Bate Besong

Bate Besong And The Apparent Death Of Critical Thought At The University

By Canute Tangwa

Indeed, these are trying times. But what are the men and women in our university and intellectual circles doing to conscientize, energize, create awareness, proffer solutions and chart a course of action? The answer is not far-fetched.

It is in the very essence of a university, i.e. critical thought, that has been smashed to smithereens at the University. There is no longer a "revolutionary manière" at the academy. The deafening silence from a cross-section of eggheads in times as these is a cause for concern. A university is an integral part of its socio-economic and political environment.

By Canute Tangwa

Indeed, these are trying times. But what are the men and women in our university and intellectual circles doing to conscientize, energize, create awareness, proffer solutions and chart a course of action? The answer is not far-fetched.

It is in the very essence of a university, i.e. critical thought, that has been smashed to smithereens at the University. There is no longer a "revolutionary manière" at the academy. The deafening silence from a cross-section of eggheads in times as these is a cause for concern. A university is an integral part of its socio-economic and political environment.

The Anglophone-Francophone Marriage and Anglophone Dramatic Compositions in the Cameroon Republic

By Hilarious N. Ambe, Ph.D.

[Originally published in Towards a Transcultural Future: Literature and Human Rights in a ‘Post’-Colonial World. By Peter M. Marsden & Geoffrey V. Davis, eds. Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi, 2004, P.71-80]

Let me begin with the following anecdote, which throws some perspective on some of the issues discussed in this paper.

Quite recently, I was at a conference in Leipzig, and during one of the coffee breaks, I found myself in a conversation with a group of other participants. When I introduced myself as a Cameroonian, two of the persons in our little group exclaimed, almost at the same time: "Ha! Roger Milla! Football!" I simply nodded with a grin, somehow proud that almost a decade after Cameroon's ace football striker—Roger Milla's wonderful performance at the World Cup Football Finals in Italia 90, my country was still being remembered and praised.