Road Companion to Democracy and Meritocracy: Further Essays from an African Perspective

21. Address to the Youth

193 21 Address to the Youth I am talking about my own address to the youths, not about that of His Excellency Paul Biya. I am not a senior political analyst at CRTV to start making a mountain out of a mole-hill or a feast out of a non-event. If HE farts, the CRTV senior political analysts would spend an hour in round-table formation praising the fart. And when they exhaust their originality and ingenuity on fartology, they would turn to the colour of his suit, the design on his tie, the shape of his haircut and his general look and praise them highly. I would not like to be a senior analyst at CRTV because you are condemned always to seek and proclaim the positive, even where it does not exist. I don’t envy them at all. It is not easy to be saddled with the duty of trying to square the circle every time. It is even easier to be a critic and professional fault-finder like yours truly, even though the consequence is unpopularity with everybody. It would be great if we could just have the political analysis without the speech or address itself, which is what I suggest should be done next time. That way we would not have the feeling of someone playing with our intelligence, telling us a completely different thing concerning what we have just a few moments ago been ear and eye witnesses of. The 1997 Youth Day Presidential Address had at least one objective positive point that doesn’t need a CRTV senior political analyst to point out: it was brief, even if not to the point. Not that brevity, as they say, is the soul of wit, but that, when you have nothing to say, you should keep quiet instead of producing much sound and fury signifying nothing. The address lasted only 7 minutes, which is a record in brevity compared to previous addresses. If I were HE’s speech writer it would have been even briefer, lasting no more than 3 minutes. I would have written: 194 Road Companion to Democracy and Meritocracy “My dear young Compatriots, In the past 15 years, I have been making speeches to you on this day. Today will not be an exception, although I really no longer know what to tell you. In the past I have made many promises to you, none of which ever came to pass, through no fault of mine. I will not make any more promises this time around because the basket is now empty. It is not easy to govern, especially a complex and variegated country like Cameroon. You may not believe me until one day it becomes your turn to step into the shoes I am now wearing. After 15 years, I am now weary and no longer seeing the light at the end of the tunnel which I was wont to see at least once every year. Is my sight failing, or is there really no light at the end of this tunnel? I don’t really know. But this I do know that I badly need a rest (don’t mind my youthful appearance and good looks!) and that exactly is what I intend to do. I will retire to my green beans and pineapple farm before the end of this year. Don’t deceive yourselves into thinking that those merchants of youknow -what that you have abandoned me and are running after, and who are impatiently and immodestly waiting to chop my chair, will necessarily perform better. The World Bank and IMF will not let them. Governing no be small thing, although fools don’t know this fact. Best wishes, goodbye and God bless Cameroon.” Oh Cameroon... The second objective positive point that needs no CRTV senior analyst to unearth is that the 1997 Youth Day Speech clearly shows that His Excellency sincerely wants peace in Cameroon. What is not clear is if he has abandoned the philofolly so clearly and eloquently expressed at the Yaounde Municipal Town Hall grounds in 1991 to the effect that if you want peace you must prepare for war. 195 Address to the Youth My own address: Fellow citizens and co-wretches of the earth. Don’t be proud that you are young because that is not an achievement. Chronological youth is simply an ineradicable aspect of your bio-data. Physiological...