The Cameroons: We need political goodwill to accept the different histories that brought us together.
If one side tries to assimilate the other like the fish swallowed Jonah, it will cause the nation political indigestion, as is the one caused by the present crisis
MY FIRST NATIONAL DAY CELEBRATIONS.
20th May 1976 will remain in my memory not only for its food and fanfare but for the march pass. Our teachers drilled us, stern and taciturn, to march for the United Republic of Cameroon. No nonsense was tolerated. Clean uniforms with uniform hairstyles, with rehearsals. One song that made me a patriotic Cameroonian was. That ” I saw AHIDJO riding in his car. He was riding in his car. He was riding, singing a song in the name of United Cameroon.” AHIDJO was a password to unity. Something strange suddenly happened at the grandstand in the Nkambe Presbyterian school field on 20th May 1976. A madman called Idrissu ran stark naked in public view, clothed and only in his Adam’s suit. Idrissu, a seasonal madman who comes with the first rains and with the humming of the crowd, went straight for the SDO. Idrissu then removed a dead cat from a dirty bag and gave it to the SDO as his National Day Present before the Police could intervene. Thinking today in the hindsight of this melodrama, I understand the African folk sagacity that no occasion is worth its value without the presence of a madman. So why are Cameroonians mad about unity but not mad about the means to preserve our unity? WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE DREAMS OF OUR FOREFATHERS ABOUT OUR UNITY? There is a philosophical distinction between Unity and Uniformity. While conformity does not tolerate differences. Unity is a celebration of our differences. The fact is that we can only unite what is different. Unless we recognize and tolerate our differences, unity in Cameroon will remain like the unity between Jonah and the fish, with one person’s identity being swallowed by the other. We do not need the melodrama of a madman running with a dead cat to rethink our unity. We need political goodwill to accept the different histories that brought us together. If one side tries to assimilate the other like the fish swallowed Jonah, it will cause the nation political indigestion, as is the one caused by the present crisis. Either the political madhouse called Cameroon is deconstructed to accommodate Southern Cameroonian grievances, or the assimilating forces should be ready to vomit the assimilated on the different shores of history. It is not too late to make amends. There is nothing bad with Cameroon that can’t be corrected with what is good with Cameroon. The elders say that the tongue and the teeth are always together, although sometimes one bites the other
Bawe Louis Tarawo
