By Bate Besong
A Review of George Ngwane’s The Mungo Bridge, Cosmos Educational Publishers, Limbe. (Cameroon Life Vol. 1, No. 8 March 1991 p. 38)
"The whole society is judged on the practices of the ruling class. And because the practices of our rulers have always been dark, we become the dark continent, because these practices have always been shameless and backward, we become the shameless and backward societies. Because they are stupid and cowardly, they make us out to be stupid and cowardly."
Festus Iyayi, Heroes
Now that the iguana-hearing one party monolithic beast is being shaken by its last spasms, indeed, dear reader, now shaking very much like a quisling buffoon being torn apart by two revolutionary military wagons driven in opposite directions, we, dare to avert: Cameroonians must strip themselves of the mental sedimentation, of the emotional befogging of the psychological hangovers which were the Greek gifts of a “yes” or “oui” re-unification
(pace Dr. Julius Victor Ngoh, the beaconic chronicler of the sad contours of the fractured genesis of our brotherhood); intelligent Cameroonians must strip themselves of the psychological handicaps of a "brotherhood" which held them together in the tight meshes of the commissaire, the escadron, the militaire, in virtual thraldom.
Sad to relate: the philistinism, the mediocre quality of their diagnosis and recommended panaceas, who wouldn't have trembled at the scallywag apologias for the subtle decimation of our Anglo-Saxon core especially, whenever their "great" party foed down on Ambas Bay.
And, as a reflection of the character of the times was it not a cruel irony that the phrase "national unity" became a cynical euphemism for Mephistophelean black re-colonization a la camerounaise? In The Mungo Bridge, George Ngwane has shown that it is this knowledge which watered the goose pimples of Anglophone Cameroonian's fears, our collective apprehensions.
Ngwane, in true Fanonesque garb, has inventoried and defined their roles, namely, breaking down the enemy system is breaking with the whole policy of secrecy and negotiation on questions of unification, of lancing the national boil, of breaking with the Machiavellian or the De Gaulle / Lugardian system of divide-and-rule, of breaking with the whole process of procrastination established by the old Anglophone Cameroonian "leaders".
Nor must we delude ourselves. In The Mungo Bridge, Ngwane penetrates the cloak of official secrecy: breaking down this anti-people system lies in its being asphyxiated; in liquidating the old mystifications once and for all. For, a retrograde and ferocious oligarchy opposes the legitimate aspirations of the people. Thus, the people must defend foot-by-foot what is theirs.
True, Ngwane has shown in The Mungo Bridge that we all may be accomplices to this fragmentation of the national psyche but we were not responsible for it. Those who were responsible for this Pyrrhic triumph in "brotherhood" were those who sold us like Eyumojock men-sized yams at a bazaar.
In his fine essays, Ngwane, traces or identifies the root cause of our collective amnesia and present decay, and rediscovers the genesis of that malady that has now flabbergasted La Republique du Cameroun: a cynical and vicious nepotism, mediocrity, the subtle Biafranization of a section of the country, a blinkered concept of National Integration, the siphoning of the national treasury into the private chateaux by our homegrown dinosaurs, and the truncated premise on which Bilingualism was prologued and essayed in the New Deal La Republique du Cameroun.
Consider his chapter on National Consciousness:
• Am I an incarnation of bribery and corruption?
• Have I squandered my country's wealth by acquiring what my grand children will enjoy?
• Do I employ because of tribal affinity and not merit?
(From The Mungo Bridge (pp. 49-50)
In The Mungo Bridge, Author George Ngwane initiates a veritable dialogue with the reader about the suppurated state of La Republique du Cameroun. Well-written and well-published. Good.
Finale: Writers like Ngwane give one pleasant surprises, namely a new Anglophone Cameroon society has come to birth. The old Anglophone Cameroon is DEAD
No one must fail to recognize this FACT!!!
Dear sir,
I visited your website and it's full of palmwine that fails to darken the mind and intellect. I am impressed beyond measure for what you are doing for Cameroon and African Literature. Keep on fighting with the pen. We met at Ashing during the Jubillee and you asked me to check your website. Sir, you could read my poems from poetry.com. Use my last name Ngouche and my first name Ndim As code to access my webpage.
Thanks and bye.
Posted by: Ndim Bernard Nguoche | November 24, 2004 at 08:53 AM
FELLOW CAMEROONIANS, THE DEAD OF DR.BATE BESONG IS A BIG BLOW TO OUR SOCIETY.
UNIVERSITY OF BUEA SCARING.
THE QUESTION IS WHO IS THE NEXT ?
MAY GOD ALMIGHTY SERVE OUR NATION CAMEROON.
BLESSINGS.
Posted by: MICHEAL UJUH BUKAH | March 17, 2007 at 08:32 AM