The author of the attached article Ozodi Thomas Ozuji, PhD is my hero. I admire his prolific writing and his erodism. I have been following him by reading some of his key articles. I enjoy them as many relate to Africa where my heart and probably my soul lie. I browse this and I want my readers to read it too.
Dr. V. Viban Ngo.
This essay is my Christmas and New Year gift to Africans. I hope that it helps them stop living in fear and seeing themselves as rags and dressing and acting like rags, and change their self concepts and now see themselves as the children of God, the children of a wealthy father and work for wealth and get it. And, on this note, I end my self- assigned task of giving expensive information for free. Now, if you want it you come get it and pay for it; as they say, what we do not work and pay for we do not appreciate; if you value the type of information I give buy my books and or pay for consultation with me. Ozodi Thomas Osuji, PhD
UNDERSTANDING FEAR AND HOW TO REDUCE IT
Ozodi Thomas Osuji
ABSTRACT
This paper points out that human beings live in insecurity and experience fear and therefore are easily intimidated by those who do not mind exercising violence on them. The paper says that the individual must try to understand his fears and try to overcome it so that he is not easily terrorized by other persons and by governments.
INTRODUCTION
Human beings are those creatures with two basic emotions: love and fear. Love leads them to join one another, to unify. Love unifies people into corporate wholes. Fear, on the other hand, points out the harm that other people and (things) could do to them and urge them to run away from them. Fear leads to separation from other persons (those perceived as capable of harming one). Fear leads to separation while love leads to union.
Because of its critical role in human survival in separated ego state housed in body, fear response mechanism is built into our bodies and seems involuntary. We instinctively perceive what could harm us and our bodies respond with either flight or fight to it. In flight we run from the perceived source of danger; in fight we stop and fight it. The goal of both responses is for the individual to survive. If he perceives danger he sends information to his memory bank asking whether he has a history of fighting and overcoming similar dangers and if the answer is yes he stops and fights it but if not he flees from it. Either way the goal is for him to survive.
Fear response is mediated by complex biochemical responses in the body. Briefly, adrenalin, an excitatory neuro-chemical is released and it speeds up the body’s processes: the heart pounds faster releasing blood which is quickly carried to all parts of the body; sugar (carbohydrates, energy) is released and blood carries it to the muscles preparing them to fight or run; the lungs work faster inhaling more oxygen and blood carries it to all parts of the body and carries the heat and carbon dioxide generated by a fast working body away from the internal organs and exhales them (or gets rid of them through the skin). The nervous system works very fast sending and receiving information from the brain, information as to whether to stay and fight, or run from the perceived source of threat to the animal organism.
All said, fear response is a mechanism for the animal’s survival as a biological organism and all human beings respond with fear to threats to their biological integrity (and to their pride, vanity and ego).
Children born with deficiency of fear and pain response mechanism tend not to quickly perceive danger and continue doing what they are doing and easily get hurt and die from their injurious; they seldom live into adulthood.
Just as some children have slower fear response mechanism others have faster fear response mechanism. Having experienced some threats in their lives, as we all do, such children tend to over anticipate what could harm or kill them and avoid them. They tend to develop the various anxiety disorders and develop the personality disorders characterized by anxiety, fear and avoidance (such as avoidant, obsessive-compulsiv e and dependent personality disorders). I will not explicate the biochemistry of anxiety disorders but suffice it to say that the current hypothesis is that such persons’ bodies have less inhibitory neurotransmitters, such a GABA, and more excitatory neurotransmitters, such as neuropiniphrine.
Human beings must have some fear to take measures to survive on planet earth. If they did not have fear at all they would not seek to defend their bodies and egos and would be snuffed out by the myriad of things trying to do exactly that: destroy them. At this very moment millions of micro-organisms, germs, are trying make ones body their dinner and ones immune system is fighting and killing them; some persons apparently enjoy harming and or killing folk and if one did not defend ones self they would satisfy their sadistic inclinations by harming and or killing one.
As long as the individual wants to live in body and have a separated self he must have fear for fear defends separated state and the body that houses it.
If the individual has absolutely no fear in him he would die and get out of the abode of separated self, ego, and return to the realm of unified self (unified life, aka unified spirit). He would still have consciousness but not the separated consciousness that we have in bodies. (To assert that there is unified consciousness after our physical death is an unsubstantiated assumption; take it or leave it.)
To be on earth is to be in separated state which means having separated consciousness, a false consciousness, a dream, illusion and delusion; separated consciousness dies with the death of the body that made it seem real to us.
As long as the individual identifies with body he must fear harm to his body and ego self and be defensive and protect his body and ego. It is only when the individual no longer identify with his body and does not value body, his and others, that he is no longer prone to fear.
No separated self means no fears; there are no fears in unified state; unified state is love; there is no fear in love; fear is the absence of love; where there is fear there is no love; there is attack and hate in fear.
Your intention and action to harm the other produces fear in him and separation from you. If you desire to kill a cockroach and do something about it the cockroach would sense what is in your mind and run away from you; it is when you have the intention of harming it or killing it that it runs from you, separates from you to go protect itself; if you have no intention of harming the cockroach it would not run from you; it would happily coexist with you!
In North America, white folks had the intention and actively did something to enslave or even kill black folk and that made black folk feel fearful around them and separate from them. Because of white folks intention of harming or killing black folks, black folks live in tremendous fear.
Those living in fear use their intelligence only marginally; fear stifles intelligence; black folk’s alleged poor performance at schools and work can be explained by fear and racism.
Fear and racism stunts and warps black folks minds; fear makes them defensive most of the time; their tough guy behaviors is actually efforts to seem tough so as to send signals to white folks that they would not permit them to oppress them; this behavior wastes their mental energies. As they relax they would in fact do as well as other persons in all fields of human endeavor.
Alas, to relax their society must give them the signals that they are accepted and welcome in it; as long as they are given the message that they are unwelcome they will be defensive hence wasting their energies! They are in a Catch 22 situation, a no win situation; they are set up to fail in racist America, and fail and the society that sets them up to fail calls them deficient folk.
In fear folks withdraw from those they are afraid of. Fearful persons eat too much food; food is their solace in their depressed situation (fear leads to sadness and depression); they become fat and die from heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular diseases. Black folks are forced to live in fear hence indulge in eating junk food and become fat and die young.
Less fear leads to eating less food hence healthy body and longer living.
Fear affects learning; fear stifles creativity and productivity. Less fear leads to more productivity and creativity and good performance at learning situations.
If society reduces folks fears it would increase their learning speed and accelerate scientific knowledge.
WHY WE HAVE GOVERNMENTS
It is their awareness that they live precarious existence where many things could snuff out their lives that led people to form civil societies (at least that was how Thomas Hobbes saw it in his seminal book, Leviathan). Other people could kill one and one could kill other persons so we live in perpetual insecurity. Life in the state of the wild, in nature, was nasty, brutish and short.
To protect ourselves and reduce our insecurity we formed governments and gave them the power to make laws that punished those who harmed us. Governments were given the power of coercion: to arrest, try and jail, even kill those who threaten other persons’ lives.
Thus, it came to pass that governments have the power of life and death over people.
GOVERNMENTS AS TERRORISTS
Recognizing the enormous power given to them by the people, governments use that power to control the people. Like terrorists they occasionally punish some persons (arrest, try them in kangaroo courts and jail or even kill them) to instill fear of harm and death in the rest of the people, hoping that that would make the people obey the laws of the land, and accept the policies of the rulers. (Machiavelli, in the Prince, actually encouraged leaders to occasionally do this sort of thing so as to get the peoples loyalty; intimidation generates respect, the cynical Italian said.)
Governments are the greatest source of terrorism in human society; they intimidate the people and in so doing get them to do what otherwise they would not like to do.
Thus, everywhere people now live in fear of harm from natural forces and fear of their governments.
The fear of harm from natural objects and governments stifles the people’s emotional growth and makes them not learn and become creative and productive citizens.
If governments (and psychologists) could embark on helping people to understand the nature of fear and anxiety and do what reduces it they would increase the people’s learning capacity by quantum leaps; they would increase human productivity and creativity. The study of science, which tends to thrive where there is less fear in people, would zoom up.
Unfortunately, at present governments use fear to control people, to warp their minds and stunt their emotional growth.
The American government used fear and threat of harm and death to stunt the minds of black Americans. The so-called 15 points IQ difference between blacks and whites can be completely explained by the terror under which African-Americans live in racist America.
AMERICANS CONTROL THEIR PEOPLE THROUGH FEAR AND TERRORISM
The rulers of America not only control African-Americans but white folk through fear and terrorism. Americans are terrorized folk hence their annoying dependency on their leaders to tell them what to do (while claiming to be individualistic and independent they are very dependent).
Americans are too fearful to insist that their government do what it ought to do for them, what governments in other industrialized countries have done for their people, such as provide them with free education at all levels and provide them with publicly paid health care. Instead, they are passive and allow themselves to be used as mere tools, fodder, to fight wars for the elites of the political system.
America must be turned around; it must learn to liberate folks from the fear that holds them down instead of manipulating that fear and using it to control the people and in the process stunt their growth.
If America continues being a society that stifles folk’s growth and uses fear and terrorism to control the people it must necessarily fall and be discarded, as past civilizations, such as Rome and the Soviet Union, were discarded. The time for using primitive religions and political systems to control the people is over; human civilization now requires liberation of people from fear and control. If America’s government does not reduce its manipulation of fear to control the people obviously at some point some Americans would rebel and throw it out and another evil empire dies. On the other hand, if the American government transforms itself to serving people’s real needs and reducing their fear instead of exploiting it there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that it would live for many centuries to come. (If you point out that many other countries are more oppressive than the USA, use fear and intimidation to control their people, such as China, my response is that those are not at the cutting age of civilization; China, for all its economic progress, is a primitive country; would you like to live in China? America remains the best country in the world; we just have to make it better. This century is not going to be the Chinese century, as some think; even if the USA falls Asian countries will not replace her; look at Brazil for that role; Brazil has the same population mix as the USA: blacks and whites, not the homogenous and boring Asian countries.)
AFRICAN GOVERNMENTS CONTROL THEIR PEOPLE THROUGH TERRORISM
In Africa the people live in tremendous fear of what their governments could do to them. If they dared criticize the thugs that rule them the thugs’ goon squads visit them at night and they go missing (or wound up in jail and are tortured). The people live in total fear of what their so-called leaders could do to them.
Africans are a special case. For some reasons they so want to live and fear death that they are willing to tolerate social abuses. They accepted slavery. Arabs enslaved them and Europeans enslaved them. Each of these two terrorist groups (slave masters are terrorists) threatened to kill them if they did not go along as slaves’ and they, fearing harm and death, went along and became slaves.
What Africans did in the past they are still doing in the present, allowing fear of harm and death to deter them from seeking their civil liberties and freedom?
Their criminal leaders recognizing how cowardly they are easily intimidate them. The thugs randomly arrest or kill some of them and thus instill the fear of harm and death in the many and in so doing get the many to accept their criminal leadership (all they do is steal from the public treasury but do nothing to improve the peoples welfare or create jobs for the people).
Clearly, as long as Africans are afraid of harm and death they would continue to be oppressed and abused by their kleptocratic so-called leaders. The only way to stop the criminality that passes for governments in Africa is for a substantial portion of the people to look death in the face and accept it and fight and die for their freedom. As Thomas Paine said in his “Common Sense”, the tree of liberty is watered with patriots’ blood. There has never been a place where governments willingly and voluntarily gave the people liberty without their fighting for it.
Until Africans fight and die for their freedom I doubt that we can have clean governments in Africa. A people get the government they deserve. Cowards get the ruler ship of criminals; courageous persons get a government of the people by the people and for the people, a government that serves their needs rather than abuses them.
INDIVIDUALS MUST OVERCOME THE FEAR THAT MAKES THEM TOLERATE GOVERNMENTS’ ABUSE
So far I have talked about governments and society helping the individual to understand the nature of fear and what fear makes him do, seek survival by tolerating those who threaten to harm and or kill him, and work to get him to overcome his fears so that he no longer tolerates abuses. Alas, human beings are more likely to take advantage of other folks rather than help them. Human beings are not angels; they are egotists (which is what folks mean by Satan and devil).
If folk wait for their governments to help them overcome their fears they would probably wait forever before it happens; what is more likely to happen is governments exploiting their fears and using their tendency to fear to control them.
Therefore, the individual must study the nature of fear and how fear is manifested in him and then decide that since fear disposes him to tolerate others abuse so as to avoid their harming and or killing him that he would rather accept harm and death than give in to the threats of those who want to enslave, abuse and oppress him. The individual must look fear in the face and say: go to hell; I must do what serves my civil liberties rather than live under the slavery, abuse and oppression that fear gives those it claims to protect.
When an individual is ready to fight and if necessary die at any minute rather than tolerate abuse no one can enslave, oppress or abuse him. We are abused, oppressed, enslaved and socially marginalized because of our tendency to fear.
In the final analysis, we are not victims of fear and abusers because we can understand the psychology of fear and abusers and fight them rather than permit them to enslave us. Our civil liberties are in our hands.
FEAR DRIVEN ISSUES
In fear one takes measures to survive as a separated self housed in body and perhaps lives for a hundred years or so and dies. Upon death ones body decays and ones ego disappears since it is coterminous with ones body.
In love, on the other hand, one lives forever and ever in unified spirit.
Without fear, which can only be possible if human beings were not insecure, and did not perceive environmental factors trying to harm them, such as germs trying to eat their bodies and other people trying to destroy their bodies, human beings would live lovely lives.
If people did not live insecure lives and did not live in fear they would not need governments. The fact that human beings have governments means that they live insecure lives and have fear.
Shall we ever get to a point where people are fearless hence need no governments? The answer is that this is not possible while people live in body and separated state. As long as people live in bodies, that is, in separated states, in space and time, they will experience insecurity and fear and need governments to protect them. It is only when they return to the awareness of unified spirit that they would not live in insecurity and fear and not need governments to protect them from each other. It is fantasy, silly idealism to believe that while on earth, in space and time that human beings can be secure and have fearlessness and no government to protect them from their evil nature.
In body people are evil and will be evil and need protection from each other. To live in body people made a choice to not be spirit, to separate from unified spirit. Unified spirit is love and body is designed to be its opposite, hate, hence in body people must be evil and must live in insecurity and fear and the most that they can do is understand their fear and try to reduce it but not eliminate it; fear can only be eliminated when people return to living in non-material spirit state.
FEAR AND PARANOIA ARE LINKED
In fear one withdraws from the source of fear (often other persons and physical stimuli), avoids it. In isolation one feels weak and inadequate and tries to feel adequate by wishing for adequacy and power. One imagines ways that one could become adequate and powerful; so as to overcome what made one feel inadequate. Often one posits a powerful self that enables one overcome whatever makes one fearful. The posited powerful self, what Alfred Adler called the superior self, is an imaginary, fictional self. Often one takes ones mere imaginations as real hence the grandiosity of fearful and deluded persons.
Paranoia is fear based thinking; here the person is in intense fear and feels insecure; he wants to reduce his insecurity and fear and wants to predict what would happen to him in the future. If one could predict the future and take measures to adapt to it one would feel secure. Prediction of the future, unfortunately, is impossible so the fearful person speculates on what could happen to him and takes his hypotheses as true. His goal is to reduce his intense insecurity and feel secure. But security is impossible in this world so one has to live with insecurity.
FEAR, DRIVE FOR ACCEPTANCE AND SEX
In fear the individual desires other persons to accept him; he believes that if other persons accept him that he would be less insecure and fearful; thus, he pleases other persons hoping that they would accept him. In the area of sex he thinks that if a woman permits him to have sex with her that she accepts him and that that would reduce his insecurity (which is not true). In effect, he does not approach a woman for sex out of love for her but to get security from her acceptance of him; this is a chimera.
The fearful person is incapable of loving a woman or himself and other persons for in fear one cannot love (fear is the absence of love and love is the absence of fear, it is only in love when one has no fear that one can love one’s self and other persons).
IT SEEMS THAT BIOLOGY CAUSED FEAR AND ANXIETY
If one has a problematic body, say, has a body that is easily aroused one may feel fear. Consider: the ambient temperature goes up, say, you are in an overheated room or an electric bulb is shining right above your head and excites your brain cells and you feel uncomfortable and withdraw from it. You associate the cause of the withdrawal with noxious feeling and develop fear around it (avoidance of physical factors); if in the midst of other people and you feel anxious you associate people with anxiety and avoid them, too. Now you anticipate that such factors would make you fearful and you avoid them. That is to say that first is the noxious physical and or social experience and then fear follows. Fear then seems secondary to primary biological factors. This makes fear seem biologically determined rather than mentally determined.
Mind and body are the same, the lower mind anyway. Body affects mind and determines its responses. If the body dies mind dies. We are talking about the lower mind, the ego mind that adapts to the exigencies of the physical and social world. There is a higher mind, part of the spirit self that watches the dances of the lower ego mind.
When you feel fearful your muscles feel weak; when you feel loving your muscles feel strong and powerful
PARANOID THINKING
Paranoid thinking is thinking done under fear; paranoia is fear based thinking. It is also thinking done from the perspective of the false, grandiose self. When the individual identifies with the false, important and powerful self, a self that hides his feeling of inadequacy, he thinks in a deluded manner and is in the hold of fear. A girl boasts about how bright and intelligent she is; this is thinking from her false, grandiose self. By the same token deluded Igbos think from their prideful selves and from it boast about how they are superior to all people. Such thinking alienates other persons and makes them to hate and attack one; it has to be corrected by thinking from the real self.
PERSONALITY AS FALSE SELF
Persona means mask; personality therefore means a mask, a false self. All thinking done from the human personality is done from the masked self, from the false self. What people do from their egos and bodies are false, not real; these need to be corrected by thinking and doing from the real self.
BODY AS FALSE SELF
Body is projected out into a dream and consciousness sees it as who one is and sees other bodies as who they are and proceed to relate to them as such. One has to overlook folk’s egos and bodies and personalities and relate to them at the spirit level; spirit knows only love.
PARANOID SERIOUSNESS
To be serious is to see one’s self as the important false self one wants to become, a deluded self and try to be it and think and behave from it. When one identifies with the false, big self one cannot laugh or play for the important self does not laugh or play,
SPIRITUALITY NOT FORCE WILL UNIFY AND DEVELOP AFRICANS
Africa is going to be unified not through military force but through non-violent means, such as positing and teaching them a new metaphysics that emphasizes peace and love. Jesus Christ unified the Christian world through his metaphysics; Mohammed unified Muslims through his metaphysics; we will unify mankind through a new spirituality. Teachings on spirituality are more potent than political exercise of force. Real power lies in spirit and its methodology of love; love conquers the world.
FEAR IMPRISONS US
Fear protects the ego and body and makes them seem real to one. But in the process fear disconnects one from other persons and makes one live alone. Fear separates one from other persons.
FEAR IS NEGATIVELY FUNCTIONAL
Fear makes ego and body real so it is functional for one. One chose to have fear, ego and body to separate from other persons; fear is not what happens to one but what one chooses to experience because of what it does for one: give one a sense of separated self and specialness, all delusions.
One accepts fear and feels threatened and defends ones ego and body and separates from other persons. The anxious person chose fear to make his ego seem real.
By the same token the manic and schizophrenic chose their psychoses to make their egos seem real to them but their egos are not real and underneath their mental illness their real selves, joined to all selves, is still healthy. Because their egos and bodies give them a sense of having separated selves no external person can heal the psychotic; only the psychotic can voluntarily drop his identification with a false ego and body. The most that one can do is drop ones own ego and body and then model an egoless, bodiless living and its attendant peace and happiness and leave it to psychotics to copy or not. Ones primary function is to heal ones self and live in peace but not to heal other persons (ones ego urges one to heal other persons and ignore healing ones self; this is the ego of the unhealed healer; real healing of others lies in healing ones self and modeling a healed egoless, peaceful and loving existence for all to see and emulate) .
FEAR PROTECTS THE SEPARATED SELF CONCEPT
Fear based adaptation to the world serves the egos purpose. One is born as a separated self and uses fear to protect it. One develops a false self concept that says that one is separated from the whole and defends it with fear. The self concept, aka personality, is always fear based.
The self concept sees itself as powerful, feels proud, anger, fear, shame, and guilt and is delusional in the sense that it is belief in a self that is not true as true.
To be realistic is to accept the unified self and from it live fearlessly for one knows that it is eternal and immortal.
THE PURPOSE OF PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY
What is the point in studying psychology and its applied form, psychotherapy? It is to understand the human mind and behavior and the obstacles to living fully and remove those obstacles to living fully. Then if you understand these things live fully. In this case if you understand the nature of fear and how it blocks your living fully then reduce your fear and live fully.
FEAR LEADS TO LOW SELF ESTEEM
Fear makes one have low self esteem and respond with a false, big deluded self and avoid other people to protect the false big self.
Forgiveness destroys fear.
Fear proposes to defend your ego, to protect you but in fact what it gives you is living in hell, in prison.
MEDICAL DISORDERS INDUCE ANXIETY
Many medical diseases cause fear and anxiety. Here, anxiety disorder is not primary but secondary to underlying medical disorders that dispose the child to feel that his life is threatened. For example, my inherited Cytochrome c oxidase deficiency made me feel like my life was threatened and I felt fear and in the process developed anxiety secondary to it. My over sensitive body that reacts with excitation when exposed to heat and light energy makes me feel anxious and want to get away from heat and light and eventually from people.
DESIRE TO BE IN CHARGE AND FEAR
Ultimately, fear is rooted in the individual’s desire to be in control, to be in charge of his life. The individual cannot control all the exigencies of living; he is only a small part in a large universe where everything affects everything. He must accept that he is not in charge and accept God or a higher power as being in charge and live with that trust and accept whatever comes his way. In effect, to heal fear one must accept God (spirituality, not necessarily religion for religion is manmade rituals).
IDEALISM IS REALLY DEFEATISM
Idealism is given up when one accepts the nothingness of being, the nothingness of this world and of the ego and body. On earth we shall always be imperfect and cannot be perfect. Heaven and perfection lies only in spirit, not in body, not on earth.
FEAR LEADS TO DEPRESSION AND PARANOIA
Fear leads to depression and paranoia. Fear and depression go together for in fear the individual feels weak and responds with depression, which he then tries to deny and flee from by positing a false important self and pretending to be it hence paranoia; William Meisner made this point better than other persons.
CERTAIN VOCATIONS SUIT THE ANXIOUS PERSON
The fearful, anxious person has limited range of vocations: philosophy, psychology, psychiatry and the social sciences.
SCIENCE AND IDENTIFICATION WITH BODY
White men identify with the body, and like their bodies; they like sex. The result of this love of body is their science, the study of physical bodies and material objects. This people identify with body, matter, with nothingness.
Those who deny body and seek spirit tend not to be good at science not because they lack the intelligence to do science, but because body and matter (the physical world) does not make sense to them and does not satisfy the craving of their soul for spiritual matters.
NORMAL VERSUS NEUROTIC FEARS
Most people on earth have masked fears and only about ten percent of the population experience fear consciously, is anxious. This means that only one in ten persons will listen to any teachings on fear, for they need such teachings but the other ninety percent of the people are not consciously fearful and therefore do not need information on fear and anxiety disorders.
FEAR OF SOCIAL REJECTION
Some persons have inordinate fear of rejection by other persons. They feel that as they are that they are not good enough and that if other persons get to know them as they are that they would reject them. Fearing rejection by other persons they avoid other persons. They withdraw from other persons and in social isolation maintain some semblance of self esteem, a false self esteem that is not to be presented to other persons lest they reject it. These people are those society call shy persons. Psychiatry calls them persons with avoidant personality disorder. Whatever it is called the salient point is fear of social rejection (socio-phobia) and tendency to feel anxious around people for people are perceived as always judging and rejecting them. These people are afraid to apply for jobs or go to interviews lest they are rejected. If employed they tend to do their jobs well at the technical level but are afraid of telling other persons what to do lest they offend them and are rejected by them hence are unassertive and as a result do not get promoted to managerial level. Thus, despite having good technical skills and understanding how to do the job better than other persons they are seldom made supervisors, managers and leaders. In leadership situation they feel anxious and often panic and run from it for they are preoccupied with social rejection.
Now what is the self that fears social rejection? It is the false, ideal self; the false superior self that fears others seeing that it is not really superior, ideal and perfect and rejecting it. If one did not posit and identify with a false grandiose self one would not fear social rejection.
Since it is the false, big self that fears rejection what one should do is crave rejection. One should put ones self in situations where other persons reject one. One should say to folks: go ahead and reject me. If they reject one, one learns that social rejection does not harm one. The entire world of people, as Albert Ellis pointed out in his rational emotive therapy, could reject the false ideal self and it would not make a difference to ones survival.
One should determine what one wants to do with ones life and go do it and let other people reject ones false, big self if they want to.
Folks cannot reject ones real self. In fact, it is when the false ideal self is rejected that ones real self is affirmed.
Ones real self is the unified spirit self, the Christ self. This self is always holy, that is, unified with all selves and its creator, God, and no human being can reject it.
Rejection of the false ideal ego leads to giving up craving for the ideal, false self; therefore if you are egotistical please crave people’s rejection of it so that you learn that rejection would not kill you, that it would lead to your discovery of your right self.
White folks rejected black folks ideal egos and thought that they destroyed them by making them feel unimportant, but all they did was hasten black folks discovery of their real self, their spirit self and in validating that real self feel peaceful and happy.
FEAR EMMANATES FROM DESIRE TO HAVE AND PROTECT A SEPARATED SELF
Fear is a device for protecting the false big self; this protection of the false, ideal self is a means of avoiding awareness of ones real Christ self. So one must give up fear to know ones real Christ self. When the false, ideal self is let go one discovers that one has a real self, a unified self, aka Christ. The real self, the Christ self, is eternal, immortal and changeless.
Fear is a device for hiding the glorious son of God, the light of God in all of us, a light that were it allowed to shine saves one and all the world. The ego hides the Christ, a Christ that must be let out to save the world. When one let go of the ego, the false self and its grandiosity and allows the self that God created, the Christ, to shine through one, one becomes a light for the world, a lit lamp placed on a hill for the world to see. But this self is not the self one invented to replace the self that God created; this Christ self is not of ones making, it is the creation of God.
I am aware that I am employing religious and spiritual categories. I am also aware that those who employ spiritual categories are said to be non-scientific. Spiritualized persons who believe that their real selves are Christ are often said to be deluded by ego psychiatrists.
The ego calls Christ (God) deluded. Fear of being seen as grandiose and deluded disposes folks to desist from claiming their Christ self; they do not want folks to see them as crazy.
Jesus claimed to be the son of God, Christ, and said that he and God are one as all of us are (Gospel according to John Chapter 14), and for that claim he was accused of blasphemy and of being insane and eventually killed. Therefore, if one wants to reclaim ones Christ self one must be willing to be called crazy by the world.
It is actually the ego that is insane. The ego is denial of ones real spirit self and identification with a false separated self housed in body. The ego is a false self; belief in the false is delusion, insanity, so the ego is insane. But the insane ego calls the sane son of God insane to mask its insanity.
One must therefore be careful in listening to secular psychiatrists and psychologists calling religious persons deluded for they are the ones who are deluded. I used to see religious persons who claim to be the sons of God as insane but now I accept that there is some truth in their belief systems.
One should not call African persons who claim to be resurrecting their people’s religions deluded person, as I did in the past; these people are unto something useful.
FEAR SLOWS LEARNING
Fear stifles learning. In learning situations the fearful and anxious person feels that if he made mistakes that other people would laugh at him and to avoid making mistakes and being laughed at (so as to preserve his ideal, perfect self that does not make mistakes) he avoids learning situations.
Here, it is the false, big self that is at work. Wherever there is anxiety disorder there is a false, big ego. It is the false, big ego self that fears making mistakes and being laughed at.
To overcome fear and anxiety one must give up ones grandiose ego and replace it with ones real self which is the Christ self, the unified son of God, the Holy son of God who is one with God and all his brothers.
To learn effectively one must not identify with a false, big ego; one must embrace a humble self, the small self that knows that he is created by God and in that knowledge is very grand and holy.
DEPENDENCE ON GOD HEALS FEAR
One needs to depend on God to protect one rather than depend on other people to protect one. When one depends on God, not people, one feels peaceful and joyous (other people are fearful and insecure and cannot protect one hence one does not need to depend on them).
FEAR IS NOT LINKED TO THE PSYCHOSES
In extreme fear state, especially panic disorder and some of the major phobia, the individual appreciating the irrationality of his fear suspects that he is losing his mind. But he is not insane. Whereas some fearful persons develop some delusions, usually mild ones but not the bizarre ones found in psychoses.
In psychoses, such as mania and schizophrenia, there is always hallucination and bizarre delusions, whereas there are no hallucinations in anxiety, and if delusions exist in anxiety it is mild (all human beings, even the most normal ones have some mild delusions).
The manic person feels like he is the most important person in the world, is grandiose and deluded; he is excited and euphoric and does not make sense (a poor man who tells you that he is a millionaire is not making sense).
A schizophrenic does not make sense (such as a guy coming to you and asking you why you are fooling him around just because he saw you twice in a bus…this is schizophrenia, paranoid type). The point is that anxiety disorder is not psychoses.
CONCLUSION
This paper has explored fear in its many guises and suggested ways to cope with it. Some folks attempt to heal fear with medications, especially the anti anxiety medications, anxiolyptics, such as Valium, Librium, Xannax, Klonopin etc. These medications are habit forming and are difficult to withdraw from. Moreover, they do not cure anxiety but merely mask its symptoms.
I believe that the best way to cure fear is to understand it and approach it from some of the ways explored in this paper. Cognitive behavior therapy, as taught by Aaron Becks, also does help. I also believe that religion, especially spirituality, is called for in the effort to heal fear. Fear emanates from our identification with a false, separated ego self and our belief that we can be in charge of our lives. In fear one believes that one is in control of the exigencies of life and feels anxious from the recognition that one is in charge of nothing. Powerlessness makes one feel anxious. If one accepts a higher power to be in charge of ones life and allows it to know best what is good for one it does make one feel calm, peaceful and happy.
Religion is psychotherapy in that when folks pray they accept a higher power to be in charge of their lives hence reduce their swollen egoism and feel humble. It is in humility that mental health lies.
Ultimately fear emanates from belief that one has a false, big ego self. To heal fear one must reduce ones ego. If one does not want to feel any kind of fear at all one must give up the entire ego.
The purpose of psychotherapy is to shrink the ego, to reduce the ego. The ego self concept, the separated self, is not our true self and as long as we assume that it is our true self and defend it we must feel anxious and experience the other mental disorders. Therapy lets one understand the nature of the ego and relinquish it and from so doing feel peaceful and happy.
Initially one reduces the ego self concept, changes the self concept and makes it a loving and forgiving one but ultimately one must let the ego go so as to feel totally peaceful and happy.
One must change ones attitude to life and become appreciative and grateful to life. When you appreciate other persons since they are your extension you appreciate you; when you are grateful to other persons since they are your extension you are grateful to you; when you say thank you to other persons since they are your extension you thank you. But when you ignore others or hate them since they are your extension and are part of you, you hate and ignore you. What you give to other persons, good or bad, you literally give to you and receive.
I believe that Africans are held down by fear; their fear of harm and death makes them tolerate dictatorial governments instead of rise up and fight them and if needs be die in the process. Africans allowed fear to dispose them to tolerate slavery. I believe that they must overcome fear if they are to go anywhere. Is solving their fear all that they need to do to move forward? How about the neocolonial relationships they have with the West with the West insisting on exploiting their material resources and keeping them backward, keeping them a plantation economy? I know that there are many obstacles to Africa’s development but I choose to focus on one of those obstacles and leave the rest to other Africans to focus on and solve.
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
Adler, Alfred (1911) The Neurotic Constitution.
Adler, A. (1956). The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler. H. L. Ansbacher and R. R. Ansbacher (Eds.). New York: Harper Torchbooks.
Adler, A. (1964). Superiority and Social Interest: A Collection of Later Writings. H. L. Ansbacher and R. R. Ansbacher (Eds.). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Forth Edition. (2005) (Washington, DC. American psychiatric Press.)
Becks, Aaron (1975) Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders. Intl Universities Press.
Beck Aaron and, A.T., Rush, A.J., Shaw, B.F., Emery, G., (1979) Cognitive Therapy of Depression. The Guilford Press.
Ellis, Albert (2005) Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: A Therapist's Guide (2nd Edition), with Catharine MacLaren. Impact Publishers.
Hobbes, Thomas. (1665) Leviathan.
Horney, Karen. (1950) Neurosis and Human Growth. (New York: W.W. Norton.)
Kelly, George. (1955) The psychology of personal constructs. Vol. I, II. Norton, New York. (2nd printing: 1991, Routledge, London, New York.)
Lincolm, Abraham. Gettesburg Address defining American democracy as Government of the people by the people for the people.
Machiavelli, Nicollo. The Prince.
Marks, Isaac. (1978) Living with Fear: Understanding and Coping with Anxiety.
Marks, Isaac. (1988) Cure and Care of Neuroses.
Marks, Isaac. (1991) The Practice of Behavioral and Cognitive Psychotherapy.
Meisner, William. (1980) The Paranoid Process; (1982) Psychotherapy for the Paranoid Process. (New York: Aronson.)
Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty.
Paine, Thomas. Common Sense.
Schucman, Helen. (1976) A Course in Miracles. (Tiburon, California: Foundation for Inner Peace.)
Shapiro, David. (2009) Autonomy and the Rigid Character. (New York: Basic Books.)
Swanson, David. (1970) The Paranoid. (New York: Little, Brown.)
Ozodi Thomas Osuji, PhD
December 17, 2009
ozodiosuji@gmail. com
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
Tribute to Sonne Mbella Dipoko, a writer Extraordinaire from Tiko, Africa
Departure of Sonne Dipoko
My memory of Mr. Dipoko goes way back to 1985 when I was a PhD. student at LSE and was haring in Paris in search of raw data for my thesis. I was going to Centre George Pompidou with other Cameroonian Students of The Southern Cameroons extraction, (one is now a member of parliament in the Cameroon Republic, Hon. Joseph Banadzem) when we stumbled opon Mr. Dipoko. I was appalled at his dishevelled look, dread-logged hair and a bushy beard. He was cutting silhouettes of tourists for a few francs at a time. My first impression was what on earth had brought such a famous writer to such a low place and why he was doing what he was doing. As these vistas of thoughts were racing in my mind, another Cameroonian scholar commented that he would not yearn to be a writer if all it meant at the end was to cut silhouettes of tourists and other Parisians for stipends. My comment was that he might be doing that as a part time task just to take his memory away from his crucial chores of the day.
Not many a person were wearing dread-logs in those days as they were a novelty in the region called the Southern Cameroons he had referred to its predicaments in his comments published below by the Cameroon Post. His dishevelled appearance was repulsive to me but having known Rastafarians in London, UK, I was not as disturbed as my other students. However, I got hold of his books: Black and White in Love and his Few Nights and Days in Paris that shot him to fame form the Heinemann African Writers Series. I love his former book as it reminded me of Jaguar Nana by Cyprian Ekwensi which I considered the sexiest book ever written by an African. I also saw in that book some aspects of the House Boy written by Ferdinand Oyono, then a veteran Camerounian diplomat. My mind also raced to Dr. Franz Fanon`s book Black Skin, White Masks and the excitement some persons of colors had the moment they had affairs with whites. To many it is a divine experience and the curing of what they erroneously feel as their inherent inferiority vis a vis whites or what is called now Caucasians.
When I read this morning in the forums of his death I recalled a friend had told me that he had returned to Tiko, The Southern Cameroons, variously called the SW Region of Cameroon and was a mayor of that once prospering port city during in the days of the British Colonial Rule of The Southern Cameroons. It was literally abandoned the moment there was reunification of the Southern Cameroons State and the one year old Cameroon Republic. My first feeling was that Dipoko was to be radical as his appearance and perhaps bring along some positive changes for the good of the English-speaking regions, the NW and SW Regions, (or The Southern Cameroons). I was associating him with Bob Marley the musical artist who relentlessly fought in his way for the liberation of Africa. I might have been mistaken as I never read or heard of him there after. He might have been doing it silently as many do and hope that some day there could be changes for good.
Then today, I was shocked to read of his death. Whatever, he has immortalized himself through his publications. His contribution as a known literary giant in the then West Cameroon (The Southern Cameroons) and Africa at large cannot be underestimated. As I read the attachment by the Cameroon Post I was pondering if he ever published his works discussed or if they are still in manuscript formats. The Cameroon Republic, including The Southern Cameroons regions in Africa fall under those countries fall under those regions where Africans do not read. If you want to hide anything from them put it in the books. If you want to show it to them, take it to the watering holes, bars where alcoholic beverages are sold and everyone would know of it in a matter of seconds. What I have written here will not be read by them but mostly by Caucasians, East Indians and Chinese. If I am lying, how many have read the past articles lots of Europeans and others have read. By the time they, Africans will learn to read, it may be too late as other races will not continue to read and interpret for them. Dipolo, thanks for writing for us to read. Adieu Sir.
Dr. V. Viban Ngo.
Mbella Sonne Dipoko in His Own Words: The Luxury of Memory
Cameroon Life Magazine (May 1990)
So let them be scared of my look, of my beard, of my head of hair. They are just philistines who are afraid of originality. They wish to be caricatures of Europeans. When they are scared of a mere beard, what would these people do when war comes, when the horizon suddenly begins to sneeze smoke and spit flames? Who will save the nation? For only the courageous can defend the colors of a country.
I did two stints at the university. First, it was when I imagined I could become a lawyer. So for a couple of years I studied law and economics at Paris University. But I gave this up when I began to work on my first novel, A few nights and Days. I really could not reconcile the drudgery of law school studies with the flamboyance of compulsive creative information. And also, what news was coming out of Africa, spoke of the death of freedom, and I thought it would be spiritually stultifying to try to function as a lawyer in a totalitarian environment.
For you will agree with me that Ahmadou Ahidjo was not exactly friends with human rights. So why wish to work as a lawyer in a country where such a man was in command?
For the barrister is essentially an orator. And oratory is sweet when it is in defence of freedom and human dignity, both of which are impaired whenever freedom of expression is not allowed. That is why I gave up my law studies not wanting to become a learned mercenary.
In short, I turned my back university and on the wish to make it in the mediocre way of the sworting professional or bureaucrat-to-be.
The decision was easy. For I already had a profession – writing. So I returned to it full-time, having chosen freedom thanks to which I became for many years, what you might call a traveling lover, a dreamer searching for God between the women’s thighs – those days when I was at the height of my intimate powers. You had to see me! I was like an angel stuffing recoilless erections into just where they are most needed – into the fleshy folds of winter! But I did it with rosy summers too.
And each divine thrust was like stuffing your women with yet another trump card of desire! And, there was no AIDS stalking through the world just to scare sensible chaps off sex.
And then the Vision of my call [to found the Esimo ya Mboka faith] happened.
Such a mighty vision. Spain and Morocco led up to it – the starlit solitude and loneliness of my nights spent mostly in the open. That was after the American woman had returned to San Francisco because I wouldn’t marry her; because I wouldn’t marry a woman from the West.
And that Vision I had of the Marvelous Star really did change the whole of my life. And always I shall remember it as a kind of anointment – all that light of that Star pouring down on me.
…
But after I published my third book, Black and White in Love, I returned to university where I took a degree not in law, but in Anglo-American studies, majoring in English. Not that I ever intended to use it for obtaining a job. I had found for myself a profession – writing – and I meant to do it full-time. So the degree lies somewhere in one of my valises – a mere piece of paper less precious than a love letter, just one of the light souvenirs of those years I spent in the West.
On the Underdevelopment of Southern Cameroons
There hasn't been much development in this part of the country. For development means new industries and major public works projects. The scene is pretty much the same as it used to be some 32 years ago. In fact one can even say Tiko has regressed. For its wharf is gone, the shipping wharf which used to make Tiko such a bustling town, especially during the banana shipment days and nights. And it is a phantom aerodrome we now have. It had such brisk traffic in the past, a quick link with Nigeria and Lagos and the wider world beyond.
….
And one of the most popular records those days was Mama Rumba! Loud music on gramophone records could be heard all over Tiko Town. And only the sirens of Banana trains sounded louder, more shrill, as they were rushing to the wharf with their green cargo for loading into ships which, after they too had sounded their sirens, turned round and then, ploughing their way through the deep wide Tiko creek, set sail for Europe.
Those days long ago there was a kind of economic boom in Tiko, indeed in the whole of what used to be called Southern Cameroons. For, from being an accounts clerk I became a journalist. I traveled from South to North. So I know how comparatively prosperous used to be. Evidence of the prosperity I talk about was there, in the increasing number of bush radio sets which were being bought, their antennae strung to bamboo poles which made their aerial contraptions look like fishing rods.
They could have been just that, fishing rods, for we were fishing for news broadcasts from Lagos and overseas; and fishing too for music, especially Rumba and Cha-cha-cha from Lumumba’s Congo.
But A’Mon! Those were very exciting years in what used to be Southern Cameroons. Even the politics were exciting. For going into politics was like becoming a retailer. You were free to open your own shop. And if you felt like it and someone else had the same idea like you, you merged your shop with him… until someone came along and said that sort of thing just wasn’t good enough for the country that was trying to make unity the very foundation of its existence. The 99% man. The result, as we were to see, was one vast party, one platform for everybody; one production line of unifying slogans.
But while the old political free enterprise still obtained, did our politicians have a great time! For they were all promising us a paradise of fundamental rights.
Not that these rights were exactly lacking; for the British were running Southern Cameroons as of it were the most economically backward country and socially handicapped Shire of their own Island Kingdom. And so what political oppression there was was quite occult and not rash and rampant. The individual was quite free to indulge his ego or just his dreams in any amount of soap-box sense or nonsense.
Still our politicians insisted on promising us even more fundamental human rights as if new ones could still be invented. But all that was before the Alhadji from Garoua came along with his message of one country, one people, and one voice – his voice. And because he was an autocrat of the no-nonsense Islamic School, the noisy good intentions of our Southern Cameroons politicians sensibly fell silent for fear of what the straightjacket of El Hadj’s rule might do to them.
And Mecca said nothing. And Medina minded its business, which is cashing in on the tourist trade as the promises we had been made of fundamental human rights and of “life more abundant” slunk away like frightened dogs, tails down, snouts straight-jacketed, no longer able to bark because forced into silence by circumstances.
But to tell the truth, during all those years that I was abroad, I never joined any political organization that fought Ahmadou Ahidjo. I never in public criticized him. For, in my head, I was a soldier, a born member of the Cameroonian armed forces. And the armed forces, spiritualized, made incorruptible, patriotic, are the finest thing in any country. They are the backbone of a nation’s destiny. So how can one who is born to exercise traditional command take to criticizing the government whose auxiliary he is born to be? That is why I never became a politician in exile.
I was content with being just a poor poet, just a roaming writer, comfortable in the luxury of memory in which the most palpable pain can be massaged artistically into the sweetest messianic songs.
The other reason why I would not criticize the El Hadj’s regime was because I felt that it really is not courage when one can only shout invectives fro the safe distance of exile.
On his Writing Career
I have a number of manuscripts I have vowed to work on until they become published books, and my imagination is still full of stories I would like to write. I am sure some day not too far away I shall return to writing full-time. For example, I’d like to do a book about Tiko Town. The story has been dancing Makossa in my mind for some time now. And I’ve even found a title for it. I’ll call the novel Bobi Tanap, which is also going to be the name of the heroine, a girl who wanted only one man but whom every man who was a man wanted. A story about slum city love. In the book I shall be raising the question; what is more important, man or money? And then of course, there is my autobiography to finish and the Moboka, the holy book of my faith.
However, the planting season is now in full swing. I wouldn’t be returning to any serious writing until I have finished planting this year’s crop of Egusi and corn. I am planting these on a farm by the Mungo River where my novel Because of Women is set.
On his “Mad” Look
In the West they would call me a romantic, one of the last breed, I suppose. A romantic and not a mad man, as some people do here, in Africa, fearing the beard and scared of the head of hair. Listen, all those years I was abroad, not once did any European or American call me a mad man as some of my own people are now doing, thinking I am mad. I tell you, in Douala, sometimes it takes me as long as an hour to get a taxi. When they stop, it is to give some chap who might be waiting with me a ride. But me, no! They don’t want the beard. They don’t want my look. They are damned scared.
Don’t let anyone impose their will on you. So let them be scared of my look, of my beard, of my head of hair. They are just philistines who are afraid of originality. They wish to be caricatures of Europeans. When they are scared of a mere beard, what would these people do when war comes, when the horizon suddenly begins to sneeze smoke and spit flames? Who will save the nation? For only the courageous can defend the colors of a country? Only people like those few taxi drivers who, not minding the way I look, give me a ride in their vehicles, will be at the command of our cannons. For they are courageous people. They love all their people, even those who do not look like caricatures of Europeans.
Even the Bearded ones.
My memory of Mr. Dipoko goes way back to 1985 when I was a PhD. student at LSE and was haring in Paris in search of raw data for my thesis. I was going to Centre George Pompidou with other Cameroonian Students of The Southern Cameroons extraction, (one is now a member of parliament in the Cameroon Republic, Hon. Joseph Banadzem) when we stumbled opon Mr. Dipoko. I was appalled at his dishevelled look, dread-logged hair and a bushy beard. He was cutting silhouettes of tourists for a few francs at a time. My first impression was what on earth had brought such a famous writer to such a low place and why he was doing what he was doing. As these vistas of thoughts were racing in my mind, another Cameroonian scholar commented that he would not yearn to be a writer if all it meant at the end was to cut silhouettes of tourists and other Parisians for stipends. My comment was that he might be doing that as a part time task just to take his memory away from his crucial chores of the day.
Not many a person were wearing dread-logs in those days as they were a novelty in the region called the Southern Cameroons he had referred to its predicaments in his comments published below by the Cameroon Post. His dishevelled appearance was repulsive to me but having known Rastafarians in London, UK, I was not as disturbed as my other students. However, I got hold of his books: Black and White in Love and his Few Nights and Days in Paris that shot him to fame form the Heinemann African Writers Series. I love his former book as it reminded me of Jaguar Nana by Cyprian Ekwensi which I considered the sexiest book ever written by an African. I also saw in that book some aspects of the House Boy written by Ferdinand Oyono, then a veteran Camerounian diplomat. My mind also raced to Dr. Franz Fanon`s book Black Skin, White Masks and the excitement some persons of colors had the moment they had affairs with whites. To many it is a divine experience and the curing of what they erroneously feel as their inherent inferiority vis a vis whites or what is called now Caucasians.
When I read this morning in the forums of his death I recalled a friend had told me that he had returned to Tiko, The Southern Cameroons, variously called the SW Region of Cameroon and was a mayor of that once prospering port city during in the days of the British Colonial Rule of The Southern Cameroons. It was literally abandoned the moment there was reunification of the Southern Cameroons State and the one year old Cameroon Republic. My first feeling was that Dipoko was to be radical as his appearance and perhaps bring along some positive changes for the good of the English-speaking regions, the NW and SW Regions, (or The Southern Cameroons). I was associating him with Bob Marley the musical artist who relentlessly fought in his way for the liberation of Africa. I might have been mistaken as I never read or heard of him there after. He might have been doing it silently as many do and hope that some day there could be changes for good.
Then today, I was shocked to read of his death. Whatever, he has immortalized himself through his publications. His contribution as a known literary giant in the then West Cameroon (The Southern Cameroons) and Africa at large cannot be underestimated. As I read the attachment by the Cameroon Post I was pondering if he ever published his works discussed or if they are still in manuscript formats. The Cameroon Republic, including The Southern Cameroons regions in Africa fall under those countries fall under those regions where Africans do not read. If you want to hide anything from them put it in the books. If you want to show it to them, take it to the watering holes, bars where alcoholic beverages are sold and everyone would know of it in a matter of seconds. What I have written here will not be read by them but mostly by Caucasians, East Indians and Chinese. If I am lying, how many have read the past articles lots of Europeans and others have read. By the time they, Africans will learn to read, it may be too late as other races will not continue to read and interpret for them. Dipolo, thanks for writing for us to read. Adieu Sir.
Dr. V. Viban Ngo.
Mbella Sonne Dipoko in His Own Words: The Luxury of Memory
Cameroon Life Magazine (May 1990)
So let them be scared of my look, of my beard, of my head of hair. They are just philistines who are afraid of originality. They wish to be caricatures of Europeans. When they are scared of a mere beard, what would these people do when war comes, when the horizon suddenly begins to sneeze smoke and spit flames? Who will save the nation? For only the courageous can defend the colors of a country.
I did two stints at the university. First, it was when I imagined I could become a lawyer. So for a couple of years I studied law and economics at Paris University. But I gave this up when I began to work on my first novel, A few nights and Days. I really could not reconcile the drudgery of law school studies with the flamboyance of compulsive creative information. And also, what news was coming out of Africa, spoke of the death of freedom, and I thought it would be spiritually stultifying to try to function as a lawyer in a totalitarian environment.
For you will agree with me that Ahmadou Ahidjo was not exactly friends with human rights. So why wish to work as a lawyer in a country where such a man was in command?
For the barrister is essentially an orator. And oratory is sweet when it is in defence of freedom and human dignity, both of which are impaired whenever freedom of expression is not allowed. That is why I gave up my law studies not wanting to become a learned mercenary.
In short, I turned my back university and on the wish to make it in the mediocre way of the sworting professional or bureaucrat-to-be.
The decision was easy. For I already had a profession – writing. So I returned to it full-time, having chosen freedom thanks to which I became for many years, what you might call a traveling lover, a dreamer searching for God between the women’s thighs – those days when I was at the height of my intimate powers. You had to see me! I was like an angel stuffing recoilless erections into just where they are most needed – into the fleshy folds of winter! But I did it with rosy summers too.
And each divine thrust was like stuffing your women with yet another trump card of desire! And, there was no AIDS stalking through the world just to scare sensible chaps off sex.
And then the Vision of my call [to found the Esimo ya Mboka faith] happened.
Such a mighty vision. Spain and Morocco led up to it – the starlit solitude and loneliness of my nights spent mostly in the open. That was after the American woman had returned to San Francisco because I wouldn’t marry her; because I wouldn’t marry a woman from the West.
And that Vision I had of the Marvelous Star really did change the whole of my life. And always I shall remember it as a kind of anointment – all that light of that Star pouring down on me.
…
But after I published my third book, Black and White in Love, I returned to university where I took a degree not in law, but in Anglo-American studies, majoring in English. Not that I ever intended to use it for obtaining a job. I had found for myself a profession – writing – and I meant to do it full-time. So the degree lies somewhere in one of my valises – a mere piece of paper less precious than a love letter, just one of the light souvenirs of those years I spent in the West.
On the Underdevelopment of Southern Cameroons
There hasn't been much development in this part of the country. For development means new industries and major public works projects. The scene is pretty much the same as it used to be some 32 years ago. In fact one can even say Tiko has regressed. For its wharf is gone, the shipping wharf which used to make Tiko such a bustling town, especially during the banana shipment days and nights. And it is a phantom aerodrome we now have. It had such brisk traffic in the past, a quick link with Nigeria and Lagos and the wider world beyond.
….
And one of the most popular records those days was Mama Rumba! Loud music on gramophone records could be heard all over Tiko Town. And only the sirens of Banana trains sounded louder, more shrill, as they were rushing to the wharf with their green cargo for loading into ships which, after they too had sounded their sirens, turned round and then, ploughing their way through the deep wide Tiko creek, set sail for Europe.
Those days long ago there was a kind of economic boom in Tiko, indeed in the whole of what used to be called Southern Cameroons. For, from being an accounts clerk I became a journalist. I traveled from South to North. So I know how comparatively prosperous used to be. Evidence of the prosperity I talk about was there, in the increasing number of bush radio sets which were being bought, their antennae strung to bamboo poles which made their aerial contraptions look like fishing rods.
They could have been just that, fishing rods, for we were fishing for news broadcasts from Lagos and overseas; and fishing too for music, especially Rumba and Cha-cha-cha from Lumumba’s Congo.
But A’Mon! Those were very exciting years in what used to be Southern Cameroons. Even the politics were exciting. For going into politics was like becoming a retailer. You were free to open your own shop. And if you felt like it and someone else had the same idea like you, you merged your shop with him… until someone came along and said that sort of thing just wasn’t good enough for the country that was trying to make unity the very foundation of its existence. The 99% man. The result, as we were to see, was one vast party, one platform for everybody; one production line of unifying slogans.
But while the old political free enterprise still obtained, did our politicians have a great time! For they were all promising us a paradise of fundamental rights.
Not that these rights were exactly lacking; for the British were running Southern Cameroons as of it were the most economically backward country and socially handicapped Shire of their own Island Kingdom. And so what political oppression there was was quite occult and not rash and rampant. The individual was quite free to indulge his ego or just his dreams in any amount of soap-box sense or nonsense.
Still our politicians insisted on promising us even more fundamental human rights as if new ones could still be invented. But all that was before the Alhadji from Garoua came along with his message of one country, one people, and one voice – his voice. And because he was an autocrat of the no-nonsense Islamic School, the noisy good intentions of our Southern Cameroons politicians sensibly fell silent for fear of what the straightjacket of El Hadj’s rule might do to them.
And Mecca said nothing. And Medina minded its business, which is cashing in on the tourist trade as the promises we had been made of fundamental human rights and of “life more abundant” slunk away like frightened dogs, tails down, snouts straight-jacketed, no longer able to bark because forced into silence by circumstances.
But to tell the truth, during all those years that I was abroad, I never joined any political organization that fought Ahmadou Ahidjo. I never in public criticized him. For, in my head, I was a soldier, a born member of the Cameroonian armed forces. And the armed forces, spiritualized, made incorruptible, patriotic, are the finest thing in any country. They are the backbone of a nation’s destiny. So how can one who is born to exercise traditional command take to criticizing the government whose auxiliary he is born to be? That is why I never became a politician in exile.
I was content with being just a poor poet, just a roaming writer, comfortable in the luxury of memory in which the most palpable pain can be massaged artistically into the sweetest messianic songs.
The other reason why I would not criticize the El Hadj’s regime was because I felt that it really is not courage when one can only shout invectives fro the safe distance of exile.
On his Writing Career
I have a number of manuscripts I have vowed to work on until they become published books, and my imagination is still full of stories I would like to write. I am sure some day not too far away I shall return to writing full-time. For example, I’d like to do a book about Tiko Town. The story has been dancing Makossa in my mind for some time now. And I’ve even found a title for it. I’ll call the novel Bobi Tanap, which is also going to be the name of the heroine, a girl who wanted only one man but whom every man who was a man wanted. A story about slum city love. In the book I shall be raising the question; what is more important, man or money? And then of course, there is my autobiography to finish and the Moboka, the holy book of my faith.
However, the planting season is now in full swing. I wouldn’t be returning to any serious writing until I have finished planting this year’s crop of Egusi and corn. I am planting these on a farm by the Mungo River where my novel Because of Women is set.
On his “Mad” Look
In the West they would call me a romantic, one of the last breed, I suppose. A romantic and not a mad man, as some people do here, in Africa, fearing the beard and scared of the head of hair. Listen, all those years I was abroad, not once did any European or American call me a mad man as some of my own people are now doing, thinking I am mad. I tell you, in Douala, sometimes it takes me as long as an hour to get a taxi. When they stop, it is to give some chap who might be waiting with me a ride. But me, no! They don’t want the beard. They don’t want my look. They are damned scared.
Don’t let anyone impose their will on you. So let them be scared of my look, of my beard, of my head of hair. They are just philistines who are afraid of originality. They wish to be caricatures of Europeans. When they are scared of a mere beard, what would these people do when war comes, when the horizon suddenly begins to sneeze smoke and spit flames? Who will save the nation? For only the courageous can defend the colors of a country? Only people like those few taxi drivers who, not minding the way I look, give me a ride in their vehicles, will be at the command of our cannons. For they are courageous people. They love all their people, even those who do not look like caricatures of Europeans.
Even the Bearded ones.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
The Protracted Case of The Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia), West Africa.
'The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around will forget even faster.' Milan Kundera.
Ask yourself where is the British Cameroons, British Northern Cameroons, British Southern Cameroons, West Cameroon State aka Ambazonia on the World Map? Read what I have cited from Kundera once more slowly and you will see it replicated in The Southern Cameroons that is weeping and crying and begging for peace but receiving pieces. It had been doing so when the mistakes were made since 1961.
Has the world no ears? Has the world no mouth? Has the world got feelings? It is remorseful or does it only hear stories when people are abducted or destroyed? Then the peoples of British Cameroons, Southern Cameroons have said that they will not abduct or destroy but will beg for dialogue to be back to its status quo of 1915-1961. Yet the stakeholders refuse and are doing frantically what Milan Kundera is saying above. They are destroying (British) Southern Cameroons. Is that the way of the new diplomacy in 21st Century? What was the United Nations Organization (UNO) created for? Where is the USA that is the ombudsman of the world?
Some persons born in the predominantly English-speaking, former British Trust Territory of The Southern Cameroons, variously referred to in Cameroon Republic as the Northwest and Southwest Provinces, appellation based on the inclination of French Cameroons reigning leaders of Cameroon Republic, are not aware of their political predicaments. They never had the British experience (1915-1961) and the rudiments they get on Southern Cameroons that once had Prime Ministers, a House of Parliament, House of Chiefs akin to the House of Lords in the UK, adequate infra structure and a democratic system of government based on the West Minister model are from over censored textbooks or auroral stories of SCNC, SCYC, SCAPO, AMBAZONIA and others often referred to by the Yaoundé Government as ranting or misleading separatists` renditions.
The reason is clear. Many of these grow up under the rule of Cameroon Republic that is predominantly French, where old folks of the Southern Cameroons strongly believe is their legitimate country that is unlawfully occupied by Cameroon Republic bent on their assimilation. The moment they questions on whose authority Cameroon Republic is ruling the former British Cameroons, it is interpreted as fomenting hatred or secession. It that true. Cameroon Republic used to be known as French Cameroons, and became Cameroon Republic after its political independence on January 1st, 1960 from France. The Southern Cameroons had its political independence from Great Britain on October 1st, 1961. A questioned union was forged similar to that of Czechoslovakia and Eritrea and Ethiopia. The Southern Cameroonians (Ambazonians) had ever been complaining as many see no future with their association with Cameroon Republic.
 |
| Flag of British Cameroons (1915-1961) |
If The Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia) has no problems with their union which many believe is not legitimate why do they perpetually complain of being treated as second class citizens and referred to by vituperative words and phrases, anglofools, Anglo-Saxons, enemies in the house and etcetera. Why are many going on exile, why are many on exile, why are many afraid to speak out in their own country, why are some of their intellectuals arrested and locked up without trial for having literature on their political parties? Why do they pray over graves of those who were shot by the occupying regime for demonstrating to have their country back? There is so much resentment of the so called Anglophones of Southern Cameroons of by elements of the French Cameroons (La Republique du Cameroun) that if given opportunities, Southern Cameroons will revert to its former independent position where its had its Prime Ministers, House of Parliament, House of Chiefs and that nation state was referred to as the only genuine democratic country in Western Africa, if not in the whole of Africa from the 1950 till 1961.
 |
| Dr. E.mmanuel Lifafe Mbele Endeley , the first Premier of Southern Cameroons in 1958 |
When I read the citation below of Chief A.S. Ngwana, I pondered why men do not want to learn and tend to leave serious issue to die down. Is anyone rejoicing when there is interminable violence as the one we see in the Middle East? How can a country that had been independent die when its citizens are extant and yearning to revive their independence? Can a people accept dependency and slavery instead of being independent and free? Is this setting precedent that small countries will not live along side bigger ones? Is The Gambia not sandwiched in Senegal and does that mean that it could have been absorbed and assimilated by Senegal? It refused when the Senegambian experiment faltered. No one fired a shot and no one ever died but they have lived side by side there after. Are East Timor, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malawi, Togo, Swaziland, Lesotho, Dominica, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Equatorial Guinea, Soa Tome and Principe not independent and economically vibrant with full-fledged representatives in the United Nations Organization (UNO)? Are they being forced to have a shoddy union with their neighbors as The Southern Cameroons aka Ambazonia?
 |
| United Nations Organisation's (UNO) map of British Cameroons as in 1959. Note that Boko Haram is taken the advantage of the loose relation of the former Northern British Cameroons with Nigeria to use it as their military operational base. |
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
CAMEROON:ANGLOPHONE PROBLEM & THE VERDICT OF THE AFRICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS.
By Chief A.S. Ngwana*
The verdict of the SCNC Versus La Republique du Cameroun by the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights is so important that we consider it a great victory for the English Speaking people of British Southern Cameroon/West Cameroon. The outside World has been informed and alerted as to the injustices and marginalization, the betrayals, the people of British Southern Cameroon/West Cameroon have suffered since the abolition of the Federal Republic of Cameroon . Quote’ “215.
The African Commission therefore recommends as follows:
1. That the Respondent State (La Republic du Cameroun):
(i) abolish all discriminatory practices against people of Northwest and Southwest Cameroon ……..
(ii) Stop the transfer of accused persons from the Anglophone Provinces for trial in the Francophone Provinces;
(iii) Ensure that every person facing criminal charges be tried under the language he/she understands.
(iv) Locate national projects, equitably throughout the country, including Northwest and Southwest Cameroon .
(v) Pay compensation to companies in Northwest and Southwest Cameroon , which suffered as a result of discriminatory treatment by banks;
(vi) Enter into constructive dialogue with the Complainants, and in particular, SCNC and SCAPO ( Southern Cameroons National Council, and the Southern Cameroons peoples Organization) to resolve the constitutional issues, as well as grievances which could threaten national unity; and (vii) Reforms the Higher Judicial Council…
2 To the Complainants, and SCNC and SCAPO in particular;
(i) to transform into political parties,
(ii) to abandon secessionism and engage in constructive dialogue with the Respondent State on the constitutional issues and grievances”
3 The African Commission places its good offices at the disposal of the parties 4 The African Commission requests the Parties to report on the implementation of the aforesaid recommendations within 180 days.
As you can see from the above, the recommendations are a great victory for us who actually voted for unification, and for the Cameroon Democratic Party/Cardinal Democratic Party, and for all West Cameroon political parties. We have never supported violent secession but have advocated a return to FEDERALISM, and have condemned marginalization, betrayal, and abuse of unification. So the recommendations are in keeping with our aspirations. However we must admit that there are some legal issues which the UN did not complete when it gave independence to British Southern Cameroon .
The SCNC and some West Cameroon radicals opted for secession to stop the abuses and unjust treatment of British Southern Cameroonians/West Cameroonians by La Republic du Cameroun , East Cameroun , the former French Speaking Cameroun .
We voted to join our brothers, in good faith. We wanted to build One prosperous, United, Indissoluble and Indivisible Sovereign State . But that faith has been betrayed and abused.
We voted to unify on the understanding that we would operate a Federal Structure, in which we will live in a mighty, united, economically strong Cameroon Nation; guaranteeing all citizens of every race and religion, inalienable and civic rights, equal opportunities and respect for the bicultural character of our people.
We voted on the understanding that unification would be based on Equality of States, and Unity in Diversity.
The 1961 Federal Constitution protected the interests of Anglophone Cameroonians. It was illegally and unjustly abolished by the dominating French Speaking Cameroon government and a Unitary System of government, which operates in favour of the French Speaking Cameroonians, was imposed. Since the abolition of the Federation in 1972, some radical Anglophones have sorted unsuccessfully to redress the abuses by declaring unilaterally Independent Anglophone States.
Anglophones have suffered marginalization and reduced to second class citizens. The territory has been treated like a colony of the Francophone La Republique du Cameroun.
For 49 years no Anglophone has been allowed to be President of Cameroon. For 49 years no Anglophone has been allowed to hold any key ministry in Cameroon ; the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Finance, Ministry Territorial Administration etc. The Anglophones have been reduced to second class citizen in this union.
The Anglophone State ( West Cameroon ) has suffered seriously economically. La Republic du Cameroun, abolished the Marketing Board, the Cameroon Bank, Closed Powercam. Closed the Tiko Airport , The Tiko Sea Port , The Victoria/Limbe Sea Port, the Mamfe (Bessong Abang) Air Port , The Bamenda ( Bali Air Port ). Neglected the Victoria/Limbe Nkambe road making it impassable.
Administratively, the majority of Anglophones occupy the position of “adjont Ministre, adjont directeur etc” or what you call deputy Minister, deputy director etc.
Globally the only type of government workable in a multicultural, multiethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious society, is Federalism (the United States of America , Canada , Nigeria etc) That is why the United Nations gave British Southern Cameroons Independence to join with La Republic du Cameroun on the basis of Federalism. Federalism is the best type of government for Cameroon .
Centralization is the worst type of government for Cameroon as has been proved from our experience since 1972.
The importance of the Anglophone problem cannot be over- emphasize because it borders on the unity and corporate existence of Cameroon as one country.
We must therefore intensify our struggle against reactionary forces of oppression, suppression, repression, discrimination, marginalization, intimidation, corruption, tribalism, sectarianism, nepotism, tyranny and anarchy by La Republique du Cameroun.
The recommendations of the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights must be seen as a great success for Anglophones. We hope that the Commission will help Southern Cameroon (Northwest and Southwest) to redress these abuses peacefully.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Commenting on failure that is made to look like success-The protracted case of The Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia)
Articles have been written on the in interminable problems of The Southern Cameroons - Ambazonia-Nation State that since October 1, 1961 has been governed by Cameroon Republic. The attachment written by Mr. Moy M. Eyong on the recent Banjul verdict concerning strive by this State to reinstate its long lost political independence is a revelation that needs to be read not only once but twice by all peace loving persons wherever they happen to be.
Often times people cite a section from the Holy Bible to defend their actions and they are wrong. You learned readers, can cite cases in history of the world where many have claimed that they were just and acting in the name of God and they turned out to be very wrong. Then you got to know that the Holy Bible is like a long rope with a beginning and an end. If you only touch the center or the head of the rope, you cannot go claiming that you have touched the entire length of the rope. If it concerns the Holy Bible, you have got to read it word for word and syllabus by syllabus if you are to be in terms with what its authors wrote.
Reciting or enlarging a portion of the Bible a million times does not make you understand the words of God. In the same vein, if the interpretation of this writer, Eyong is correct then the whole world has got a case in hand to settle and as a matter of urgency.
Viban Viban Ngo, PhD.
How Did Biya Manage to Make a Devastating Defeat in Banjul Look Like a Stunning Success
By Moy Manyi Eyong
For two weeks I have watched in total amazement how the Cameroon regime succeeded to use a single paragraph from the 42 page verdict of the African Commission on Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) on the case between Cameroon and SCNC&SCAPO to temporarily shut the SCNC&SCAPO up.
I am sure in the future, this will be a great case study in the use of political psychology as a tactical weapon.In the 42-page verdict the Commission got Cameroon to accept a guilty verdict for committing some of the most outrageous crimes of the 21st century--using torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and treatment. The Commission found it offensive that the Cameroon regime attempted to justify these crimes on the grounds of fighting alleged terrorism.
It seemed a grave mistake in more ways than one for the Cameroon government to call attention to a document any concerned citizen could read online and see how the Commission hammered her; until the SCNC & SCAPO actually bought Cameroon's interpretation of the verdict (after having made the earlier mistake of not publishing that verdict themselves sooner). And when the African Development Bank announced their grant approval for Cameroon (reported by reuters in this October 5 article) a few days after the start of Cameroon's media blitz following their publishing of the one paragraph from the ACHPR verdict, it became clear that something calculated was going on.
To understand what was going on, one needs to look a bit further: Cameroon happens to be one of those countries that heavily relies on foreign aid to make up its budget almost every year. For years French politicians who benefit from all kinds of no bid contracts from Cameroon and from access to timber, bauxite and oil at bellow market prices, have used the French state to make sure Cameroon meets its budget requirements.
The French mainly lobby the IMF, World Bank, European banks and the African Development bank--of course--to give loans and grants to Cameroon. There is also the constant granting of loans to Cameroon from the French Treasury. On the eve of elections in France, these French neo-colonial cheats steal from the French Treasury to pay for their elections through a revolving door scheme in which money is loaned to former French colonies, and the puppets heading these countries return a big percentage of the money to the politicians who run these schemes. Everyone benefits: the African dictator gets a percentage of the money; the French politicians gets the bigger portion to pay for elections. The French taxpayers lose money; and it is billed as a debt to the African state.
Over the years whistle blowers and strict Judges like Eva Jolly have gone after some of the politicians with much success. Judge Eva Jolly arrested Loïc Le Floch-Prigent, former chair of the French government owned oil conglomerate Elf for heading Elf's schemes that defrauded French, Congolese, Cameroonian and Gabonese taxpayers amongst others. After several days in jail and seeing that all those who worked with him had abandoned him, Mr. Le Floch-Prigent decided to expose the scheme in the hope of reducing his sentence. In a written statement to Judge Eva Jolly, Mr. Loïc Le Floch-Prigent among other things revealed that "Paul Biya took over power with the help of Elf to hold-in Anglophone Cameroon." So in the last years pro-African advocacy groups like Survie and the Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development (CCFD) have made things more and more difficult. Survie was involved in the case that got a French judge to start corruption investigations against Omar Bongo of Gabon, Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo and Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea. In May, 2009, thanks to a report by the Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development (CCFD) on Biya's questionable investments in France, another Judge started an investigation into Biya's investments. Then there was the August 2009 Scandal in which the President of Cameroon (a country which just earned a debt cancellation for being one of the poorest countries in the world) spent 100 million Euro for a one month presidential holiday (far more than Bush, Obama and Sakorzy taken together). Then there is also the BEAC scandal involving the Cameroon government.
Against that backdrop, the Cameroon regime was negotiating for loans from African Development Bank, and it took the ultimate risk by publishing the Banjul verdict.
Here is the scenario that probably frightened French advisers of the regime into gambling as they did with with the verdict: SCNC & SCAPO publishes the decision of the Commission with an analysis like the one here. The public learns from the full publication and analysis that the regime will be slow to send troops to crackdown on the people (given the many guilty verdicts from Banjul), and there will be an explosion of protests--in Southern Cameroons for their rights, for the compensations asked for by the courts, and of course more defiance to the forces that have so far kept a lid on the public anger.
The regime is trapped.
If it responds with brute force, it is sure to not get a single coin from international donors; it cannot pay its police, gendarmes or army--it can be sure to have a rebellion on its hands from that end. If it doesn't use violence to stop the protests, it could be overrun; not only by the emboldened Southern Cameroonians but by its own Cameroonians who will seize the opportunity to settle their own scores with the regime.
The cornered regime took a desperate chance; they cut a few lines out of the recommendation section of the 42-page ACHPR report and hit the SCNC&SCAPO with it in the form of a media blitz in hope of demoralising them. It worked! Many in the ranks of the SCNC, SCAPO and other groups bought the regime's interpretation of the ruling--that somehow all the devastating decisions of the Commission are less important than the "none committing" recommendation of the Commission.
SCAPO & SCNC folded their tails and sat on them. Some of them even started talking about negotiating. Or forming political parties. They did not even notice that the regime's interpretation of negotiation falls on the "grande-debate large-debate" line (a text book application of the psychology concept in game theory known as "tit for two tats"). It is not about coming to sit on a table to discuss anything. Negotiations in the regime's playbook means that SCAPO & SCNC should register like the SDF, UNDF etc, and the regime can then rub their nose into the same feces they have been rubbing the noses of other parties.
You probably noticed that the African Development Bank approved a grant for Cameroon at about the same time as Cameroon's media blitz. See this reuters October 5 article. You can be sure that that African Development Bank grant will provide cover for the French to convince the IMF and World bank that giving more money to Cameroon will not win them the wrath of transparency advocacy groups; as they can always say they took their lead from the African Development Bank.
I can only imagine the smile on the face of the 27 year old political consultant from Paris who hatched the tactic used above. He surely had been flown in from Paris by the French embassy to help diffuse what had been a potentially explosive situation for them. The evening after the African development bank grant, our young consultant must have toasted champagne with the brain dead bunch at Etoudi as he relished in his achievement.
You see, for him it is a game; he has just proved to himself, to his superiors and perhaps to his political psychology mentor at Yale or Harvard that he can get into the heads of some 18 million Africans and tell them what not to do. He snatches his little backpack out of the closet in his Hilton hotel room and throws it on his bed to start packing his belongings for the trip home. On his reading desk lies a new copy of D.W. North's psychology book on Decision Theory.
Often times people cite a section from the Holy Bible to defend their actions and they are wrong. You learned readers, can cite cases in history of the world where many have claimed that they were just and acting in the name of God and they turned out to be very wrong. Then you got to know that the Holy Bible is like a long rope with a beginning and an end. If you only touch the center or the head of the rope, you cannot go claiming that you have touched the entire length of the rope. If it concerns the Holy Bible, you have got to read it word for word and syllabus by syllabus if you are to be in terms with what its authors wrote.
Reciting or enlarging a portion of the Bible a million times does not make you understand the words of God. In the same vein, if the interpretation of this writer, Eyong is correct then the whole world has got a case in hand to settle and as a matter of urgency.
Viban Viban Ngo, PhD.
How Did Biya Manage to Make a Devastating Defeat in Banjul Look Like a Stunning Success
By Moy Manyi Eyong
For two weeks I have watched in total amazement how the Cameroon regime succeeded to use a single paragraph from the 42 page verdict of the African Commission on Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) on the case between Cameroon and SCNC&SCAPO to temporarily shut the SCNC&SCAPO up.
I am sure in the future, this will be a great case study in the use of political psychology as a tactical weapon.In the 42-page verdict the Commission got Cameroon to accept a guilty verdict for committing some of the most outrageous crimes of the 21st century--using torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and treatment. The Commission found it offensive that the Cameroon regime attempted to justify these crimes on the grounds of fighting alleged terrorism.
It seemed a grave mistake in more ways than one for the Cameroon government to call attention to a document any concerned citizen could read online and see how the Commission hammered her; until the SCNC & SCAPO actually bought Cameroon's interpretation of the verdict (after having made the earlier mistake of not publishing that verdict themselves sooner). And when the African Development Bank announced their grant approval for Cameroon (reported by reuters in this October 5 article) a few days after the start of Cameroon's media blitz following their publishing of the one paragraph from the ACHPR verdict, it became clear that something calculated was going on.
To understand what was going on, one needs to look a bit further: Cameroon happens to be one of those countries that heavily relies on foreign aid to make up its budget almost every year. For years French politicians who benefit from all kinds of no bid contracts from Cameroon and from access to timber, bauxite and oil at bellow market prices, have used the French state to make sure Cameroon meets its budget requirements.
The French mainly lobby the IMF, World Bank, European banks and the African Development bank--of course--to give loans and grants to Cameroon. There is also the constant granting of loans to Cameroon from the French Treasury. On the eve of elections in France, these French neo-colonial cheats steal from the French Treasury to pay for their elections through a revolving door scheme in which money is loaned to former French colonies, and the puppets heading these countries return a big percentage of the money to the politicians who run these schemes. Everyone benefits: the African dictator gets a percentage of the money; the French politicians gets the bigger portion to pay for elections. The French taxpayers lose money; and it is billed as a debt to the African state.
Over the years whistle blowers and strict Judges like Eva Jolly have gone after some of the politicians with much success. Judge Eva Jolly arrested Loïc Le Floch-Prigent, former chair of the French government owned oil conglomerate Elf for heading Elf's schemes that defrauded French, Congolese, Cameroonian and Gabonese taxpayers amongst others. After several days in jail and seeing that all those who worked with him had abandoned him, Mr. Le Floch-Prigent decided to expose the scheme in the hope of reducing his sentence. In a written statement to Judge Eva Jolly, Mr. Loïc Le Floch-Prigent among other things revealed that "Paul Biya took over power with the help of Elf to hold-in Anglophone Cameroon." So in the last years pro-African advocacy groups like Survie and the Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development (CCFD) have made things more and more difficult. Survie was involved in the case that got a French judge to start corruption investigations against Omar Bongo of Gabon, Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo and Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea. In May, 2009, thanks to a report by the Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development (CCFD) on Biya's questionable investments in France, another Judge started an investigation into Biya's investments. Then there was the August 2009 Scandal in which the President of Cameroon (a country which just earned a debt cancellation for being one of the poorest countries in the world) spent 100 million Euro for a one month presidential holiday (far more than Bush, Obama and Sakorzy taken together). Then there is also the BEAC scandal involving the Cameroon government.
Against that backdrop, the Cameroon regime was negotiating for loans from African Development Bank, and it took the ultimate risk by publishing the Banjul verdict.
Here is the scenario that probably frightened French advisers of the regime into gambling as they did with with the verdict: SCNC & SCAPO publishes the decision of the Commission with an analysis like the one here. The public learns from the full publication and analysis that the regime will be slow to send troops to crackdown on the people (given the many guilty verdicts from Banjul), and there will be an explosion of protests--in Southern Cameroons for their rights, for the compensations asked for by the courts, and of course more defiance to the forces that have so far kept a lid on the public anger.
The regime is trapped.
If it responds with brute force, it is sure to not get a single coin from international donors; it cannot pay its police, gendarmes or army--it can be sure to have a rebellion on its hands from that end. If it doesn't use violence to stop the protests, it could be overrun; not only by the emboldened Southern Cameroonians but by its own Cameroonians who will seize the opportunity to settle their own scores with the regime.
The cornered regime took a desperate chance; they cut a few lines out of the recommendation section of the 42-page ACHPR report and hit the SCNC&SCAPO with it in the form of a media blitz in hope of demoralising them. It worked! Many in the ranks of the SCNC, SCAPO and other groups bought the regime's interpretation of the ruling--that somehow all the devastating decisions of the Commission are less important than the "none committing" recommendation of the Commission.
SCAPO & SCNC folded their tails and sat on them. Some of them even started talking about negotiating. Or forming political parties. They did not even notice that the regime's interpretation of negotiation falls on the "grande-debate large-debate" line (a text book application of the psychology concept in game theory known as "tit for two tats"). It is not about coming to sit on a table to discuss anything. Negotiations in the regime's playbook means that SCAPO & SCNC should register like the SDF, UNDF etc, and the regime can then rub their nose into the same feces they have been rubbing the noses of other parties.
You probably noticed that the African Development Bank approved a grant for Cameroon at about the same time as Cameroon's media blitz. See this reuters October 5 article. You can be sure that that African Development Bank grant will provide cover for the French to convince the IMF and World bank that giving more money to Cameroon will not win them the wrath of transparency advocacy groups; as they can always say they took their lead from the African Development Bank.
I can only imagine the smile on the face of the 27 year old political consultant from Paris who hatched the tactic used above. He surely had been flown in from Paris by the French embassy to help diffuse what had been a potentially explosive situation for them. The evening after the African development bank grant, our young consultant must have toasted champagne with the brain dead bunch at Etoudi as he relished in his achievement.
You see, for him it is a game; he has just proved to himself, to his superiors and perhaps to his political psychology mentor at Yale or Harvard that he can get into the heads of some 18 million Africans and tell them what not to do. He snatches his little backpack out of the closet in his Hilton hotel room and throws it on his bed to start packing his belongings for the trip home. On his reading desk lies a new copy of D.W. North's psychology book on Decision Theory.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
ORIGINS OF AFRICAN PLACE NAMES (a newly published book)
ORIGINS OF AFRICAN PLACE NAMES: AN INTRODUCTION TO TOPONYMYS IN CARTOGRAPHY AND POLITICS IN AFRICA by Viban Ngo, PhD, (London)
699 pages (just published)
Published (2009) by;
Baico Publishing
294 Albert Street, Suite 103,
Ottawa, Ontario KIP 6E6, Canada
Tel: + (613) 829-5141
E-mail: baico@bellnet.ca
www.baico.ca
ISBN 978-1-897449-86-8
Price: $ 69.95 Canadian FUNDS
$ 69.95 US FUNDS OUTSIDE CANADA
Summary: Origin of Africa Place Names: An Introduction to Toponyms in Cartography and Politics in Africa
This is a profusely illustrated introductory book that reviews various types of place names, their origins, written forms, changes, and reasons for their changes within the political, psychological and socio-historical contexts with particular reference to those in Africa. Concrete examples are also drawn from other continents. Therefore, this document is not only encyclopedic but useful for its global coverage. It is useful to all students of international relations, environmentalists, military personnel, diplomats, UN field workers, journalists, geographers, GIS specialists, cartographers, linguists or any one concerned with spatial studies, search and rescue operations, history and politics with particular reference to Africa.
Each time an African state changes its place name or names of features within its territory, every map of Africa becomes obsolete. ...A map in this context is a graphic representation with a scale of some part of the world or celestial body, varying in sizes, often portrayed on a plane surface or digitally. Also considered, are effects of place names in the field of cartographic communication that was neglected in the past by spatial scientists, historiography, geography and geopolitical settings. On its pedagogical objectives, emphases are placed on the relevance of place name studies in cartography, ‘cartolinguistics,’ related disciplines, and sensitivity to their intrinsic values that are the concern of individual users and various governments. Cartography in this framework is a science of preparing all categories of maps, charts annotated Landsat imagery with every operation from original survey to final printing of their analogue or digital formats.
The cardinal observation is that political changes that have plagued Africa since the 1500s often lead to the introduction, replacement and modifications of some existing place names of features its predecessors had laid down in their languages or styles to suit their philosophies and practices. That is the assertion of the authorities of the ruling governments. States’ names intended to be provisional, ended up being ingrained and those considered eternal are replaced with the emergence of modern African statehood and the achievement of self-government since the 1960s. These changes will go on indefinitely with the economic, political, educational and social dynamism of the continent with external influences further accelerated by cyber space and modern media of communication.
There was a time when Western Africa was known as the Sudan, Ethiopia, then Nigritia, Upper Guinea and presently it is known as West Africa. The Atlantic Ocean was known as Ethiopian Ocean (Black Ocean) for ‘Ethiopia’ was the term used in antiquities to stand for Black. This was eventually replaced by Atlantic Ocean. A good number of African national names simply mean ‘black’; such are Ethiopia, Sudan, Nigeria, Niger, Guinea, and Egypt. This general introductory document traces the history of such changes. These are tackled by looking at their origins and reasons for their changes. By attempting to answer a barrage of questions as what religion, voodoo, politics, apartheid, slavery and slave trade, colonization, political independence, emigration, authenticity and many more have got to do with place names, the author writing as a continuous narrative, has covered all African nation states with several striking revelations dug from original sources and field works. With appended comprehensive references, coordinates of major survey and place name/ geographic information centers of Africa and those in other parts of the world concerned with the studies of place names, toponymy, this works is unique as a reference book for anyone interested in Africa and place name studies in general. It is hoped that it will stir scientific place names studies with the adoption of e-toponymy that is relatively advanced in North America, Europe and some Asian regions.
Reviews:
“This is a highly interesting document from my point of view, as a non specialist in toponymy but rather as a linguist.”
Mr. Alain Landry is the General Director of Fondation Baxter and Alma
Ricard, Ottawa and former Deputy Minister of Multiculturalism and
Citizenship Canada.
“Perhaps if men like President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe peruse this work, no foreign toponym will be left on the African soil.” Mr. J. MacKay, Emeritus Scientist and Senior Scholar at the University of Ottawa, Ottawa.
“A well illustrated, researched and beneficial encyclopedic work ...for academic establishments and general readers.” Helen Kerfoot, Vice Chair of United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN), Ministry of Mines, Ottawa, Canada.
“A bold step in African studies. An excellent eye opener and a must-read for anyone who has anything to do with African history, politics, place names, intelligence, military, search and rescue; emergency preparedness, topographic surveys, geographic information system (GIS) and their relationship with the rest of the world. I thoroughly enjoy reading it.” (anon).
699 pages (just published)
Published (2009) by;
Baico Publishing
294 Albert Street, Suite 103,
Ottawa, Ontario KIP 6E6, Canada
Tel: + (613) 829-5141
E-mail: baico@bellnet.ca
www.baico.ca
ISBN 978-1-897449-86-8
Price: $ 69.95 Canadian FUNDS
$ 69.95 US FUNDS OUTSIDE CANADA
Summary: Origin of Africa Place Names: An Introduction to Toponyms in Cartography and Politics in Africa
This is a profusely illustrated introductory book that reviews various types of place names, their origins, written forms, changes, and reasons for their changes within the political, psychological and socio-historical contexts with particular reference to those in Africa. Concrete examples are also drawn from other continents. Therefore, this document is not only encyclopedic but useful for its global coverage. It is useful to all students of international relations, environmentalists, military personnel, diplomats, UN field workers, journalists, geographers, GIS specialists, cartographers, linguists or any one concerned with spatial studies, search and rescue operations, history and politics with particular reference to Africa.
Each time an African state changes its place name or names of features within its territory, every map of Africa becomes obsolete. ...A map in this context is a graphic representation with a scale of some part of the world or celestial body, varying in sizes, often portrayed on a plane surface or digitally. Also considered, are effects of place names in the field of cartographic communication that was neglected in the past by spatial scientists, historiography, geography and geopolitical settings. On its pedagogical objectives, emphases are placed on the relevance of place name studies in cartography, ‘cartolinguistics,’ related disciplines, and sensitivity to their intrinsic values that are the concern of individual users and various governments. Cartography in this framework is a science of preparing all categories of maps, charts annotated Landsat imagery with every operation from original survey to final printing of their analogue or digital formats.
The cardinal observation is that political changes that have plagued Africa since the 1500s often lead to the introduction, replacement and modifications of some existing place names of features its predecessors had laid down in their languages or styles to suit their philosophies and practices. That is the assertion of the authorities of the ruling governments. States’ names intended to be provisional, ended up being ingrained and those considered eternal are replaced with the emergence of modern African statehood and the achievement of self-government since the 1960s. These changes will go on indefinitely with the economic, political, educational and social dynamism of the continent with external influences further accelerated by cyber space and modern media of communication.
There was a time when Western Africa was known as the Sudan, Ethiopia, then Nigritia, Upper Guinea and presently it is known as West Africa. The Atlantic Ocean was known as Ethiopian Ocean (Black Ocean) for ‘Ethiopia’ was the term used in antiquities to stand for Black. This was eventually replaced by Atlantic Ocean. A good number of African national names simply mean ‘black’; such are Ethiopia, Sudan, Nigeria, Niger, Guinea, and Egypt. This general introductory document traces the history of such changes. These are tackled by looking at their origins and reasons for their changes. By attempting to answer a barrage of questions as what religion, voodoo, politics, apartheid, slavery and slave trade, colonization, political independence, emigration, authenticity and many more have got to do with place names, the author writing as a continuous narrative, has covered all African nation states with several striking revelations dug from original sources and field works. With appended comprehensive references, coordinates of major survey and place name/ geographic information centers of Africa and those in other parts of the world concerned with the studies of place names, toponymy, this works is unique as a reference book for anyone interested in Africa and place name studies in general. It is hoped that it will stir scientific place names studies with the adoption of e-toponymy that is relatively advanced in North America, Europe and some Asian regions.
Reviews:
“This is a highly interesting document from my point of view, as a non specialist in toponymy but rather as a linguist.”
Mr. Alain Landry is the General Director of Fondation Baxter and Alma
Ricard, Ottawa and former Deputy Minister of Multiculturalism and
Citizenship Canada.
“Perhaps if men like President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe peruse this work, no foreign toponym will be left on the African soil.” Mr. J. MacKay, Emeritus Scientist and Senior Scholar at the University of Ottawa, Ottawa.
“A well illustrated, researched and beneficial encyclopedic work ...for academic establishments and general readers.” Helen Kerfoot, Vice Chair of United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN), Ministry of Mines, Ottawa, Canada.
“A bold step in African studies. An excellent eye opener and a must-read for anyone who has anything to do with African history, politics, place names, intelligence, military, search and rescue; emergency preparedness, topographic surveys, geographic information system (GIS) and their relationship with the rest of the world. I thoroughly enjoy reading it.” (anon).
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
ARE HEROES AND HEROINES MADE BY 'HEROIN'?
[Key words: heroes, heroines, drugs, substance abuse,alcohol, definition, manufacturers, scapegoat, consequences, stars, Michael Jackson, devil, Africa, Third world, God, good, evil, primitive and civilized societies]
By
Dr. V. Viban Ngo
PRELOGUE TO‘HEROIN MADE’
I have been stirred by the premature departure of Michael Jackson caused by drugs http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090824/ten-jacko-died-of-lethal-levels-of-anaes-8a3eada.html to write on drugs, heroes and heroines. You are going to wonder what on earth heroes and heroines have got to do with drugs. First, what do we mean by drug? When we talk of drug, the term is so vague. I do not want to dabble in it but will refer you to experts’ definition: “A drug is any chemical you take that affects the way your body works. Alcohol, caffeine, aspirin and nicotine are all drugs. A drug must be able to pass from your body into your brain.” http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/on-line/brain/198.asp What are the connections of drugs with champions in our society? I will let you know without delay if you did not know. If you do, skip this missive and browse the World Wide Web but before you discard it, pass it on to anyone who may be in need of it. The truth is that all of us are in need this information either for ourselves, parenting, for others or simply to be informed. To a good number, when you are a normal person and doing normal things, you are not a hero. When you assume titanic imaginary size and prowess and are able to break boulders or moraines with your bare hands, we can call you a hero or heroine. You are no longer normal but uncharacteristic.
There is one way one could attain this magnitude. One could either be born a genius, hero or heroine, or one could acquire such importance by assuming or taking things that would transform one to a super natural being, a god. One could take what the Americans call substances, narcotics, amphetamines or what you euphemistically call medicine that may alter one’s defensive white blood cells negatively or positively. Drugs or medicine as variously known could pump excess blood into your circulatory system, to the brain too and make you do extraordinary positive or negative things. This does not necessarily work for all Ngong, Chin and Lukong or Tom, Dick and Harry as the Britons would render it. Some users are instead befuddled or stupefied. Others are emboldened to have provisional aptitude in which they do supernatural things after which they are worst off than when they started. In some languages, they are turned to cabbages, junkies or zombies. The moment of attending that self-induced prowess is the euphoric state. The taker of the power supplying chemical or combination of chemicals could do marvels. He could run, sing, dance, swim, fly or even engaged in physical or mental exercises without getting fatigued. Mind you, I am not glamorizing the taking of hard drugs for whatever reasons. If I do so I will be supporting and abating advertently untimely death, (if at all there is anything known as such) and criminal acts. Although I decry the taking of drugs there are some states that have used the law to allow its citizens to take drugs. On Wednesday August 2009 while we mourn the passing away of Senator Ted Kennedy, a seasoned giant of American politics at the age of 77 from brain cancer, the court in Argentina ruled that it is unconstitutional to punish anyone for having marijuana for personal consumption. Marijuana is a hard drug and I have seen the consequences throughout my global peregrination.
Often, drug takers hallucinate and are in a near state of depression. They are literarily maddened. I am not talking of the maddened crowd in the streets of Spain when they are being chased by bulls, stampede; the mesmerized bare-chested men at Squares in Kumbo who are fanning the black-back-bag-carrier, kibaranko during Ngonso Carnival often punctuated by carousals. I am not talking of the football hooliganism or those of a gang of vandals in the subways in New York, Chicago or in the suburbia of London, Ankara, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, Mumbai, and Lagos where dogs sometimes eat dogs in their quests for drug marts’ spaces. I mean literarily temporal madness that is self induced.
ETYMOLOGY
I have been skirting around the point of heroin, drug my cardinal theme. The etymology of this word is from a Greek word ‘hero’. How comes it has a suffix ‘in’? A German chemical firm came up with a morphine derivative, an effective painkiller and christened it heroin. You are wondering what hero has got to do with medicine. If a patient or a junkie took it, he gained that one day celebrity of standing on an illusionary podium in the hall of fame. It was because of the chemicals it diffused in his or her system; he or she became euphoric and had the delusion of grandeur, our hero or heroine for that moment so to say. The users have been transformed from being natural or normal to being phlegmatically abnormal. We know why a certain drug, painkiller has the effect of heroin. It is because once taken, it instantly turned you into a hero, be it ephemeral or longer depending on your system, other drugs you take, the size of your body, you health and so many factors beyond the scope of this treatise.
Most titans or superstars are natural persons. They had not taken substances to enhance their prowess they naturally possessed and excelled in. It is when they want to sustain that power, skill that they inherently have that they are tempted to ask for more. In that case, God does not grant their request as they have reached the acme of their life or performance. God who made them knows their limits and is ascertained that if they exceed those limits they are doomed. Consequently, God gives those naught and no matter how serious they implore Him, they get alternative answers. For those who cannot take no for an answer, they look for any opportunity cost and that is the devil or gargoyle with a spiky tail. He will wrestle with God, the embodiment of good and jump on our weakness, chasms of our lives and impose himself in the guise to bridge those gaps. He, the devil is not only sweeter but glamorous. In this case, he will suggest through a medical doctor, a drug pusher, a dealer that you could improve your chances of success by enhancing your performances with drugs. He first starts by giving you free samples to assay. They are good, soporific and the results are glaring for all Tom, Dick and Harry to see. Some of these are drugs and some are called heroin and cracks and so on. These are in the category of banned hard drugs or substances in most democratic and civilized societies.
The person or persons administering these forbidden drugs or who has taught you how to cultivate and process them is a devil incarnate. When you enter to play that basket ball, football, swimming, boxing, singing, acting, sustain that stamina for hours or days on end, it is the drug that the devil has given you to bamboozle onlookers that you are naturally tough. It is when you have chosen the devil over God, evil over good and the cost could be the highest you or your relations will ever pay. These are phrases drug abusers who are in denial do not want to hear. With time, the natural power wanes and the only way to get you going, so to say is to take more drugs. You are hocked on the drugs. They become your life-line. The only way to go is to take more and more dosage.
Does it work? No. It is because your body needs more so that you could outdistance other competitors who are also taking drugs. Sports that were natural now become manifestations of the experimentation of drugs and the more effective the drug an athlete takes the better his performance. Chemists who are out to squeeze money from innocent and vulnerable people’s hearts are gladdened as it means enriching themselves to live in opulence we blatantly call blood money. The suppliers know their tasks. They go to the laboratories to try hard to get other concoctions that are superior to the ones other had been giving you. You take it and it actually works so well that you want a daily supply. You may not have the money to get more and there is a way out. The devil who led you there in the first place will give you the leeway. He is found in the computer, internet, extranet, and lives even in your parents and friends. He is in public places. He suggests that if you have fun with other persons you will not be short of cash to get on with what you are doing. He would even show you superstars who improved their ways of life by using it. He calls it fun. What is that way? Gamble your family savings! Is that all? He will suggest that you indulge in prostitution and even lead you to the whoredom. Ask men, women, animals and mannequins (robots) to penetrate you and give you money in return. There is danger in the horizon but you do not see it for you have been fooled that your clients or yourself are insulated from contaminants. You are blinded and deceived. They are not safe for once a lady accepted one client and went to his home to find five men ready to penetrate her. She insisted that they all wore protective gears and there was one there who stated that they took away maximum satisfaction. That was the last episode in her life.
TITANIC FEATS
Then, I have said nothing that is new, or that many of you are not aware of. Local media literally sing them for those who have ears and eyes to see and hear and run away from them. Even though we have said it, we have to reiterate it as doctrine to be engrained in our genes that drugs that are not prescribed by a seasoned and approved medical doctor for out sincere needs are not to be taken by any one for his escapism or creation of his ephemeral euphoric state. Hollywood stars have known of this for ages. This was known in the Middle Ages and your society in Ngonsonia [Nso’] had known of it for long. But it was never out of all proportion for it was controlled. In what was in the past known by Westerners as a primitive society or community of mine, psychedelic drugs were well known but were top secrets of the society guarded by the elders of the community. These were only given to selected and initiated individuals who needed those extraordinary powers to do extraordinary things during religious ceremonies. In brief, they were taken by masqueraders when displaying in arena before mesmerized crowds. They were taken by hooded executors of murderers and those who had sold the kingdom. One with the men following him known as the wanmabu ran for 100 miles non-stop without a sip of water. At that maddened stage, he was revered as supernatural being. Indeed, he was a hero and his power had emanated from heroin-like substance that was well controlled. This had been a well-kept secret in the society for the last 2000 years. To that society of Ngonsonia, the Europeans, S.E. Asians and Americans who open all their cats from the bag, Pandora box would be described as excited toddlers who are out for gain at all cost and with no remorse.
The list of banned substances taken in camera in the sporting world extends for miles on end www.wada-ama.org/rtecontent/document/2006_LIST.pdf I will refer you to the Anti-Duping Agency in your country. It starts with stimulants, sleeping pills, and then hard drugs that are not prescribed by authorized physicians. Acquiring some is easy and many do manufacture theirs at their kitchen tables using common household materials. Do not fire a question at me to get this information as I am not interested and will never touch any of the dark world stuff. However we can add to a catalogue of ways some persons are initiated into this bad habit. Unless you are dumb and deaf you must have heard or seen ways these are done. How are some people initiated into the dreaded gang of drugs in North America, Europe and Africa I know at close quarters? There are cases when weddings take place in some communities and wedding cakes are embellished with heroin, solid white powder. Amphetamines, cracks and many more are grounded and embedded in the stew and the guests and hosts after relishing are euphoric. Those becoming heroes and heroines, indulged in orgies, consequently living their provisional but illusionary heaven on earth.
It is not precise for many persons interpretation is someone taking heroin, amphetamines, and other psychedelic stuffs. A mere tablet of aspirin can be a drug. Even some that are given to babies have some alcohol in them and that is why they are soporific and send those who take them to feel good and sleeps by tempering with their senses. Some have described it to be better than blissful conjugal union. It depends on how you take it, your body mass, your state of mind, health, climate, etc, etc. Mere snuff, tobacco smoking, coffee or tea drinking, if taken to excess can become addictive drugs. Even if not taken to excess, the fact that hot tea changes our mood, tells us that there is a certain chemical in it that changes our body temperature or system that is a drug-like. ..vitamin C. That is therefore considered as drugs.
ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES
Those people who smoke or drink alcohol do not even think that they are taking drugs. Beer and spirits are drugs and if imbibed to excess can damage our health and it could be fatal. Millions die year in year out owing to drug abuse as we shall see in the sample below. There are some corrupt African governments that deliberately keep prices of beer and other alcoholic beverages low; allow the brewing of alcohol and illicit gins so that their citizens drink to dead. There are no warnings on packages of cigarettes being sold of the danger of cancer and smoke related diseases. I questioned a leading Western cigarette manufacturing firm (anonymous) why they were selling their cigarettes without health warning signs in Africa and other third world countries and the reply was: “These (African. ..my italics) governments put their economic gains over the health and welfare of their citizens.” By insinuation, it was not their concern. The irony was that health warning signs were inscribed in phantom letters of cigarette packages in North America and Western Europe and are sold under the counter in most super marts and corner stores in North America. Where was the unity of the world if one part of it was doing a silly thing another condoned it for it was not in their back yard and that it did not have to affect them? The truth is that when people are dying in Africa as in the Horn of Africa, Central Africa and the Western Africa, Westerners are the ones collecting money to go and rescue them. The world becomes a muddle not only to aliens like Martians but to the earthlings themselves.
MANUFACTURERS AND DISTRIBUTORS
On alcohol as lethal drugs, when citizens of the countries are constantly drunk absenteeism is soaring and productivity is given naught. The citizens are lackadaisical when it concerns democratic government. Shrewd dictators siphon these maddened or perpetually drunk tax payers’ money they have earned by working hard with blood, sweat and tears send them abroad and do not care a damn.
There are families that use food money to buy drugs, beer, wines, spirits, and their children starve to dead. Some wines are deliberately adulterated by adding on some chemicals. Others have added red blood to enhance their values. When crooked men want to make money, they can do anything conceivable to get it. Drugs have killed many persons who had been initiated into them by the devil. Drugs have taken many to dungeons or prisons. The work of the devil is made so easy for him because most users of hard drugs have the erroneous impression that heaven is on earth or when they are in that temporal self-induced euphoric state. Who is this devil? Once more, he could be your next door neighbor you call your friend. He is a school mate. He is as young as ten years old and is being used as a distributor of drugs. He plays basket ball with you but he had got horns of a devil and wears the green gloves that will never ever make you think or believe that he could handle a grain of drug. His customers are kids who even empty their piggy bank money to buy drugs to be high during school recesses. They only sensible statement from them is that: ‘schooling is boring.’ Before you realize they have defected from school or college if at all they managed to rich that level and literature of this genre is highfalutin.
He is even a police man who distributes and is clad in his official uniform. This becomes complicated for straight law enforcement officers to know that he is supplying drugs. He is your dentist, nurse, doctor, teacher, girl friend, boyfriend, etc. He suggests that when you take the drug you are relieved of your pains.
Others’ rationale is that drugs can kill patients with chronic diseases, they euphemistically call euthanasia. [They better think hard for no one has ever created life and not one should ever plan to take it away for what they call mercy killing. They may have tangible reasons for isolated cases but many will hide behind suffering to kill innocent people so as to covet their possessions. The moment we will accept to kill the terminally sick so to say, we will cogitate on destroying the physically infirmed as they are perpetually suffering. It is no longer a proposition but some people have been taking laws into their hands to eliminate those they consider infirmed and that can never be right]. There is no end in sight and not domains are safe.
Pains never die unless we are clinically dead. Therefore, abusing of drugs will be with us as long as the world exists. Even animals take drugs but they are wiser than men in that they know when to call it a day. You can only free yourself by saying no emphatically on day one when you attend that birthday party and someone suggests that you take drugs. Finish that last dregs of wine before you head to the ‘head,’ washroom as what you thought was an innocent friend could be a messenger of the devil, an infidel sent to give you an unsolicited drug. If you had not taken the drug you would not have been in the sorry state you were or are in hitherto. If you did not take that first sip of wine just to socialize so to say, you would not have been drunk to have unwanted sex and a baby or to have that deadly motor accident.
Not only that you got hocked and you cannot do without it. You lost your job, your friends, your children, house and you are dying of an incurable disease because you had to indulge in out of wedlock sex so as to get money to keep up with your life style dominated by banned drugs. You even opt to become a distributor or a manufacturer and this is the riskiest business besides being in the battle field lined with anti personnel landmines. You blame your parents for not saying no vehemently while they first saw you with that first stick of cigarette or when they first found you with a syringe. They could not for in those days it was in vogue to smoke to charm girls or for girls to show that they were tough and could do what men could do too. You were being wooed by the devil and he succeeded. Eventually you die and your meager possessions if sold cannot even buy you an everlasting resting place. Your authors of life or some Samaritans had to shoulder that responsibility. They have to go to the bank to borrow and after they start asking why in this world you were even born. You had helped not even yourself or someone. You have left no mark on earth but have come to have fun at others’ expense. Your activities apart from accelerating the death of many put literally thousands behind bars. In other words, you are useless as an element that came to serve the devil instead of God. You epithet mimics that of Al Capone the gangster that unleash a reign of terror in America in the 1920s. The society or your parents are not to be blamed but yourself wherever you end up. You are the architect of your destiny.
HOW MANY WILL BE KILLED BY DRUGS BEFORE TOO MANY HAVE DIED?
The power they had is given to them by God. For those ‘Darwinians’ who are tempted by drugs to say that there is no God, they call it nature and that their achievements were either an accident in nature, genes they inherit from their parents or the fact that they grow in a society that measure success in competition. The persons who were the winner in the competition were the hero or heroines, not in the traditional way but they were false as they were takers of skill-enhancing drugs.
I have buried many in the morning of their lives. The list can fill a book as the New Testament and that shows that there is something awry in our world if we keep on going on like this without examining ourselves. First, I would like to underline that life without examination is not worth living! How many Michael Jacksons; How many Marvin Gayes; How many Jimmy Hendricks; How many Elvis Priestleys ….? How many Nicole Simpsons will die before the world will know that too many have died from drugs? Many die when drug swat teams burst into their homes looking for drug pushers. Task forces killed suspects or stray bullets kill nearby standers when they are chasing narcotic dealers at predawn raid in the USA, Canada, and in many Latin American countries. The case of Mexico, Columbia and a bunch of Latin American states is a gangrene that will need nerves to be cured. In the USA alone, since 2007 a total of 9,903 persons have died from narcotic related deaths. The drug cartels in the USA, Columbia, Mexico, Brazil, Afghanistan, Russia, Vietnam, a bunch of SE Asian states, and most of Latin America are sophisticated. The market for illegal drugs is limitless as there are eager desperadoes that could kill just to keep on with their life style of drugs.
As alluded to above, sometimes the hunters of hard drugs or narcotic squats are themselves corrupt and push drugs themselves; consequently it is difficult to set hardened thieves to catch professional thieves. The whole situation becomes ridiculous and one wonders when one captures the beast call drug pusher as where the head, the tail and chest are. It is a deadly beast that is completely amorphous. The task is deciphering the head, torso and other parts before knowing where to catch the beast without it attacking the catcher. It is confused and the fight for it has to start at the nursery and at individual’s family homes. These are just the tip of the iceberg. In so many countries countless numbers die from kidney related diseases and poisoning triggered by the abuse of alcohol beverages is staggering. Sadly in some there is no age limit as to when one can start drinking alcohol as in some East European states including Russia and many Sub-Saharan African states. Many gallivant our streets stack naked or are locked away by relatives who bury their heads in sand the moment they venture into the public eyes. Hard drugs or those prescribed by money driven corrupt medical doctors are sometimes responsible. The impression is that when two or three meet there must be drug sharing, beer and spirits flowing instead of God being in their midst. They break our hearts; they help to kill us softly but surely and to halt this is a task that all of us must execute.
We must stop and do what used to happen in my society sardonically known in the old days by Westerners as primitive before their civilization came or was imposed. I will tell you what they did and the society was free from drugs. Let Europeans and Euroamericans think that they invented drugs, hashish, cocaine, heroin and others. Not so! I am not going to be the one to outline them here for those dealers and killers of our children with drugs or those who crave to experiment with narcotics. No, I will give them a zero. Why do I call those trafficking in narcotics killers?
Many do think that to kill as the pogrom in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Congo Democratic Republic, the former provinces of Yugoslavia, Cambodia and Vietnam, one has to take a machete, a loaded AK47, or a crossbow and shoot some they disagrees with. If you deliberately propagate the use of drugs that leads to addiction of users, who eventually kill to carry on with their life styles or kill to get a bigger market as in Mexico, some parts of Canada, Brazil and Europe, you cannot be exonerated from being a killer. Remember that if the dealers and suppliers were not there, the users would still have been alive and there would not have been gang wars to control drug marts. In the same vein, if landmines manufacturers and distributors were not carrying out their so-called dastard economic activities, innocent bucolic folks would not have been killed or maimed by these devices at post bellum. As aforementioned, drugs were well known in my society and they were strictly for medicinal or religious purposes. They were controlled and handled only by the initiated, medical doctors, alchemists and not any dilettante or incorrigible malcontent. For that reason, the closely guarded secret stayed for two thousand years and was never a problem in the society. Today, Westerners, S. E, Asians, and Latin Americans in particular have blatantly opened the Pandora boxes of drugs as long as those lords and princes of Hollywood open their excess money to buy them at night. Can the trend be reversed?
THE CASE OF MICHAEL JACKSON
Suddenly there were foreigners who invaded that my ‘primitive’ society. Some glamorized drugs, openly used them and it was never controlled as in the primitive societies. In my primitive society innocent farmers turned maize fields into hashish plantations as basements are turned into growing fields and narcotic manufacturing centers in the West. It was not long before the youths saw the truth that was drugs. They avariciously took them and died in droves from overdosing…shooting to control and chase away intruders from their markets or shooting defectors whom they feared would reveal their secrets to law enforcement officers who apparently were corrupt. Does this sound like the contents of a Rio de Janeiro or New Mexico or Chicago suburbia dailies? The fear is when toddlers as young as ten years old are involved and school grounds and parks are distribution centers as in the sprawling city of Gatineau. If the users were not dying, they turned into cabbages or junkies. Many were seen maddened by the drugs they took. At the time of writing, Saturday, August 22, 2009 many still walked around in their birthday suits and the moment they realize the condition they are in, some take away their lives. In this case, the devil wins as we saw the devil won in his tug of war with the super star Michael Jackson. He had gone but the pains he left behind lingers on with his family, his fans and many of us who were not even his fans. It is because we are all human and interconnected. We all mourn for him as we did for Diana Princess of Wales. Whatever the rate of grieves, the show must go on. It is hoped that grief will fortify us to resist temptation of drug abuse, vices and to endeavor to stamp them out of our lives. Sadly, many will still come up and will be caught in the same snares as apparently was Michael Jackson and many that went before him and more lining up to drink from the same cup. We, like monkeys will still cover our eyes with a leaf assuming that our entire bodies are covered and insulated from the bullet of the hunter.
We are all vulnerable. Even many will read this article and will still be victims. Listen to what a French shop assistant who was working in a shop I was managing once told me when I confronted him on smoking profusely: “If I smoke and I am happy and I will eventually die. If I do not smoke I do not enjoy my life and I will still die. Therefore, I have decided to be smoking to enjoy my life.” The devil will still come to tell them that it they can only take one ‘joint’ of hashish and they will be cured of their pains and before they realized they are taking heroin and still craving for more. They become artificial heroes and heroines and the first drug taken is a statement that they better dig their grave not only six feet deep but twelve feet deeper. It is because their untimely death will cause uncountable heartaches and soul-searching. I am convinced that the rest of the members of the Jackson family will continue to feel guilty for these reasons.
SCAPEGOAT
If Michael Jackson were cornered as occasionally he was, he attributed his lifestyle to his stoic father, Joe Jackson. He is not the only one who had parents that wanted the best from him. I met a Jewish child of six at the Nepean ward of Ottawa whose mother took him to be trained as a professional swimmer, to swim like a fish several hours a day. He was fade up and did not know what to do for his father was siding with his mother. The uncles and aunts were barred from coming closer to Michael Jackson. He was in denial and that was when the devil gripping him softly but surely as cancer induced by smoke. To protect his integrity, some members of his family and friends are even suggesting that he was killed for his wealth, others that he was poisoned so as to covet his property. If he was killed when it was a well documented fact that he was a drug abuser, a fact alleged to have stemmed from the burning of his hair during a Pepsi commercial filming in 1984, how would that be separated from substance abuse and poisoning by his entourage?
Let me not digress from the Jewish child I met in the swimming pool. The only outsider the child met to tell his tale and be listened to was me. The child told me how he was being forced to be the best swimmer in the world and ended: “Sir, I am fed up. I do not know what to do. I do not have a choice,” he sadly ended. I was flabbergasted and saddened for I could not help him. In this case, I blamed the society where one is schooled to mind one’s damned business. When you are pugnacious, the reward may be a stray bullet. When I went home that night, I cried and wondered how I could help that desperate child. My apprehension then was that if I reported to the authorities, that child could be taken away by the Ottawa authorities for adoption. Today I read of a young mother in Ontario who left her child in a car in temperatures of above 30 degree Celsius to dash into a shop and do her shopping and police were called on her by a passerby. The person who called the police did a right thing. He perhaps served the life of that child and the mother will never forget her hard lesson after paying fines or serving imprisonment. With hindsight that was the right thing that I should have done. I failed my God with my naïve reasoning that I had only met him for a month and it might have been that he could have fabricated his story. At the time of writing Saturday, August 22, 2009 I am still crying for that child was tortured. He should be in his twenties now if at all he survived his ordeal. He might have grown up to be successful but the truth is that whether successful as Michael and dying in the morning of his life, the parents would still be pointed a finger at as Mr. Joe Jackson for having deprived Michael of his childhood thus pushing him to the reclusive state he was in before he eventually “committed suicide” or died mysteriously on June 25, 2009, many are in denial of.
Furthermore, when the Williams sisters: Venus and Serena Williams were being trained as tennis players by their parents, neighbors could have been telling themselves that their father was excessive. One, it was unusual for African American families to be engaged in such elitists’ sort of game. Two, they might have been ignored as no African American woman had ever reached Wimbledon and the Caucasians or Africans who were neighbors simply ignored them as beating about the bush. Therefore, when Michael Jackson blatantly talked of his father torturing him, one could say that his sort of torture was relative. I will explain below.
THE PAINFUL TRAILS OF SUCCESS ARE FORGOTTEN ONCE WE REACH OPULENT MINES
Even if Joe Jackson had detected the talent in his son and wanted to get the best out of him, then Michael should have known that his father was doing all that for his good. In the eyes of Joe Jackson, he did the best for his son. Many had done that in the past and their children grew up to congratulate them on a job well done. It is for that reason that the success of most of us start from home and not from without. Others like Michael had grown up to accuse their parents of being responsible for their psychological absurdity. When Michael released Thriller in 1984 and was the best selling artist ever in the universe, did he blame his father Joe Jackson? Did his father sanction the devil to enter Michael’s head to make him not to be satisfied with his achievement? Did he tell him to start chiseling his physiognomy? Mr. Tiger Wood attributes his gulf successes to his late father. He had his blessing. If he decided to misuse his wealth and direct it to drugs pushed by some Hollywood physicians as they sneak in to corrupt actors and actresses for their money, do you think he would have levied his craving for drugs with the ways he was brought up by his parents? I am poor and still looking around the world for a job that could make me happy and the people I work for. Do I of all men attribute my state of poverty to my parents, myself, the society, the devil or God or a combination of all of these characters? Can substance abuse be a panacea to my or our interminable vista of problems?
Dr. Viban Viban Ngo
Is the author of
[1] BEFORE YOU LEAVE FOR EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA: A ROUGH COMPANION GUIDE FOR (AFRICAN) STUDENTS.[authorhouse, Indiana]
[2] WHO IS AFRICAN AMERICAN? CROSSING RACIAL BARRIERS www.baico.ca Ottawa, Canada
Your can reach me at vibanngo@hotmail.com
[Gentle readers while I appreciate you reading and passing it on to others, could you give me your feedback. Your silence could make me to be complaisant that I am making a contribution when I am wasting your time and mine]. If you like my missive, please pass it on to friends. All I am crying for, is for us to rescue one sheep missing out of 100 in the flock.]
By
Dr. V. Viban Ngo
PRELOGUE TO‘HEROIN MADE’
I have been stirred by the premature departure of Michael Jackson caused by drugs http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090824/ten-jacko-died-of-lethal-levels-of-anaes-8a3eada.html to write on drugs, heroes and heroines. You are going to wonder what on earth heroes and heroines have got to do with drugs. First, what do we mean by drug? When we talk of drug, the term is so vague. I do not want to dabble in it but will refer you to experts’ definition: “A drug is any chemical you take that affects the way your body works. Alcohol, caffeine, aspirin and nicotine are all drugs. A drug must be able to pass from your body into your brain.” http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/on-line/brain/198.asp What are the connections of drugs with champions in our society? I will let you know without delay if you did not know. If you do, skip this missive and browse the World Wide Web but before you discard it, pass it on to anyone who may be in need of it. The truth is that all of us are in need this information either for ourselves, parenting, for others or simply to be informed. To a good number, when you are a normal person and doing normal things, you are not a hero. When you assume titanic imaginary size and prowess and are able to break boulders or moraines with your bare hands, we can call you a hero or heroine. You are no longer normal but uncharacteristic.
There is one way one could attain this magnitude. One could either be born a genius, hero or heroine, or one could acquire such importance by assuming or taking things that would transform one to a super natural being, a god. One could take what the Americans call substances, narcotics, amphetamines or what you euphemistically call medicine that may alter one’s defensive white blood cells negatively or positively. Drugs or medicine as variously known could pump excess blood into your circulatory system, to the brain too and make you do extraordinary positive or negative things. This does not necessarily work for all Ngong, Chin and Lukong or Tom, Dick and Harry as the Britons would render it. Some users are instead befuddled or stupefied. Others are emboldened to have provisional aptitude in which they do supernatural things after which they are worst off than when they started. In some languages, they are turned to cabbages, junkies or zombies. The moment of attending that self-induced prowess is the euphoric state. The taker of the power supplying chemical or combination of chemicals could do marvels. He could run, sing, dance, swim, fly or even engaged in physical or mental exercises without getting fatigued. Mind you, I am not glamorizing the taking of hard drugs for whatever reasons. If I do so I will be supporting and abating advertently untimely death, (if at all there is anything known as such) and criminal acts. Although I decry the taking of drugs there are some states that have used the law to allow its citizens to take drugs. On Wednesday August 2009 while we mourn the passing away of Senator Ted Kennedy, a seasoned giant of American politics at the age of 77 from brain cancer, the court in Argentina ruled that it is unconstitutional to punish anyone for having marijuana for personal consumption. Marijuana is a hard drug and I have seen the consequences throughout my global peregrination.
Often, drug takers hallucinate and are in a near state of depression. They are literarily maddened. I am not talking of the maddened crowd in the streets of Spain when they are being chased by bulls, stampede; the mesmerized bare-chested men at Squares in Kumbo who are fanning the black-back-bag-carrier, kibaranko during Ngonso Carnival often punctuated by carousals. I am not talking of the football hooliganism or those of a gang of vandals in the subways in New York, Chicago or in the suburbia of London, Ankara, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, Mumbai, and Lagos where dogs sometimes eat dogs in their quests for drug marts’ spaces. I mean literarily temporal madness that is self induced.
ETYMOLOGY
I have been skirting around the point of heroin, drug my cardinal theme. The etymology of this word is from a Greek word ‘hero’. How comes it has a suffix ‘in’? A German chemical firm came up with a morphine derivative, an effective painkiller and christened it heroin. You are wondering what hero has got to do with medicine. If a patient or a junkie took it, he gained that one day celebrity of standing on an illusionary podium in the hall of fame. It was because of the chemicals it diffused in his or her system; he or she became euphoric and had the delusion of grandeur, our hero or heroine for that moment so to say. The users have been transformed from being natural or normal to being phlegmatically abnormal. We know why a certain drug, painkiller has the effect of heroin. It is because once taken, it instantly turned you into a hero, be it ephemeral or longer depending on your system, other drugs you take, the size of your body, you health and so many factors beyond the scope of this treatise.
Most titans or superstars are natural persons. They had not taken substances to enhance their prowess they naturally possessed and excelled in. It is when they want to sustain that power, skill that they inherently have that they are tempted to ask for more. In that case, God does not grant their request as they have reached the acme of their life or performance. God who made them knows their limits and is ascertained that if they exceed those limits they are doomed. Consequently, God gives those naught and no matter how serious they implore Him, they get alternative answers. For those who cannot take no for an answer, they look for any opportunity cost and that is the devil or gargoyle with a spiky tail. He will wrestle with God, the embodiment of good and jump on our weakness, chasms of our lives and impose himself in the guise to bridge those gaps. He, the devil is not only sweeter but glamorous. In this case, he will suggest through a medical doctor, a drug pusher, a dealer that you could improve your chances of success by enhancing your performances with drugs. He first starts by giving you free samples to assay. They are good, soporific and the results are glaring for all Tom, Dick and Harry to see. Some of these are drugs and some are called heroin and cracks and so on. These are in the category of banned hard drugs or substances in most democratic and civilized societies.
The person or persons administering these forbidden drugs or who has taught you how to cultivate and process them is a devil incarnate. When you enter to play that basket ball, football, swimming, boxing, singing, acting, sustain that stamina for hours or days on end, it is the drug that the devil has given you to bamboozle onlookers that you are naturally tough. It is when you have chosen the devil over God, evil over good and the cost could be the highest you or your relations will ever pay. These are phrases drug abusers who are in denial do not want to hear. With time, the natural power wanes and the only way to get you going, so to say is to take more drugs. You are hocked on the drugs. They become your life-line. The only way to go is to take more and more dosage.
Does it work? No. It is because your body needs more so that you could outdistance other competitors who are also taking drugs. Sports that were natural now become manifestations of the experimentation of drugs and the more effective the drug an athlete takes the better his performance. Chemists who are out to squeeze money from innocent and vulnerable people’s hearts are gladdened as it means enriching themselves to live in opulence we blatantly call blood money. The suppliers know their tasks. They go to the laboratories to try hard to get other concoctions that are superior to the ones other had been giving you. You take it and it actually works so well that you want a daily supply. You may not have the money to get more and there is a way out. The devil who led you there in the first place will give you the leeway. He is found in the computer, internet, extranet, and lives even in your parents and friends. He is in public places. He suggests that if you have fun with other persons you will not be short of cash to get on with what you are doing. He would even show you superstars who improved their ways of life by using it. He calls it fun. What is that way? Gamble your family savings! Is that all? He will suggest that you indulge in prostitution and even lead you to the whoredom. Ask men, women, animals and mannequins (robots) to penetrate you and give you money in return. There is danger in the horizon but you do not see it for you have been fooled that your clients or yourself are insulated from contaminants. You are blinded and deceived. They are not safe for once a lady accepted one client and went to his home to find five men ready to penetrate her. She insisted that they all wore protective gears and there was one there who stated that they took away maximum satisfaction. That was the last episode in her life.
TITANIC FEATS
Then, I have said nothing that is new, or that many of you are not aware of. Local media literally sing them for those who have ears and eyes to see and hear and run away from them. Even though we have said it, we have to reiterate it as doctrine to be engrained in our genes that drugs that are not prescribed by a seasoned and approved medical doctor for out sincere needs are not to be taken by any one for his escapism or creation of his ephemeral euphoric state. Hollywood stars have known of this for ages. This was known in the Middle Ages and your society in Ngonsonia [Nso’] had known of it for long. But it was never out of all proportion for it was controlled. In what was in the past known by Westerners as a primitive society or community of mine, psychedelic drugs were well known but were top secrets of the society guarded by the elders of the community. These were only given to selected and initiated individuals who needed those extraordinary powers to do extraordinary things during religious ceremonies. In brief, they were taken by masqueraders when displaying in arena before mesmerized crowds. They were taken by hooded executors of murderers and those who had sold the kingdom. One with the men following him known as the wanmabu ran for 100 miles non-stop without a sip of water. At that maddened stage, he was revered as supernatural being. Indeed, he was a hero and his power had emanated from heroin-like substance that was well controlled. This had been a well-kept secret in the society for the last 2000 years. To that society of Ngonsonia, the Europeans, S.E. Asians and Americans who open all their cats from the bag, Pandora box would be described as excited toddlers who are out for gain at all cost and with no remorse.
The list of banned substances taken in camera in the sporting world extends for miles on end www.wada-ama.org/rtecontent/document/2006_LIST.pdf I will refer you to the Anti-Duping Agency in your country. It starts with stimulants, sleeping pills, and then hard drugs that are not prescribed by authorized physicians. Acquiring some is easy and many do manufacture theirs at their kitchen tables using common household materials. Do not fire a question at me to get this information as I am not interested and will never touch any of the dark world stuff. However we can add to a catalogue of ways some persons are initiated into this bad habit. Unless you are dumb and deaf you must have heard or seen ways these are done. How are some people initiated into the dreaded gang of drugs in North America, Europe and Africa I know at close quarters? There are cases when weddings take place in some communities and wedding cakes are embellished with heroin, solid white powder. Amphetamines, cracks and many more are grounded and embedded in the stew and the guests and hosts after relishing are euphoric. Those becoming heroes and heroines, indulged in orgies, consequently living their provisional but illusionary heaven on earth.
It is not precise for many persons interpretation is someone taking heroin, amphetamines, and other psychedelic stuffs. A mere tablet of aspirin can be a drug. Even some that are given to babies have some alcohol in them and that is why they are soporific and send those who take them to feel good and sleeps by tempering with their senses. Some have described it to be better than blissful conjugal union. It depends on how you take it, your body mass, your state of mind, health, climate, etc, etc. Mere snuff, tobacco smoking, coffee or tea drinking, if taken to excess can become addictive drugs. Even if not taken to excess, the fact that hot tea changes our mood, tells us that there is a certain chemical in it that changes our body temperature or system that is a drug-like. ..vitamin C. That is therefore considered as drugs.
ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES
Those people who smoke or drink alcohol do not even think that they are taking drugs. Beer and spirits are drugs and if imbibed to excess can damage our health and it could be fatal. Millions die year in year out owing to drug abuse as we shall see in the sample below. There are some corrupt African governments that deliberately keep prices of beer and other alcoholic beverages low; allow the brewing of alcohol and illicit gins so that their citizens drink to dead. There are no warnings on packages of cigarettes being sold of the danger of cancer and smoke related diseases. I questioned a leading Western cigarette manufacturing firm (anonymous) why they were selling their cigarettes without health warning signs in Africa and other third world countries and the reply was: “These (African. ..my italics) governments put their economic gains over the health and welfare of their citizens.” By insinuation, it was not their concern. The irony was that health warning signs were inscribed in phantom letters of cigarette packages in North America and Western Europe and are sold under the counter in most super marts and corner stores in North America. Where was the unity of the world if one part of it was doing a silly thing another condoned it for it was not in their back yard and that it did not have to affect them? The truth is that when people are dying in Africa as in the Horn of Africa, Central Africa and the Western Africa, Westerners are the ones collecting money to go and rescue them. The world becomes a muddle not only to aliens like Martians but to the earthlings themselves.
MANUFACTURERS AND DISTRIBUTORS
On alcohol as lethal drugs, when citizens of the countries are constantly drunk absenteeism is soaring and productivity is given naught. The citizens are lackadaisical when it concerns democratic government. Shrewd dictators siphon these maddened or perpetually drunk tax payers’ money they have earned by working hard with blood, sweat and tears send them abroad and do not care a damn.
There are families that use food money to buy drugs, beer, wines, spirits, and their children starve to dead. Some wines are deliberately adulterated by adding on some chemicals. Others have added red blood to enhance their values. When crooked men want to make money, they can do anything conceivable to get it. Drugs have killed many persons who had been initiated into them by the devil. Drugs have taken many to dungeons or prisons. The work of the devil is made so easy for him because most users of hard drugs have the erroneous impression that heaven is on earth or when they are in that temporal self-induced euphoric state. Who is this devil? Once more, he could be your next door neighbor you call your friend. He is a school mate. He is as young as ten years old and is being used as a distributor of drugs. He plays basket ball with you but he had got horns of a devil and wears the green gloves that will never ever make you think or believe that he could handle a grain of drug. His customers are kids who even empty their piggy bank money to buy drugs to be high during school recesses. They only sensible statement from them is that: ‘schooling is boring.’ Before you realize they have defected from school or college if at all they managed to rich that level and literature of this genre is highfalutin.
He is even a police man who distributes and is clad in his official uniform. This becomes complicated for straight law enforcement officers to know that he is supplying drugs. He is your dentist, nurse, doctor, teacher, girl friend, boyfriend, etc. He suggests that when you take the drug you are relieved of your pains.
Others’ rationale is that drugs can kill patients with chronic diseases, they euphemistically call euthanasia. [They better think hard for no one has ever created life and not one should ever plan to take it away for what they call mercy killing. They may have tangible reasons for isolated cases but many will hide behind suffering to kill innocent people so as to covet their possessions. The moment we will accept to kill the terminally sick so to say, we will cogitate on destroying the physically infirmed as they are perpetually suffering. It is no longer a proposition but some people have been taking laws into their hands to eliminate those they consider infirmed and that can never be right]. There is no end in sight and not domains are safe.
Pains never die unless we are clinically dead. Therefore, abusing of drugs will be with us as long as the world exists. Even animals take drugs but they are wiser than men in that they know when to call it a day. You can only free yourself by saying no emphatically on day one when you attend that birthday party and someone suggests that you take drugs. Finish that last dregs of wine before you head to the ‘head,’ washroom as what you thought was an innocent friend could be a messenger of the devil, an infidel sent to give you an unsolicited drug. If you had not taken the drug you would not have been in the sorry state you were or are in hitherto. If you did not take that first sip of wine just to socialize so to say, you would not have been drunk to have unwanted sex and a baby or to have that deadly motor accident.
Not only that you got hocked and you cannot do without it. You lost your job, your friends, your children, house and you are dying of an incurable disease because you had to indulge in out of wedlock sex so as to get money to keep up with your life style dominated by banned drugs. You even opt to become a distributor or a manufacturer and this is the riskiest business besides being in the battle field lined with anti personnel landmines. You blame your parents for not saying no vehemently while they first saw you with that first stick of cigarette or when they first found you with a syringe. They could not for in those days it was in vogue to smoke to charm girls or for girls to show that they were tough and could do what men could do too. You were being wooed by the devil and he succeeded. Eventually you die and your meager possessions if sold cannot even buy you an everlasting resting place. Your authors of life or some Samaritans had to shoulder that responsibility. They have to go to the bank to borrow and after they start asking why in this world you were even born. You had helped not even yourself or someone. You have left no mark on earth but have come to have fun at others’ expense. Your activities apart from accelerating the death of many put literally thousands behind bars. In other words, you are useless as an element that came to serve the devil instead of God. You epithet mimics that of Al Capone the gangster that unleash a reign of terror in America in the 1920s. The society or your parents are not to be blamed but yourself wherever you end up. You are the architect of your destiny.
HOW MANY WILL BE KILLED BY DRUGS BEFORE TOO MANY HAVE DIED?
The power they had is given to them by God. For those ‘Darwinians’ who are tempted by drugs to say that there is no God, they call it nature and that their achievements were either an accident in nature, genes they inherit from their parents or the fact that they grow in a society that measure success in competition. The persons who were the winner in the competition were the hero or heroines, not in the traditional way but they were false as they were takers of skill-enhancing drugs.
I have buried many in the morning of their lives. The list can fill a book as the New Testament and that shows that there is something awry in our world if we keep on going on like this without examining ourselves. First, I would like to underline that life without examination is not worth living! How many Michael Jacksons; How many Marvin Gayes; How many Jimmy Hendricks; How many Elvis Priestleys ….? How many Nicole Simpsons will die before the world will know that too many have died from drugs? Many die when drug swat teams burst into their homes looking for drug pushers. Task forces killed suspects or stray bullets kill nearby standers when they are chasing narcotic dealers at predawn raid in the USA, Canada, and in many Latin American countries. The case of Mexico, Columbia and a bunch of Latin American states is a gangrene that will need nerves to be cured. In the USA alone, since 2007 a total of 9,903 persons have died from narcotic related deaths. The drug cartels in the USA, Columbia, Mexico, Brazil, Afghanistan, Russia, Vietnam, a bunch of SE Asian states, and most of Latin America are sophisticated. The market for illegal drugs is limitless as there are eager desperadoes that could kill just to keep on with their life style of drugs.
As alluded to above, sometimes the hunters of hard drugs or narcotic squats are themselves corrupt and push drugs themselves; consequently it is difficult to set hardened thieves to catch professional thieves. The whole situation becomes ridiculous and one wonders when one captures the beast call drug pusher as where the head, the tail and chest are. It is a deadly beast that is completely amorphous. The task is deciphering the head, torso and other parts before knowing where to catch the beast without it attacking the catcher. It is confused and the fight for it has to start at the nursery and at individual’s family homes. These are just the tip of the iceberg. In so many countries countless numbers die from kidney related diseases and poisoning triggered by the abuse of alcohol beverages is staggering. Sadly in some there is no age limit as to when one can start drinking alcohol as in some East European states including Russia and many Sub-Saharan African states. Many gallivant our streets stack naked or are locked away by relatives who bury their heads in sand the moment they venture into the public eyes. Hard drugs or those prescribed by money driven corrupt medical doctors are sometimes responsible. The impression is that when two or three meet there must be drug sharing, beer and spirits flowing instead of God being in their midst. They break our hearts; they help to kill us softly but surely and to halt this is a task that all of us must execute.
We must stop and do what used to happen in my society sardonically known in the old days by Westerners as primitive before their civilization came or was imposed. I will tell you what they did and the society was free from drugs. Let Europeans and Euroamericans think that they invented drugs, hashish, cocaine, heroin and others. Not so! I am not going to be the one to outline them here for those dealers and killers of our children with drugs or those who crave to experiment with narcotics. No, I will give them a zero. Why do I call those trafficking in narcotics killers?
Many do think that to kill as the pogrom in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Congo Democratic Republic, the former provinces of Yugoslavia, Cambodia and Vietnam, one has to take a machete, a loaded AK47, or a crossbow and shoot some they disagrees with. If you deliberately propagate the use of drugs that leads to addiction of users, who eventually kill to carry on with their life styles or kill to get a bigger market as in Mexico, some parts of Canada, Brazil and Europe, you cannot be exonerated from being a killer. Remember that if the dealers and suppliers were not there, the users would still have been alive and there would not have been gang wars to control drug marts. In the same vein, if landmines manufacturers and distributors were not carrying out their so-called dastard economic activities, innocent bucolic folks would not have been killed or maimed by these devices at post bellum. As aforementioned, drugs were well known in my society and they were strictly for medicinal or religious purposes. They were controlled and handled only by the initiated, medical doctors, alchemists and not any dilettante or incorrigible malcontent. For that reason, the closely guarded secret stayed for two thousand years and was never a problem in the society. Today, Westerners, S. E, Asians, and Latin Americans in particular have blatantly opened the Pandora boxes of drugs as long as those lords and princes of Hollywood open their excess money to buy them at night. Can the trend be reversed?
THE CASE OF MICHAEL JACKSON
Suddenly there were foreigners who invaded that my ‘primitive’ society. Some glamorized drugs, openly used them and it was never controlled as in the primitive societies. In my primitive society innocent farmers turned maize fields into hashish plantations as basements are turned into growing fields and narcotic manufacturing centers in the West. It was not long before the youths saw the truth that was drugs. They avariciously took them and died in droves from overdosing…shooting to control and chase away intruders from their markets or shooting defectors whom they feared would reveal their secrets to law enforcement officers who apparently were corrupt. Does this sound like the contents of a Rio de Janeiro or New Mexico or Chicago suburbia dailies? The fear is when toddlers as young as ten years old are involved and school grounds and parks are distribution centers as in the sprawling city of Gatineau. If the users were not dying, they turned into cabbages or junkies. Many were seen maddened by the drugs they took. At the time of writing, Saturday, August 22, 2009 many still walked around in their birthday suits and the moment they realize the condition they are in, some take away their lives. In this case, the devil wins as we saw the devil won in his tug of war with the super star Michael Jackson. He had gone but the pains he left behind lingers on with his family, his fans and many of us who were not even his fans. It is because we are all human and interconnected. We all mourn for him as we did for Diana Princess of Wales. Whatever the rate of grieves, the show must go on. It is hoped that grief will fortify us to resist temptation of drug abuse, vices and to endeavor to stamp them out of our lives. Sadly, many will still come up and will be caught in the same snares as apparently was Michael Jackson and many that went before him and more lining up to drink from the same cup. We, like monkeys will still cover our eyes with a leaf assuming that our entire bodies are covered and insulated from the bullet of the hunter.
We are all vulnerable. Even many will read this article and will still be victims. Listen to what a French shop assistant who was working in a shop I was managing once told me when I confronted him on smoking profusely: “If I smoke and I am happy and I will eventually die. If I do not smoke I do not enjoy my life and I will still die. Therefore, I have decided to be smoking to enjoy my life.” The devil will still come to tell them that it they can only take one ‘joint’ of hashish and they will be cured of their pains and before they realized they are taking heroin and still craving for more. They become artificial heroes and heroines and the first drug taken is a statement that they better dig their grave not only six feet deep but twelve feet deeper. It is because their untimely death will cause uncountable heartaches and soul-searching. I am convinced that the rest of the members of the Jackson family will continue to feel guilty for these reasons.
SCAPEGOAT
If Michael Jackson were cornered as occasionally he was, he attributed his lifestyle to his stoic father, Joe Jackson. He is not the only one who had parents that wanted the best from him. I met a Jewish child of six at the Nepean ward of Ottawa whose mother took him to be trained as a professional swimmer, to swim like a fish several hours a day. He was fade up and did not know what to do for his father was siding with his mother. The uncles and aunts were barred from coming closer to Michael Jackson. He was in denial and that was when the devil gripping him softly but surely as cancer induced by smoke. To protect his integrity, some members of his family and friends are even suggesting that he was killed for his wealth, others that he was poisoned so as to covet his property. If he was killed when it was a well documented fact that he was a drug abuser, a fact alleged to have stemmed from the burning of his hair during a Pepsi commercial filming in 1984, how would that be separated from substance abuse and poisoning by his entourage?
Let me not digress from the Jewish child I met in the swimming pool. The only outsider the child met to tell his tale and be listened to was me. The child told me how he was being forced to be the best swimmer in the world and ended: “Sir, I am fed up. I do not know what to do. I do not have a choice,” he sadly ended. I was flabbergasted and saddened for I could not help him. In this case, I blamed the society where one is schooled to mind one’s damned business. When you are pugnacious, the reward may be a stray bullet. When I went home that night, I cried and wondered how I could help that desperate child. My apprehension then was that if I reported to the authorities, that child could be taken away by the Ottawa authorities for adoption. Today I read of a young mother in Ontario who left her child in a car in temperatures of above 30 degree Celsius to dash into a shop and do her shopping and police were called on her by a passerby. The person who called the police did a right thing. He perhaps served the life of that child and the mother will never forget her hard lesson after paying fines or serving imprisonment. With hindsight that was the right thing that I should have done. I failed my God with my naïve reasoning that I had only met him for a month and it might have been that he could have fabricated his story. At the time of writing Saturday, August 22, 2009 I am still crying for that child was tortured. He should be in his twenties now if at all he survived his ordeal. He might have grown up to be successful but the truth is that whether successful as Michael and dying in the morning of his life, the parents would still be pointed a finger at as Mr. Joe Jackson for having deprived Michael of his childhood thus pushing him to the reclusive state he was in before he eventually “committed suicide” or died mysteriously on June 25, 2009, many are in denial of.
Furthermore, when the Williams sisters: Venus and Serena Williams were being trained as tennis players by their parents, neighbors could have been telling themselves that their father was excessive. One, it was unusual for African American families to be engaged in such elitists’ sort of game. Two, they might have been ignored as no African American woman had ever reached Wimbledon and the Caucasians or Africans who were neighbors simply ignored them as beating about the bush. Therefore, when Michael Jackson blatantly talked of his father torturing him, one could say that his sort of torture was relative. I will explain below.
THE PAINFUL TRAILS OF SUCCESS ARE FORGOTTEN ONCE WE REACH OPULENT MINES
Even if Joe Jackson had detected the talent in his son and wanted to get the best out of him, then Michael should have known that his father was doing all that for his good. In the eyes of Joe Jackson, he did the best for his son. Many had done that in the past and their children grew up to congratulate them on a job well done. It is for that reason that the success of most of us start from home and not from without. Others like Michael had grown up to accuse their parents of being responsible for their psychological absurdity. When Michael released Thriller in 1984 and was the best selling artist ever in the universe, did he blame his father Joe Jackson? Did his father sanction the devil to enter Michael’s head to make him not to be satisfied with his achievement? Did he tell him to start chiseling his physiognomy? Mr. Tiger Wood attributes his gulf successes to his late father. He had his blessing. If he decided to misuse his wealth and direct it to drugs pushed by some Hollywood physicians as they sneak in to corrupt actors and actresses for their money, do you think he would have levied his craving for drugs with the ways he was brought up by his parents? I am poor and still looking around the world for a job that could make me happy and the people I work for. Do I of all men attribute my state of poverty to my parents, myself, the society, the devil or God or a combination of all of these characters? Can substance abuse be a panacea to my or our interminable vista of problems?
Dr. Viban Viban Ngo
Is the author of
[1] BEFORE YOU LEAVE FOR EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA: A ROUGH COMPANION GUIDE FOR (AFRICAN) STUDENTS.[authorhouse, Indiana]
[2] WHO IS AFRICAN AMERICAN? CROSSING RACIAL BARRIERS www.baico.ca Ottawa, Canada
Your can reach me at vibanngo@hotmail.com
[Gentle readers while I appreciate you reading and passing it on to others, could you give me your feedback. Your silence could make me to be complaisant that I am making a contribution when I am wasting your time and mine]. If you like my missive, please pass it on to friends. All I am crying for, is for us to rescue one sheep missing out of 100 in the flock.]
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