Title: THE PAST AS PROLOGUE. Essays on Cameroon, 1980-1995
Publishers: Nyaa Publishers, Yaoundé-Cameroon
Edition: First Published in 2022 Pages: 117 Chapters: 14
Book Cover: Paperback Price:
5000 Fcfa
Sales point: Ngassa Book Shop, Buea-Cameroon
By Christopher Ambe.
The book, The
PAST AS PROLOGUE. Essays on Cameroon, 1980-1995 qualifies as a must-read
for everyone interested in a critical understanding of the historical and political
evolution of Cameroon. The book has been published in the midst of the on-going
Anglophone Crisis, which erupted in October 2016.
The book is a collection of special but polemical
newspaper and magazine essays penned between 1980 and 1995, a period when
fundamental freedoms were a scarcity in Cameroon, imposed by the authorities
that wielded power then.
In a foreword to the book, Sam Bokuba, a critical senior journalist with the state-owned Cameroon Radio
& Television Corporation(CRTV),notes, “The articles are high-minded,
sometimes pedantic, bringing with them
the cold-blooded analytical depth, intellectual erudition and a
matter-of-factness approach of the author who has been gazing the crystal ball for
a long time. The issues addressed are as topical yesterday as they are
today.
“They touch on the one-party oligarchy in Cameroon, power
alternance, bad governance, multiparty politics, election management and
constitutional and institutional reform”
In his remarks to Cameroonian journalists on March 12,2022
in Buea during a press briefing, the author,
Prof. Ndiva Kofele Kale noted, “The Past
as Prologue” is a collection of 14 critical essays (“essays” for lack of a better
term because they include interviews, speeches, commentaries as well as letters
to the editor) written between 1980 and 1995.
The first three essays,
he disclosed, were written in the waning days of President Ahidjo’s reign while
the other eleven appeared in the first decade of Mr. Biya’s presidency (Mr.
Biya became President of Cameroon in November 1982)
In the essays, the author raises and confronts some of the
burning issues of our time: fundamental cleavages in our society, most notably
the Anglophone-Francophone divide; official corruption; one-party hegemony; constitutional
and institutional reform and so on.
“The essays were sufficiently controversial and not all
were well[1]received
by the respective regimes and their apologists. It would be interesting to see
what reaction they evoke today!” the author pointed out during his press
briefingin Buea.
Professor Kofele kale revealed that the book title “The Past as Prologue” is borrowed from the phrase “what’s past is prologue” in
William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Act 2, Scene 1, where Shakespeare’s
character, Antonio, uses the phrase to suggest that all that has happened
before that time, i.e., the “past”, has led Sebastian and himself to this
opportunity to do what they are about to do which is commit the murder of
Sebastian’s sleeping father, King Alfonso of Naples.
“This idea that history sets the context for the present
was very much in my mind when I decided to republish these essays in book form.
But my appropriation of Shakespeare’s “what’s past is prologue” metaphor in the
book’s title is not only intended to mean that the past is predictor of the future.
But to suggest also that though the past is already written, the future remains
ours to mold, subject to the choices we decide to make. Our past merely sets
the stage for the story that is yet to come. In this sense, Cameroon’s future
is a blank page on which the real story is yet to be written.”
 |
| Author Kofele Kale talking to reporters in Buea about the book "The Past as Prologue..." |
The author continued, “On this point, Franz Fanon’s
challenge to successive generations of the youths of Africa, in general, and
those of Cameroon in particular, inviting them to emerge from their relative
obscurity, discover their mission in life, fulfill or betray it, is so apt.
According to the author, “The generation that will read
this collection of essays will most likely be the one to write the next chapter
of Cameroon’s history! I hope and pray that as they undertake this herculean
task, they do so mindful of the Spanish-American philosopher, George
Santayana’s ominous warning that those who cannot remember the past are
condemned to repeat it.
If forgetting our past condemns us to repeating history’s
mistakes is the first takeaway from The Past as Prologue, then the other is the sad reminder that the more things change, the
more they stay the same. For better or for worse? This Hegelian paradox of
history repeating itself, to which Marx added that the first time as tragedy,
the second time as farce, is ubiquitous in this collection”
About The
Author
Until he was conferred professor emeritus status, following
his retirement in 2017, Cameoonian-born Ndiva Kofele Kale was the University
Distinguished Professor and Professor of Law at Southern Methodist University(SMU)
Dedman School of Law In Dallas Texas,where for almost three decades he taught courses
on Corporate Law, International Law, International Human Rights, and International
Litigation and Arbitrations.
Prior to coming to SMU,Professor Kofele Kale was for
three years on the faculty of the
University of Tennessee College of Law in Knoxville,Tennessee and before that,he
taught Political Science for ten years at Governors State University in
Illinois,USA
He is admitted to practice before the U.S Supreme Court,
the U.S Court of Appeal for the 7th Circuit, the U.S District Court
for the Northern District of Illinois, and is a member of the Illinois and
Cameroon bars.
He has authored eight books and over forty refereed
articles in academic/professional journals, some of which address the
socio-political and economic situation in Cameroon.
No comments:
Post a Comment