During revolutionary moments, the suffering, oppressed and struggling masses need extraordinary leaders who can get ahead of the people from the impasse and futile consensus and find new grounds to chart a unique course for the destiny of the nation, state or people.
That has been the case of living legends like Mandela to recent ones like Roosevelt, Che Guevara, Lenin, Simon Bolivar or ancient ones like Moses. Lands that have never been blessed by or that never recognized their great, wise, legendary or canonical leaders tend to get haunted for long or even forever and may find themselves trapped in futility forever like a lost man in a desert going around in circles because he lacks a compass. We failed in getting rid of this system during this phase of the struggle because our political leaders did not embrace a national ideal and failed to distinguish the interest of the struggle and their personal interest. They failed to emulate the positive legacies of our dead legends and heroes.
That is a case in Cameroon. Many of us grew up without relating to figures with progressive and embracing political ideologies who never considered it a price putting their lives at risk or sacrificing it for the country, and who never hesitated to put the interest of the struggle above their personal considerations. Many held that those dead legends and heroes never won the struggle and never got to power, so they were failures. However, we failed to understand that even figures like Mandela etc built on the legacies and ideals of their legendary predecessors in order to win the struggle.
The 1988 article entitled, “CAN OUR HISTORY BE REWRITTEN?” was based on the realization that Cameroon is a country “...with a mysterious way of transforming heroes into victims and villains into masters....”
Cameroonians who step out of the triangle called Cameroon often find that outsiders cherish our heroes when we have been taught to know them as villains. That is why the true villains who betrayed Cameroon since its pre-independence days and killed Cameroon’s heroes are being worshiped and are in power today. That is why we excuse those who tacitly or openly ensured the survival of these villains because we have come to accept the deceptive phrase that “IT IS NORMAL” to use the people to achieve wealth, power and glory. We even call it “Long Sense” when other peoples and nations with a sense of honor and integrity call it “BETRAYAL”.
During moments like this, we should dig into the recess of our history and consciously reassess it. Those beautiful Kamerunian minds who never betrayed and who got defeated by the villains should be honored, even posthumously. In addition, we should ponder their ideas and draw strength from them.
In moments of crisis and weakness, nations and people often draw inspiration from their heroes and legends (dead or alive). You find Americans holding onto the legacies of Lincoln, Jefferson and Roosevelt. Russians fall back to Peter the Great, Catherine the Great or Lenin etc. The British on Churchill, Disraeli etc.
In Cameroon today, I personally cannot identify any known political head operating in or with the system who has a positive legacy worth emulating. However, I can identify great figures in our history who professed selfless, unifying and advance ideals; and whose legacies have been denigrated by the evil system made up of members of the Biya regime, their backers and those who claim to be in the opposition and who feel threatened by the legacies of the legends.
I am glad to observe a gradual transformation in the thinking of our population, especially those who have been expressing their views online, even those who profess hostility to my opinions. People are beginning to dissociate themselves from myths and the badly infected mindset caused by the system. It is a gradual psychological process of healing that would end up with us dwelling on the ideals that would realize a New Cameroon, especially Cameroonian union-nationalism, otherwise called Kamerunism.
Janvier Tchouteu-Chando
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