I could dust off the rain’s remains but there is just too much that resounds I could feel the knotted night and Seep it of its wounds but there is just too much that reminds I could trip the river’s run as it feels its way Over rock but there is just too much rock Somehow song goes away just when you want it to sing overwhelmed by All that remains -
Tag Archives: d-colonize
rope & hammer
when the sad go out to play, sing the sad song, kill time with either a rope or a hammer (don’t matter) - when the sad take the lonesome road, walk the tortuous line, kill time with either a rope or hammer (don’t matter) - but it does, it does: when the rope runs out, the hammer loses its head -
Yaoundé by May
A short 5 day work trip to Yaoundé, Cameroon. This was my first central African state so I was curious as to what is common and what sets it apart from the 9 others I have visited since 2002 starting with Ghana, my most frequented African state.
– attendant in bakery: you are from China?
– bureaucrat in his office, after I get his last name right on first attempt: I am surprised you can pronounce my name; most people get it wrong. Me: if the name is in your local language, I will get it right.
Not speaking French was a handicap also a source of amusement for the women working in the bakery.
what is common: the quintessential African green the booming laugh the roadside stall mud old cars 70s architecture at ease with unlit spaces
what sets it apart: too bureaucratic policewomen at breakfast
I wrote my last post while in Yaoundé, and just before leaving the hotel room wrote this:
need of the forest burn
of the
ashen past will wilnot
the bread
of fury and tread of summer
these are
kind, various, available as
pastime
—
To get some background, there have been two presidents since independence in 1962. The current one is in power since 1982. This bit of information alone might go some way in explaining the high bureaucratization and security. The late Eqbal Ahmed in his 1980 paper, “Post colonial systems of power” (which I visualized here), categorized Cameroon then as pragmatic-authoritarian. This is how he defines pragmatic-authoritarian:
This highly personalized system of power enjoys a certain legitimacy and the support of significant sections of the population by virtue of the historical nationalist credentials of the leader.
Two noteworthy characteristics: these deeply pro-Western regimes tend to prefer strong political, economic and cultural ties with the ex-colonial metropolis rather than the United States. The strength of the armed forces remains circumscribed and, in comparison with civilians, military officers are assigned lower status in the official hierarchy.
this new vista
“But the native intellectual who wishes to create an authentic work of art must realize that the truths of a nation are in the first place its realities. He must go on until he has found the seething pot out of which the learning of the future will emerge.” Frantz Fanon, “The Wretched of the Earth”.
this new vista, a gradual
leaflet of sky, the rune
of an antiquity resigned
to seed the fringes of an
ticipation: the grunge and
dung of it, the hapless
beat of song’s tyranny cap
tured in this visitation.
As you try and bleed the past
“We lived in a society which denied itself heroes.” – V.S. Naipaul
“This is not writing. He should stop writing. He should be selling sausages.” – Eqbal Ahmad on V.S. Naipaul
As you try and bleed the past onto the speak of now, Look for the hooded guilt past the sentence of ilk & Brood, the tripping verb thrilled by the possibility Of sheen that traps the rook, the sow, the seed that Bit the hand that fed the pith of scorn, the hand of Up, of law. And as you try and mock the horn of dust And cut of rain, and gasp at awe & awe again, whence Will come the ore of night, which die is cast today?
from rebellion to roar
The peasant of old was content with
rebellion, with skirting the fronds
of power as it descended cupfroth from
up high, with skimming the sheen
of lava as it settled down in crusty
sleep, but she bristled the unkempt
bristle often enough to prime her
peep for growl when it’s time.
A tangent taken while re-reading Eqbal Ahmad‘s insightful 1980 article, “From potato sack to potato mash: the contemporary crisis of the third world”.
grace fall
The wit cannot untomb graces Of collective chatter bellow Dark shine on injustice hard Injustice soft spread-eagled Five thousand years - approx A billion bad jokes - approx The wit cannot unearth races Of collective shatter bellow Yardsticks of im-measurement Crude approximations of hate
The river and the law
The river meanders through the now
On to tomorrows all the while silting
The past onto its bed, revisiting it.
Deeds and land and titles and contracts
Circumscribe the river’s ownership, and
Peg its worth to the whim of the marketeer.
Blood and rage and tears tear through
The fabric of power eking out cries, cries
Older than power, and as old as sin.
Machinations of modernity confound deed
With law and the harvesting of seed with
Reflections on dead leaves and stolen tales.
Silence at the root of the river bed
Listens to the wind, to the chirp of
A wayward bird, to the mountain, still.
I Am The River – Documentary on the New Zealand Maori on aljazeera.com