Gordon and Sister Sabeth on the one hand, and the murky political status quo in the post-colonial country on the other hand. What God Has Put Asunder thrives on the literary technique of parallelism, a trope that enables the playwright to underscore the irksome theme of contradistinction between people who belong in oppositional camps. The world inhabited by the likes of Weka, her children and Emeka is characterized by poverty and hardship. This world is the antithesis of the terrestrial paradise in which Reverend Gordon, Sister Sabeth, Garba, Sani, Kinge and Fatou cohabitate.

From the onset, the playwright portrays Weka as a depressed character: “I am sorry Sister Sabeth. I could hardly sleep all night. Just tossing and turning until the small hours of this morning…I don’t know, Sister. I just felt so low all night. As if something really depressing has just happened or was about to happen.” (p.1) This portrait serves as a prelude to the matrimonial hurdles to which Weka shall be subjected in the course of the narrative. Ngome uses the Weka-Sabeth rapport to shine the search light on the colluding role played by Christianity in the so-called European civilizing mission to Africa.  It is significant to note that in the face of Weka’s psychological torments, Sister Sabeth finds religion to be an efficacious antidote: “You remembered to pray at least, I trust?” Weka’s swift response debunks the religious myth: “Of course, yes. Many times. But it did not help.”(p.2). It is tempting to read into this dialogue Ngome’s attempt to portray religion as an opium of the colonized peoples of Africa. Weka’s response sheds ample light on the disillusionment that characterizes the thought patterns of some Africans who have rejected religion as a panacea for their colonial ailments.

Ngome seems to have written What God Has Put Asunder as a treatise on the nefarious role played by ethnocentrism in sustaining the status quo in Africa as seen in the following dialogue between Weka and  Sabeth:

Sabeth: "...But this fellow comes from the Njanga clan as well….

Weka: "I  am Njanga, yes, but that does not make him my…”

Sabeth: “Well, I thought that in Africa everybody is everybody’s cousin, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, father, mother.”(p.3) The epithet ‘Njanga’ seems to be a thinly veiled allusion to Cameroon. The ubiquitous theme of tribalism is broached once again when Garba, the businessman-cum- politician is introduced as an indigene of the Delta clan: “Yes, he comes from the neighboring Delta clan. He has a tongue-twisting name.” (p.4) It is remarkable how Ngome uses the trope of nomenclature to introduce critical themes into his play. Citizens of Njanga who hail from the Delta Clan are portrayed as “enterprising people.” (p.5) Spontaneously, some readers and viewers of this play might associate this epithet with the Bamileke ethnic group in Cameroon.

Gerrymandering and influence peddling in the political arena constitute sturdy leitmotifs in Ngome’s play. It is noteworthy that the playwright portrays Miché Garba as a political heavy-weighty based on nothing else but his ethnic origins. What God Has Put Asunder, it seems to me, is a lampoon on the unresolved conflict between the British Southern Cameroons and the French-speaking La République du Cameroun. The playwright dexterously weaves history into drama as seen in the allegorical representation of the Foumban Plebiscite as a sort of match making that Reverend Gordon contrives between Garba (Francophone) and Weka (Anglophone). It is significant that the matchmaker (Gordon) is an outsider (European). The role played by Gordon is analogous to the role played by the United Nations during the Foumban Conference.

In this incisive play, Ngome revisits the nagging theme of the Manichean stigmatization of the African continent. As Mudimbe (1988) notes, Western presumptions about Africa justify the process of inventing and conquering a continent and naming its “primitiveness or disorder as well as the subsequent means of its exploitation and methods for its “regeneration” (p.40).” In Ngome’s drama, Sister Sabeth plays the role of Africa’s doomsayer as seen in the following excerpt culled from Weka’s remarks directed at Reverend Gordon: “Of course, Reverend Gordon. How could I have forgotten that? Hasn’t Sister Sabeth always reminded me how primitive we are?”( p.10). The playwright seems to argue that the characterization of Africans as primitive savages; Africa as an uninhabited wilderness where courageous Europeans could go on exciting adventures; served as justification for the European broad daylight fleecing of Africa.

The theme of feminism is ubiquitous in What God has put Asunder. In many respects, Ngome portrays his protagonist, Weka, throughout the play as an unfazed feminist. She fights back against Reverend Gordon’s scheme to hand her over to Garba as wife in spite of her opposition as seen in the dialogue below:
Gordon: “I order you to shut up, child!”(p.10)
Weka: “Of course, you do. That is all it takes—an order, and the Rector’s holy will is done. Aren’t you lucky?”(p.11)

This conflictual verbal exchange between Weka and Reverend Gordon bears testimony to the woman’s determination to free herself from masculine predation. This force of character is also evident when Weka verbally fights back her husband’s condescension and bullying as seen below:
Garba:"...Weka, do you realize you are not my only wife? Your mates never question what I do, but you…” (p.39)
Weka: “That’s their funeral. I was brought up to ask questions about everything I don’t understand. You should have known that before saying your hasty ‘Yes I do’. Now let me see what’s in there.”(40)

It is noteworthy that this altercation degenerates into divorce when Weka quits her matrimonial home taking along all her kids. The historical veneer that connects Weka’s divorce from Garba on one hand and the de facto political divorce between British Southern Cameroons and La République du Cameroun is hard to dissimulate. This becomes more patent when Weka underscores Garba’s totalitarian comportment as one of the reasons in her plea for divorce in court:
“Once the festivities were over, he brought a fleet of trucks and bundled my children and me out of our house. His drivers gathered all our stuff, trampling and damaging many things, etc… and so he forced me to settle with him. Thenceforth he took to forcing my children to learning his mother tongue and forget mine with which they were raised. I have had to abide by the customs of his clan, not mine, and … in short he has simply been breathing down my neck since then.”(p.71)

It bears emphasizing the fact that there is an ongoing civil in Cameroon at present the principal cause of which is language disharmony between the Anglophone and Francophone constituents of the Republic of Cameroon. In this light, What God has put Asunder is without any shred of doubt a parody of the status quo in Cameroon. This play is a pastiche of the notorious Francophone-Anglophone conundrum. Ngome's voice seems to be the voice of the voiceless in Cameroon. He bemoans the fate of the `lost' generation of Cameroonian youths who serve as sacrificial lambs on the altar of nefarious politicking. One of the major institutional problems underlined in this play is the perpetration of corrupt governance from the top to the bottom in Cameroon. Garba is a prototype of the African lumpen bourgeoisie, a bourgeoisie that produces nothing. In short, What God Has Put Asunder is the cry of a dissident writer whose heart throbs for his downtrodden brethren.

This play captivating in several respects but the aspect that is attention wrenching is the playwright’s careful choice of rhetorical devices that enable him to weave themes into stylistics. The play is woven around the metaphor of a contrived marriage, better still, a marital simulacrum between two antagonistic partners. The playwright chooses his stylistic devices very carefully. Satire comes in handy in the play, and is intended to chide and deride the hypocritical intent of the colonial mission in Africa of which Reverend Gordon and Sister Sabeth seem to constitute the bull’s eye. Of great significance is the repeated use of tropes such as parallelism, symbolism, allusion, and suspense that endow the play with the exuberance that it exudes. Humor serves as comic relief throughout the play. Emeka’s tinkering with the English language certainly offers some cause for laughter as seen in the excerpt below:
“Reverend Gordon, so you have resident in Africa for so many ages and yet you does not know that Africa marriage start in the childhood? Is it because of dowry or… as you calls it, pride brice? When I was a childhood my papa for give, even if it was quantums of cows and goats. But even as he was not alive, Chineke keep his dear soul, I for do it myself when I growed up small. Only she too have no father, and I cannot give dowry price bride to you since you…” (p.25)
Readers without a smattering if Pidgin English would be hard pressed in their attempt to unravel the signification of Emeka’s discourse. Another bombastic utterance attributed to Emeka is as follows: “Eh? Look at me proper. If you does not conconise me then you are suffer magnesia. Anyway, my nomination is Emeka. Emeka Nwachukwu of Umudele, Delta clan.”(p.21)

What God Has Put Asunder is replete with these kinds of semantic shifts that lend credence to the assertion by Chinua Achebe (1975) that the price a world language such as English must be prepared to pay is submission to many kinds of use. Achebe further notes that the English spoken by Africans is still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit its new African surroundings.”(pp. 61-62)
There is not a single page in this play where one does not find an African expression, word, sentence or turn of phrase culled from the native tongue of the playwright and judiciously transposed into English. Ngome indigenizes the English language in What God Has Put Asunder for the purpose of providing a cultural backdrop for his fiction.

Briefly, this play is a compelling narrative directed at a global audience. It reveals the socio-economic and political conundrums existing in our contemporary society. The play also lays bare the intricately woven interrelationships between the rich and the poor, the well placed and the wretched of the earth. It is a satire on the contraptions employed by the 'seemingly' rich who have a dereliction for manipulating the poor in order to further their quest for wealth and dominance. Most importantly, What God Has Put Asunder is a parody of the political status quo in the Republic of Cameroon. It is a play worth watching. A must-read for all literati in Cameroon and in the diaspora.

 

Works cited

Achebe, Chinua. Morning yet on Creation Day: Essays. London: Heinemann, 1975.

Mudimbe, V.Y. Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge.

Ngome, E. N. What God Has Put Asunder. Denver: Spears Books, 2021.

Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.
Vakunta, P.W. “The Manichaean Stigmatization of Africa.” Pambazuka.2013.

 

RED-LIGHT DISCTRICT (Poem)

 

 

 

By

Professor Peter Wuteh Vakunta

 

What’s in a name?

Everything is in a name.

As old as Eve,

Names are legion—

Red-light District.

 

What’s in this nomenclature?

Brothel,

Ho-house,

Ass-house,

House of joy.

 

Who’s a whore?

Ass-peddler,

Call girl,

Flesh merchant,

Bimbo.

 

What’s in this appellation?

Much ado about naught—

Hustlers,

Floozies,

Ladies of the evening.

 

In all shapes and forms.

Street-walkers,

Working girls,

Whores,

Bordellos alias Sluts.

 

What’s in onomastics?

There’s a ton in naming.

Bordel,

House of ill-fame,

Massage parlor.

 

What a job!

To do or not to do?

That’s the question!

Market booties,

C’est à dire[i], whore around.

 

Cry beloved daughters of Eve!

Always on the turf,

To peddle twats,

Constantly on the street

To trade makandi[ii].

© Vakunta 2021

 

 Notes

[i] In other words

[ii] ‘Buttocks’ in Cameroon Pidgin English

RAP ON NOMEMCLATURE

 

 

BY PROFESSOR PETER WUTEH VAKUNTA

 

What’s in a name?/

There’s nothing more important/

Than a person’s name!/

Is man a counterfeit?/

The problem is we toy

Too much with names!/

Oftentimes for flimsy reasons./

 

People are no longer happy/

With their real names!/

They take liberties with nomenclature!/

Relishing affixes devoid of signification./

Elizabeth has become Beth;/

Susan has metamorphosed into Sue;/

Patricia has been reborn as Pat alias Patty./

 

Christopher has metamorphosed into Chris;/

Peter is now Pete;/

Michael is Mike;/

Charles is Chuck;/

Elizabeth has rejuvenated into Betsy!/

William has rebaptized Bill./

And the list continues./

 

Has mankind lost sanity?/

Are we gone hay hire?/

Why are we doing this to fellow humans?/

We make others feel/

Like human counterfeits!/

The art of naming/

Is of such crucial importance/

 

That linguistic gurus coined/

The term onomastics for it!/

Do you know what’s done/

To people who have  jaw-breaking/

Names like Shokolokobangoshia?/

We simply ignore them!/

Isn’t that smart?/

 

People’s names are their most/

Priced gifts from God/.

Let’s not trifle with them./

The sweetest music to my ears/

Is my own name!/

We have no carte blanche to/

Fiddle with names!

©Vakunta 2021

Exegesis, Jugglery, Cultural and Semantic Signification in Translating Camfranglais Literature

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

             

Professor Peter Wuteh Vakunta

Introduction

If up to a certain point, fiction writers have to re-invent language in a bid to appeal to a broader readership, the situation of Camfranglais writers is peculiar in that for them, French is not an acquisition; rather it is an occasion for constant mutation and modification. Engaged as they are, in the game of linguistic manipulation, these writers have to create their own language of fiction in a multilingual context affected by signs of polyglossia. To this end, Cameroonian Camfranglais creative writers constantly resort to code-switching as a mode of linguistic and cultural appropriation. Code-switching refers to the alternate use of more than one code in a single speech act,  a phenomenon that Haugan refers to as the “the alternate use of two languages, including everything from the introduction of a single unassimilated word up to a complete sentence or more into the context of another language” (cited in Omole, 58). In other words, these writers tend to transpose the imprint of their cultural backgrounds onto fictional works, thereby creating a third code—camfranglais. Camfranglais is a hybrid language spoken in the Republic of Cameroon where English, French and 248 indigenous languages co-exist. It is a medley of French, English, Pidgin and borrowings from local languages. Kouega (2003:13) defines Camfranglais as a “composite language consciously developed by secondary school pupils who have in common a number of linguistic codes, namely French, English and a few widespread indigenous languages.” Carole de  Feral (1989: 20) observes that Camfranglais saw the light of day in the 1970s when youths in Douala indulged in a language  practice she refers to as ‘Français Makro’[1] Some examples of Camfranglais expressions that one is likely to hear in the streets in French-speaking Cameroonian cities such as Yaoundé, Douala, Bafoussam, Nkongsamba and more include:

Depuis le matin j’ai seulement chop une banane= I have only eaten a banana since morning.

Gars je go damba= I am going to play soccer, man.

Mon cochambrier a travel au day= my room-mate has traveled today.

C’est moi qui comot avec la nga-ci= I am going out with this girl.

La nkane-ci est trop coller chewing gum=This girl has a gumshoe attitude.

Je suis dans le débé, je n’ai plus da do= I am in dire straits, I have no money left.

Je dois go regarder le damba= I have to go watch a soccer game.

La damer de la mater est très mo= Mom’s food is very delicious.

Il a décalé avec mes do= He took off with my money.

Tu as nang où yesterday? =Where did you pass the night yesterday?

Tu vas go au sukul au day?=Are you going to school today?

It is noteworthy that the insertion of  Camerounismes[2] such as”chop”, “débé”,  “damba”,  “au day”, “damer”, “do”, “sukul”, “nga”, “mo”, “nkane” and “commot” in a French language text may  obfuscate meaning for a translator unfamiliar with the significations embedded in these words that originate from  Cameroonian indigenous languages and  pidgin English. It is obvious from these examples that the sentence structure of Camfranglais is calqued on the French syntactic structure, supported by loanwords from native tongues. Each utterance above contains at least one English, Pidgin or indigenous language word. This paper addresses some of the translation challenges posed by language mixing as seen in the examples above. Rather than dwell on theories of translation, our paper seeks to bring new insights to the pragmatics of literary translation—ways in which the translator grapples with meaning discernment and rendition when faced with the task of translating texts couched in more than one language. Jacques Derrida (1985:171) reminds us in “Des Tours de Babel” of “one of the limits of theories of translation: all too often they treat the passing from one language to another and do not sufficiently consider the possibility for languages to be implicated more than two in a text. How is a text written in several languages at a time to be translated? How is the effect of plurality to be ‘rendered’? And what of translating with several languages at a time, will that be called translating?”The dilemma is no easier to solve for practicing translators. There are clear and obvious benefits of linguistic hybridity (i.e. a larger audience, self-representation, etc.) but how do these benefits transform when these languages are contextualized in literature? And what are the ramifications of such complicity or variance for the literary translator? What forms of discursive agencies are made available through translation? Critics of postcolonial literatures often contend that because of the quintessential hybridity of the postcolonial text, it is not possible for writers to return to an absolute pre-colonial cultural purity, nor is it possible for these writers to write fiction that is entirely independent of implication in the colonial discourse (Ashcroft et al., 1989; Bandia 1993; Gyasi, 2006; Jameson, 1986; Khatibi, 1983; Quayson, 2000; Vakunta, 2014). This remark is pertinent to the premise of our discussion in this paper given the emphasis we place on linguistic pluralism.   Camfranglais writers tend to be perpetually adrift between several languages, vacillating from one to the other. Positioned on the threshold of ‘adversarial’ languages, Camfranglais literature opens up an in-between (third) space of linguistic ambivalence. In this vein, the writer becomes the bearer of a split consciousness and double vision.

The question that begs the asking is how the translator comes to terms with all these ramifications. This paper attempts to provide answers to the foregoing intriguing interrogations. To this end, a corpus of four Cameroonian texts written in Camfrangalis has been selected for critical analysis—Camfranglais (2013) by Jean-Paul Kouega, Temps de chien (2001) by Patrice Nganang; Moi taximan (2001) by Gabriel Fonkou and Je parle cameroonais (2001) by Mercédès Fouda.The finality of the literary analysis we have embarked upon would be to propose a canon that is deemed germane for the translation of fictional works written in Camfranglais.

Toward a Model for Translating Camfranglais

Camfranglais writers make a deliberate attempt to indigenize the messages they intend to convey through a process described by Zabus (1991:3) as “the writer’s attempt at textualizing linguistic differentiation and at conveying African concepts, thought-patterns, and linguistic features through the ex-colonizer’s language” as seen in the following excerpt: “Il y a la galère au Camer au day” (Kouega 2013, 155) [There is poverty in Cameroon nowadays][3]. It should be noted that the word ‘Camer’ is a truncation of the noun proper noun ‘Cameroon’. In a similar vein, the expression ‘au day’ is a hybrid word derived from a combination of the first syllable of the French word ‘aujourd’hui’ and  the second syllable of the English word ‘today’.  Thus, ‘au day’ is a neologism obtained by replacing the ‘jourd’hui’ segment of the word ‘aujourd’hui’ with the English word ‘day.’ ‘Galère’ is a French word that generically signifies ‘hassle’ or ‘trouble.’ However, in the speech of Camfranglones, this word has undergone a semantic shift and has taken on a new signification— ‘abject poverty’. Semantic shifts such as this one could make the job of the translator an uphill task, especially for translators who are not familiar with the linguistic appropriation process that takes place in the art of creative writing in Cameroon as seen in the following statement: “Ma friend se call Suzy, elle me helep bad” (Kouega: 154) [My friend’s name is Suzie; she helps me a lot]. It is interesting to note that the English adjective ‘bad’ carries a positive undertone in the speech pattern of speakers of Camfranglais: ‘helep bad’ could be rendered as ‘helps me a lot.’  This oxymoronic construction could be mistranslated literally as ‘helps me badly” by an inattentive literary translator. Doing so would clearly derail the communicative intent of the fiction writer, an aspect of discourse analysis that   André Lefevere (1992:87) describes as the author’s “universe of discourse”. He further notes that on the universe-of-discourse level, translators may be faced with things, customs, and concepts that were immediately intelligible to the readers of the original but are no longer intelligible to prospective readers of the translation. It should be noted that the Pidgin English word ‘helep’ in the example above is derived from the Standard English word ‘help.’

Camfranglais lexicon has been abundantly enriched by borrowings from Cameroon Pidgin English, also called Cameroonian Creole. Borrowings from Pidgin are evident in the following excerpt: “Elle do the buyam-sellam depuis quand?”(Kouega:152). How long has she been doing buyam-sellam?] The compound word ‘buyam-sellam’ is derived from two Standard English words ‘buy’ and ‘sell.’ This neologism, the brainchild of Camfranglais speakers, is often used to describe a man or woman who retails foodstuff in the farmers’ market. It goes without saying that retail trade has contributed significantly to the broadening of the lexicon of Camfranglais as seen in this example: “J’ai des aff à placer” [I have some items to sell] (Kouega: 122). More often than not, the task of the Camfranglais translator becomes onerous not only on account of loanwords from other languages such as “aff” and “do” as seen in the examples above but also due to the fact new semantic values are constantly being appended to existing words. Notice that the word ‘aff’ is derived through the process of clipping. ‘Aff’ is a truncation of the French word ‘affaires’ which could literally be rendered as ‘affairs’ or ‘business’. However, translating the word ‘aff’ literally would be tantamount to an undertranslation because “aff” refers to ‘stolen goods’ in the Camfranglais universe of discourse.

Oftentimes, speakers of Camfranglais resort to code-mixing out of the desire to create humor as is noticeable in the following statement: “Il est tellement pressé qu’il a put son calékoum à l’envers (Kouega: 154) [He is in such a hurry that he has worn his underwear inside out.]The word ‘calékoum’ is a camerounisme for the French word ‘caleçon’ [pant or underwear].  The code switching in this statement is evident. We have the standard English word ‘put’, and the Pigin word ‘calékoum’ jostling for space with standard French words. Omole (1998) maintains that this linguistic mixing presupposes a degree of proficiency at two or more languages from which a speaker or writer can switch back and forth seamlessly. These examples bear testimony to the fact that Camfranglais speakers tend to rely on code alternation as a word formative process as this other example seems to suggest: “Ma rese a tcha le bele et elle talk que c’est avec un attaquant” (Kouega 2003: 129) [My sister is pregnant and she says that the man responsible is a taxi driver assistant]. Notice that the French word ‘attaquant’ is a standard French language word that could be translated literally as ‘assailant’ or ‘attacker.’ However, doing so would misrepresent the speaker’s communicative intention because in this context the word has been endowed with an entirely new signification, ‘taxi driver assistant.’ Kouega (2003:138) defines the word ‘bele’ as “unwanted pregnancy”. The word ‘tcha’ is a Pidgin English word that could be rendered as “catch”; in this context catch a pregnancy as Cameroonians would have it. In other words, become pregnant.  These examples lend credibility to the assertion according to which the task of the Camfranglais translator is not a sinecure, the more so because word-play has become the hallmark of Camfranglais speech pattern as the following statement suggests: “Le djo-là est fini: sa nga a tcha le bele et elle veut qu’ils move ça et il n’a pas le do” (Kouega 2003: 138-9) [The boy over there is in trouble: his girlfriend is pregnant and she wants them to remove the foetus but he does not have any money.] Many borrowed lexical items are identifiable in this statement: ‘djo’ is culled from one of the vernacular languages spoken in Cameroon. It refers to ‘man’, friend’ or ‘partner.’  ‘Tcha’ has other semantic equivalents: ‘catch someone red-handed,’ ‘arrest someone,’ ‘hold,’ and ‘take someone along with force’ (Kouega 2013: 158). The word ‘do’ refers to ‘money’ as used in the following excerpt:  “Il m’a give les do que je lui ai ask hier (Kouega 2013: 181) [He gave me the money I asked for yesterday]. Notice that some words are spelled variably in Camfranglais. The word ‘give’, for instance, is sometimes written as ‘gif’, ‘gib’, ‘gip’, or ‘gi’ (Kouega 2013: 197). This orthographical variance harbors bottlenecks for the unwary translator.  Worse still, these heteronyms carry the germ of ambiguity for translators who have not mastered the rudiments of Camfranglais speech patterns. These examples lend credibility to the postulation according to which polysemy is part and parcel of Camfranglais semantics as the following example suggests:  Je suffer ici trop; better je go” (Kouega 2013: 140) [I suffer a lot here; I would rather leave]. It is interesting to note that the word ‘better’ in this statement has a negative undertone as opposed to  the signification of the same word in the following statement: “J’étais un peu sick, mais ça va better” ( Kouega 2013: 140) [I was a little sick but I am feeling better.]

It is important to underscore the fact that this mode of writing is not an indication of the fiction writer’s inability to write proper French. On the contrary, it is a deliberate quest for self-identity as ex-colonized writers endeavors to decolonize postcolonial literatures. As Ashcroft et al. (1989:2) would have it,

 What each of these literatures has in common beyond their special and distinctive regional characteristics is that they emerge in their present form out of the experience of colonization and the tension with the imperial power, and by emphasizing their differences from the assumptions of the imperial centre. It is this that makes them distinctively postcolonial.

 A critical reading of Kouega’s text lends itself to the contention according to which the African palimpsest is at work in the creative writing a process, a phenomenon described by Zabus (1991:101) as the African writer’s “attempts to simulate the character of African speech in a Europhone text…” Thus, the translator of Kouega’s text is invited to uncover the cultural layers and contesting indigenous languages in ferment behind the apparently homogeneous French language.  To paraphrase Ashcroft et al. again (1989:2), language appropriation is deliberate and emerges in its present form “out of the experience of colonization and the tension with the imperial power… In other words, the ex-colonized writer tends to turn the reality of colonial history on its head by writing back to the imperial center from the empire. This transpires when indigenous peoples begin to write their own histories using the ex-colonizer’s language. Linguistic appropriation permeates all facets of Camfranglais fictional writing including the sex industry.

This industry has endowed Camfranglais speakers with a gamut of words which may have implications for faithful literary translation as seen in the following excerpt: “J’ai tchouké la nga-là mais je n’ai pas bien hia moh” (Kouega 2013: 297) [I have screwed that girl but I did not enjoy it] (Kouega 2013:297). ‘Tchouké’ comes from the verbal infinitive ‘tchouker’ which could be translated literally as as ‘to fix in position using a wedge’. Rendering the sentence above as “I have fixed that girl in position using a wedge” would be a blooper! The lexeme ‘hia,’ derives from the Standard English word ‘hear.’ In this context, it conveys the idea of ‘have a feeling.’  The contextual usage of these words may not be obvious to a translator unaccustomed to the semantic jugglery that is the hallmark of Camfranglais, thus amplifying the likelihood of undertranslation or outright mistranslation. ‘Hia moh’ is used in Kouega’s text to convey the notion of ‘having a good feeling’. Hence, ‘moh’ is synonymous with the Standard English word ’satisfaction’ or ‘enjoyment’. Another synonym for ‘tchouker’ used in Kouega’s text is ‘comb’ as in: “Toi aussi. How tu comb une ngo trois time en un seul day.Tu es became un coq? (Kouega 2013: 166) [You too. How come you make love with a girl three times in a single day? Have you become a cock?] By resorting to different domesticating strategies—codeswitching, semantic shift, compounding, truncation, clipping and reduplication among others Kouega creates a hybrid text that demands of readers to be not just bilingual but also bicultural. A problematizing of translation theory and practice is central to our reading of the works of Fouda, Fonkou, and Nganang.

In his text titled Temps de chien: chronique animale (2001), translated into English as Dog Days (2006:105) Nganang resorts to the device of language mixing for a myriad of reasons but the rationale he, himself, provides reads as follows:

La rue a une avance singulière tant sur les journalistes que sur les écrivains. Ce roman essaie de se mettre à l’école de la rue.… L’imagination et l’oralité des rues a fabriqué ces personages qui existent et que j’ai mis dans mon roman.

[The street exerts a unique pull both on journalists and writers. This novel attempts to depict the street school….The imagination and orality of the street have produced the characters that exist and have been inserted them into my novel.]

In his attempt to translate the speech patterns of indigenous populations in Cameroon, Nganang switches codes constantly. Code switching enables him to transpose the imagination, worldview and mannerisms of Cameroonians into standard French as seen in the following excerpt: “Ma woman no fit chasser me for ma long dis-donc! Après tout, ma long na ma long!”(Nganang 2001:80)[My woman no fit chasser me for ma long, dis donc! Après tout, ma long na ma long!]( Nganang 2006:54) The translator resorted to a calque as a translation canon in the passage above. Jones (1997:53) defines the term ‘calque’ as “a copy of an original. It is the borrowing of a foreign word or group of words by the literal translation of its components”. The translator of Nganang’s excerpt did a laudable job of providing an explicatory note in the glossary to shed light on the signification of the statement as follows: “My woman can’t throw me out of my house, I tell you! After all, my house is my house!”( Nganang 2006:208) It unclear why the translator resorted to a paratext as a translation device. Nonetheless, there is no question that the reader of the target text would be deprived of the communicative intent of the novelist had there been no glossary at all. Notice that the word “long” changes grammatical category from adjective to noun in Camfranglais discourse. The style of writing is labeled ‘transposition,’ a term that Jones (2014) defines as “a translation device which involves a change between grammatical categories, notably nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions, from the S.L. to the T.L” (77). In Nganang’s text, the word ‘long functions as a noun that refers to the speaker’s ‘home’ or ‘residence’. The word ‘ma’ is a possessive pronoun that the translator renders as ‘my’.

The foregoing examples indicate that Nganang’s writing style is particularly challenging for translators. More often than not, the translator has to resort to the technique of exegesis in a bid to surmount seemingly insuperable obstaclces as seen in the following excerpt: “La voix d’un lycéen lui disait: comme d’habitude, Mama Mado. Et ma maîtresse connaissait son goût. La voix d’un autre exigeait, put oya soté, for jazz must do sous-marin.” (Nganang 2001:84)[A student’s voice would say: the usual, Mama Mado, and my mistress knew just what he wanted. Another’s voice would order, put oya soté, for jazz must do sous-marin.](Nganang 2006: 57) Clearly, this passage would constitute a stumbling block for many a translator. The term “oya” is a Pidgin English word for “oil,” in this case oil used in cooking. “Jazz” is a slang word for ‘beans.’ Kouega (2013:210) defines jazz as “cooked beans usually eaten with ‘beignets’ at the ‘beigetariat’”. Cameroonians use the term ‘jazz’ to describe the trumpet-like sound that one’s stomach would make if one ate  a lot of beans, or beans that has been poorly prepared. The expression “jazz sous-marin” could be translated as “beans submerged in oil.” The sentence above could better be translated into English as: “A student’s voice would say: as usual, Mama Mado, and my mistress knew just what he wanted. Another’s voice would order: put enough oil so that the jazz look like submarines.”[4] The lexeme ‘submarines’ refers to beans floating on oil.

As if to make the job of the translator even harder,  Nganang’sTemps de chien is replete with expressions culled from pidgin English as the following example illustrates: “Et mon maître lui, se retranchant dans son pidgin de crise, tout en déchirant sur son visage un bleu: Dan sapak i day kan-kan-o.” (Nganang 2001:52)[As for my master, he’d fall back into pidgin, his dialect of disaster, cursing the whores as he tore his face into a sick smile:  ‘Dan sapak i day for kan-kan-o.](Nganang 2006, 35) The code mixing evident in this excerpt is an indication of Nganang’s acknowledgement of the fact that as a writer nurtured in a multilingual context, he is straddling multiple linguistic spheres. Consequently, he spices his text with expressions culled from all the communicative crucibles that constitute his creative fount in a bid to make his diction respond realistically to the plurality of codes in which he writes. It should be noted that the word ‘sapak’ is an indigenous language term for ‘whore’. The expression ‘kan-kan’, culled from Pidgin English could be translated as ‘a variety of’.  The word ‘day’ also derived from Pidgin English translates the Standard English adverb of location, ‘there.’ The word ‘dan’ is the pidginized form of the demonstrative adjective ‘that’. In Temps de chien, recourse to Pidgin English is not to be perceived as an indication of the character’s illiteracy or inability to communicate effectively in standard French. Oftentimes, Nganang’s characters choose to communicate in pidgin French also called Camfranglais simply as a sign of group solidarity or phatic communion. Echu (2006:1) observes that the “pidginization processes operational in the two varieties clearly illustrate the relationship between language contact and cultural dynamism, the two speech forms being an expression of the culture of the highly multicultural Cameroonian setting” Given that Nganang’s text is deeply embedded in the cultural matrices in which it was conceived the mono-cultural translator would struggle with semantic decipherment.

Some pidginized expressions in Temps de chien harbor sexual innuendos, as the following excerpt seems to suggest: “Quand elle avait disparu au loin, mon maître disait rêveur: Dan tendaison for dan woman na big big hein?”(Nganang 2001:69)[When she has disappeared in the distance, my master would say, still dreaming of her ample behind: Dan tendaison for dan woman na big big huh?]( Nganang 2006:47).  Notice that once again the translator has opted for a calque as a translation strategy for the second sentence in this excerpt. That is probably because there are there several codes enmeshed in this single utterance:  standard French, Standard English, and Pidgin. The reduplication of the word “big” translates the notion of ‘extremity’ in the discourse of Camanglophones.  Echu (2006:8) posits: “Camfranglais utterances are strongly marked by reduplication, which is the repetition of morphological and lexical elements within an utterance”. He further notes that such repetitions emphasize the intensity or duration of an action; express augmentative and diminutive values, or simply constitute an inherent feature of one of the indigenous contact languages. To drive the point home, Echu provides the following examples: doucement doucement (very slowly or very gently), nayor nayor (very slowly or very gently), penya penya (brand new or in very good state), beaucoup beaucoup (in great quantity), un peu un peu (very little or in very small quantity), depuis depuis (a very long time ago), nyama nyama (very small; of little significance or value).

The word “tendaison” used in the excerpt above is the Pidgin word for “buttocks.” In this passage, Mini Minor’s buttocks are depicted as elephantine. The sentence could be translated as: “When she had disappeared in the distance, my master would say, still dreaming of her ample behind: That woman has extremely big buttocks, huh?” It should be noted that the translator drew a blank when it came to translating the last segment of this utterance: “Dan tendaison for dan woman na big big huh?” With the exception of the word ‘hein’ which she rendered as ‘huh’, the utterance was simply transposed into the target text, thus leaving the target language reader in a quandary. A similar translation anomaly is noticeable in the translator’s abortive attempt to render the following excerpt:

Femme, avait-il dit, tu n’as pas entendu ce qu’on raconte? Les voleurs ont déjà la potion pour se rendre invisibles ici dehors. N’est-ce pas hier ils sont entrés dans le salon de Massa Kokari et ont emporté sa télévision sous son nez? A di tell you! (50)

[Woman, he said, haven’t you heard what people are saying? Thieves already have a potion that makes them invisible out there. Don’t you know that yesterday they went into Massa Kokari’s living room and took his television right from under his nose? A di tell you!] (Dog Days, 34).

The emphatic Pidgin English expression, “A di tell you!” could be translated as: “Take it from me!” Instead, the translator opted for a calque. Generally speaking, Cameroonians employ an expression like this in a bid to dispel doubt, especially when they sense disbelief on the part of the interlocutor. The word “massa” is the pidginized equivalent of the Standard English word “Mr.”or “Master”. These expressions are germane in Nganang’s text given they speak to the polyglossia that characterizes fictional writing in Camfranglais. Each linguistic variety invokes a specific type of discourse that is in synchrony with the social stratus of the speaker. The style in which Temps de chien is written amounts to a wedding of a European language—in our case French, with indigenous languages. This mode of writing is not the preserve of Nganang.

In her novel titled Je parle camerounais: pour un revouveau francofaune (2001:36), Mercédès Fouda follows in the footsteps of her compatriot by jettisoning the yoke of linguistic imperialism through the process of indigenization of language as seen in the following excerpt:

Le gombo, c’est ce petit job périodique et sporadique dont les revenus disparaissent aussi rapidement que son homonyme, plante mucilagineuse dont on fait les sauces, et qui, surtout cuisinée avec du couscous, descend à toute vitesse dans la gorge.

[Gombo is this menial job that one gets occasionally whose revenue disappears as rapidly as its floral homonym, plant used in making soup which descends with ease down the gullet, especially when eaten with fufu.]

It should be noted that the term ‘gombo’ refers to ‘okra’. However, in this context it is used as an equivalent of the English language word ‘windfall’. The task of the translator in instances like these resides in distinguishing the literal from the figurative usage of terms and expressions.Fouda constantly shifts meaning for the purpose of transcribing the speech patterns of Cameroonians into French as this example illustrates: “Ces temps derniers les jeunes talents se sont vus affubler des substantives “yo” et “yoyettes,”surtout s’ils se sont branchés comme des fils électriques, avec pantalons en tire-bouchon…” (Fouda 2001: 62) [Lately, these youngsters have gotten into the habit of referring to each other as “yo”and “yoyettes”, especially when they are dressed to the nines and look like electric poles.] The standard French words ‘jeune’ and ‘talent’ have been endowed with entirely new significations, especially when coupled as is the case in this context. It is worth mentioning that words such as “yo” and “yoyettes” are culled from Cameroonian indigenous languages. Both words describe young boys and girls that are smartly dressed. Kouega (2013:319) provides the following definition for the term ‘yo’: “a lad; a young boy that dresses well” ( Kouega 2013: 319). For ‘yoyette’ he provides this definition“a young lady, a young girl that dresses well”. Kouega provides the following example to shed more light: “La yoyette-là a put une belle dress au day” [That young lady is wearing a very beautiful dress today.] Unfamiliarity with the etymology of these words may render the task of the translator painstaking. The  linguistic  indigenization  process that transpires in Je parle camerounais has the potential of making the text hard to translate by a non-Cameroonian translator on account of the cultural specificity of the lexical items chosen by the writer. The language manipulation that takes place in Fouda’s narrative speaks volumes about the author’s conscious attempt to translate orality into the written word; to domesticate the French language for the purpose of expressing an indigenous worldview and self-identity. In this vein, literary scholar, Ojo-Ade (1986:295), makes the following pertinent remarks:

On the whole, one may safely say that the dual culture of the African writer (the native culture he is writing about and the European culture he has imbibed) makes him first and foremost a translator before being a creative artist.

One may deduce from Ojo-Ade’s remarks that the translation of indigenous imagination and cultural relativity into European languages remains a salient feature of Camfranglais literature. Thinking along similar lines, Gyasi (1999:151) posits that contemporary fictional writing in Francophone Africa is “a creative translation process that leads to the production of a …text in French and the development of an authentic African discourse.” All too often, Fouda spices her text with expressions that reflect the Cameroonian discourse, a trope that defies comprehensibility by translators who do not belong in the closed circle of Camfranglais speakers as seen in the following passage: “Si depuis belle lurette vous vous démenez de-ci de-là sans trouver aucune occasion à saisir sur le plan matériel, vous pourrez toujours vous plaindre que le dehors est dur…” (Fouda 2001:5). [If you have been searching here and there in vain for a job to make ends meet, you could always complain that times are hard.] “Le dehors est dur” is a Cameroonianism[5] that translates the idea that times are hard. There is no denying the fact that an understanding of the contextual usage of Cameroonianisms employed in Fouda’s Je parle camerounais would serve to enlarge the translators’ comprehension of the text and make it more accessible than it would be if they were to know nothing of the circumstances surrounding the creation of the text. Fonkou’s Moi taximan (2001) harbors similar hurdles.

Moi taximan seems to defy comprehension on account of code-mixing and the Africanization of French language as the following sentence shows:

J’avais remarqué dès les premiers jours que certains collègues clandos ne s’arrêtaient pas aux barrières de contrôle, ou que quand ils s’y arrêtaient, c’était pour échanger avec les contrôleurs des plaisanteries puis repartir sans avoir servi ni le café ni la bière. (Foukou: 2001:12)

[I had noticed from the onset that some clando colleagues never stopped at the police checkpoint, or only stopped there to crack jokes with the controllers and leave without serving coffee or beer].

Fonkou’s recourse to the word ‘clando’ could pose comprehension problems for the translator.  Kouega (2013:164) defines ‘clando’ as “a private car illegally used as a taxi.” ‘Clando’ also refers to a taxi driven by a driver who does not possess the legal documentation that grants him or her right to drive a taxi. Sometimes, Cameroonians use the word ‘clando’ to describe a private car used to transport passengers illegally. ‘Clando’ derives from the word ‘clandestine’.

Like Fouda, Fonkou resorts to the technique of compounding in an attempt to acquaint his readers with the thought patterns of Camfranglais speakers: “Les premiers contacts avec les mange-mille et les gendarmes coûtent cher, mais par la suite, tout le monde se connaît  et il s’établit comme un contrat tacite”( Fonkou 2001:12). [The first encounters with the mange-mille and gendarmes often cost much, but with time, people get to know one another and a sort of tacit contract is established.] ‘Mange-mille’ is a Camfranglais derogatory term used in Cameroon to describe corrupt police officers who take bribe from commuters. The French used by Fonkou in this novel has been described as “le français langue africaine” [African French] by Mendzo Zé (1999).  Certain camfranglais lexical items are hard to decipher by a translator who is unaccustomed to the lexicon of this language. As Nstobé et al. (2008:90) would have it, “Il faut absolument connaître la signification de ces mots dans leurs contextes spécificiques” [You really have to know the meanings and contextual usage of these words.]  The difficulty stems from the fact that camfranglophones frequently borrow words and expressions from indigenous languages to embellish their parlance as this proverbial expression shows: “L’Enfant qui vit près de la chefferie ne craint pas le ‘mekwum’” ( Fonkou 2001:14). [The child who lives near the palace does not fear the ‘mekwum’] The word ‘mekwum’ is an indigenous language word that refers to a masked dancer belonging in a village secret society.[6] The following excerpt is rich in borrowings from vernacular languages spoken in Cameroon:

Dès que je me trouvais au milieu de cette foule ce furent d’interminables poignées de mains d’une vigueur à vous déséquilibrer, d’interminable ‘nge pin’, ‘a pon’, ‘a bha’a, toutes les expressions  de l’approbation et de la satisfaction( Fouda 2001:93)

[As soon as I found myself in this crowd, we shook hands incessantly and so vigorously that one could lose one’s equilibrium, endless ‘nge pin’, ‘a pon’, ‘a bha’a, expressions of approbation and satisfaction.]

The foregoing discourse analysis lends itself to two seminal conclusions. First, Camfranglais fictional works are not canonical texts; rather they belong in the category of peripheral ethnographic texts that require an interpretive approach to literary criticism. Second, in the light of the multilayered substratum from which Camfranglais literature derives its special qualities, translators need to have recourse to multidimensional frameworks in a bid to accomplish faithful translation—one such model, namely the Hermeneutic-Exegetic model is discussed below.

The Hermeneutic-Exegetic Translation Model

According to Anthony Pym (1995), Hermeneutics or the theory of interpretation was propounded by Friedrich Schleiermacher in his lecture titled “On the Different Methods of Translation”[7] delivered to the Royal Academy of Science on June 24, 1813. To paraphrase Pym, energetic, systematic, and fecund, Schleiermacher’ theory underscores the importance of interpreting, not just the latent (hidden) significations embedded in a literary text but also the situational dimensions that constitute the matrix in which the text was conceived.  This theorist further puts emphasis on the importance of the hermeneutic circle as an indispensable foothold in the exegetic interpretation of meanings embedded in the deep structure of the literary text. The hermeneutic circle supports and facilitates the critical analysis of the literary text by enabling the translator to come to grips with the fact that one’s understanding of a text is conditioned by a conscientious engagement with both the linguistic and extralinguistic elements that account for textual holism. Schleiermacher further observes that neither the whole text nor any individual components can be understood without reference to one another, and hence, the notion of a circle. The circularity inherent in hermeneutics lends its readily to usage in the translation of literature written in Camfranglais because these texts are sociological novels the complete meaning of which can only be unraveled by taking cognizance of their cultural, historical, temporal and spatial constituents.

The hermeneutic theory goes hand in hand with the theory of exegesis in translation studies because the science of interpretation is integral to the theory and practice of translation.  According to Margot (1975: 156) serious exegetical study of the source text is a prerequisite for producing a translation of high quality…” He further notes that translations are like women: if they are beautiful they are not faithful, if they are faithful they are not beautiful.  Exegesis is understood to mean a thorough analysis of the content of a text for translation purposes. Textual analysis is not limited to linguistic components; rather it englobes both verbal and non-verbal constituents of the source text. Exegesis entails the translator’s effort to unravel the significations embedded in the original text in its wider literary, historical, geographical and cultural contexts. In other words, the translator must constantly ask questions such as: What am I translating? For whom am I translating? Where and when am I translating? Why am I translating what am I translating? In doing so, translators must endeavor to rid themselves of shackles imposed by the quest for formal correspondence. The Hermeneutic- Exegetic translation model that we propose in this study is a sine qua non for success in translating literature written in less commonly taught languages such as Camfranglais because this sort of literature is culture-specific. The Hermeneutic- Exegetic paradigm is analogous to cultural adaptation, a translation mode that enables the translator to comprehend the nuanced cultural significations of the source text. Steiner (1975:318) observes that the hermeneutic-exegetic approach to translation sees the relationship between translation and translator as an act of interpretation. As he puts it, “the translator-interpreter creates a condition of significant exchange.” Hermeneutics deals with the ways in which the translator discovers meaning embedded in the situational dimensions of the source text. Viewed from this perspective, Hermeneutics is a kind of discernment process; ways of mining the holistic meaning, as it were. On the other hand, exegesis is a method of attempting to understand a text. The exegete studies the lexical meanings and grammar of the source text in order to discern that which the author intended to convey.  Exegesis entails applying various rules of interpretation to a given text in a bid to expound and reveal the essence of its message(s). In the Hermeneutic-Exegetic translation process, the translator strives to understand what led to the writing of the text, and what circumstances prevailed during the author’s time of writing. In sum, the Hermeneutic-Exegetic process is inductive. Induction involves three processes, namely observation, interpretation and application.

Conclusion

This paper provides readers with information on the plethora of modes of writing Camfranglais literature. It is also a call to translators of Camfranglais literature to reflect on the nature of texts and translate for different readerships, and to propose paradigms suitable for translating such literature. It is critical for translators of Camfranglais literature to be conversant with evolutionary trends inherent in the theory and practice of translating such literature. A mastery of French language alone does not suffice to do justice to the translation of the novels discussed in the examples discussed in this chapter. Translators of Camfranglais literature cannot but be like the texts they translate—at once multilingual and multicultural. Given the polytonality and multilingual composition of Camfranglais literary texts, translators must conceive appropriate models suitable for translating these texts. A multifaceted framework of translation rendition is useful and imperative.

 

References

Ashcroft, B, Gareth Griffiths, Helen Tiffin. Eds.(1989). The Empire Writes Back:

              Theory and Practice in Post-colonial Literatures. London and New York:

              Routledge.

Bandia, P. (1993). “Translation as Culture Transfer: Evidence from African Creative

Writing.” Traduction, Terminologie, Rédaction 6.2: 55-78.

__________.(1993). “On Translating Pidgins and Creoles in African Literature.”

              Traduction, Terminologie, Rédaction 7.2 94-114.

De Ferral, C. (1989).Le Pigin-english du Cameroun. Paris: Peters/ SELAF, 1989.

Derrida, J. (1985). “Des Tours de Babel.” Difference in Translation.Ed.and Trans. Joseph F.

              Graham. Ithaca.

Echu, G. (2104). “Influence of Cameroon Pidgin English on the Cultural Development of

              the French Language”. Retrieved on March 12, from

              https://www.indiana.edu/~iulcwp/pdfs/03-

              echu03.pdf

 

_______________. (2014). “Pidginization of French in Cameroon” (2006). Retrieved on

February 12 from http://www.inst.at/trans/16Nr/01_5/echu16.htm

 

Fonkou K. G. (2001).Moi taximan. Paris: L’Harmattan.

Fonkoua, H. K. (2015). A Dictionary of Camfranglais. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

Fouda, M. (2001). Je parle camerounais: pour un renouveau francofaune.Paris:

              Karthala.

Gyasi, K.A. (1999). “Writing as Translation: African Literature and the

              Challenges of Translation.” Research in African Literatures 30(2):

              75-87.

___________________.2003). “The African Writer as a Translator: Writing African

              Languages through French.” Journal of African Studies 16(2):143-159.

 

___________________. (2006). The Francophone African Text: Translation and the Postcolonial

Experience. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

Jameson, F. (1986). “Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational

 Capitalism.” Social Test 5(3):65-88.

Jones, H. M. (2014). The Beginning Translator’s Handbook, Or the ABCs of French-

               English Translation. New York: UPA.

Khatibi, A.(1983). Amour bilingue. Montpellier: Fata Morgana.

Kouega, P. (2003). “Camfranglais: A novel slang in Cameroon schools.” English Today

              19(2): 23-29.

_______________. (1999). Camfranglais: A Glossary of Common Words,

              Phrases and Usages. Muenchem: LINCOM EUROPA, 2013.

Mendo Zé, Gervais. Le français langue africaine: Enjeux et atouts pour la

              Francophonie. Paris: Publisud.

Nganang,  P.(2001). Temps de chien : chronique animale. Paris: Serpent à Plumes.

______________.(2006). Dog Days. Trans. Amy Baram Reid. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.

 

Ntsobé, A., George A., Edmond B. (2008). Le camfranglais, quelle

              parlure? Etude linguistique et sociolinguistique. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang

              Peter Lang.

 

Ojo-Ade, F. (1986). “The Role of the Translator of African Literature in

              Intercultural Consciousness and Relationships”  Meta 31(3):291-

299. 
     _____________.(1989).“The Literary Translator, Messenger or Murderer? A Study of

              Oyono’s Une vie de boy and Reed’s Houseboy.” Ed. Femi Ojo-Ade. On

              Black    Culture. Ile-Ife: Obafemi Awolowo University Press.

Omole, J. O. (1998). “Code-switching in Soyinka’s The Interpreters.” Eds. Epstein, L. Edmund and Robert Kole. The Language of African Literature.Trenton : Africa World

              Press.

Quayson, A. (2000). Post-colonialism: Theory, Practice or Process? Cambridge: Polity

              Press.

Schleiermacher, F. (1995). “On the Different Methods of Translation.” In Translation and

 Literature 4 (1):5-30.

Steiner, G. After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation. New York: Oxford

              University Press, 1975.

Tervonen, T.(2001). “L’écrivain à l’école de la rue. Entretien avec Patrice

              Nganang,” Africulture, No. 37.

Vakunta, P.W. (2011). Indigenization in the African Francophone Novel: A New

              Literary Canon. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

_____________. (2014). Camfranglais: The Making of a New Language in Cameroonian Literature. Bamenda: Langaa Research and Publishing.

____________.(2008). On Translating Camfranglais and Other Camerounismes.” Meta

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Zabus, C. The African Palimpsest: Indigenization of Language in the West             

              African Europhone Novel. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

NOTES

[1] Makro is a popular Cameroonian derogatory word that means “thief” , “crook” or “rascal”( Kamdem,2015)

[2]  Cameroonian turns of phrase

[3]  All translations are mine except otherwise indicated

[4]  My translation

[5]  Speech patterns and  discursive mannerism typical of Cameroonians 

[6] Occultist group

[7] Das Problem des Übersetzens, edited by Hans Joachim Störig (Darmstadt, 1963), pp. 38-70. 2.

MAKWEREKWERE TRUMPETERS

 

 

 

By

Professor Peter Vakunta

To conjecture the hurt

And pain and havoc

that this word 'makwerekwere' 

has wreaked in South Africa,

One needs to live there!

 

As pressure mounts on the 

Azanian political elite

To fulfill the post-apartheid promises

Made to the rank and file,

The rest of world is shocked 

 

To learn that South Africans of color

Regard Africans from other climes

Not as brothers who helped them

During the Liberation Struggle,

But rather as ‘makwerekwere’.

 

This derogatory epithet connotes

Undesired ‘foreigners’ perceived by many,

Wrongly or rightly, as job-snatchers

Husband and wife thieves and

Conveyors of communicable diseases.

 

It bears stressing that we need

Not overreact to this misconception.

The ‘kwerekwere’ trumpeters

Seem to have been benighted 

By the horrors of Apartheid.

 

Many of us know a lot about them

But they don’t know us from Adam.

We must strive to bridge the gap

Between knowledge and crass ignorance

In a fraternal Global Village.

 

[1] Slang  for foreigners, and especially illegal immigrants living in South Africa. It alludes to the anti-immigrant sentiments that have made South Africa hell on earth for most immigrants living there.  

Seven Effective Vocabulary Mastery Strategies for Second Language Learners

 

By

Dr. Peter Wuteh Vakunta

 

Introduction

Seasoned linguists have pointed out that poor mastery of grammar may not necessarily break down communication but ineffective mastery of vocabulary in the second language that one is learning would result in communication breakdown. As I revisit the travails of the hundreds of students to whom I have taught foreign languages (French, Hausa, Cameroonian Creole and Ngiemeukokeuh) over the years, this truism becomes real. Seven Effective Vocabulary Mastery Strategies provides some dependable tips that would help foreign language learners grapple with vocabulary retention.

Strategy 1: Spaced Repetition of Vocabulary

Proficiency in a foreign language is attainable through interaction with words over time. Vocabulary retention has to be taken seriously by second language learners.  To retain new words, learners must make a conscious effort to recycle words learned in a classroom setting. Learning new words in class and not studying them later is counterproductive for second language acquisition. Learners should study vocabulary throughout the day in short 10-minute intervals, using the spiraling or spaced repetition modus operandi. During school days, this vocabulary retention process should be accomplished before class starts, between classes, during breaks, during lunch, and during other time-frames throughout the school day when students have small amounts of free time. The merits of this strategy are threefold: 1) It increases learners’ retention of the vocabulary learned, 2) It frees up study time at the end of the day for review rather than learning, and 3) It reduces stress levels that comes with the need to learn large  chunks of vocabulary.

Strategy 2:  Vocabulary Preview

Vocabulary preview is an effective language learning technique that second language learners must prioritize. Learners should get into the habit of previewing vocabulary in each unit before the instructor teaches the lesson in class. The rationale behind this practice is that it familiarizes learners with the terminology the instructor will be using in class the following day. More importantly, vocabulary preview empowers learners with a lexical bank that would eventually come in handy in the language learning process. More often than not, I require my students to wet their feet by previewing the vocabulary of upcoming lessons. My experience shows that learners are better off for the reasons adumbrated above.

Strategy 3:  Vocabulary Review

Vocabulary review is a rite of passage in the second language acquisition process. Language learners should review vocabulary that they have learned previously. Vocabulary review enables learners to develop retention skills; it enhances receptive skills (listening and reading) and productive skills (speaking and writing) in the course of time.  Second language learners should consider the possibility of planning vocabulary review sessions in 15-20 minute intervals. They should work on vocabulary tasks for 15-20 minutes, and then take a short break before starting a new task.

Strategy 4: Repetition Cycle

Another strategy that is akin to vocabulary review is vocabulary recycling. One effective way to gain confidence in oneself and be able to listen and comprehend native speakers of any language is to recycle one’s vocabulary bank. This is attainable by having recourse to the technique of the Repetition Cycle.  The Repetition Cycle strategy enables second language learners to practice listening, speaking and reading and writing the target language in the form of a cycle: listen, read and write, or read, write and listen. Regardless of where learners want to start, they should immerse themselves in all four language acquisition skills at the same time. Global Language Online Support System (GLOSS), is an online resource that provides an excellent opportunity for language learners to put the Repetition Cycle technique into practice.

Strategy 5:  Vocabulary Recycling

Re-using new words over time facilitates vocabulary retention. Second language learners should make a conscious effort to re-use vocabulary on a daily basis. In other words, rather than stop at the level of rote memorization of words, learners should use words in constructing meaningful sentences and then eventually transform these sentences into short paragraphs.  Ultimately, learners should be able to dip into their lexical banks and craft stories that pertain to self, family members and circle of friends. Learners could begin by writing sentences that relate to their lived experiences, and daily routine. 

 

Strategy 6: Lexical Categorization

For ease of memorization, language learners should re-arrange news words into lexical banks. For example, they could arrange words into the following lexical families: professions, sports, healthcare, food and nutrition, media, information technology and more. Words could also be categorized according to whether they are easy, very easy, moderately easy, difficult or very difficult to memorize. Finally yet importantly, learners could categorize words based on text typology or register, namely generic, specialized, or technical words. Over time, the technique of lexical categorization alleviates the pangs of vocabulary retention.

Strategy 7: Semantic Organizer

A graphic organizer is a teaching and learning tool used to organize information and ideas in a way that is easy to comprehend and internalize. By integrating text and visuals, graphic organizers show relationships and connections between concepts, terms, and facts. Graphic organizers can be used at all grade levels, and have proven to be effective learning tools for both children and adult learners. Graphic organizers enable the connection between what students already know and newly acquired knowledge. 

Foreign language learners stand to gain from using the semantic organizer as a vocabulary retention strategy. Semantics is the study of meaning in a language. It can be applied to entire texts or to single words. For example, "destination" and "last stop" technically mean the same thing, but students of semantics analyze their subtle shades of meaning. A semantic organizer alternatively called graphic organizer is a method used to organize information garnered from reading passages or other sources. Graphic organizers can be categorized in many ways according to the way they arrange information: hierarchical, conceptual, sequential, or cyclical (Bromley, Irwin-DeVitis, & Modlo, 1995). The merit of this technique is that it provides learners with a visual representation of the ideas they have read about. Graphic organizers integrate both text and visuals. This has been scientifically proven to be an effective way of teaching and learning languages. Using them can be extremely beneficial for both teachers and students. They make  language classes more engaging as well as easily comprehensible.  Instructors can use this tool to assess the vocabulary acquisition process of students. They can create graphic organizers that enable learners to integrate lower-order and higher-order learning tasks  to help students learn master new words. 

 

Conclusion

Briefly, retention of vocabulary seems to be the bugbear of most language learners, the more so because the new language being learned may belong in a linguistic family that is at variance with the mother tongue of the language learner.  In this light, one cannot overstate the importance of dependable vocabulary retention paradigms such as the ones adumbrated above. A rich word bank is a boon in the learning process. Foreign language learners should to do their level best to enrich their lexical banks using the techniques we have discussed in this article.

JUST PUBLISHED!

APORIA: LAMENT OF AN AMBAZONIAN REVOLUTIONARY

By Professor Peter Wuteh Vakunta

Aporia is a long prose poem that makes a case for the Ambazonian Revolution. It is my conviction that the task of the genuine intellectual is to speak up when no one dares to speak. When we draw a blank and cannot make sense of the events that have deeply perturbed our lives, we have recourse to the plume in a bid to externalize pent-up emotions. The impetus to write Aporia stemmed from the ongoing genocide in Cameroon; a civil war viewed by domestic and international observers as a by-product of the linguistic genocide, dysfunctional governance, lethal tribalism, brazen kleptomania and the deleterious governmental ineptitude that epitomize the body politic of the Republic of Cameroon. Each verse in the poem is an expression of the poet's frustration and anger in face of injustice that Anglophone Cameroonians have been the bullseye for decades.

 

Ces poèmes sont plus dits que lus, plus criés que psalmodiés,
plus proférés et c’est cela leur beauté. De livre en livre, Peter
Vakunta s’est inventé un langage qui lui est propre, entre le
français et l’anglais, entre le camfranglais et le majunga talk,
pour décrire et expliquer en des poèmes bilingues, la réalité de
ce pays qui, enfant déjà, dans son premier cours de français, l’a
mis au dernier banc et qui, aujourd’hui encore ne s’est pas sorti de cette injustice multiforme qu’il commet sur ceux qu’il appelle ‘les Anglophones’.

(Dr. Patrice Nganang, Professor of Cultural Studies &
Comparative Literature, Stony Brook University, New York,
USA)

 

 

ONTOLOGICAL PARADOXES

 

 

By Professor Peter Wuteh Vakunta

 

Human beings/

And nature/

Are on a collision course /

Man’s activities inflict/

Irreparable harm on Mother Earth/

Earth’s endangered species/

A-plenty near extinction/

It’s mind-boggling!/

Four-legged animals are endowed/

With more wisdom than humans! /

There are great words/

In the animal kingdom /

One of such words is “Thanks”/

There are awesome words/

In animal lingo/

Two of such words are “Forgive me”/

There are awe-inspiring words/

In animal tongue/

Three of such words are “I love you”/

One wonders if human beings/

Will ever learn to think and speak /

Like animal beings/

Sometimes it feels like/

The life of humans is but a paradox/

            We have very tall buildings/

But very short tempers/

We have extremely broad freeways/

But terribly narrow viewpoints/

We spend more but earn less/

We buy more but enjoy less/

More degrees we’ve amassed/

Not a modicum of common sense/

More savvy but less judgment/

More experts we have/

But a myriad problems unresolved /

            Our possessions we have multiplied/

            Yet less value we derive/

We talk too much/

And lie too often/

            A living we’ve learnt to make /

But not to live our lives/

All the way to the moon we have been/

But have trouble crossing the street/

To say hello to our neighbors/

Outer space we’ve conquered/

But not inner space/

            The atom we’ve split/

But not our prejudices/

We read too often but learn too little/

We’ve learned to rush but not to wait/

More haste less speed/

Higher incomes we have/

But lower morals have we/

More acquaintances/

But fewer friends/

            These are the days of huge incomes/

But bigger debts/

Of glamorous weddings/

But more divorces/

            These are the times of fancier houses/

But broken homes/

We go to church/

But have sent God/

On vacation in our social lives!/

Lord have Mercy!

NOMENCLATURE

 

 By Professor Vakunta

 

 

 

 

What’s in a name?/

A name is everything!/

There’s nothing more important/

Than a person’s name./

A name bears an identity/

A culture and a worldview/

Why then do we toy with the names of folks?/

People no longer bear their real names!/

We take liberties with other people’s nomenclature,/

Thereby rendering them hunchbacks  of sorts/

Elizabeth has become Beth or Lisa,/

Jennifer has been re-christened Jenny,/

Susan has metamorphosed into Sue,/

Patricia has been reborn Pat or Patti,/

Christopher has been transformed into Chris;/

Michael is Mike,/

Charles is Chuck,/

James is Jimmy,/

Henry is Hank,/

Lawrence now passes for Larry/

How about Jerome?/

He has been rechristened Jerry!/

Holy Cow!/

Robert is Bob,/

Emmanuel is Manu,/

Samuel is Sammy,/

Joseph is Joe,/

Thomas is Tom,/

Bonaventure is Bon/

The list is not exhaustive./

Why are we doing this to own own?/

We make people feel like/

Human counterfeits!/

Dogs don't call dogs doggy/

Humans do that!/

Pigs don't call one another piggy/

Humans do that!/

And do you know what they do /

To folks who have tongue-twisters/

Like tchokolokobangoshia?/

Or Shosholoza i-Afrika?/

They ignore them altogether?

Isn’t that cool?

Listen, people’s names are their most

Treasured gifts from birth.

We have zero leeway to

Trifle with nomenclature.

 

Vakunta 2020

 

Acephalous IG: Termites of Ambazonian Revolution

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Professor Vakunta

 

When did torrential rains

Start to fall on Ambazonians?

Where did rain clouds gather?

Was it at Foumban

Or at Ntarikon Park?

Who created the Infamous

Interim Government (IG)?

Is it Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe

Or Deacon Wilfred Tassang?

Where does Agbor Felix Balla Nkongho

Feature in all this hullabaloo?

Take the pulse of the Revolution—

A War of Attrition

Or Liberation Struggle?

Moving TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse)

Or Sinking Titanic in need of S.O.S?

Man no run!

Man no die man no rotten!

In this day and age,

Who heads the Amba Revolution?

Is it Nitwit Samuel Ikome Sako

Or Ninety-Nine Sense Christopher Anu?

Or is it bird of ill omen

Lucas Ayaba Cho?

What does the acronym SOCADEF stand for?

Southern Cameroons Defense Force!

Who is Commander-in-Chief of SOCADEF?

Is it Ayaba Cho Lucas or

Or the Maquisard,[ii]

Kondengui prisoner without a crime,

Ebenezer Derek Mbongo Akwanga?

These are Termites,

Not bona fide leaders

Hell-bent on crippling the struggle

By double dipping in

La mangeoire de la revolution[iii],

Wheeling and dealing

Through kleptomania

Termites/

These nefarious insects do not build

They destroy!

They dilapidate!

Crogg/crogg/crogg/

They have destroyed the Revolution!—

They have demoralized

Our fighters on GZ!

Termites/

Cragg/cragg/cragg/

Bastards! Assholes!

Emasculators of justice!

These hoodlums don’t nurture/

They devastate with impunity!

They don’t lead;

They mislead!

They don’t build;

They self-destruct!

Ambazonia’s gravediggers!

They have destroyed our struggle!

Crigg/crigg/crigg

Termites,

These insects are hard

At work destroying

The legacy bequeathed

To Us by Forebears

Termites are in charge of

Our Collective Dream.

Shall they make or mar?

That is the question!

It’s a trap/

A REAL booby-trap/

For unsuspecting insects of prey/

An insidious entanglement/

For unwary human beings/

Our Battle is locked/

In a multitude of cobwebs/

Caught we are/

In ego consciousness,

In our web of intrigues.

Nonetheless…/

I have a dream that one day/

Southern Cameroonians will bounce /

Back to sanity/

On that day/

Ambazonians will know

Who the real leaders were/

I have a dream…/

That though the blows may be hard

On Ambazonians/

They shall pull the punches/

Stay the course/

And see light at the

End of the tunnel

I have a dream…/

That one day Ambazonia/

Will be free…free at last! /

I shed tears for Ambazonia/

You know why merciful Lord/

Tears of muteness/

Frustration/

Sorrow/

Despondency/

Angst/

Melancholy/

Trauma…/

 

 

Vakunta 2020

Notes

[i]  Headless

[ii] Someone who lives underground

[iii] Public coffers

 

 

 

 

 

Poésie sous l'arbre à palabres est un recueil poétique qui se veut être à la fois engagé et didactique. Son chant poétique incarne une conscience et une identité propre au bercail qui l'a enfanté. C'est grâces aux chants mélancholiques que le poète parvient à quitter son terroir d'adoption pour élire domicile au ciel de son enfance perdue; au règne de la civilisation autochtone. Grâce à ses chants inspiratoires le poète réussit à revivre la vie primitive de jadis. Il situe son âge d'or à califourchon entre le passé et le présent. Au sein de ce recueil, chaque strophe et chaque verset vibre au rythme d'une nouvelle bouffée d'oxgyène.

Lament of an Ambazonian Revolutionary

 

 By Professor Peter Wuteh Vakunta

 

 

Weep not child![i]/

My heart bleeds for you!/

I weep for all the/

Lost souls of Ambazonia!/

Strangers in their homeland/

Beasts of no Nation/

I lament for the unborn kids/

Of the Republic of Ambazonia/

Hijacked kith and kindred/

I mourn for the Six School/

Kids murdered in Kumba/

Decimated by the vampires of Paul Biya/

On October 24, 2020 in the restive/

Town of Kumba in a school/

Sandwiched in Fiango neighborhood/

The Infamous Mother Francisca/

International Bilingual Academy/

We shall never know/

The real motives behind/

This gruesome murder but be it/

Known that this infamy was not/

The handiwork of Ambazonian/

Freedom fighters; rather it was a/

Machination by the Biya Regime/

To baptize Ambazonian

Freedom Fighters as Terrorists/

Hogwash! Baloney!

 

I HAVE A DREAM…

That one day Ambazonia/

Will be free. Utterly free/

Free! Free! Free at last!/

From the rubble of decay/

And of decrepitude/

Will rise a New Nation/

Rejuvenated Republic of Amba!/

Not by thunderstorm/

Not by tornado/

Not by hailstone/

Nor by neck-lacing/

Not by house-torching/

Nor by manslaughter/

Not by kangaroo courts/

But by the mettle and bravado/

Of diehard Ambazonians/

Armed with the resolve to be free!/

We’re birds of passage/

Of good omen/

Of bad omen/

Of mixed omens.

 

Peter Wuteh Vakunta, Ph.D.

Endnotes

-----------

[i] Title of a novel by Ngugi wa Thiong’o

African Renaissance:Lessons for Cameroon

Talk Show Host: Professor Peter Wuteh Vakunta

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dK8aHhP19jLRTr_um4GBG4quIaFyTeq9/view?ts=5f4af178

Links to Our New Book with Preface by Pr. Ken Wilburn of East Carolina University, USA.

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&field-author=Bill%20F.%20Ndi&page=1&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ABill%20F.%20Ndi

 

http://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/fears-doubts-and-joys-of-not-belonging

 

 

 

 

Preface by Dr. Kenneth Wilburn, Department of History, East Carolina University

 

 

The authors of this provocative book explore distinctions of individual and group belonging, as well as manifestations of not belonging. Written for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and those seeking knowledge about the complexity of identity, Fears, Doubts and Joys of not Belonging examines variations of imposed and self-imposed alienation. Ndi, Ankumah, and Fishkin explore the rich historiography of estrangement in fiction and non-fiction to demonstrate the universality, timelessness, and varieties of alienation. For example, Muslim leaders like Nana Asma’u of the Sokoto Caliphate disseminated educational poems of inclusiveness to the Africans of Gobir alienated by conquest. In contrast, Europeans who organized the Atlantic slave trade sought power and material wealth through mechanisms of intimidation and force that resulted in widespread hopelessness and exclusion. Both groups were victims of alienation, but those of the caliphate were invited in language they understood to participate inside the new society; those who survived the Middle Passage were addressed in languages they did not understand, transformed into chattel, and kept outside settler societies.

Thus, whether inclusive or exclusive in nature, alienation can be imposed, as heretics have often been painfully reminded by the orthodox. Yet alienation can also be willful, as Christian and Sufi ascetics have frequently demonstrated. In this book’s ten chapters, the authors seek balance in our understanding of estrangement by asserting that joy can also come out of willful alienation. From that half-filled glass of life’s serendipity one can often drink just as deeply of joy as one can of despair. This is what Steve Biko meant when he wrote about Black Consciousness, about discovering joy in one’s identity. Alienation can be transformed from a lock into a key to open the collective Global African in us all. Fears, Doubts and Joys of not Belonging moves forward that recent scientific discovery.

Dissent as a Higher Form of Patriotism: Reflections

Peter Wuteh Vakunta, Ph.D

Many of us who pontificate about the dissonance between dissent and patriotism remain oblivious to the fact that these are actually very loaded terms. It is a slippery route to walk when we obstinately cling to the antiquated idea that any intellectual or scholar who takes his/her country to task is ipso facto placing himself/herself in the camp of the unpatriotic. One of the most celebrated intellectuals of our time, Edward Said, argues in his seminal book Representations of the Intellectual (1994) that “One of the shabbiest of all intellectual gambits is to pontificate about abuses in someone else’s society and to excuse exactly the same practices in one’s own” (cited in Chomsky, The Common Good, 102). Closer home, Cameroonian scholar Bernard Nsokika Fonlon (cf. Genuine Intellectuals: Academic and Social Responsibilities of Universities, 2009) subscribes to Said’s worldview. Arguing along the same lines, celebrated Nigerian novelist, Chinua Achebe contends that one common feature of underdeveloped nations is the tendency among the ruling elite to live in a world of make-believe with regard to matters pertaining to patriotism. He remains adamant that "spurious patriotism is one of the hallmarks of Nigeria's privileged classes whose generally unearned positions of sudden power and wealth must seem unreal even to themselves"(35). Achebe's definition of a true ‘patriot’ is one "who will always demand the highest standards of his country and accept nothing but the best from his people. He will be outspoken in condemnation of their shortcomings without giving way to superiority, despair or cynicism." (35)

In the second quarter of the nineteenth century a Russian aristocrat named Peter Chaadayev was portrayed as insane by order of Czar Nicholas I for publicly describing his country as a backward nation caught up in a narrow and boastful nationalism. Chaadayev subsequently defended his patriotism—and the views which had incurred the Czar’s displeasure—in an essay entitled “Apology of a Madman” (1837). “Believe me,” he wrote in the concluding paragraph of the essay, I cherish my country more than any of you… But it is also true that the patriotic feeling which animates me is not exactly the same as the one whose shouts have upset my quiet existence… I have not learned to love my country with my eyes closed, my head bowed, and my mouth shut. I think that one can be useful to one’s country only if one sees it clearly; I believe that the age of blind love has passed, and that nowadays one owes one’s country the truth. I confess that I do not feel that smug patriotism, that lazy patriotism, which manages to make everything beautiful, which falls asleep on its illusions and with which unfortunately many of our good souls are afflicted today (cited in Giffin and Smith, 1971, p.316)

In the essay that follows, I deplore what I regard as a growing tendency among Cameroonians to equate expression of dissent with lack of patriotism. I insist that to criticize one’s country is in itself an act of patriotism. To criticize Cameroon is to do it a service and pay it a compliment. It is service because it may spur the country’s leaders to perform better than it is doing; it is a compliment because it evidences a belief that the country can do better. In a genuine democracy, dissent is an act of faith; it creates room for checks and balances. Like medication, the test of its efficacy does not reside in its taste but in its effects. The test of its value is not how it makes people feel at the moment, but how it inspires them to act together in the long term. Criticism may embarrass the folks at the helm in Cameroon in the short run but it will strengthen their hands in the long run; it may destroy a consensus on policy while expressing a consensus of values. There lies the ambivalence of the term ‘patriotism.’ Woodrow Wilson once said that there was “such a thing as being too proud to fight;” there is also, or ought to be, such a thing as being too confident to conform, too strong to be silent in the face of apparent error. In sum, criticism is more than a right; it is an act of patriotism, a higher form of patriotism that may elude the feeble-minded. Criticism connotes a higher degree of patriotism than the familiar rituals of national adulation.

I may shock some of my readers by insisting that it is not a pejorative term but a tribute to say that Cameroon is worthy of criticism. Nonetheless, if I am charged with lack of patriotism on account of my conviction, I would respond with words borrowed from Albert Camus: “No, I didn’t love my country, if pointing out what is unjust in what we love amounts to not loving, if insisting that what we love should measure up to the finest image we have of her amounts to not loving…”(1974).The root causes of Cameroon’s pitiful performance on the international scene are not a mystery to any keen observer of the political circus that the country has become— tribalism, corruption, impunity, myopia, mutual distrust, constitutional rape and blind allegiance to inept leaders. My question is not whether or not Cameroon can overcome all the fatalities associated with arrogance of incumbency. My concern is the modus operandi needed for this beautiful but misdirected country to get out of the quagmire. I believe that Cameroon has all it takes to be a great nation; I also believe that it is falling short of its priced ideals—good governance, accountability to citizens, fair play and sustainable development. Gradually but unmistakably, we are succumbing to the epidemic of power abuse perpetrated by the Beti oligarchy in Yaoundé. In doing so Cameroon is not living up to her capacity and promises to its citizenry. The measure of the shortcomings of our leaders is the measure of the patriot’s duty of dissent. The intellectual has a critical role to play in blowing the whistle on the failings of our leaders. The role of the intellectual in enlightening the rank and file and setting records straight for posterity is crucial. In doing so, the genuine intellectual must strive to distinguish himself/herself from "okrika" or "kokobioko" intellectuals. In the work referenced above, Said examines the ever-changing role of the bona fide intellectual in the task of nation-building. He suggests a recasting of the intellectual's vision to resist the lures of power and money. Said concludes that it is the role of the intellectual to be the voice of integrity and courage, able to speak out against those in power.

The discharge of this vital duty is seriously handicapped by an unworthy tendency to fear serious criticism of our government. In the abstract we celebrate the freedom of expression that was won at a great price in the 1990s following the launch of John Fru Ndi’s Social Democratic Front (SDF) party. Prior to this era, intolerance of dissent had been a well noted feature of Cameroonian national character. Joseph Richard (1978) attributes this state of affairs to the reign of terror for which the Ahmadou Ahidjo regime was notorious. Cameroon lived with a hangover of this period until the Ntarikon watershed event. Profound changes have occurred in the wake of the Ahidjo regime yet it remains to be proven whether or not the recognition of the right of dissent has gained substantially in practice as well as in theory. I believe that our school system can be indicted in this respect. It seems to me that our universities are churning out products that are lacking in rigorous independent thinking. Universities have a special obligation to train potential public servants in strategic thinking and equip them with the wherewithal to dissociate loyalty to an organization from blind allegiance to personality cult. It is an extremely important service for the universities to perform because the most valuable public servant, like the true patriot, is one who gives a higher loyalty to his country’s ideals than to its current policy and who, therefore, is willing to criticize as well as to comply.

In a nutshell, suffice it to say that we must nurse the germ of dissent that lies in gestation in all of us. We must come to terms with the fact that patriotism can be interpreted in two ways. If it is interpreted to mean unquestioning support of existing policies, its effects can only be pernicious and undemocratic, serving to accentuate differences rather than reconcile them. If, on the other hand, patriotism is understood to mean love for one’s country that pushes one to always demand the highest standards of one’s country, and to accept nothing but the best from one’s leaders, then and only then does it become a lasting basis of national strength. Or as Mark Twain would have it, “It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse-races” (Giffin and Smith, 320). Like Chaadayev, I do not believe in smug patriotism; I abhor that lazy patriotism which manages to make everything seem beautiful— patriotism that falls asleep on its illusions. I was raised to question authority and will continue to hold leaders of the country that I love the most—Cameroon—accountable. I have done so in A Nation at Risk: A Personal Narrative of the Cameroonian Crisis (2012) and will continue to do so until the powers-that-be in Cameroon regain their sanity.

About the author

Dr. Peter Wuteh Vakunta is a professor at the United States Department of Defense Language Institute in California, USA.

Notes

Cited in Against the Grain, p.317)

Ethnic group of the incumbent

Hollow intellectuals

The Social Democratic (SDF) Front is the main opposition party in Cameroon. It is led by Ni John Fru Ndi and receives significant support from the Anglophone regions of the country. The SDF was launched in Bamenda on May 26, 1990 in opposition to the ruling Cameroon People's Democratic Movement. Following the launching rally, six people were killed by security forces.

This author has fictionalized this episode in his book of poems titled Ntarikon: Poetry for the downtrodden (2008).

Works cited

Achebe, Chinua. An Image of Africa and the Trouble with Nigeria. London: Penguin Books, 1983.

Camus, Albert. Resistance, Rebellion and Death (Translated from the French by Justin Obrien).New York: Vintage Books, 1974.

Chomsky, Noam. The Common Good. Tuscon: Odonian Press, 1996.

Giffin C. Frederick and Ronald D. Smith. Against the Grainst: An Anthology of Dissent, Past and Present. New York: New American Library, 19701.

Joseph, Richard. Gaullist Africa: Cameroon under Ahmadou Ahidjo. Enugu: Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1978.

Said, W. Edward. Representations of the Intellectual. New York: Pantheon Books, 1994.

Vakunta, W. Peter W. A Nation at Risk: A Personal Narrative of the Cameroonian Crisis.Bloomington: I-Universe, 2012.

___. Ntarikon: Poetry for the Downtrodden. Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2008.

Picture of the Day: 20,000-Seat Stadium Under Construction in Limbe

Ongoing construction of a 20,000-seat stadium in Ngeme, limbe II by the Chinese. (Source: Cameroon Vision Facebook page).

Cultural Assimilation: Deliberate Attempt to Kill Off the English Language in Cameroon?

"Are there no English words for "Entretien", "Boutique" and "Vidange"?... Asking that all public notices and directives must be made in both English and French, at least in the predominantly English speaking section of Cameroon, is definitely not asking too much, even be it from a French company like this Total petrol and gas production and distribution, retail entity.... When will all this nonsense of majority complex stop?" Patrick Sianne (Originally posted on Facebook)

 
Total petrol station in Mamfe, in the heart of English-speaking Cameroon, with French-only signs. (c) Patrick Sianne

Picture of the Day: Novelist Shandie Shing Avwontom

Cameroonian novelist Shandie Shing Avwontom reading from his debut novel, TIKO, during a book reading - a fresh and new approach to introducing books in Cameroon, quite different from the more formal and less intimate traditional book launching ceremonies.
 

Peacock

3D of Rose

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