Futures of The Southern Cameroons - Recently Updated Pages

Objectives

MaMary — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:03:21 CST

1) Eliminate Poverty
2) Engender Prosperity
3) Ensure Sustainability
4) Enlightened relationship with the environment
5) Carve out, create and dominate specific high tech niches
6) Maintain and optimize high nutrition through advanced agricultural policy and practices

Mathematics

MaMary — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:44:15 CST

Rebuilding

MaMary — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:10:42 CST

Over the last 20 years, we have done well at reviving the history of the Southern Cameroons, which our enemies had pushed to the graveyards of history. We have created a tight legal case justifying the independence of the Southern Cameroons. We have brought the Southern Cameroons case from the sidelines to the center of Southern Cameroons national discourse. We must now help the people to build the confidence and committment that will cause them to bend down and pick up their independence.

This site will not repeat things we have already done well, so no history, no legal argument unless it pertains to the topic. This site aims to imagine our future; to imagine the kind of country we intend Southern Cameroons to be; to inspire those who lead our independence groups; to inspire each other to dream the best dreams we intend to realize in Southern Cameroons.

We have made errors--it's human. At this site, we want to study the that other African countries made; we want to create ways to avoid those pitfalls. We want this site to become an idea basket or toolkit to accelerate our progress. This site is intended to be a thinkroom, made possible by available technology. Previously, thinktanks were possible with the support of grants and requiring expensive offices in high rent districts. Not anymore.

This is a collaborative website. Invitations shall be sent out to Southern Cameroonians and friends of the Southern Cameroons with various interests and strengths to contribute to its development. If you can draft an email, you are capable of adding to the site. It is that simple. You may use your own name or an alias to register. It really does not matter. Do not be afraid to edit the site. You cannot damage it.

The Spirit:
There shall be room in this website for a wide range of ideas. Thus, there may be disagreement, and such disagreement should be argument-based and not hinged on mere polemics and definitely not ad hominems. Better still, contributors should aim at essay formats with well-developed ideas. As an invited writer, you have the freedom to edit others' contributions, thus there is no individual copyright here. It is meant to be a true collaborative exercise, in the spirit of Wikipedia ( We hope one of more of our writers updates the Wikipedia entry on the Southern Cameroons). As a contributor, remember that you are actually building the Southern Cameroons nation for your children and grandchildren in thought and spirit. It is thus sacred work, and that is how it should be approached. Every good product (and every bad one) starts in the mind. There is no such thing as an impossibility. There is still a segment of the Southern Cameroons population that has resigned itself to secondary and even tertiary status as the colony of a mediocre state. We are the dream builders of a vital, progressive and prosperous future. We want a country that actually contributes to the well being and progress of the planet and does not consistently beg and steal.

Contributors:
Contributors/writers/editors are strictly by invitation, however, this website can be read by the entire public. Some of your fellow collaborators are public Southern Cameroons activists. There are some who are experts and office-holders in the bowels of la Republique, who support the Southern Cameroons cause in secret. If you are one of the later, take care to take an assumed name at registration. Welcome, it is now possible for you to contribute your ideas to the cause, without being exposed.

If you are coming here for the first time as a contributor, take about an hour to mess around with the controls and to get familiar with them. It is really quite easy.

Feel free to start new topics. Examples of topics you may want to start(or join):

Government of the Southern Cameroons
The Economy
The Constitution
The Arts
Turning the Southern Cameroons into a new Taiwan or Singapore in 20 years
Foriegn policy
Managing natural resources
Health Care
Ministry of Education or Institute of Lifelong learning
From commodities to high tech economy
Solutions to the ethnic divide.
Communications

Communications

MaMary — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 23:55:05 CST

A recurring challenge for the struggle has been effective communication. Even this site, which is supposed to provide clarity for the struggle, has difficulties with "heavy language" and technical language that prevents ideas from going across effectively. One of the common complaints to the SCNC has been the "bookiness" and wordiness of the message. This could be that the movement sprang from the efforts of lawyers, who are notorious for being wordy, no disrespect to our lawyer colleagues, but reading lawyers causes a headache to us the unlearned. There is therefore a serious danger that the people who ought to be listening to the message could start suffering from message fatigue, because the message has just become too "combrous". There is a serious need for people to smooth out the message and make it portable and sticky and longlasting. Lawyerly and scholarly language is hampering the mass appeal of the Southern Cameroons movement. That is one aspect in which the SCNC could learn something from the SDF, especially the early SDF.

As is usually the case, somebody has been thinking about this same thing. The following are two books that might be helpful to those who want to take on the task of honing the message:

1) Made to Stick

This is an excellent book on how to do just this, communicate good ideas in efficient packages that stick in the minds of the audience

Urban Legend Style Success
This link is an online video given by one of the authors explaining some of his ideas.

2) Words That Work
This book is by Frank Luntz, the pollster who helps to craft words and messages for the US Republican Party. Culturally the words have to be different for us. One example of what Mr Luntz did was to come up with the term "climate change" instead of "global warming" because climate change brought less hostility and more open-mindedness to his clients than the more scary global warming.

Some interesting links on language in this context:

It helps to know something about American politics to appreciate this one and you need Real Player on your computer to listen to it. This is an interesting interview with Frank Luntz. It gives real insight into the wool that Ahidjo and his team used to pull over the eyes of Southern Cameroonians.

This is an example of sticky and effective communication by Malcolm X at the height of his game. This was his famous "House Negro and Field Negro" speech:

Readings

MaMary — Thu, 24 May 2007 20:08:22 CDT

Propaganda by Edward Bernays: How the PR industry was invented and its mission to control thought.

Case History: Resolving the NW-SW Divide

MaMary — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 20:13:05 CDT

The following is a recent story from the Post Online newspaper that I present here to stimulate discussion on the NW/SW Divide. How would you solve the problem in the CBC Church? What institutions and institutional changes would you suggest to ensure fairness and brotherhood into perpetuity? How would you structure the Southern Cameroons state to minimize this kind of occurence from happening? The difference between Southern Cameroons and la republique would not be the absence of tribalism, but that we would not sweep it under the carpet, but will openly discuss it and take measures to minimize and resolve it.

Coastal Fields Accuse Northwest CBC Of Marginalisation

By Francis Tim Mbom
A memorandum drawn by the Baptists of the four Coastal Fields: Limbe, Soppo (Buea), Kumba and Mamfe has accused the Northwest CBC leadership of marginalising them.

After an extraordinary sitting last February 17, the Coastal Fields decided to lodge a memo to the CBC General Council on "the injustices in the CBC and on the Constitutional amendments." The memo, a copy of which The Post procured, criticises the way the Church is managed by what they call their Northwestern Baptist Christian leaders."The CBC is being managed with astounding discrimination, marginalisation, corruption, embezzlement and nepotism by our Northwest Christian leaders," the memo states. The 20-page document insinuates that, statistically, out of 17 CBC Executive members, there is only one from the coastal area, four who are expatriates and 12 from the Northwest. In addition, the memo says, amongst the Administrative Council of 13 members, only one is from the coast. "In the Health Board Administrative staff there are only two 'coastals' out of 22…of the six school managers, just one is a coastal," states the document. Reverend Dr. Peter Evande, Pastor of the Mizpah Baptist Church in Limbe, is one of the signatories of the memo signed by some 195 Christians.As to why the coastal Christians had to wait for 53 long years of CBC existence before tabling their grievances, he said they have been complaining for the past 20 years but because they are in the minority in the Council, their complaints have most often been thrown out. But Rev. Evande said that this time the Coastal Fields are bent on seeing their problems solved. Elections Postponed The coming of the memo has caused the postponement of the elections of new officials to run the affairs of the CBC for the next four years.The elections as well as a programmed review of the CBC Constitution were postponed during the ongoing National Convention of the Church in Limbe. CBC General Secretary, Rev. Charles Tangwa, told The Post on Tuesday, April 10, that the suspension decision was taken following a meeting of the General Council of the CBC on Monday, April 9 to examine the issues raised by their fellow Christians in the coastal part of the country. Rev. Tangwa said the proponents of the memo submitted that if their memo had to be looked into, then it would be wise to suspend the planned elections and review of the Constitution. The Limbe Convention, which opened on that April 9, was scheduled to end on Saturday, April 14, with the elections of a new President of the CBC, General Secretary and other officials. "They told us that if we want to look into their memorandum and come up with something that can be helpful or could also get some of them into positions, then we should suspend the elections and the Constitutional review which we were to have here," Rev. Tangwa said. "We would have said," Tangwa went on, "that the Constitution does not allow for that but because we want to have an understanding, we agreed to set up a commission to re-examine the memo for the next one year and come back with a report." Hopes The General Secretary said that they were hopeful that when the ad hoc committee would have re-examined their memo and presented its report by April, 2008, a solution would have been found for the coastal grievances and any problems of those who feel marginalised.
"We want to have an understanding. Let them have an understanding on how we have been working as a Convention and in that way by the time that we would be meeting in April next year, we would have a solution to the problems…" Rev. Tangwa said.With the suspension in place, the General Secretary said the mandates of those holding elective posts will have to be extended for one more year. The Rev. said they were going to proceed with the other aspects of the Convention which had to do with sharing of preaching and sharing the Bible.Over 2000 people are attending the Convention at the Saker Baptist College in Limbe.

petition

nderonald — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 12:00:27 CST

There is now an e-petition which you can sign on-line, requesting the the British Prime Minister to explain the role of HMG in the hand over of sovereingty to The United Republic of Cameroon in 1961.

Social/ Society

wanaku — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 12:53:24 CST

Not Only the Truth

Does the truth really set one free?
If so, how?

Do our people - The African People of the former UN Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons - need freedom?
Those who are "doing well" in the present so-called New Deal dispensation will most probably say they have freedom
already.

And that could be true.
Those who are not doing so well, will have some complaints. It might not necessarily be about "freedom". When one is hungry or thirsty, is "freedom" the first thing that comes to mind?
Food and water (or Beer in this case) are what shake and dance in the mind.
So the answer to the question - do our people need freedom - depends on which side of the river (Mungo) you are standing on.

Can the truth set them free just like that?
Not exactly, it seems.

So how will the truth set our people free?

The answer lies in not only knowing
that the truth can set free, but also that
"knowledge of the truth" is truly what can set one free.

So knowledge is freedom?
Yes, not only truth sets free but knowledge of the truth is what CAN set free.

So how can our people have this knowledge of the truth?
How can our people become truly free?
It seems that this freedom is bringing palava instead.
Is that true?

Well freedom will bring palava because
freedom brings light where there is darkness
Knowledge of the truth points the light to all the dark corners
of our houses, our families, our villages, our counties, our state
and everything can be seen by everyone.
There is no room for lies.
There is no place to hide
There is no opportunity to cheat
There is no way to steal

Infact
Knowledge is power.
and if every citizen has this knowledge
So have they power
and there lies the true
"power of the people"
Not the power of a few

'Knowledge is power'. Really?
Is that why those who have 'power'
know some things that those who do not have 'power'
do not know?

For example, if our people pay taxes but do not
know how to add, subtract, divide and/or multiply,
how can they know how much taxes everyone is paying?
How can they know how their tax money is being used?
How can they know what a budget looks like?
Even a family budget? Or the village council budget?
Or the divisional/state budget?

Can our people be part of a Njangi where they have
no control of their own contributions and no say on
how these are used, spent or expended?

Only the Truth, does not set free.
Knowledge of the Truth does begin the path to freedom.

So what is the Truth?

Do our people really have
"knowledge" of the so-called "Truth"?

Some people are surprised that religion has so much power on those who opt to follow or
become member of a certain belief, faith, group, movement etc.
Pschocybernetics ... is the art of pounding the minds of people several times with the same message to the point where
this becomes part of them and they can unconsciously react to or act on suggestions/ideas extrapolated from the message(s).

The Jews in the days of Old were asked to write the laws and scriptures on their
door posts and other public places ... so that the word/law could be at the 'front of their eyes'
all the time!

Well sometimes that is what it takes to 'move' a people from one level to the other.
Moslems spend hours, days, months, years, decades, murmuring, reciting, memorizing
many many lines of verse from the Quran and you can guess what happens to their
brains and spirit after this kind of training.

In our situation, the most consistent form of training that our people get is in beer drinking,
makossa dancing and soccer watching. Can you guess what happens to our brains and spirits after this kind of training.

So what's the point?

The point is that to move from the level we are at today to another level,
will require a two-step process: one of untraining and the other of training.

- untraining from the habits we have developed for over half a century; and
- training for new habits that we need to develop for (at least) the next half century.

What does this mean to you and me today?

In the continuing dispensation of the eventual freedom of our people, we should all be able to question any leadership initiative that presents a plan for the future that looks at less than 50 years ahead. Visionary leadership requires that one looks into the future - literally - and that one makes the kinds of plans that will be beneficial to those who will still be alive at that time, even if we are not.

Impossible to do? Hard but not impossible? One needs to have knowledge of the truth, and use this knowledge to plan for the future. Good thing about the truth is that it does not change. The truth is reliable. It is something you can take to the bank at any time.

Look at the banking system that our people are forced to use at home. A lot of our countrymen/women prefer to manage
their monies through 'njangis' rather than through the existing banks. Because of the 'lack of trust'. The absence of 'trust'
results in the failure of any banking system. Just as the absence of the 'truth' has resulted in the failure of the socio-political system.

How do we get our people from this point - aware that the truth is out there - to the next point - knowing what this truth is -
to the next point - making use of this knowledge to liberate themselves mentally, spiritually and then physically. This will then lead to the kind of transformation that some of our dreams are made of - a new nation that will be a beacon for others in the sub-region.

Sounds easy but it is hard work.
Sounds like hard work but it could be very fulfilling in the long run.

Listen to your heartbeat.

Blessings
Wanaku

Governance

MaMary — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 20:03:40 CST

Constitution & The Law

MaMary — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 20:22:25 CST

Background:
Discussion of the Background to the constitution here

The neocolonial, annexor state from whose shadow we are now emerging, is based on a model in which the people serve the state, and the state in turn serves the indigenous ruling class and their neocolonial masters in Paris. Surely, we are going to discard this model completely and must consider others.

The nationalist model is very common in the world, but is it a completely healthy model for us to adopt? In this model, the state is an abstraction that every other institution serves. The people are servants to this abstract state, and things like national pride and prestige are very important. France, US, China, UK, Turkey. These seem to follow the nationalist model, and are in the habit of using force to defend "national interest" and pride.

The mercantilist model. In these countries and city states, commerce and the acquisition of wealth are the main engines. Netherlands, Switzerland, Singapore, Dubai, Hong Kong immediately come to mind. These are very organized countries, with good services, educational infrastructure and the like, but these things are all done with the global marketplace in mind. They enjoy, and depend upon, the solidarity and support of powerful allies without whom envious countries would invade them. Weakness has never made any state the target of an invasion: success, wealth, possession of widely useful resources--these attract parasites, rovers, roamers, and bandits who believe they have enough weapons to overwhelm the rich but militarily weak state. Japan, Costa Rica, and many others depend on others for their defense. Merita (Africa--every state there) lacks such a powerful champion. We have only each other today, decades after 'independence'. Hence, what Southern Cameroons becomes is not a matter of choosing models; what Southern Cameroons becomes should be what Merita (Africa) should become: a region secure from potential opportunists. This is NOT an easy task, seeing the little support Southern Cameroonians have given the League so far. If history does not fail us, many such opportunist countries will obstruct our restoration of Southern Cameroons. We all know at least one that was best placed to make our case public, yet it did not. Having said that, there exist financially successful small states with potent militaries (Switzeland), which make it expensive for potential aggressors. This model ought to be studied carefully. The other argument for a mercantilist state is that while desirable to act in concert with the rest of Africa, we cannot afford to wait for Africa as a block to get its act together. Our union with la Republique is an example of the clumsiness of ill-considered lockstep action. A poorly run, chaotic country rich in natural resources always makes a more attractive target for opportunities than a well run country. We should therefore not be shy to innovate.

CLARIFICATION: The ongoing genocide project on Merita/Africa makes Switzerland's weapons totally transparent. Winston Churchill advised his countrymen that wars of the future would be wars of the mind: like distractions today which keep Meritans/Africans unaware that they are being exterminated. Southern Cameroons is regaining independence at a unique moment in Merita: every independent region here is beholden to one European center or another and reports to it. Unlike these, Southern Cameroons was abandoned: Britain, the dead beat colonial dad, cannot make us report to them, as Cameroun reports to France. So we have only our selves to blame if we design an unhappy future for our country. Yes, innovate, but that means upgrade, not invent from scratch. We have too many working parts on the shelves to take the long path of inventing everything, or--worse--imitating the faulty systems which we are fleeing from back to Southern Cameroons.

[Please, explain "Merita", and why it is better than "Africa". OK, See explanation below. BTW, this font in bold is more legible than the default font.]

The welfare state. Scandinavia, Germany. We cannot afford it. In fact, we cannot even consider it: Southern Cameroonians have always been productive people; idleness is shunned throughout our region, and even the appearance of laziness brings shame. Our cultures also make work plentiful and routine: we are all agrarians, after all, and each season brings back its own chores. At any rate, there are more reasons which make a welfare state impossible in the future Southern Cameroons.

ARGUMENT:The socialist state. I do not understand it well. I hope somebody can elaborate a little bit more. My sense is that we should be encouraging free enterprise, while safeguarding the environment, human rights etcetera.

COUNTERARGUMENT:I suggest that we define a socialist state by its best example on our continent, Ujamaa as introduced into Tanzania by Mwalimu Nyerere. In this flavor of socialism, the state makes it its primary work to guarantee the security of each individual citizen. That means security from poverty (called social security in some European countries) and from other threats to physical and emotional stability during your entire lifespan. In return, the individual supports the state.

The affection Mwalimu Nyerere earned from his fellow citizens even after his retirement sets him apart from ALL presidents of other socialist countries everywhere, from China to Cuba. Even today, public dialogue in Tanzania remains far freer than in any other Meritan (African) state. By the way, Ujamaa socialism best resembles what I would recommend for the future Southern Cameroons.

COUNTERARGUMENT: Tanzania remained a poor state and Mwalimu's agenda began to unravel after he departed. It could be argued that Mwalimu's exemplary behavior was a product of a high personal moral tone and not a product of socialism. His socialism was also the product of that personality. We should be looking for a good system that serves the people, but is resilient and predictable. If we are lucky we will always find good leaders. But if we are unlucky to have some bad leaders, it is only a good system that would protect us. So we can reduce the cause of the failure of Ujamaa socialism to this: Nyere's generation failed to transmit its healthy values to posterity. The lesson, then is not to look for luck (there is no luck in this business of founding nations) or for another model, nethod, system but to devise an educational system capable of transimitting the values we recover and restore. That means that the priority, the primary task is to recover (not choose) our historical model AND then design institutions to protect it from enemies within (self-hating Meritans [Africans] or foreigners who hate us).

NOTE on Merita. Africa comes from two Medu (hieroglyph) words meaning land of burning souls. The historical name by which our ancestors all over the homeland have called our land, and by which they still call it today in select societies throughout our home continent is Merita, another Medu word meaning Our Beloved Land. (Source: http://www.theearthcenter.com/index.php?title=home/merita )

Given our [recent] history as Africans (deprivation, colonialism, annexation), our relatively high level of educated persons, our relatively small size, our natural resources, my bias is towards making us Africa's first true mercantilist state. Mercantilism provides the greatest amount of power and influence for a small country.

An alternative, and the one we have a duty to consider before any other is a Meritan (African) state. Why? Because a healthy self-knowledge requires that we start from our true history, a history which precedes conquest and colonisation by tens of thousands of years. Any later point for starting our history reduces us to imitators of these other state forms which all have very serious problems, which have created our worst problem: genocide by their core practitioners.

Here's how. The nationalist state, by its nature, caters to its interest at the expense of any other state weaker than itself; therefore, it is opportunist and becomes expansionist as soon as a neighbour state nods asleep over its resources. Current examples abound...

The mercantilist state must first solve the problem of how to survive the hungry nationalist states, and modern mercantile states solve this problem by partnership with the nationalist state. That partnership guarantees the mercantile state protection from the nationalist state. Southern Cameroons can never afford the mercantilist form because, as part of Merita (Africa) it, too, is the target of an ongoing genocidal war.

Our historical state form is a healthy one; it is a time-tested one; it is a durable one. We must not make the mistake of supposing that it lasted over 75, 000 years before it fell to Europeans a mere 2,000 years ago because it had been inhumane, cruel, ineffective, or inefficient. On the contrary. Look at our continent! Not a single slave plantation anywhere, though you will find enslavements here and there. Why? Time gave our systems engineers far more experience (that is maturity) than it gave later commers to the society-building task, so that less wealthy members of our societies never found it necessary to resort to the frequent revolutions you see in France, England, and elsewhere in Europe.

Our historical systems resemble socialism and communism more than they resemble anything else around today. Test this by observing how kingships work in your region. How consultations are carried out. How consensus is discovered and then effected. When our system fails, we know at what level failure occurred: a tyrant (ego), a lower level traitor helping invaders (you see those in Southern Cameroons even today, some at the level of Classical Rulers), natural disasters, and such.

When it succeeded, our system was and has been second to none in providing social security (provisions, housing, aging) or in providing emotional security (uninterrupted, life-long counseling), the very resources Southern Cameroonians in exile confess they lack even in their wealthiest host countries. Out-of-Africa is a frequent label today, even today. Our system has been copied and recopied and modified and remodified, often clumsily, by conquering imitators. When a powerful western ruler visited Merita during his administration, his wife brought back out-of-Africa our common expression 'It takes a village to raise a child', but you will see, if you live far abroad, that admiring/envying Westerners have not yet figured how to copy that village system which throughout Merita has raised healthy children who do not develop the disfunctions those who quote our child-rearing system hope to learn (of course without crediting us).

The future Southern Cameroon will be wise to stop imitating our imitators, that is, those systems that conquered our systems . Instead, Southern Cameroons should re-group and focus on upgrading, improving, modernising our own system. Only then can we show other systems what we too have been offering long before they copied it. It is self disrespect to copy a foreign model when that model is itself an inferior copy of your very own original. Inferior? Because it is failing as we write in these areas: crime (and spreading it to us), despair (children abandoning their parents in nursing homes, which some call house death row), in basic despair (as defining oneself by one's material possessions leaves most with an empty feeling as they age), in child-abandonment (into day care centers because of social insecurity), in generation gaps (as the natural processes of maturing and aging baffle citizens), in loneliness (the condition of being physically among people but not feeling a connection to them in any lasting way), in medicine (where improvisers pose as experts in front of diseases they do not know how to cure), in resource distribution (where capitalism counts itself a success at over 3 per cent unemployed humans!!), in suicides among soldiers (who discover too late why they are being put in harm's way), and in more other areas that every human needs to accept his or her life as a meaningful experience.

The counter consideration is to ponder why the traditional African state succumbed to Arab and European expansionism. They must have had a weakness or many weaknesses that rendered them susceptible. We should not therefore dismiss other models, but must put everything on the table in order to come up with something that sustains our values, yet does not collapse so easily under aggression.

That is why the notion of upgrading is present in every system. A total switch always exposes the switcher. Capitalism can be humanized: that would be ugpgrading it. Our Kemetic/Meritan system can be trained in self-defense: that would be upgrading it, by balancing concern for the spiritual wellbeing of the invidual and the physical security of that individual's Southern Cameroons. Merita was not conquered by any beautiful thing its invaders brought but by that invader's power and cruelty, a cruelty recorded as beyond our understanding, then or today. The processes of those conquests (first European, then Arab, and then European again) are on record as violent. Where, for example, is Carthage (now Tunisia)? An excellent example of genocide. In their records, the Romans called it Carthaginia, and when they conquered it, they spared not even the domesticated animals! Children, women, boys, girls, babies, adults. That was the cost of defeat. They slaughtered every Meritan there and wrote with pride about in their histories. Tales of these horrors to which our several ancestors succumbed are audible throughout Merita even today.

Defence

MaMary — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 06:02:07 CST

It is not just a matter of our guns facing enemy guns. It is primarily a matter of freeing our minds from the colonized state. When that happens, the rest follows naturally.

Chat Room (live)

MaMary — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 02:20:17 CST

[Month] [Year]

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
			1

January 2007

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
	1 New Year's Day	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15 Martin Luther King Jr. Day	16	17	18	19 Washington's Birthday	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31

February 2007

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14 Valentine's Day	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28

March 2007

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17 St. Patrick's Day
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

April 2007

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

May 2007

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28 Memorial Day	29	30	31

June 2007

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30

July 2007

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
1	2	3	4 Independence Day	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30	31

August 2007

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31

September 2007

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
						1
2	3 Labor Day	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30

October 2007

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8 Columbus Day	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31

November 2007

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12 Vetern's Day	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22 Thanksgiving Day	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30

December 2007

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25 Christmas Day	26	27	28	29
30	31

What We Must Eliminate

MaMary — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 18:45:37 CST

Sadly, we have mostly come to accept the boorish behavior of the Camerounese Occupation Forces as normal. Often, it takes the eyes of a visitor to describe the situation and to to replicate the disgust and hatred for the occupier felt by Southern Cameroonians. Many Southern Cameroonians have chosen exile than to continuously endure these indignities in their own country.

This is an extract from an American resident of Mbengwi, Southern Cameroons:

Kelsey and I were in a car on Friday when we were stopped at a gendarme checkpoint. During the 20 kilometers from Bamenda to Mbengwi, there are about 5 checkpoints. At any one of these checkpoints, a gendarme may ask you for your ID (then refuse to return it until you pay him). He may be anywhere between moderately and extremely intoxicated. Despite the fact that the Northwest is an Anglophone province, he may speak not a lick of English. And the semi-automatic that he has slung over his arm may be loaded. Such was the case on Friday, when a gendarme felt it necessary to ask the seven passengers of our car for papers. He was demanding this in French. After a day of being yelled at, grabbed at, and hissed at by men on the streets of Bamenda who think that’s the way to woo a white woman, Kelsey and I didn’t really feel like speaking French. Not that we don’t want to or that we can’t, but we shouldn’t have to. We’re in an Anglophone region. Gendarmes should have to be able to linguistically accommodate the population that they’re serving, not the other way around. I know that things in the developing world are rarely right or fair, but it is just ridiculous that a 20-year-old Francophone kid will put on a gendarme uniform, drink 10 litres of beer, grab his rifle, and then think that he has the right to bully a 70-year-old woman because she speaks only Pidgin English. (Yes, I am getting increasingly livid as I write this.) Anyway, Kelsey and I were sharing the front seat of the Toyota Corolla on Friday, I by the door and she on the stick shift. The gendarme moseyed up and opened the door next to me, demanding ID cards in French. “Don’t say anything in French,” Kelsey told me. When he leaned in and said it again, Kelsey just said, “I don’t understand French.” At this point the gendarme went off, semi-automatic six inches from my face, yelling, “I am not here to play with you! Do you understand? I am not here to play!” And as easily as that, you find yourself with a problem: Do you do what’s right and stand up to the man who’s about to yell the same thing at the old pa in the backseat, knowing that you have more leverage because of your skin color? Or do you take notice of and respect the fact that there happens to be a clip in the gun that he has in his hand? Nothing else happened that day, of course. He asked for the cards in English and we gave them. He gave an old man in the backseat a hard time because he didn’t have his ID on him, and then we continued on our way. For the next ten minutes, everybody in the car ranted about the nerve of the gendarme and how he did not have “a good fashion.”

The hierarchy of power within Cameroonian society is infuriating to me, as a woman. Most men here treat women simply as property. This is perhaps most frustrating because so many of the women here buy into that. And it’s particularly maddening when men here treat me like I should respond with the attitude that I am something to be had, like I should be so lucky that they would deign to talk to me. I had a gendarme try to follow me into the latrine of a restaurant one time. He held his hand out to keep me from closing the door between us and asked, “I cannot come in here with you?” He seemed taken aback when I responded, “No. Get away from me.” He thought that since he’s a big man in a uniform, naturally I would be nothing less than honored to have anonymous sex with him in the bathroom. When I came out, he was still waiting for me. He gave me his business card, “You will telephone me, no?” No. I still have his card. Would it be wrong of me to post a picture of it on here? I might get a semi-automatic in the face for releasing his name.

Like so many of the problems that I have here in Cameroon, there’s no real solution. Women here will not be burning their bras before I leave. Nor will big men give the “good” seat near the car window to a young mother with a sick child. There are some things that I just have to accept while I’m here, or they’d drive me crazy. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it. And it doesn’t mean I ever have to speak French just to placate an irate drunk man who doesn’t understand Pidgin. Note to the Cameroonian government: give your gendarmes language training. It’s only right. And fair.

LINDSAY's BLOG
It is instructive that Lindsay is more outraged than many Southern Cameroonians who are resigned to their lot as colonial subjects.

Glossary:
Gendarme: Paramilitary occupation police. Always armed, brutal, rude, corrupt, and almost invariably intoxicated. Refuse to speak English in the Southern Cameroons.

Road Infrastructure

MaMary — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 17:17:16 CST

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

Transportation

MaMary — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 17:16:04 CST

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

Resource Audit

MaMary — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 21:19:53 CST

In this section, we shall try to understand the extent of Southern Cameroons resources. We invite experts to outline what we have in natural and human resources and the advantages that we have as a result of our geography and location.

The Role of a House of Chiefs

MaMary — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 11:57:40 CST

The Southern Cameroons (West Cameroon) had a functional "House of Chiefs" until la Republique du Cameroun illegally absorbed the Southern Cameroons in 1971. La Republique du Cameroun, weaned under the French colonial/republican model, cannot conceive a role for traditional rulers except as direct agents to ease state control of the population. And the result, after three decades of this policy? Severe erosion of classical African values and removal of our kings from participation in post-colonial, regional government. Predictably, instead of increasing state control, replacing it has producedstate terror and chaos, especially in societies which had the strongest traditions. The House of Chiefs seems to be a British colonial dilution of their House of Lords. We must add that in the later days of West Cameroon, serious questions were being raised about the need of a house of chiefs.

In this piece, the collaborative writers are to address the notion of a House of Chiefs. Some of the suggested discussions:

Pros for a house of Chiefs

The monarchs (kings and queens) of Southern Cameroons are descendants of the very monarchs for whom we all fought against hungry invaders. This fact raises new questions, the kind that voters and presidential candidates never ask anywhere in Africa. If the soldiers who fought had defeated our enemies, would our soldiers have committed coups agains our monarchs? or reduced them to ordinary (as Cameroun did)? or to subordinate representatives in parliament--an imitation of the enemy's system of government?

Objections to including Classical Rulers are equally true of the wielders of power after independence. As is being discussed currently, they too have squandered the opportunity that trick independence gave us and returned us to the control of the original colonisers: Europe. And put us back in debt to Europe whom we feed oil, coffee, gold, diamonds, uranium, strontium, aluminium, and muscle--our muscle for their work.

So whether we revive the House of Classical Rulers or revive elected rulers, we are reviving one system or the other. And neither is perfect, we are not only poised to revive but also to improve whichever we revive. It is not an either/or proposition, though. Elected officials and the traditional rulers should have different, defined roles. Hopefully we shall be working for a democracy, and not a society with rulers in the strict old sense.

Evolution is the natural direction for any system that survives. Our root problem is that conquest and colonisation arrested, stopped, froze the natural evolution from within that was our lot in Africa.

If we liberate Southern Cameroons and once again squander an opportunity to regain our senses (by regaining our own systems), we shall simply be pushing harder work onto our children, in the same way that Foncha/Muna dumped this independence burden on us. Not a proud heritage to leave any children, let alone our very own children.

I would prefer that we revive and improve our own system rather revive and improve the foreign system that has been used by both the foreigner and the current puppet of the foreigner to expropriate us and to bring us to this nightmare that is visible all over Africa. We should not assume that our system was perfect. We cannot go back to the future. Rather, we salvage what is good and go into the future.

It is in all likelihood true that there was no house of traditional rulers in ancient times. The various kingdoms sometimes lived in harmony with each other. At other times, they warred on each other, and even became agents in the transAtlantic slave trade. Even today some of them are rife with practices that are abusive to women and the rights of of individuals.We must therefore establish a healthy balance between respect for these institutions and criticisms of their problems.

Please, note that in our neighbour, Nigeria among the Yoruba, the term Chief has no gender designation

Cons against reestablishment of the House of Chiefs:

That the institution of the traditional ruler has been damaged beyond repair by la republique, that we may seek more republican solutions but more honest than what we have encountered in la republique. Some of the practices of the current chiefs are out of date and include traditions that are abusive of women's rights. There is also a well founded view that our African monarchs have tended to serve themselves rather than their people. With noted exceptions such as Kuve Likenye of Gbea, they caved in to the colonial onslaught and participated as beneficiaries of the transatlantic slave trade. The picture on the right, from National Geographic, is of

"Kingdom Elenwa, traditional ruler of the Egi people, of the Delta Region of Nigeria relaxes with his grandson after the annual yam festival in Akabuka. The oil firm Total paid for the furniture."

National Geographic emphasized this fact, because the local people that they interviewed complained that the oil companies cut deals with individual chiefs without consulting with them about their needs. We may revere our traditional rulers, but most be mindful about idealizing them.

Should it be called "House of Chiefs" or is there a more appropriate name

House of Monarchs will be more accurate: some members may be queens, although we are yet to see an actual example of a reigning queen.

Duties and responsibilities of a HOC
In a democratic order, the term "ruler" is anathema. There is an absolutist ring to the word "ruler" and so when we use it, we must have that caveat. An absolute traditional ruler of the ilk of the ruler of Rey Bouba in la Republique, who enjoys the power of life and death over his subjects and owns slaves should be repugnant to all Southern Cameroonians. La Republique has been chipping away at the traditional institutions with some success. Indigent traditional rulers with too many wives, even more children and a population too poor to maintain their highnesses in dignity, are easy targets for la republique, who keeps stripping away at the dignity of the institution, with a few colonial francs.

Southern Cameroons could provide a way of restoring the dignity of the office, and restoring their relevance through the House of Chiefs or House of Monarchs. That could be done by giving the house of chiefs circumscribed responsibilities that could have a positive impact on the nation.

There is a truism in American politics, that only Nixon could establish relations between America and China. The reason is that he was a man of the right, the Republican party, which was most vociferously and vehemently anticommunist. A more moderate figure would lack the credibility to pull that off.

The House of Monarchs should have the responsibility to enable harmony between our diverse ethnic groups and ethnic interests. That is what they should be paid to do, to cure tribalism while maintaining and developing our traditions. There is a distinct difference between traditional rulers of today and when we were children in the Southern Cameroons. Almost all of them are well educated in the Western sense. This has its advantages and disadvantages.

Could a house of monarchs become part of the solution for the problem of the ethnic divide? It would be interesting to get some opinions on this - not simple yes or no answers, but in the form of a thorough discussion.

The House of classical Rulers is the solution to the ethnic distraction LRC has left us. They cannot bring guns to the Palavar House. Therefore, they must talk, which is already better. I feel guilty of an arrogance here: I sound like some engineer planning what my rulers shall and shall not do. Still, until I withdraw, the issue facing the homeland and its continent is aggravated by talkers who don't listen to each other, Meritans who don't respect the insights of other Meritans, who don't read their brothers' and sisters' books. Chinweizu's situation report about an ongoing genocide programme against us is a typical example. Typical because readers respond in superficially. Typical in the self-censorship diagnosed as proof of comfortable servility, niggerliness. Ostrichism. To resume: our central crises is one of identity which places us to choose/recognise our identity as Meritans/Africans rather as de-Africanised persons or niggers at the service of our enemies. This problem shows up in how we face independence of Southern Cameroons. Some of us imagine our very enemies as ready pretty soon to help us to solve our problem with them! Truth is, we shall do it ourselves, or anyone else will do it for them, and the independent territory will be ruled by usurpers. And the thousands who shall rise to drive out the current occupier shall find themselves ruled by an equally dictatorial, authoritarian group which will be impossible to dislodge precisely because we put them there legitimately. Everyone I talk to concedes this feature of the current movements/groups towards independence.

Our love for democracy is exposed in the Chinweizu essay and in other insights on the internet as a sign of surrendering initiative, of copy-catting from the enemy's libraries or armory. Plato defined democracy as mob rule or mobocracy. Democracy is the third level to which a healthy republic eventually degenerates--unless stringent measures anticipate and prevent the decadence. In his famous blueprint for a healthy western society, The Republic, he lists in order from best to worst, the Republic (characterised by justice: trained rulers rule), timocracy (wealth qualifies one to rule), democracy (popularity but nothing else qualifies one to rule), and tyranny (dictatorship: loss of accountability from one's rulers). Current civic lessons for seekers of US naturalization teach it this way: QUESTION--What is our system of government? ANSWER--A republic.

This raises some important questions. Foremost of these is how a patriachichal, monarchical tradition (our traditional rulers) fits into a republic. The answer is that they must be subordinate to the republic (the rule of law), but in a way that does turn them into mere peons and does not deprive out traditions of dignity. Rulership has to be taken away from persons and subordinated to law that protects and guides ALL Southern Cameroonians.

Founders of the US system took immense care to NOT create a democracy in the United States, our best asylum during these pre-independence years. This does not suffice to recommend copying the American republican system (a matter of the ideals in its constitution). They had to improvise since they were rebelling against the status quo that followed them from Old Europe right into New Europe.

Plato's contempt for democracy is a product of his times, when he and only a handful of others were learned. The great masses of the people were slaves or plebes and ignorant, because there was no system of mandatory public education. It made sense then, to confine power to a ruling aristocracy, bred to rule. By increasing the quality of human beings in a population through education and the development of personal independence and critical thought, democracy can become a superior form of government and not mere mob rule. The American example is more correctly a democratic republic, because the will of the people is tempered by law, which upholds the sovereign rights of individuals and the constituent states and minorities, thereby regulating such mob tendencies as there are. Otherwise, it is a republic of aristocrats who confer power on themselves by birth or learning and then denigrate the worth of the others. One thing that history since Plato's time has taught us is that even philosopher kings are burdened by the human failings of greed and lust for power, and must be checked. Africans have these failings in equal measure to other human beings, and must be checked.

Copying and then improving foreign systems will always imply a discomfort with our own historical identities throughout Merita and in the Southern Cameroons. The upgrading we should be seeking should of our own system. It should be about borrowing specific elements (a very few) to add to a bulk of native, Classical Meritan features with which we were able to preserve this planet for thousands and thousands of years before the Europeans stepped onto the scene to create the present record against which the bulk of humanity is struggling. Information, scholarship, historical research to retrieve our true history, the one suppressed by colonisation and disinformation--these are some of the urgent tasks that cannot wait for independence. These are things we need to accomplish in our thinking before we become, like other improvisers, mere contributors to chaos. The health of our identity lies in recovery, reparation, retrieval of our history--what we contributed to the ancient world, and then we can trace and expose the derivatives that others falsely present today as originals. [To be developed further]

There is no shame in copying though, when something is worth copying. Some have suggested that much of the American system was copied from the native Americans. It would be interesting to provide some references about that. Nobody is complaining about using computers and the internet to bring us together easily or of using cars and jet planes to make it easier to meet physically. Chinweizu appears to be a touch too strident and paranoid. The philosophy for running a country ought to be more centered, calm and confident and not voiced in so much dread.

Is there reason to question the ability of the traditional rulers to deliver on a mission of bringing fairness and harmony to the ethnic life of the Southern Cameroons? They should be rewarded handsomely for delivering on such harmony.

The notion of First Class and Second Class chiefs. Does it hold water in the 21st century?

Should people of great merit be in a HOC other than traditional rulers?

Should Chiefs/Monarchs participate in partisan politics?

Some think it is good idea, from observing members of the House of Lords in the UK, who belong to political parties. But, we are not the UK. The British Lords have no actual hereditary power on the people, and lack the means or influence to sway the regular citizen one way or the other. In la republique, our traditional rulers are made indigent, and then influenced to support the CPDM, the Cameroun ruling party. This has a disruptive effect on community relations, because the chief or monarch loses his function as peacemaker and uniter.

Economy

MaMary — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 17:56:40 CST

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

Template & Model Constitutions

MaMary — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 06:29:20 CST

We reserve the right to copy and to innovate, as long as we are mindful of what we want. The following is a link to all or most of the world's constitutions:
Constitutions of the World
As we consider this matter, we ought to visit what other nations have thought and done.

The AIDS Crisis

MaMary — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 23:10:17 CST

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

Futures of The Southern Cameroons - Recently Updated Pages

Objectives

Mathematics

Rebuilding

Communications

Readings

Case History: Resolving the NW-SW Divide

Coastal Fields Accuse Northwest CBC Of Marginalisation

petition

Social/ Society

Governance

Constitution & The Law

Defence

Chat Room (live)

[Month] [Year]

1

January 2007

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

February 2007

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

March 2007

1

2