Memory Lane: Change Waka and His Man Sawa Boy (Book Review)

Review by Chris Dunton, National University of Lesotho (African Book Publishing Record, Vol. XXVIII NO. 2, 2002 PP. 123 -124)

Change Waka and His Man Sawa Boy. Yaounde: Editions CLE, 2001. 65 pp. price not reported pap. ISBN 1723501434

Bate Besong is a Cameroonian poet and dramatist, an out-spoken critic of his country's regime and especially of its handling of the status of western ("anglophone") Cameroon (witness Besong's recent journalistic comments on the death of the veteran politician, S.T. Muna, one of the enablers of Cameroon's unification). Earlier plays, such as The Most Cruel Death of the Talkative Zombie and Requiem for the Last Kaiser, are scathing satires on the Cameroon polity and on its use of a formidable repressive apparatus. Change Waka continues in the same vein, but here the specific focus is on election rigging, the most significant stage prop for the play being a (fatuously) transparent ballot box.

Heading the state is His Imperial Omen, Mfawbahep Gknockor Gknockor - cynical, ruthless, but undeniably highly astute, backed up by his "twenty-five day renewable Kangaroo [Court] Judge". Railing against his regime stands the half-demented seer. Change Waka - a monstrously large part, this, as the character is rarely off-stage. In scabrous asides and lengthy set speeches (some of over 1000 words) Waka states his case, that "We are now in the evil day ... Darkness visible", and positions himself as public commentator: "To witness in the omenological sense means . . . not just to see but to be involved, to make public avowal of faith, in action as well as in words".

The state that Besong depicts is one of smouldering injustices and always imminent violence: "A polling officer was charged with murdering his returning officer and then burning the indelible ink over the dead man's shroud". Throughout the play dialogue and dramatic action are volcanic, at times near-epileptic: "Aberemetics? Mother cook dog... 0kru mbungha? Mark time...Ecoute, Homme SAWA! La prochaine fois, Ie feu". Language on a spree, then, but the spree is wild and desperate, played out by the most fearsome, baneful figures in carnival.

Change Waka is strongly recommended for Africanist collections and collections of contemporary drama.

Comments

[Bandon Fils Andre Marie]

Dear doctor,
this is at least the third time i visit your web site.
As i saw and read last time your intellectual activity,so many things simultanously came into my mind,i was so impressed that i did not know what to say,and i left.
In fact,to a great number of people it is no longer a secret,Dr,the heavy duty you have carriedout.You have admitted your status of a third-world writer,and paramount in your mind is a concern for the well-being ofyour people,especially the majority with which you identify yourself.You have spent all your life withweapons in your hands,fighting among other ills corruption and injustices.You were certainly born to be a man of the people.Go to war,dear hero,fight and die for the right and just cause and we support you;For sincerely your aspiration to bring change through ink and paper,which you do willingly,is praiseworthy.People like you are rare,and they need to be replaced when they are not.
As an aspiring writer,i wish to know the parameters of writing when one already knows his subject matter.That is,the different steps he has to take to produce agood work.The course you are teaching us is helpful,but i do need additional informations.
Go ahead,no matter persecuted you are.
Your student.

[Esemeliku Enow]

Hi,
I just wanted to say I have visited Dr. Bate Besong's website and I am most impressed.B.B has been my Lecturer and mentor for three years.He was my final-year project supervisor.He is like a father not only to me but to many other students.Any student who has been taught by B.B will always have something nice to say about him.He is one of those rear lecturers who teach with their hearts.
I am finally very happy to have been given this chance to express my views about Dr. Bate Besong.I am happy to have known him as a person and as a lecturer.Thank you.

[Takha Eyenni Nelson,745.85.69 Douala]

Most a time, when a man dies people say so many things concerning his greatness.Dr.,it is better we express our mind about who you are and how we see you now dat you are still living.Daily i visit your web site.I AM short of which words to use to express this great work of yours.How many Phd scholars in Cameroon do what you do?

From you works, you are a true crinic, fighting for the oppressed. Your site is a source of reference.
You deserve much respect for hard work.Accomplishment is easiest when we work the hardest.courage bro.

Put aside jealous detractors if they cannot learn from you and leave your prints in the sands of time as a scholar never to be forgotten.

[Katakata]

Takhna Eyenni,
You spoke like a prohpet.

many would regert today that they say good things about BB at a time he can hear them no more

[Neba-Fuh]

I can't stop checking out the works of Jacobs Bate Besong.
I can't forget the day he edited my first article which was later published in The Post.
I can't believe he won't read my recent works, before they are published.
He was rare GEM:

He talked when everybody was expected to be silent.

He ran when everybody was expected to walk.

He laughed even when it was noble not to open your mouth.

He crowed when others thought it wasn't dawn.

He thought when wisemen were sleeping.

He wept when others thought it was joke.

He published, never to perish.

Neba-Fuh