GEF's Outlook

Happy New Year From GEF's Outlook!

Lights and bangs from fireworks disrupt the quiet of the night as Dakar's populace celebrate the dawn of a new year. It's 2012. Happy New Year!

Wishing success, good health and prosperity to all readers of Gef's Outlook!

Should Explicit Content in Cameroon Bikutsi be Condemned?

Cameroon's popular musical genre Bikutsi does not need foul language and explicit content to thrive, a former Cameroon TV (CRTV) presenter, Nadine Patricia Mengue, has said. 

Bikutsi has been criticised over the years for the perceived sexual content of its lyrics and the dance styles performed on stage and in videos. 

"In Europe when you say you are a Cameroonian (artiste) and you play Bikutsi people have the impression that you are doing pornography," the France-based broadcaster said. (see video below)

"We can talk about happiness and fun but we don't need to get into trash," she added while co-presenting Tam-Tam Weekend, the CRTV show that is celebrating its 25th anniversary.

But should this be an issue at all? Shouldn't it be left to people to choose what they want or don't want to listen to? And aren't such lyrics part of Bikutsi from its inception?

 

Bikutsi started as a means for women in various Beti and Fang people of central and southern Cameroon to speak out about the trials and tribulations of everyday life, love and relationships with their men including sexual taboos. 

This was accompanied by singing, clapping and stamping of their feet on the earth. It later became a part of traditional song and dance events with the men playing the balafon and drums while the women sang. 

"The improvised and usually erotic female choruses are at the heart of the Beti’s bikut-si tradition," Hortense and Charles Fuller wrote in their History of Bikutsi Music.

Music from the Motherland

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

Global Voices

Global Voices: Who We Are from Global Voices on Vimeo.

Global Voices is a community of more than 500 bloggers and translators around the world who work together to bring you reports from blogs and citizen media everywhere, with emphasis on voices that are not ordinarily heard in international mainstream media.

The Bookman - A Tribute to S.N. Tita (1929-2011)

By Franklin Sone Bayen*

Playwright, Bole Butake said at a 1994 “Conference on Anglophone Cameroon Literature” in the University of Buea that indigenous writing and publishing was rare in decades past because books in their printed form looked so perfect – they so looked like the Bible – and thus could only have been made by God, if not Whites only. 

Neither God nor White, S.N. Tita (1929-2011) who died December 1 in Limbe aged 82, may have been immune to that complex. At the time he wrote and printed books in his own printing press from the late 1950s, the art and technology were still a marvel and looked alien to even some of the most enlightened of his time. He was author, publisher and printer of the legendary series History, Geography, Rural Science for Cameroon from his Nooremac Press. He was a bookman par excellence in all senses. 

What study manuals would we have used in primary school had Tita not written and printed? In my schoolbag the only other indigenous author was E.K. Martins, rather co-author – with a foreigner – of “New Nation”, the famous Arithmetic textbook. Incidentally our neighbour during my childhood in Clerks Quarters, Limbe, Martins was a Krio, member of a community of freed (Black American) slaves from West Africa who sailed to Victoria (Limbe) with Baptist Missionary, Alfred Saker. He was therefore not so indigenous. 

Even when there was another early indigenous author, Tita had evidently pulled his hand along. S.E. Abangma’s “Civics for Cameroon” was printed by Tita’s Nooremac Press. Martin Amin’s Mathematics textbook for senior primary only came later towards the 1980s and the first indigenous English reader with a Cameroonian co-author, “Cameroon Primary English” by David Weir and Augustin Ndangam, was introduced when we did senior primary in the early 80s. And that launched the post-Tita age of indigenous publishing. A decade later, local publishing began to open to the floodgate we know today.

Biya Re-shuffles Cameroon Government, Marafa dropped, Ahidjo appointed

 

Philemon Yang has been maintained as Cameroon's Prime Minister. President Paul Biya re-shuffled the government which was announced on state radio (CRTV) late on Friday.

Biya was expected to re-shuffle his cabinet after he was declared winner of an October Presidential poll in the Central African nation. The government remains very big with more than 50 members including 37 full ministers. There are about a dozen new faces but several ministers maintain their portfolio or simply switch departments. 

The most noteworthy incoming member is the Finance Minister, Alamine Ousmane Mey, who comes from the private sector. He was head of Afriland First Bank. His predecessor Essimi Menye is now in-charge of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Biya also appointed Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh as the new Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic.  Ngoh Ngoh was permanent secretary at the Ministry of External Relations.

Biya maintained his trust in the coalition that backed him during the elections and did not give government positions to other opposition parties as was widely rumoured. As such, Bello Bouba Maigari (UNDP party), Issa Tchiroma (FSN party) and Amadou Moustapha (ANDP) are maintained in government. 

A symbolic newcomer from the allied UNDP party is Mohamadou Ahidjo who becomes a roving ambassador. Ahidjo was a mayor of the major northern city of Garoua. He is one of the children of former President Ahmadou Ahidjo.

Apart fropm the Prime Minister no Anglophone commands a top ministry. Anglophone ministers include Philip Ngolle Ngwese who is in-charge of Forests and Wildlife (he replaces Elvis Ngolle Ngolle) and Ama Tutu Muna who stays in government as Minister of Arts and Culture. 

Other Anglophones include Peter Agbor Tabi, the deputy secretary general at the Presidency; Victor Mengot and Paul Atanga Nji - both are ministers without portfolio at the Presidency; Dion Ngute is minister delegate in-charge of relations with the Commonwealth; and Fuh Calistus Gentry is Secretary of State (junior minister) in the Ministry of Mines.