Paper read at the graveside of Albert Womah Mukong, Revolutionary Icon and Nationalist
By BATE BESONG
No other Cameroonian has made incessant but genuine calls for our society to be measured in terms of how it solves the problems of the masses than Albert Womah Mukong.
His tools were bold innovation, experimentation, and originality. His horizon was not what the political class in Cameroon do, but what civilised Mankind does.
Disciplined and strong willed, Albert believed that the sins against the polity must be sorted out before the Cameroonian nation can become a truly democratic society. He was a man who possessed such virtues as boldness, justice, endurance, and benevolence; one who was ready to sacrifice his personal privileges, money and wealth for others.
He loved his fellow mortals even more than himself. (Human freedom is not conditioned on any ideological problem). In the quest of a productive system that could solve the material problems of his society, he believed that democratic arrangements may be slower, but they will take us to our destination faster than any dictatorial arrangements (All totalitarian contraptions have to go whether right wing or left wing)
Either in the international best seller Prisoner without A Crime or the widely celebrated My Stewardship in the Cameroonian Struggle, myths of rebellion are enacted to confront the betrayal of aspirations, pervasive squandering of human and material resources and wide spread political corruption.
Like his mentor, the indomitable Dr. Tai Solarin of May flower College Ikenne, Nigeria, Albert, understood why the written word is the avowed enemy of our mimic messiahs or tyrants: it is the harbinger of knowledge, and the latter banishes ignorance and fear.
The antagonist forces who are the power wielders are therefore presented in his books, negatively. The heartless BabaToura Ahmadou Ahidjo and his illustrious new deal successor for instance are portrayed, as suffering from moral epilepsy, while their Southern Cameroonian quislings are painted as determined hypocritical stooges.
When a people know the facts, when they are aware of their rights and privileges, a totalitarian and invading regime is on its way to crumble.
Albert’s work therefore lucidly critiques the absence of organic and structured leadership in an environment over taken my lootocracy and new colonialism.
What drove him, it seems, came from the soul. It was likely not material wealth, power or human affiliations.
He was vocal and militant about Cameroonian problems and he refused to bow or accept Cameroon as it was, until his death.
Obviously, because of nearly four decades of totalitarian rule, the political class talks of human freedom today as if it is such a remote, unattainable goal; a Nirvana or Uranus Cameroonians can only dream of.
It is not just the incumbent alone and his oligarchs, but many other members of the penumbra of power. Without a doubt, there are many people in today’s frontline opposition who are interested in covering the tracks of democracy.
Albert used his enormous talents to fight and secure blessings for all.
His ideological beliefs or political persuasions were ditto regionalism, and sans conservatism. He strove towards a humanitarian socialism, based under the canopy of political freedom. He was essentially a man of peace, in the Ghandian sense, fighting, a regimented and authoritarian regime.
We can, with justification, borrow and adapt the words of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the famous Russian writer, Nobel Laureate, and himself, “prisoner without a crime” to reiterate a pertinent quality in Albert’s itinerary on earth:
We have to condemn publicly the very idea that some people have the right to repress others. In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. (THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO)
Here lies the mortal remains of a man drawn to the trade by genuine altruism.
On behalf of the new generations; of those who someday will celebrate a Cameroonian nation that has still not been founded. I stand to pay high tribute to a revolutionary icon, a nationalist, patriot and visionary.
As we thank God for the life he lived and the contributions he made, let me remind you that not every burial service is a time to mourn. Human beings turn to repeat behaviours which lead to positive re-enforcement.
I believe that, if the Cameroonian political leaders could acquire some of Albert’s strong points, we will be the better for it.
CONGRATULATIONS ALBERT WOMAH MUKONG!!, CONGRATULATIONS TO A WARRIOR, SO ACCOMPLISHED AND GREAT!!!.
Congratulations Dr. BB on the operation of this web page that allows people who share similar values of respect for mankind, distaste for opression of the fellow humans and concientisation of the fellow Africans and dream of liberation of Anglophone Cameroon in the days ahead.
What do we really learn from history. If Nelson Mandela today is a hero that Africans can set to emulate, he is a rarity that would be charcterised by some as a kind of Messiah that may only come again after the second coming of the christ.
The Anglophone with all the cries and songs chanted by its commonly inteligent sons and daughters has always failed to have an identity be it cultural, social, political and even academic. The cry of the oppressed has always been heard by the Almighty but the unfortunate truth about the supreme power is tha many of the actors in the machinery of human denigration and manipulation that extends from the far west of the United states to the far east including the neocolonialist and imperialist support one another either by will or pressure to keep evil growing because judgement day does not come on Earth and confession that may lead to heaven may come even at the last second before death. You did rightly point out that 'Todays leaders are spoilt children of Yesterdays colonialism'. It does not simply end at being sploit but by adapting to te changig times to meet the demands of the Masters seems to be a wonderful achievemnt to these evil men. Can humanity really be save from situation or is it not simply a rhetoric commonly echoed by many but finally sinking to a mysterious grave when flirting with local Masters begin. Many have raised voices in the past but few remain alive. For it is apparent that the problems of our Nation as a whole and that of Anglophones continues to grow worse but at this time either some voices that I may characterise as those of the past have actually taken kindly the counsel of years as pointed by Max Ehrmann and surrendered the things of youth or the Masters have made them submasters and the people have been abandoned as usual. Shall we ever be able to stand up against this shallow minded perception of life and reflect on the future in order to build a society that has a bargaining power? The absence of bargaining power is triggered by the Grand Masters and it is the cause of the backwardness of Africa where you can put delicious food on your table and enjoy it with red wine or even matango while flies jump in and out the mouth of babies in Darfur. Even if the masses do not understand the machinations of the evil masters who lead the evil societies of Rose Croix, Masonry, Prieurie de Sion and you name them, where are their voices that once existed.
At this point it may be necessary to demand the help of true fighters including Albert Mukong even in their graves to either remind the almighty of our dilema or give us the extraterrestral support that the evil masters always sought in blood painted shrines.
Before a Cameroonian Rwanda is a predictive style. The time for action is now. The people need a voice. This voice can no longer come from even the oppositon that had been trusted in the early days as even the hope within this trust was rather the betreyal of the entire opposition in the last election.
Is there a way forward? My fellow christians will say there is hope but I think it is now clear that hope no longer enough consoloation. The confusion that the current system wants to plunge us to is just what many of the evil doers are waiting for because during this confusion, it is lot more easier to sigh cheaper leaes for oil and mineral exploration and exploitation.
This African has much on his mind
Let the voice of the people be heard.
Posted by: The African | October 19, 2004 at 05:40 AM