WHY THE FOUMBAN CONFERENCE OF JULY 17TH TO JULY 21ST, 1961WAS A CHARADE OF A SOCIAL PACT ACCORDING TO JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU.Dear critical thinker, it is necessary that with an upcoming political storm on the horizon, calling elections, it is good for us to take a retreat into reason on the Foumban Conference. This conference, which is hardly referred to by Cameroon political elites, casts a big shadow in the shades of our political consciousness. The Foumban Conference cannot be ignored by any students of Cameroon’s philosophy of history without intellectual bad faith. This discourse aims to show that far from the much-adumbrated lies by the CPDM politicians, the Foumban Conference was a Charade or a chimaera of a Social Pact. A chimaera, according to the Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, is a creature with a partly human body and an animal body, breathing fire like a dragon from its mouth. The political monster or Madhouse called Cameroon, which emerged from this hastily held conference, reassembles a chimaera from the way it distorts history and kills its citizens over the years. Examined will be the Hastiness in discourse. The obscurantist nature of its terms and venue.The Fear Factor at the Conference. All these negative factors, according to Rousseau did undermined the status of the Foumban Social Pact. Why is our fundamental preference for Rousseau and not any other philosopher? The reason is that since it was Rousseau’s. Philosophy of the Social Contract that did shape the Republican Spirit of the French Revolution, and it was the French Political Philosophy that did shape the Foumban Conference, Rousseau’s spirit was at the Foumban. So dear Lover of wisdom, after having done a deep study of Rousseau and the Foumban Conference, I intend to present a synoptic critique of the Foumban Conference. I do so not intending to asperse or to vilify anybody or political party, but to inform the would-be voters and not voters of the enormity of their decisions in the tribunal of history. So put on your thinking caps, drop emotions and let us, in the spirit of the Bamoun double-headed totem of a serpent, meditate on this chimaera of a conference that tacitly or otherwise had shaped the political consciousness of Cameroon for the last 64 years. In respect of the spirit of controversy seeking understanding, criticism of my presentation is not only tolerated but encouraged because controversy is the perfume of philosophy. May the Socratic Muse lead us safely through this discourse.
WHY THE FOUMBAN CONFERENCE OF JULY 17TH TO JULY 21ST, 1961WAS A CHARADE
