The dream of a fatherland

We live in a patriarchy!!! No matter how much you want to believe it or NOT. There are however several of our compatriots who subscribe to a more philosophical train of thought with regards to the aforementioned inflamed statement. Unfortunately though the facts point poignantly to the opposite as we literally and figuratively have laws that have been built to limit the potential available to women as well as a subtle in built philosophy that stifles the growth of the same in as much as we seek to show a blind eye. This is however not limited to only women in the context of Cameroon 🇨🇲

Monument of Independence

The Rights of every nations’ citizens are established and policed using the law. Laws are established during the creation of a nation to ensure the state remains strong and has the potential to grow and succeed - however as time evolves, the citizens of said nation through their representatives curate, change and amend laws that fit the success of said people on an equal and progressive basis. The sustainability of every nation relies on the ability of its people to be self independent; through universal suffrage or at least the ability for their representatives (chosen by them), to establish popular pieces of legislations to help them assert their rights and framework for success without infringing on the founding principles of the nation as a collective unit. Democracy in a nutshell is built on the understanding that those who have the privilege to establish the will of the people have the sole and burdensome role of submitting to the whims of the people and balancing these wishes with the abilities of their laws and principles of said nation be it in whatever arm of the government they find themselves.

The significant problems we face today can not be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them - this holds true for every nation whose governments principles do not align with the will of the people regardless of compromise. Unfortunately that is the state of our nation, wether it is responding to very simple uprising with crackdown rather than dialogue, creating laws and legislations that literally eviscerate the ability of the people to be self sufficient and aspire to service, lack of transparency in elections and or the inability of the majority of the population to receive the platform to be self sufficient. These negative trends are further amplified by the crack down on free speech, expression and most recently the ability to gather and protest.

One truth of democracy however remains the inability of everyone to take you seriously as a ruling elite. Not everything you try has to work - accepting this reality seems to be a despondent problem with the current ruling elite as they want everyone to relent and accept their every whimsical and sometimes practically good decisions and live together in harmony. They fail though to realize that Harmony is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to live through said conflict with a notion of solving them one at a time. There is no perfect republic anywhere…

Being a minority in the current demographic of Cameroonians, I have come to understand without remorse or fragility that, there are somethings that won’t go my way - but that is okay as long as I have the platform on which I can apply myself to succeed as a citizen of this nation. However, the opportunities are only made scarce with all the misappropriation without consequences of the-same by another minority although this time with all the power and ability to with the snap of a finger eradicate the ability for me to work, breath, or live in this same republic, we all call our fatherland. There is no dream of a fatherland that is not patriarchal in nature - but there is a possibility for us as individuals to begin to change our ways and actions to suit each and everyone of ourselves - women included (most importantly)

• ABNC