AFRICAphonie AFRICAphonie is a Pan African Association which operates on the premise that AFRICA can only be what AFRICANS and their friends want AFRICA to be.
Bakwerirama Spotlight on Bakweri Society and Culture. The Bakweri are an indigenous African nation.
Bate Besong Bate Besong, award-winning firebrand poet and playwright.
Bernard Fonlon Dr Bernard Fonlon was an extraordinary figure who left a large footprint in Cameroonian intellectual, social and political life.
Fonlon-Nichols Award Website of the Literary Award established to honor the memory of BERNARD FONLON, the great Cameroonian teacher, writer, poet, and philosopher, who passionately defended human rights in an often oppressive political atmosphere.
France Watcher Purpose of this advocacy site: To aggregate all available information about French terror, exploitation and manipulation of Africa
Jacob Nguni Virtuoso guitarist, writer and humorist. Former lead guitarist of Rocafil, led by Prince Nico Mbarga.
Martin Jumbam The refreshingly, unique, incisive and generally hilarous writings about the foibles of African society and politics by former Cameroon Life Magazine columnist Martin Jumbam.
Nowa Omoigui Professor of Medicine and interventional cardiologist, Nowa Omoigui is also one of the foremost experts and scholars on the history of the Nigerian Military and the Nigerian Civil War. This site contains many of his writings and comments on military subjects and history.
PostNewsLine PostNewsLine is an interactive feature of 'The Post', an important newspaper published out of Buea, Cameroons.
Postwatch Magazine A UMI (United Media Incorporated) publication. Specializing in well researched investigative reports, it focuses on the Cameroonian scene, particular issues of interest to the former British Southern Cameroons.
Simon Mol Cameroonian poet, writer, journalist and Human Rights activist living in Warsaw, Poland
Victor Mbarika ICT Weblog Victor Wacham Agwe Mbarika is one of Africa's foremost experts on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Dr. Mbarika's research interests are in the areas of information infrastructure diffusion in developing countries and multimedia learning.
Tunduzi A West African in Arusha at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on the angst, contradictions and rewards of that process.
Francis Nyamnjoh Prolific writer, social and political commentator, he was a professor at University of Buea and University of Botswana. Currently he is Head of Publications and Dissemination at CODESRIA in Dakar, Senegal. His writings are socially relevant and engaging even to the non specialist.
Anton A. van Niekerk, Loretta M. Kopelman (eds). Ethics and AIDS in Africa: The Challenge to our Thinking. Johannesburg: New Africa Books, 2005. [ISBN: 0-86486-673-9]
The devastating AIDS pandemic in Africa poses daunting medical, social, and economic challenges, placing local, regional, national, and international communities at a moral crossroads. This book, the first to systematically examine the ethical implications of the AIDS pandemic for Africa, examines such pressing questions as:
How do we deal with the uncertainties surrounding AIDS statistics? Is it really too costly to provide people highly active antiretroviral therapies in Africa? What is the relationship between AIDS and poverty? Is the political leadership in South Africa doing what is right and prudent to meet the challenge of AIDS?
Culled from Anton A. van Niekerk, Loretta M. Kopelman (eds). Johannesburg: New Africa Books, 2005. ISBN: 0-86486-673-9(Chapter 11, pp. 179 - 189) Traditional African values have a lot to offer in an approach towards fighting HIV/AIDS. In this chapter Godfrey B. Tangwa argues that values such as empathy and unpaid assistance for those in genuine need will do more to curb the pandemic than the first world's market-driven, profit-oriented practices have done. He also outlines what he believes to be some encouraging research done in Africa towards an AIDS vaccine.
I have followed with interest the ‘work’ of the powerful government delegation, led by Philemon Yang, in the Northwest and Southwest provinces, in a concerted campaign against the SCNC. FOUR things struck me which need remarking.
1) The delegation declared that it is not necessary to dialogue with the SCNC! How can this be, when dialogue is the best, if not only, means of settling disagreements and conflicts peacefully? Is the problem with the word ‘dialogue’? Sometimes mere words can cause a lot of problems and have led people and even nations to conflict, violence and war. So, if the problem is with the word ‘dialogue’, why not forget the word and just sit down (or even stand up) and talk with (or even to) the SCNC? Talking is very important because sometimes through talking people in disagreement or conflict may realize that they were seeking the same end in different ways without being aware of the fact. The African traditional system is widely recognized for its emphasis on and practice of consensus in the management of public affairs. In reaching such consensus, the position and views of dissenting minorities are of the utmost importance. Such consensus, however, does not necessarily imply unanimous agreement or even reconciliation of differences, but rather recognition of differences, suspension of disagreement and charting of a way forward, in spite of the differences.
What has Ethics got to do with state-of-the-art malaria research and control efforts, let alone in Cameroon? If the word “Ethics” brings to your mind only images of churches and other places of worship, holy books and religious injunctions, priests, pastors and other preachers, all of which may seem rather far removed from science, let alone research, then this surely, is a pertinent question for you. Of course, religious people, religious discourse and religion generally are concerned with ethics or morality generally. But ethics or morality is quite distinct from religion and is or should be the concern of all human beings, be they religious or not.
Welcome to Kamerun, but don’t tell us no problem exists
Welcome to Kamerun, Africa in miniature, as we love to call it! (I am using the German version of the name of this our rough triangle quite purposely, for the obvious reason that it brings to mind the historical explanation why such strange bed-fellows as Anglophones and Francophones ever thought they could join together and build a single united modern nation. This German name of our country also helps to cover, the way banana leaves may cover a mess, so that the eyes would see only the termites, the very embarrassing fact that the name ‘la Republique du Cameroun/the Republic of Cameroon’, as it is today, signifies either a unilateral act of secession from the bilateral experimental union just alluded to, or an act of annexation and assimilation of one partner by the other. As Secretary General of the United Nations, you are surely familiar with all this, aren’t you?).
The news that Colonel Robert Gueï is being proposed or has proposed himself as the presidential candidate of the PDCI party for the forthcoming elections in the Ivory Coast (okay, Côte d’Ivoire) can come as no surprise to any observer of the African political scene. However, this news is not in the least less disappointing for not being surprising. And this remains so whether or not Gueï’s candidature is eventually confirmed or not. He came to power under the guise of a God-sent messiah charged with ridding Ivorians of the corrupt dictatorship of Henri Konan Bédié, and there is no doubt that the latter needed getting rid of. He had been presiding over a dictatorship, boldly pretending to be a modern democracy.
Here is my keynote presentation in PowerPoint at the 13th National Congress of the South African Society of Psychiatrists (SASOP) in Drakensberg last September.
Third World Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 6, pp. 1031–1043, 2004
ABSTRACT In this article we propose an ideal typology of reactions to genomics—the study (in complex transnational organisational research arrangements) of the genome, the sum total of the genetic material in any particular organism—from the point of view and perspective of communities that find themselves in marginal positions. Genomics is a particularly important part of ‘technoscience’—science mingled with technology. Within genomics the concepts of diversity and difference are paradoxically intermingled. Genetically speaking, the difference between human beings and nature is fading.
Godfrey B. Tangwa, PhD (Associate Professor of Philosophy)
Here is a PowePoint version of the inaugural lecture given by Dr. Tangwa at the 4th Congress of SYNES, National Union of Teachers of Higher Education in Cameroon, on November 11, 2004. The minister of Higher Education who opened the congress was there as well as the Rector of University of Yaounde I; quite a development from the past! Click here to print or download complete article in PDF format
Developing World Bioethics ISSN 1471-8731 (print); 1471-8847 (online) Volume 4 Number 2 2004
One of the most remarkable things about the world in which we all live, localised here on planet Earth, is its biodiversity (the enormous variety of its living forms). Another is its cultural diversity (the enormous variety of its different human cultures). Equally remarkable is the variety of different forms, heights, weights, shapes, sizes and complexions with which individual human beings, even within the same culture and locality, come from the hand of God/Nature. I perceive great positive value – if you would permit the emphatic tautology – in this differentiated diversity and variety.
QUEST: An African Journal of Philosophy Volume XIII No. 1-2, 1999
Africa is the richest and most variegated continent on earth: geographically, climatically, historically, culturally, linguistically and resource-wise. That much is a palpable fact, requiring neither proof nor, for our purpose here, any further elaboration or analysis. Africa is also, paradoxically, the poorest continent on earth. Precisely because of its variegated riches, Africa is the most exploitable as well as exploited continent on earth. So it is on account of its exploitation and exploitability that Africa can be called a paradoxical continent: the richest as well as the poorest continent on earth.
I started writing under the pen-name Rotcod Gobata in the early 1990’s, as an attempted contribution to the democratization process in Cameroon, following the so-called "wind of change from the East", in the wake of the collapse of the dictatorships of Eastern Europe, most notably that of the communist Soviet Union, and the awakening effect it seemed to be having on political systems around the world, particularly in Africa. The release of Nelson Mandela from prison around the same period, followed a few years later by the truly miraculous democratic breakthrough in South Africa, added great impetus to this wind of change. In Cameroon, the sudden voluntary resignation of Alhaji Ahmadou Ahidjo, and his handing over of the reigns of dictatorial power to Paul Biya in 1982, had ushered in great euphoria and optimism. Paul Biya rode on the crest of mass popularity as he made moves, under the slogan "rigor and moralization", to democratize and liberalize the hitherto heavily autocratic and centralized state structures.
QUEST: An African Journal of Philosophy Volume XIII No. 1-2, 1999
Prolegomena
Godfrey Tangwa's article titled "Colonialism and Linguistic Dilemmas in Africa: Cameroon as a Paradigm" posits that the Berlin conference of 1884 constitutes a landmark in the history of Africa in that the continent was divided between European imperialists in an attempt to reap the benefits of its natural resources, without any regard for "the linguistic, cultural or political state of affairs on the continent". In fact, Tangwa's problematic is clearly stated in the following terms:
The linguistic dilemma facing African countries can be very simply stated: should African countries (themselves colonial creations) continue using the languages and systems of education inherited from colonialism or jettison these as undesirable colonial legacies in preference for indigenous languages and systems of education ?
This segment contains more recent GOBATA essays that were written for and published in the short-lived INSIGHT NEWSMAGAZINE, founded by Mih Felix and edited by Jude Waindim, in a regular column, under the rubric MATTERS OF [THE] MOMENT. The publication halted with the untimely death of Felix in 2003. Nonetheless, they deal with events still in the news such as the ongoing Iraq war.
One unlearned lesson that the human history of all historical epochs teaches us is that power and madness are next-door neighbours. Frequently they end up as bed mates. Most human beings, whenever they have managed to gain unlimited power, that is, absolute or relatively absolute power, without any effective checks and balances, and sometimes even in spite of checks and balances, have ended being drunk with power, to the point of madness. I once visited the history museum of the pre-colonial ancient kingdom of Abomey in Benin Republic and was shown the grave of one of its most powerful autocratic-tyrant monarchs who pretended to be immortal and no one had the courage to contradict him. A young lady used to kneel in front of him permanently holding a little bowl into which he could spit, in case he happened to cough. If, by any chance, the sputum missed the bowl, the penalty was the immediate execution of the young lady!
When the American President, George Walker Bush, first uttered his pontifical statement about an ‘axis of evil’, going from Iraq through Iran and Afganistan to North Korea, anyone could have guessed that this evil axis was counter-posed to and counter-balanced by an axis of goodness. Within the Manichean logic, where all the creatures of the earth can be segregated into the absolutely good and the absolutely bad, into angels and demons, good guys and bad guys, this could not but be the case. The putative axis of goodness and universal benevolence, purportedly acting altruistically on behalf of the whole world, with the prerogative of deciding the ultimate evils of the world and eradicating them by force, clearly stretches from Washington, through Sydney and Madrid to London. But, as has sometimes been remarked, “in human affairs, when all’s been said and done, when all accounts and books have been balanced, when the whole story has been told, we may realize that ‘the good’ were not so good and ‘the bad’ not so bad”.
Human beings are different from all other earthly beings because they are rational beings. Human beings are also different from other earthly beings in that they are animals, as distinguished from plants or from inanimate non-living things, a category they share with other non-human animals. For this reason, a human being is rightly defined as a rational animal, even if at times s/he exhibits more animality than rationality; animality and rationality are constantly in a state unstable equilibrium in humans, the one or the other taking the upper hand at any given moment. Rationality, however, remains the necessary and sufficient condition for being human. But, even though rationality defines being human, human beings are not always rational in their behaviour, and to the extent that they behave irrationally, to that same extent are they less than human. Being rational simply means acting in a reasonable manner, pursuing good and justifiable aims, using the most appropriate means to achieve appropriate ends, having a sense of proportion in adapting means to ends, etc.
You may have missed a ‘Christmas special’ article in the December 21st 2002 edition of the European news magazine The Economist. I had also missed it, but Professor Yunkap Kwankam of the National Polytechnic, Yaounde, (presently with the WHO in Geneva), drew my attention to it and, when I could not lay my hands on a copy, he kindly sent me a photocopy of the article. The article, entitled ‘The Road to Hell is Unpaved’ is a veritable mirror held up close before the face of Cameroon, before the face of any Cameroonian for whom this rough triangle means anything. The article is not personally signed and is simply sub-titled ‘The Economist rides an African beer truck – and gets a lesson in development economics.
Culled fromCurrent Practices and Controversies in Assisted Reproduction.Report of a meeting on "Medical, Ethical and Social Aspects of Assisted Reproduction". WHO Headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland, 17–21 September 2001
Although it is often controversial or misleading to make generalizations about Africa, one of the safest and less controversial of such generalizations is that human procreation is highly valued in African cultures. This should not, of course, be interpreted to mean that there are parts of the world or cultures where procreation is not valued. Procreation is a value for human beings in general and within all human cultures. But the ways and manner in which this value is manifested and expressed differs from place to place, from culture to culture, and these differences can be used as a rough gauge of the extent or magnitude to which the value is affirmed or upheld against competing values. There is no part of Africa where children are not greatly valued and where, as a consequence, large families do not exist or polygamy is not practised.
I did not read Christian Cardinal Tumi’s letter to the Douala administrative authorities on the subject of the commandement operationel, which seems to have drawn from some quarters the absurd charge that the cardinal is a friend and supporter of robbers. But I did listen with rapt attention to the cardinal’s open letter to all thieves and hardened criminals, as read over the Catholic programme on CRTV last Sunday, 27th August 2000. From this letter I got a good gist of what the earlier letter was about.
Yes, you heard me correctly. I am not in the habit of speaking with water in my mouth. I am asking what Christian Cardinal Tumi’s business is in this affair of the 9 missing youths of Bepanda? What is the business of a wifeless, childless man in the fate of 9 obscure children missing in an obscure part of a big city like Douala?
I am not asking this question to the cardinal although he is free to answer it, if he wants. But I am not even interested in the answer. I know that an adequate answer exists and I can even give myself a fair chance of being able to guess it correctly. I am not interested in the answer. I am only interested in the question.
A big man is a big man, and all big men know it very well. Of course, a small man is also a small man, but small men don’t seem to know it. You may already be complaining that ‘what about women?’ I am not a male chauvinist. I sincerely believe in the equality of all human beings, irrespective of gender and other particularizing characteristics, although my arguments in favour of female empowerment are often misunderstood by both men and women. The problem is this English language I am using. The English language thinks that ‘man’ includes ‘woman’ whereas the contrary is evidently the case. (Wo)man includes man but not the other way round. See what I mean?
By ‘coin’ I mean commission of inquiry. Cameroon is a country of gargantuan contradictions. This is a country where the Manichean principle of good and evil and their eternal co-existence and perpetual conflict seems to have taken permanent abode. This is a country where, in a five star Hotel, 50 metres from a garbage dump where healthy adults are scavenging for food, an obscure woman, not known to be a millionaire or an executive public thief, can pay 50 million francs CFA! for a cake (a mixture of flour, milk, eggs and sugar baked in an oven) supposedly made by the wife of the head of state. All in the name of “la lutte contre le SIDA” whereas nobody is willing to assist a renowned researcher who has discovered a serious candidate vaccine against AIDS with as much as a few hundred thousands francs to advance work on his vaccine against the killer disease. HIV/AIDS has become big business and should be left in the hands of those who know how to make big money doing nothing, not so? This is a country that has distinguished itself as the ‘oasis of peace’ in a turbulent central African sub-region and at the same time a country where people disappear regularly without trace, where no one can hold a ‘peaceful’ demonstration against anything without being brutally suppressed, where a new born baby can be suffocated to death with tear gas without anybody saying or doing anything. This a country whose head of state never misses any opportunity to call for the establishment of a global ethical observatory whereas, in the country over which he himself presides, there are no ethical principles of any sort, let alone an ethical observatory.
One connotation that can be assigned to the expression Le Cameroun c’est le Cameroun is that Cameroonians can comfortably live with outrages, contradictions, inconsistencies and nonsensicalities that no other people could tolerate. A foreign visitor, once asked about his impressions of Cameroon, remarked that it was a truly wonderful country with wonderful people, but that what he could not understand was why Cameroonians seem so comfortable in mud. I am one Cameroonian who finds outrages, contradictions, inconsistencies and nonsensicalities absolutely intolerable and I always struggle, in no matter how futile a manner, to get out of mud or any muddy or muddled situation. Very often, however, I recall the adage that speech is silver while silence is golden and I keep my calm and cool because I often wonder whether I am the only one who is bothered by some of these things.
A conceptual exploration of problems in formulating and applying international biomedical ethical guidelines
By G B Tangwa
J Med Ethics 2004;30:63–67. doi: 10.1136/jme.2003.003194In this paper, the author attempts to explore some of the problems connected with the formulation and application of international biomedical ethical guidelines, with particular reference to Africa. Recent attempts at revising and updating some international medical ethical guidelines have been bedevilled by intractable controversies and wrangling regarding both the content and formulation. From the vantage position of relative familiarity with both African and Western contexts, and the privilege of having been involved in the revision and updating of one of the international ethical guidelines, the author reflects broadly on these issues and attempts prescribing an approach from both the theoretical and practical angles liable to mitigate, if not completely eliminate, some of the problems and difficulties.
Godfrey Tangwa is a prolific writer whose his publications in academic journals, magazines and newspapers span a wide range of issues. He has written books including, “Karl Popper: A Thematic Critical Introduction,” “African Philosophy in a Western Frame,” and “ Democracy and Meritocracy: Philosophical Essays and Talks from an African Perspective,” as well as journal articles including, “Traditional African Perception of a Person: Some Implications for Bioethics” in the Hastings Center Report and “Globalisation or Westernisation? Ethical Concerns in the whole Bio-Business,” in the journal Bioethics.
Godfrey B. Tangwa was born in Shisong, Nso, Bui Division, in the North West Province of Cameroon, West Africa. He attended secondary school at St. Joseph's College Sasse, Buea, Cameroon. He obtained his B.A. (Honours) in Philosophy from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria, where he won both the University of Nigeria Foundation Award for academic excellence (1975) and the Fodio Prize for the best graduating student (1977). In 1979, he obtained his M.A. (Philosophy) from the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Nigeria, and in 1984, his Ph.D. (Philosophy) from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. His area of doctoral specialization is Epistemology and Metaphysics but he has acquired considerable competence in several other areas of philosophy such as Bioethics, African Philosophy, Social-Political Philosophy etc. His main preoccupation is with practical and applied philosophy, that is, the application of philosophy to practical human problems.
Since Professor Jacques Fame Ndongo became minister of communication, there has been a lot of talk and restless activity at and about the CRTV. The professor is an extremely smooth operator and good talker. The way he can coin, juxtapose and weave together words and concepts is truly remarkable. He just falls short of being a complete and absolute juggler of and charmer with words. It is quite surprising that JFN (not the famous book seller of Bamenda this time around, but the remarkable professor under focus) has not assumed the title of porte parole du gouvernement, like one of his predecessors in office. This latter raised the amateurish game of official mendacity to a professional art and achieved marvels with it for the New Deal regime in its most difficult and trying moments. He got his handsome rewards, which seem to be so preoccupying and satisfying that he has virtually retired from the professional art of loquacious disputation, creating the nonexistent ex nihilo, boldly denying the undeniable, standing opposing arguments on their very heads. Today, anybody could mistake the erstwhile verbal pugilist for a taciturn and shy gentleman.
Here is a PowePoint version of the inaugural lecture given by Dr. Tangwa at the 4th Congress of SYNES, National Union of Teachers of Higher Education in Cameroon, on November 11, 2004. The minister of Higher Education who opened the congress was there as well as the Rector of University of Yaounde I; quite a development from the past! 
checks and balances, and sometimes even in spite of checks and balances, have ended being drunk with power, to the point of madness. I once visited the history museum of the pre-colonial ancient kingdom of Abomey in Benin Republic and was shown the grave of one of its most powerful autocratic-tyrant monarchs who pretended to be immortal and no one had the courage to contradict him. A young lady used to kneel in front of him permanently holding a little bowl into which he could spit, in case he happened to cough. If, by any chance, the sputum missed the bowl, the penalty was the immediate execution of the young lady! 
creatures of the earth can be segregated into the absolutely good and the absolutely bad, into angels and demons, good guys and bad guys, this could not but be the case. The putative axis of goodness and universal benevolence, purportedly acting altruistically on behalf of the whole world, with the prerogative of deciding the ultimate evils of the world and eradicating them by force, clearly stretches from Washington, through Sydney and Madrid to London. But, as has sometimes been remarked, “in human affairs, when all’s been said and done, when all accounts and books have been balanced, when the whole story has been told, we may realize that ‘the good’ were not so good and ‘the bad’ not so bad”. 
human being is rightly defined as a rational animal, even if at times s/he exhibits more animality than rationality; animality and rationality are constantly in a state unstable equilibrium in humans, the one or the other taking the upper hand at any given moment. Rationality, however, remains the necessary and sufficient condition for being human. But, even though rationality defines being human, human beings are not always rational in their behaviour, and to the extent that they behave irrationally, to that same extent are they less than human. Being rational simply means acting in a reasonable manner, pursuing good and justifiable aims, using the most appropriate means to achieve appropriate ends, having a sense of proportion in adapting means to ends, etc.
Although it is often controversial or misleading to make generalizations about Africa, one of the safest and less controversial of such generalizations is that human procreation is highly valued in African cultures. This should not, of course, be interpreted to mean that there are parts of the world or cultures where procreation is not valued. Procreation is a value for human beings in general and within all human cultures. But the ways and manner in which this value is manifested and expressed differs from place to place, from culture to culture, and these differences can be used as a rough gauge of the extent or magnitude to which the value is affirmed or upheld against competing values. There is no part of Africa where children are not greatly valued and where, as a consequence, large families do not exist or polygamy is not practised.
but small men don’t seem to know it. You may already be complaining that ‘what about women?’ I am not a male chauvinist. I sincerely believe in the equality of all human beings, irrespective of gender and other particularizing characteristics, although my arguments in favour of female empowerment are often misunderstood by both men and women. The problem is this English language I am using. The English language thinks that ‘man’ includes ‘woman’ whereas the contrary is evidently the case. (Wo)man includes man but not the other way round. See what I mean?
In this paper, the author attempts to explore some of the problems connected with the formulation and application of international biomedical ethical guidelines, with particular reference to Africa. Recent attempts at revising and updating some international medical ethical guidelines have been bedevilled by intractable controversies and wrangling regarding both the content and formulation. From the vantage position of relative familiarity with both African and Western contexts, and the privilege of having been involved in the revision and updating of one of the international ethical guidelines, the author reflects broadly on these issues and attempts prescribing an approach from both the theoretical and practical angles liable to mitigate, if not completely eliminate, some of the problems and difficulties.
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