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103 Youth and Nation-Building in Cameroon 6 President Biya’s New Deal Messages to the Youth: 1983-1991 6.1: Address by the President of the Republic to the Youths of Cameroon on the Occasion of the 17th National Youth Day, Yaounde, 10 February 1983 Theme: “Rigour and Moralization of the Cameroonian Society” Young People of Cameroon, My young and Beloved Fellow Countrymen, On this eve of 11 February, the date set aside for the Youths by the Cameroonian people and the Nation as a whole, it is a great pleasure for me to address you for the first time as Head of State. In doing so, I am both respecting a tradition and, above all bearing testimony to the unwavering care and affection which this Nation has for the Youths. I would like to seize this golden opportunity to once again extend to you my wishes of good health, happiness and success, and express the legitimate pride which the Cameroonian people are feeling each day with increasing conviction about your effective contribution and patriotic devotion to the great task of nation building. My young and beloved Fellow Countrymen, Cameroon has just smoothly gone through a period of great historical importance. I am referring to what the National President of the CNU termed during his meeting with the Bafoussam militants last 17 January 1983 as a “New Peaceful Revolution”. It is a pleasure for me to note that, on that occasion the Cameroonian Youths manifested their remarkable patriotism by taking the historic event with such devotion and dignity as is commensurate with the maturity of the Cameroonian people as a whole. You did not listen to the demons of destabilization, demoralization, and demobilization. You have discouraged the diverse manoeuvres, false propaganda and the campaigns to instigate sectarism. By so doing, you have not only shown proof of your lucidity and unswerving attachment to our institutions, but have also satisfied the expectations and hopes of the nation as far as the hopes as concerned. While thanking you from the bottom of my heart for all the events organized to illustrate your support as militants, while congratulating you for your high sense of responsibility towards the nation, I would like to tell you once more that I expect from you ever increasing and responsible commitment to mobilization. These two attitudes, called for at the Congress of Bafoussam, and based on the policy of political, economic, social, and cultural mastery are inextricably rooted in the need for rigour and the concern for ethical behaviour forcefully underscored at the Fifth National Council of the Cameroon National Union. 104 Churchill Ewumbue-Monono In a tumultuous world where the spectre of crisis looms and which is dominated by conflicts, divisions, violence, economic inequalities, selfish interests and misery, Cameroon has succeeded in offering Africa and the world a reassuring image of peace, stability, and I will say, prosperity. We owe this great achievement to the enduring action carried out to consolidate national unity and to our policies of planned liberalism, self-reliant, balanced development which exalt the participation of all the vital forces of the nation, mobilize and rationally exploit all our human and material resources. Hence, we are pleased and proud of these precious achievements made at the cost of the untiring sacrifices made by everybody, thus, proving, if it were necessary, that the development that we are pursuing with all our energy and determination is the work and reward of a United, industrious and committed people capable of assuming their own destiny. Yes, my Dear Young Fellow Countrymen, the many achievements that we made during these past years were the result of a fierce and sustained struggle waged closely together with the Cameroonian youths, the vital force and precious wealth of our country, the leaven and driving force, and the most dynamic, healthiest and most available of the nation’s vital forces. But as I stated in my end-of-year message, “We should not passively take pleasure in contemplative and static self-complacency for the enemies and the detractors of our institutions have not laid down their arms” . In this prospect, “Our major concern will be to maintain the pace of our development and revitalize and boost its quality while remaining loyal to our objective of self-reliant development”. Consequently, I am glad that by a fortunate coincidence which is significant in many respects, the theme of your day this year is “Rigour and Moralization of the Cameroonian Society”. It is thus incumbent...

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