Dibussi Tande: Scribbles from the Den

[Just Published] The Story of a Burma Boy in Britain’s Forgotten African Army

Barnaby Philips. (September 4, 2014). Another Man’s War: The Story of a Burma Boy in Britain’s Forgotten African Army. U.K., Oneworld, 336 pages. Available on Amazon UK (sept.) and Amazon.com (Oct).

About the Book
In December 1941 the Japanese invaded Burma. For the British, the longest land campaign of the Second World War had begun. 100,000 African soldiers were taken from Britain’s colonies to fight the Japanese in the Burmese jungles. They performed heroically in one of the most brutal theatres of war, yet their contribution has been largely ignored.

Isaac Fadoyebo was one of those ‘Burma Boys’. At the age of sixteen he ran away from his Nigerian village to join the British Army. Sent to Burma, he was attacked and left for dead in the jungle by the Japanese. Sheltered by courageous local rice farmers, Isaac spent nine months in hiding before his eventual rescue. He returned to Nigeria a hero, but his story was soon forgotten. Barnaby Phillips travelled to Nigeria and Burma in search of Isaac, the family who saved his life, and the legacy of an Empire. Another Man’s War is Isaac’s story.

Click here to go to the companion website for the book.

Click here to read a review of the book.

About the Author
Barnaby Phillips is a senior correspondent for Al Jazeera English, which he joined at the time of its launch in 2006. His documentary Burma Boy won the prestigious CINE Golden Eagle Award. Previously, he was for fifteen years a correspondent for the BBC, reporting primarily from Africa. Phillips grew up in Kenya and now lives in Islington, North London. This is his first book.

Boko Haram: Issa Tchiroma on the Right of Pursuit by Nigerian Forces on Cameroonian Territory

We have never delayed cooperation [with Nigeria]. We always agree to exchange information. We said that if the Nigeria government is ready to undertake a very important attack against Boko Haram, they have to inform us in order to protect our border in order to put troops and information services in order to prevent [Boko Haram] from entering our country.  This has always been the principle accepted by both countries.

“What we were reluctant to accept is to authorize a foreign army to penetrate our soil, because we already have what we need in order to face the situation,” said Tchiroma. “We are ready to engage a coordinated cooperation ... so together we deal with them. This has always been the position of our government.

Issa Tchiroma, Cameroon's Information Minister and Government spokesperson.

Click on player below to listen to complete interview.

 

Israel and the Jewish Paradox (A Personal Narrative)

In July 2006, I wrote an article in reaction to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Part of that article was published on my blog under the title Israel: The Right to (Self) Defend and not to (Collectively) Punish. However, I never got around to publishing the other part of the article which was a more personal perspective of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; it joined scores of other articles that I have never completed or published for one reason or the other.

As Israel’s 2014 ground offensive in Gaza continues unabated, I have gone back to my archives to unearth this long forgotten article which I am now sharing with my readers – unedited – exactly eight years after I wrote it. Needless to say my views remain unchanged by events of the last eight years and by the ongoing offensive in Gaza. Read on:

Bring Back Our Girls - A Poem for the Missing Nigerian Girls by Zimbabwean Poet Batsirai Chigama

As part of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, a Zimbabwean poet Batsirai Chigama added her voice to campaign with this poem dedicated to the missing girls of Chibok.

 
Us the gentle souls
whose wombs bear scars
not erased by time
Us whose hearts militants brutalize,
death they sow recklessly
our future they take liberties to destroy
time stands still
deeper each day that passes
the void erupts ...
to this gnawing, mad-like disbelief
silent clouds hover on the sad empty chair
like vultures in wait
as we watch the dinner grow cold
again, tonight.

 

The Global Voices community calls for the release of nine journalists arrested in Ethiopia.

Befeqadu Hailu, Abel Wabela, Atnaf Berahane, Mahlet Fantahun, Zelalem Kibret, and Natnael Feleke (all members of the Zone 9 blogging collective) and journalists Asmamaw Hailegeorgis, Tesfalem Waldyes and Edom Kassaye were arrested on April 25 and 26, 2014 in Addis Ababa. We are particularly saddened that four Global Voices translators — Hailu, Wabela, Kassaye and Kibret — are among those detained.

Since 2012, the Zone 9 blogging collective has worked to foster civic engagement and critical commentary about social and political issues in Ethiopia. Despite difficult conditions, they have exercised their right to free expression in the interest of promoting peaceful dialogue and debate.

Global Voices is a community bloggers, activists, writers, and translators from 137 countries. The universal human right to free expression is fundamental to our mission: to tell underreported stories from around the world and defend the rights of everyone to speak freely and without fear. We are outraged by this flagrant violation of our friends’ rights to free expression and deeply concerned for their safety. We cannot remain silent.

Blogging is not a crime. On May 3 — World Press Freedom Day — we as a community demand that Ethiopian authorities release our blogger colleagues and friends, and all other jailed journalists in Ethiopia.

See also: 4 Ways You Can Join the #FreeZone9Bloggers Campaign.

Florian Ngimbis: Cameroonian Bloggers ‘Are the Future, and We Are Writing That Future Now’

Interviewed by Dibussi Tande for Global Voices Online (View original interview in French here)

Global Voices Online: Although the Cameroonian blogosphere is not so well known, it is certainly a source of crucial information about Cameroon, especially during this current period of uncertainty that has seen a minister arrested and kidnappings on the rise. Dibussi Tande talked with Florian Ngimbis, president of the Cameroonian Bloggers Association (CBA) and winner of the Best Francophone Blog award during the 2012 Best of the Blogs Awards (the BOBs), to assess the state of the local blogosphere.

Florian Ngimbis receiving the Young Francophone Writer Award in 2008.

Daring to Invent the Future of Africa: Kah Walla at TEDxWarwick

 

Kah Walla is the first woman to ever run for the Presidency of Cameroon. At 47, this entrepreneur, activist and political leader is internationally recognized for her expertise in management and her strong stance on Africa, its women and its youth. In 2008, Kah was featured by the World Bank among 7 women entrepreneurs working to improve the business environment in Africa. In 2011, Newsweek & The Daily Beast as well as New African, respectively cited her as one of 150 women and one of the 100 Africans who shake the world.

Over 17 years, Kah Walla has developed STRATEGIES!, an African consulting firm which offers services in leadership and strategy respecting the highest international norms. For 22 years, Kah has developed solutions and policies with business, governments and civil society throughout Africa to foster sustainable economic growth and democratic governance.

The SDF Proposes Bill to Amend Cameroon's Nationality Code; Recognizes Dual Nationality

The opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF) has relaunched the acrimonious dual nationality debate in Cameroon by drafting a private members' bill to amend the country’s nationality code adopted in 1968.

While the SDF’s proposed amendments are fairly modest considering widespread calls for a vast overhaul the law, they nonetheless tackle the key issue of dual nationality head-on. In the unlikely event that the amendment becomes the law of the land, “Any Cameroonian citizen who acquires another nationality retains the Cameroonian nationality, except repudiation thereof.”

In the same vein, individuals who previously lost their Cameroonian nationality because the country does not recognize dual citizenship will regain their Cameroonian nationality under this law: "Restoration to [sic] Cameroonian nationality is granted de facto without condition of age or probation, but subject to necessity of proof that the applicant… has been deprived of the Cameroonian nationality as an effect of having willfully acquired or kept a foreign nationality."

Here is the full text of the proposed amendment along with its explanatory statement.

"Toase, Tara Toase" - A Musical Tribute to Lapiro de Mbanga

Hip Hop artist Z-Lex releases the first single in honor of Lapiro de Mbanga. Share, download, enjoy!

 

Lapiro de Mbanga - Death Most Foul

"Lapiro de Mbanga Ndinga Man e mandat don bolè today for Etaz! Erreur or no erreur die na ndos! Waka nayo Ndinga man. We go di follow ya 4 chapters di listen ya mutumbu until we own mandat bolè. We go di mimba you tara! All man must go one day ... RIP." Sarli Sardou Nana.

Originally published by Freemuse

Singer and musician Lapiro de Mbanga from Cameroon – the “unceremonial sheriff of the backyards” – has died, 56 years old.

Lapiro de Mbanga was a musical “freedom fighter” who articulated the daily injustices he witnessed in his songs – and was punished hard for his right to express them.


On 16 March 2014, Lapiro de Mbanga died of cancer in USA, the country which gave him asylum in 2012 at a time when he had to leave Cameroon under dramatic circumstances.

“Authorities in Cameroon continued to harass and threaten Lapiro even after he was released. He needed to get out of the country, and we needed to find an urgent solution,” told Freemuse Director Ole Reitov. With the help of Freedom Now, Lapiro was given refugee asylum in the United States.

“Lapiro said that Freemuse ‘saved his life’. He often told us that he ‘was ready to die’, but we never felt we were ready to loose him,” said Ole Reitov. “His songs will never die. He will always be remembered as ‘the people’s voice’ against corruption and power abuse.”

Charles Ateba Eyene - Death of a Maverick

Dibussi Tande

Charles Ateba Eyene, the political maverick who gave the leaders of the ruling CPDM party a constant migraine due to his nonconformist positions (he was a member of the party’s Central Committee) died on Friday at the young age of 42. Eyene had a fan base that spread across the entire political spectrum especially among the youths enamored by his anti-establishment writings and utterances. No wonder the most effusive tributes have come not from his colleagues within the CPDM but from opposition circles that would normally be indifferent to his passing.

A controversial figure whose alleged role in the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy activists in the University of Yaounde back in 1991-93 is still the subject of passionate debates today, Ateba Eyene came across as a young man in too much of a hurry to make his mark on the Cameroonian political scene, as if he had a premonition that he wasn’t going to be around for too long. For example he published over 20 books including Les paradoxes du "pays organisateur" : Élites productrices ou prédatrices : le cas de la province du sud-Cameroun à l'ère Biya (1982-2007), one of the most controversial books in recent memory [Click here for my 2009 review]

A Preliminary Appraisal of the Reunification Monument in Buea

Dibussi Tande

I was quite intrigued a couple of days ago, when writer George Ngwane described the new reunification monument in Buea, which I had not yet seen, as "ahistorical", that is, lacking historical perspective or context. It was therefore with great interest that I watched its unveiling  today by President Biya to see what this was all about.

Structurally, the monument is an imposing edifice which weighs 162 tons, is 17.2 meters in diameter and 10 meters high. It consists of 10 pillars around a 2-ton reunification logo made of glass fiber. Impressive indeed. Nonetheless, as soon as I saw the first images of the monument, I immediately understood what George Ngwane, a cultural and historical purist, meant by an ahistorical monument.

Guinness Mount Cameroon Race: Revisiting the Era of Foreign Domination

By Dibussi Tande

In March 1973, Guinness Cameroon S.A. organized the first ever Mount Cameroon race – a grueling 29 KM endurance race up and down an active volcano which takes athletes through a dense tropical rainforest to a frigid summit sometimes covered with snow, passing through a prairie-like Savannah region and a barren moon-like area covered with molten lava.

1989 - Britain's Jack Maitland crosses the finish line to become the new King of the Mountain

The first three editions of the Guinness Mount Cameroon Race were won by local Bakweri runners. By the time of the 4th edition in 1976, an aura of superstition had already enveloped the race. There was a widely-held belief, even among non-natives, that efas’a moto, the mountain god, would never allow a “stranger” to “conquer” the sacred lair of the Bakweri people who lived at the foot of the mountain. In fact, during the first three races, there were numerous stories of supernatural happenings up the fog-covered mountain which disoriented and frightened non-native runners into submission. This would all change in 1976.

Memory Lane (September 1961): Cameroon in Chaos

The Glasgow Herald - September 12, 1961

"It must be hoped that [the people of Southern Cameroons] will not regret their choice, for few states have ever embarked upon independent self-government in more inauspicious circumstances."

After more than 40 years of separation under British and French Trusteeship, the main parts of the old German colony of Kamerun will be reunited on October 1 as an independent African State. This was the vision that carried the people of the British-administered Southern Cameroons to the poll in February of this year to vote for union with the neighbouring (and already independent) French Cameroon Republic.

[Just Published] Jail Verse: Poems from Kondengui Prison by Enoh Meyomesse

Enoh Meyomesse (2014). Jail Verse: Poems from Kondengui Prison. UK, English PEN. Paperback, 108 Pages. Price, $11.90. Available on Lulu.com.

In late 2013, English PEN launched a crowd-sourced translation of the volume of poetry Cameroonian activist and poet Enoh Meyomesse has written in prison, in order to raise funds for him and his family, and greater awareness of his case. The full collection Jail Verse: Poems from Kondengui Prison is now available to print-on-demand. As with the ebook version, all proceeds will be used to support Enoh Meyomesse and PEN's ongoing work on behalf of writers at risk around the world.

"I am a supporter of the extremely valuable work that English PEN does to support writers at risk and keep them in the public eye. It’s both an inspiring and an important organisation and I was truly thrilled to have the opportunity to get involved in a small way with their work when they asked for translators of Enoh Meyomesse’s work. I didn’t know anything of his poetry but was moved by its extreme rawness, his words a savage cry into the void, tempered by a profound spiritual hope."

Natasha Lehrer, translator, Jail Verse: Poems from Kondengui Prison

Click here for my review of the the French version of Meyomesse's poetry collection.

Click here for Meyomesse's first person narrative of life at the Kondengui prison.

Details of Meyomesse's case are available on his Facebook page.

The Ndedi Eyango Dual Nationality Saga: When the Stranger is Cameroonian

A guest commentary by Boh Herbert

As a teenager, I loved and read up what we called "cowboy novels", for lack of a better name.

In one of the novels from The Saint series - (I believe it was) - the novelist describes the scene in a pub in the Wild West. It is one of a tired cowboy, riding across rolling hills into the sunset, seeking out a place to stay the night but also more importantly looking out for where to quench his thirst.

In this particular scene, the Saint rode into the town center, climbed down his horse, tethered it next to other horses outside a pub, walked inside, ordered a drink and settled to enjoy it. Hardly had he taken a sip of the drink than the bullies rallied, trying to intimidate him.

"Hey, stranger!" the self-appointed chief of the bullying cowboys called out.

The Saint looked around for the stranger and seeing no one to whom he could ascribe the appellation, he returned his attention to his drink.

New TV Campaign Celebrates the "Sapeurs" of Congo Brazaville

A new Guinness TV campaign launched today in the UK pays tribute to the "Sapeurs" (Society of Tastemakers and Elegant People) of the Congo whom Daniele Tamagni describes in Gentlemen of Bacongo as "elegant and immaculately dressed dandies" who "dress to impress, whilst also being ambassadors of etiquette, peace and music, as well as the essence of style."

Enjoy the colorful advert along with the five-minute documentary on this trailblazing sartorial subculture.

Watch the short documentary below for more information on the Sapeurs:

[Just Published] Incisive Journalism in Cameroon: The Best of "Cameroon Report" (1978-1986)

Sam-Nuvala Fonkem (Editor). December 2013. Incisive Journalism in Cameroon: The Best of "Cameroon Report" (1978-1986). Langaa, Bamenda, 276 pages. [Paperback]. Available on Amazon.com.


About the book:

Working for Cameroon state-owned Radio in the 1970s and '80s meant toeing the official line and learning not to sing out of tune. While the rather scanty private press that existed at the time was subject to prior censorship, a different kind of censorship—self-censorship—prevailed at the Radio where topics for commentaries were vetted by the Minister of Information or his delegate.

But for Anglophones working in a predominantly francophone environment, once topics were approved, the authorities could not be sure which direction commentaries were going to take as the journalists applied the tactics of 'bite and blow', sometimes giving full expression of their Anglo-Saxon spirit of debate and critical analysis as evidenced in this selection of commentaries from the Sunday morning commentary programme, "Cameroon Report" (now "Cameroon Calling") of the late 1970's up till 1986.

It is a showcase of the irrepressible seed of freedom of expression that Anglophone journalists were imbued with and demonstrated at a time when subjects related to coups d'état, human rights and governance were considered taboo. It was and shall remain the indelible input of the Anglophone character that has had a positive influence on Cameroon's media landscape.

Nelson Mandela: A Man of his Time, and Above his Time

Rolihlahla Nelson Mandela, born 18 July 1918; died 5 December 2013

Originally published in The Independent

Nelson Mandela was a man, always, of his time. Yet he was, paradoxically, one who in some ways stood apart from – and even above – that time. It was in this that his greatness lay.

Mr Mandela, who died on Sunday night aged 94, was a towering figure in the 20th century. He did not just ­bestride the continent of Africa but ­became a political colossus of the ­entire world stage.

Yet he was more even than that. The magnanimity he displayed, as the white rule of apartheid crumbled in his native South Africa in 1990, ­created a paradigm shift in what was possible - or even thinkable - in ­modern politics.

[Interactive Map] Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2013

The Corruption Perceptions Index 2013 serves as a reminder that the abuse of power, secret dealings and bribery continue to ravage societies around the world.

The Index scores 177 countries and territories on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). No country has a perfect score, and two-thirds of countries score below 50. This indicates a serious, worldwide corruption problem.

Hover on the map below to see how your country fares.

 

Click  here for additional information about the 2013 CPI.