Assessing the impact of 25 years of action to promote the discontinuation of female circumcision (FGM) in Francophone West Africa, should consider the contribution of the digital revolution, and how young people - girls and boys - have been associated. As victims, subjects, objects, actors, citizens, leaders and family and community stakeholders, FGM is for them a matter of concern. Youth, ICTs and FGM reveal gender issues that must be transversally integrated in public, private, citizen and personal development policies. This is the main message of this book, which presents the results of an innovative action research conducted by ENDA Tiers Monde, with the participation of girls and boys in Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal.
Each of the essays in this book is marked by a certain simplicity and clarity, a seriousness tinged with humour, masking a profundity that are unmistakably characteristic of Godfrey B. Tangwa alias Rodcod Gobata, one of the leading critical minds amongst Cameroonians. The essays are centred on the theme of democracy and meritocracy which the author believes to be the pre-conditions for genuine development in Africa. The immediate focus of these essays is Cameroon, a country remarkable for experimenting with French/English bilingualism and for having a political dictatorship which claims, wrongly or rightly, to have transformed itself into a democracy; but they are equally relevant to other countries in Africa and beyond. Each of the essays stands alone but they all are telling various aspects of the same story from various angles at various times using different modes of expression. Anyone who seeks a glimpse of understanding of the trouble with Africa and particularly with Cameroon, 10 years into the 21st century, would read this book with great profit.
Growing up almost simultaneously with the independent Cameroon nation, it takes Tipoung'he a long time together with challenging experiences to realise that he has all along been living in the shadow of his country. His epic story is representative of the many whose untold stories are caught in the schematic confusion of independence, in which self-knowledge must rally back finally from the lethargic ideals of the Nation and the Patriot in a redeeming instance of identity. The story mirrors the growth of the hero as he gets used to his ever shifting environment. The complexity of experience, the burden of knowledge, and how to express these, confront Tipoung'he with prescriptive arrogance, and the more he gets entangled in the authoritative and patriotic mesh, the more he becomes aware of the need to withdraw from their osmotic consciousness. The moment of withdrawal, which coincides with self-knowledge, is a personal and symbolic rebirth.
This unique work lifts the African question out of the dust. Against the backdrop of prison life, it explores the complex reality of being an African in today's world. Through the tight sensitivity and illuminating knowledge of its two principal characters, themselves victims of misplaced justice, greed and lust, it captures the pain and sadness that almost always comes in the wake of betrayal and egotism. The work's message is strong, and is delivered with equal strength by characters whose individual convictions also sway us to their side. We have here a new, powerful shaft of light on the landscape of recent African writing.
To the Budding Creative Writer: A Handbook is designed to help young writers come to grips with questions and problems relative to their creative efforts. The authors discuss a range of topics, providing guidelines on such issues as style, technique, point of view, characterization, poetic diction, figurative language, denotation and connotation, etc. They equally offer useful critical comments on some of the works of accomplished African writers whom they cite as models for beginning writers, fusing literary creativity with literary criticism. All along the co-authors stress the centrality, in imaginative writing, of both the 'what' and the 'how' or matter and manner, and how to combine both to good effect.
Married But Available ventures into a theme about which people say as much as they withhold. It explores intersections between sex, money and power, challenging orthodoxies, revealing complexities and providing insights into the politics and economics of relationships. During six months of fieldwork in Mimboland, Lilly Loveless, a Muzungulander doctoral student in Social Geography, researches how sex shapes and is shaped by power and consumerism in Africa. The bulk of her research takes place on the outskirts of the University of Mimbo, an institution where nothing is what it seems. Through her astounding harvest of encounters, interviews, conversations and observations, the reader gets a captivating glimpse into the frailty and resilience of human beings and society. Lilly Loveless comes out of it all well and truly baptized. And so does the reader!
This play is a must watch for anyone who is frustrated because of corruption and hopeless about its eradication.
If Each One Of Us Would Be God? Is a hypothesis that rejects the logic of religious institutions with their ability to limit the evolution of human consciousness, since the reality of our existence within religions is defined as fixed. If each one of us would be God, we would return into the deepness of our absolute consciousness and be in contact with our true selves. This challenging statement awakens the conscious deadening of a Supreme human being, as the search for our spiritual identity has nothing to do with the collective degree that is dictated by religious rules, which creates dependency. It is a process of individualism that makes each one of us responsible for our own being. We can be in contact with God from the moment we become conscious of All and Nothing. As God is primarily All and Nothing (love and hate, good and evil), to be able to connect with All (Love), we must transform ourselves into All and Nothing and deepen our understanding on inner brightness and darkness, which pushes us to carry valuable moral judgements on our own acts. If Each One of Us Would Be God? courageously opens up the debate over Biblical statements. However, in order to fully understand the Bible?s dialectic, the duty of each one of us remains the deepest search of the fundamental truth of oneself to accomplish our spirituality.
Titabet and the Takumbeng is a play that relives the unprecedented political upheaval of the 1992 first ever multiparty presidential elections in Cameroon. Following the controversial elections, Bamenda - the stronghold of the main opposition party, the Social Democratic Front (SDF) - was plunged into a tense and intense civil disobedience campaign. The violence which ensued pitted SDF militants who claimed their victory was stolen against regime loyalists. The government reacted by imposing a curfew on Bamenda. The army that was dispatched to keep the peace committed ferocious kidnapping, rape, theft and torture, driving women, children and men into the arms of terror. Titabet the protagonist emerges as the leader of the oppressed. He and the sacred women's cult of Takumbeng were the only hope for the people. The sacred cleansing cult and Titabet's courageous resistance apparently brought an end to what would have been too devastating a tale to narrate. Kehbuma Langmia teaches courses in Mass Communications, Broadcast Journalism and Media Studies at Bowie State University. With previous degrees in fine arts, television and film, he earned his PhD in Mass Communication and Media Studies from Howard University. He also has an MA degree in theatre arts from the University of Yaound?, Cameroon. He is also a graduate from the Television Academy in Munich, Germany. Dr. Langmia writes, produces and directs independent productions, and serves as executive producer for students' television projects at Bowie State University.
This collection consists of 49 insightful essays by leading Cameroonian blogger Dibussi Tande, which originally appeared on his award-winning blog Scribbles from the Den. These essays tackle some of the most pressing and complex issues facing Cameroon today such as the stalled democratization process, the perennial Anglophone problem, the crisis of higher education, the absence of the rule of law, the lack of leadership renewal, a stifled collective memory, and a continued inability to harness technology for purposes of national development, among others. Scribbles from the Den goes beyond the news headlines to dispassionately analyze and unravel the complexities of Cameroonian politics and society.
In 1875 the Rozvi Kingdom, now in present day Zimbabwe, is indistinctly besieged from within by the convergence of a missionary, Rev. Holbrook, a militant British bourgeoisie aspiring for knighthood, Sir Crowler, and an immorally amorous war emissary allegedly from King Cetshwayo of the feared Zulu Kingdom. The eZului ambassador uncompromisingly makes painstaking demands. While Rev. Holbrook is earnest in his endeavours, Sir Crowler is adamant the natives are enemies of both God and Britain meant for annihilation. The elders cannot consult the oracles; all diviners having fled before the arrival of the foreigners. An enigmatic and malicious hermit comes to the fore in the calamitous confusion that ensues. But nobody can tell with certainty if the hermit is messianic or anarchical.
A collection of six thought-provoking stories, four of which were award-winning-stories at the 1990 literary contest of the national Association of Cameroonian Poets and Writers (APEC). The stories are set in different localities in Africa and Cameroon in particular. The author in a lucid manner explores the theme of women lib- the African way in the lead story. Ebenye, the protagonist, representing the sharp-witted African woman cannot understand why she should cook food without tasting of it. So she decides to take the bold step of eating a piece of the python that she has been ordered to cook for the men of her community. The other stories tackle themes of corruption, poverty, alcoholism, endurance, love and more.
Pidgin English is the chief medium of communication for the great majority of Cameroonians. It sustains a world view, culture and way of life. Pidgin embodies concepts that would at best be partially expressed in formal English. A critical understanding of Pidgin English requires not only a thorough grasp of the socio-cultural matrix from which the words and expressions originate but also an immersion in an Afro-centric worldview. Majunga Tok: Poems in Pidgin English is the poet's attempt at capturing these speech patterns of ordinary Cameroonians in written form. Pidgin English, also called broken English, is a lingua franca spoken not only in Cameroon but also in many West African countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Liberia amonst others. This poetry anthology is inspired by the poet's desire to salvage a language that has been subjected to multiple forms of denigration because it is oral. In Cameroon, for instance, Pidgin English has been the target of myriad attacks from self-styled linguistic purists who claim that Pidgin is a bastardized variant of Standard English and, therefore, should not be allowed to thrive. The controversy and denigration directed at Amos Tutuola and his Pidgin English creative genius are vivid examples. This condescending attitude of speakers of Standard English stems from the fact that Pidgin is often associated with illiteracy.
This collection of verse, which has mostly short poems, some of which are two-liners, is an outcome of several years of keen observation of the very nature of man. The observation brought this writer to the conclusion that man is dominated by fear and in his effort to conquer it, he resorts to unbridled aggression. Such aggression has been very instrumental in much of the success that humanity has been able to achieve, so far. But at the same time, the same aggression in man's nature has been responsible for the pleasure he takes in the ruthless destruction of his own kind, the environment in which he cushions himself, plants and animals.
This book richly documents the battles fought by the Anglophone community in Cameroon to safeguard the General Certificate of Education (GCE), a symbol of their cherished colonial heritage from Britain, from attempts by agents of the Ministry of National Education to subvert it. These battles opposed a mobilised and determined Anglophone civil society against numerous machinations by successive Francophone-dominated governments to destroy their much prided educational system in the name of 'national integration'. When Southern Cameroonians re-united with La République du Cameroun in 1961, they claimed that they were bringing into the union 'a fine education system' from which their Francophone compatriots could borrow. Instead, they found themselves battling for decades to save their way of life. Central to their concerns and survival as a community is an urgent need for cultural recognition and representation, of which an educational system free of corruption and trivialisation through politicisation is a key component.
If Minna has a successful career, a loving husband, wonderful children - all well-deserved - is it compulsory that she must also toil for a reckless sister who has diametrically opposed priorities? Her biased mother thinks so. What if the sister dumps her child on Minna's veranda and vamooses and in trying to find the sister to give back her child, there appear some strange persons and a cult intended on grabbing the child? A decision has to be made and made fast. How could Minna ever envisage that in trying to help her careless sister and baby while taking care of her own family she would end up antagonising everyone in spite of her desperate battle to spread love to all? Just where are her priorities? How prepared is she for the unexpected conclusion to her simmering travails? Hell definitely breaks lose in this emotionally charged family saga in which Emmanuel Achu carves a world where such opposites as love and hate, sympathy and apathy, despair and hope, fear and courage, friendship and enmity reside as bedfellows. Disturbing the Peace is definitely a lyrical treat where you would be shocked to discover that being responsible can equate to being cursed.
In K'cracy, Trees in the Storm and Other Poems, Bill Ndi vociferously bemoans the fate of a world in which the good and the evil are intimate bedfellows; a world wherein miscreants proceed with nauseating impunity to trample on innocence. The poet, a widely traveled scholar in Africa, Europe, and the Americas, currently resides in Australia where he is hailed as an Ambassador of the Peace. Informed by his experience as a child of the world - being at home away from home and thinking of home, Bill Ndi serves the reader with a delicious platter of poetic maze which to him is synonymous to the political maze he has known around the world.
No Love Lost is a tale of troubled times in which the storyteller strives to return to wholesomeness a society whose values have jumped the rail. Set in the 'No Man's Land' of Ongola, the novel unravels the corruption and influence-peddling endemic in this African country. Framed around the travails of an unemployed university graduate, the story is the gripping depiction of one man's vendetta against a society at odds with itself. Among others, the novel explores the themes of identity crisis, political gerrymandering, individual and collective greed, love and marriage, and class exploitation to weave an enduring tapestry of great human interest. Written against the backdrop of nascent neo-colonialism No Love Lost combines the traditional and the modern; the private and the public to demonstrate that the quest for truth and justice behooves all and sundry. The author infuses the narrative with oral traditions to capture the reader's attention in a compelling style. This is a refreshing work by a writer whose heart throbs for his people and their plight.
This book explores the latent and sometimes overt undercurrents that have shaped the judicial history of Cameroon since the United Nations Trusteeship period. It is an insightful account by a critical observer privileged to serve as Director of Public Prosecutions and a judge in a post-independence context characterized by dual and often conflictual legal systems inspired by French and English colonialism. Justice Nyo'Wakai demonstrates how the conflict of judicial concepts, procedures and usages have led to the Francophone judicial system trying to impose itself on the Anglophone judicial system in Cameroon. Often reduced to toothless bulldogs by new constitutional dispensations informed largely by the French colonial legacy and Francophone realities, Anglophones have bemoaned the independence of the Judiciary identified with their Anglo-Saxon heritage. In the face of such domination and the highhandedness of the Executive, only mature cool headedness and the ability to bend over backwards on the part of Anglophone legal practitioners have contained the explosive situation and allowed for a gradual evolution of the Judicial System in Cameroon.
No Turning Back relives the tumultuous beginnings of Africa's democratization experiment in the early 1990s. The main theme of the collection is an investment in hope and in the resilience of Africans. The poems are loud and clear in their castigation of dictatorship and its miseries. They celebrate the mass resolve and thirst for democracy by Africans for whom there is 'No turning back!' 'A lucid and truly memorable collection of poems. Dibussi forces us to turn back and look at the pivotal volcanic moments in Cameroon's history between 1990- 1993... As a student activist and budding journalist during this historic period, Dibussi captures cadences of this struggle eloquently.' Joyce Ashuntantang, Ph.D., Department of English, University of Connecticut, Greater Hartford, USA. 'This collection is an important document chronicling, through verse, the events of an era in a given space with unmitigated passion.' Kangsen Wakai, poet, Houston, Texas, USA '. a subtle yet unapologetic critique of Cameroon's chequered history of predatory governance. The poems provide succor to a people besieged first by the unrealised dreams of a political (mis)marriage and then a false promissory note on which their democratic development is written.' George Ngwane, Chair, National Book Development Council - Cameroon
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