I Spit on their Graves: Testimony Relevant to the Democratization Struggle in Cameroon

From my Mail Bag

105 From My Mail Bag T he philosophy underlying NO TRIFLING MATTER is very much centred around the idea of criticism (including both negative and positive appraisal) as the only way by which we, as fallible human beings, can rapidly improve our lot in this world. If you have read the “Foreword” to THE PAST TENSE OF SHIT (Book One), you would already have an idea why the son of Gobata is rather allergic to congratulatory messages. My mail file is full of appreciative and congratulatory fan letters. I have usually simply noted them and then filed them away. What I have usually been on the lookout for, is informed criticism of my views or disagreement with the logic of my reasoning. It is such that I have promised to publish on this page, if the Editor of Cameroon Post does not publish it on the readers’ page. But it appears that those who disagree with me have not yet learned the democratic game of standing up to me in writing but prefer the underhand methods of putting stumbling blocks on my way or gagging me. While waiting for them to become more rational and reasonable, I have put my allergy in abeyance to publish here two recent items from my mail bag. The first is a letter from a senior citizen in the world of journalism, Jerome F. Gwellem, and the second is a good shitological poem written by a young man, Kikefomo Mbulai, after the foiled launching of my book in Yaounde and read during the successful launching of the same book in Buea on Friday, June 25th 1993. 106 Godfrey B. Tangwa (Rotcod Gobata) Epistle To Gobata Shit Men After the Tsinga Affair You roasted a lion’s heart, spiced, And after a fill of palm wine, You served a virile plate of shit To the lunatic, imperial coterie, And in their wonted myopia, They have fed on shit without end, Pointing to their smeared, stinking robes As marks of a thousand shades Which they liberally sanction to thrive. You served them a virile meal of shit And now, roused from a somnolent spell, By the delicate fragrance of your synoptic Scrolls of shit, which risk infecting A crowed world with militant drives Their couriers frantically pen the edict Of interdiction to thirsty saxonites Carrying your toxic scrolls of shit, You return, unprodigal, to the cradle, From the Ngola intellectual Wilderness To exorcise these rheumic seasons that Plague the polity. You return then with Doses of shitolatum to administer On this trodden lotheirs of the saner days Of Tiko Mountain slope politics, now crawling, Utterly broken by a three-decade nurture On the heaps of dung indignantly pumped From the ultra-concentrated nerve-centre Which in naïve faith, their fathers Hastily bound them to. 107 I Spit on their Graves: Testimony Relevant to the Democratization Struggle Mouthful of your curative shit We will of course heartily consume As we languish in these forlon chimes, In search of purgatives to rid Our infested stomachs of Gallic worms Bred by the chagrin of this Painful conjugal of thraldom You devoured a lion’s heart And served them a bowl of healing shit And blind, they slam it on your face Make you just wak de ting now broada! After all dem go continue-shuffering and shmiling Kikefomo Mbulai June 24, 1992 June 23, 1993 My dear Rotcod Gobata, I write to thank you, very sincerely, for your interesting book: “THE PAST TENSE OF SHIT (Book one)” a copy of which you kindly autographed to me. You may not believe that in reading the book I am convulsed with fits of laughter. You cannot help laughing at Rene Owona’s Cellucam Scandal; Paul Biya’s panel beaters etc. I have not known you before. Recently I tried to find you at the Liberty Spot, Yaounde, but you had left. What interests me very much are: your style of presentation; your keen and meticulous observation of details; your apt description of those you encounter in each topic. 108 Godfrey B. Tangwa (Rotcod Gobata) Anyone reading your description of the hungry looks of Rene Owona would attest to this fact. I have been a keen reader of your column since it began in the “Cameroon Post,” and I preserve all its copies. Your decision to combine the series in a book is commendable. From my library I picked out...