Perspectives on Written Cameroon Literature in English

15. The Quintessence of Bernard Fonlon

269 15 The Quintessence of Bernard Fonlon If Africa were to be destroyed by a flood today, and if some African books, on the strength of their intrinsic worth and beauty, were to float like Noah’s Ark and remain to tell to the rest of the world the story of literary excellence from Africa, Bernard Fonlon’s The Genuine Intellectual would certainly be numbered among the few to be so salvaged. And this would be due largely to the sound ideas contained in the book, and also to the way in which the ideas are conveyed to the reader. In other words, the strength of Fonlon’s The Genuine Intellectual resides in its matter and manner.1 What is the book about? It is on the Nature, the End and the Purpose of University Studies. There is at the beginning of the book an interesting and absorbing history of the origin and growth of the university in the ancient and medieval worlds prior to modern times. Fonlon believes “that the university is not for a mindless mob but for the Talented Tenth” (8-9). According to him, “to create an authentic university and not a glorified secondary school” (9), we must create with it the following trinity: the University Library, the University Bookshop and the University Printing Press. It is about the university, with respect to Africa’s needs and aspirations. At a time when Africa is still the fertile ground for imperialism and neo-colonialism, contends Fonlon, the university is the sure place to produce the genuine intellectuals who will be able to combat these “isms”. The University is the nurturing ground for the people that will bring pride and dignity to the Africa that has been degraded, disgraced, demoralized and despoiled. At the centre of University studies are the African youth, the genuine intellectuals in the making: Africa’s hope for the 270 future. An intellectual, by popular definition, is one who is educated, learned and clever, one, most probably, with a University education, and the higher his qualification, the better. Fonlon would say that if your intellectual was all this and nothing else, he would not qualify as a genuine intellectual. Here then are the hallmarks of the authentic intellectual as conceived by Fonlon: the person must not only be clever, learned and broadly educated; he must be a tireless pursuer of knowledge and truth; he must be ready to delve deeply beyond the surface facts into the heart of things, the ultimate truth; he must be a constant researcher the results of whose findings, he must put into use, first for the benefit of his society, the commonwealth, before thinking of himself; he must be the conscience of his society, the eternal defender of truth and justice; he must shun all vice: he must be above petty jealousies, corruption, and meanness; he must avoid the love of wealth, or power and of fame. The genuine intellectual should be a lover of mankind; he is one whose breast is full of the milk of human kindness. The genuine intellectual is one imbued with a questioning attitude; he must be one ready to question things fearlessly, instead of just accepting them facilely. In everything he does, the genuine intellectual evinces a scientific and philosophical spirit; he is one who, by virtue of his education, is ready to adapt to any situation, ready to apply his essentially scientific and philosophical approach to issues to analyse and solve problems, even outside his area of specialization. Above all, the genuine intellectual must be humble, ready to acknowledge and correct any mistakes made; he must be prepared to do this because he obviously cannot know everything, not even in his own area of specialization. Knowledge is just too much for one person to carry in his small head. In brief, such are the attributes of a genuine intellectual by Fonlon’s definition. Certainly my summary statements have left out so much. I am far from doing Fonlon 271 full justice. Generally, however, these are the salient qualities of his genuine intellectual. Some of Fonlon’s models of genuine intellectuals from history are Socrates, Mahatma Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln. Let us now quote him with regard to what he considers to be the function of university education: What then should be the lofty, large and selfless purpose that educators should have ever in mind in imparting university learning’? Obviously, the...