Godfrey Tangwa AKA "Rotcod Gobata"

Introducing "Matters of [the] Moment"

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.

POWER AND MADNESS

(INSIGHT NEWSMAGAZINE, No. 001, February 2003)

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!

THE AXIS OF GOODNESS

(INSIGHT NEWSMAGAZINE, No. 002, April 2003)

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”.

USING A HAMMER TO KILL A MOSQUITO

(INSIGHT NEWSMAGAZINE, No. 003, May 2003)

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.

A MIRROR HELD TO OUR FACE

(INSIGHT NEWSMAGAZINE, No. 005, December 2003)

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.