GLANCING BACKWARD 5

We last shook hands on Easter eve 2011. Much has happened since then but my gaze is still on the relatively more distant recent past. Now I’ll take two final giant strides backward; after which I’ll be able henceforth to focus on the current events as they happen. Consequently, I’ll only briefly announce here the passing away, on Tuesday 14 June, 2011, at circa 19:00, at the ripe age of 85, of my friend, compatriot, role model, moral mentor, and very senior colleague, Professor Victor Anomah Ngu, basic scientist, award-winning oncologist, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Yaounde, former Minister of Public Health, former President of the Cameroon Academy of Sciences, President of the Bernard Fonlon Society, author of the candidate HIV vaccine VANHIVAX.

For the rest that is current, you can read my joint paper with Nchangwi Syntia Munung on “Sprinting Research and Spot Jogging Regulation: The State of Bioethics in Cameroon”, published recently in the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0963180111000041

 I am glancing backward at 2008, a year marked by intensive international travel: the Hague, Holland (January); Accra, Ghana (February); Dakar, Senegal / Namur, Belgium (April); Basel, Switzerland (May); Cape Town, South Africa (June); Kampala, Uganda / Tartu, Estonia / Kampala, Uganda (August); Zagreb, Croatia (September); Dar es Salaam, Tanzania / Berlin, Germany (October); Rome, Italy (December). Such intensive travel was bound to be spiced by eventful incidents and so it was. I limit myself to three representative incidents only.

1.  In August 2008, I was invited as a plenary guest speaker to the 22^nd European Conference on Philosophy of Medicine and Health Care in Tartu, Estonia.  I set off from Yaounde, Cameroon, on Monday, 18 August and, traveling with AIR FRANCE via Paris, arrived Talinn around mid-morning the next day. From Talinn, the conference organizers had arranged for taxi to take me the next day, in the company of Ruth Chadwick and another conference attendee, overland to Tartu, a scenic trip of about two and a half hours. They had consequently booked overnight accommodation for us at Scandic Palace Hotel in Talinn. Late afternoon, I woke up from a long recuperative slumber and came down from my sixth floor hotel room to find something to eat.  Lunch at the hotel restaurant had just closed, so I stepped out of the hotel to look for a place to eat, feeling relaxed, confident and optimistic.  I had for long harboured the prejudice, created perhaps with my first contact with some Eastern Europeans at the University of Ife in Nigeria, that East Europeans are less racist than their Western cousins. This prejudice was instantly to be shattered. Quite close to the hotel was a fast food restaurant. I stepped in and was busy looking at the menu board when a gentleman (or so I took him at first to be), dressed in the type of military-looking attire they call ‘camouflage’ in Cameroon and seated with a female companion on one of the tables, shouted as if at me in a language incomprehensible to me. I could not think of any reason why, if there was any problem, it would be about me, so I ignored him and proceeded to place myself in readiness for placing my order with the fast foods attendant. Whereupon, he got up, pulled a gun and came threateningly towards me. Nso’ people, of which I am one, often pride themselves in never showing the back to any human danger. But I ran out of the place back to the hotel, where I waited patiently for supper time. My mother was on my mind and dominated my dreams that night. When I had left home she was with me in Yaounde but needed to be taken to a distant town for eye surgery and I had arranged with my girlfriend to take her there in my absence. What an incredible shock it would have been for them if I had returned from my trip in a coffin, having been killed in a strange distant land by a stranger to whom I had done no apparent harm and no wrong?

2.  The 9^th World Congress of Bioethics took place in Croatia in 2008. I prepared to attend this congress during which, among other things, I was, at the insistent invitation of Dr. Susanne Brauer of the Institute of Biomedical Ethics, University of Zurich, to participate in a panel discussion on Advance Directives, elaborating an African perspective on the problem.  The leading-up-to-the-congress local organization for this event was not very good, in my experience. Handled by a body with the name “top congress management”, responses to communications were not prompt, apart from a seeming inability to fully comprehend simple English.  The organizers had told me that, as I was in Africa, I should go to the Croatian embassy in Egypt for my visa.  I told them about the practical difficulties in getting my visa from Egypt and asked them two questions: (1) Would a Schengen States visa be okay for entry into Croatia, as I had a valid one of several months’ duration? (2) In the event where a Schengen visa was not acceptable, would it be possible for them to arrange for me a visa on arrival at the airport, given that it was not possible within the available time frame to arrange a visa from Egypt?  I received no response to either of these questions up until they sent me, on the eve of my departure for Croatia, a scanned invitation letter, which on trying to printout showed only the rubrics and no other details, which were handwritten. Having previously bought a return air ticket to Zagreb via Paris, I set off from Yaounde on Monday, September 01, with the prayer that, if a Schengen visa was not valid for Croatia, that I should be given a visa on arrival, Amen. But on arrival at Zagreb airport, the prayer was not answered and I got promptly locked up in a filthy cell. I was working with my laptop in the cell when I accidentally noticed that there was wireless internet connection. So I sent out the following urgent message to the ‘top management’, copying several other people I knew were coming to the congress:

I arrived from Paris this morning on the same flight as Leonardo de Castro, Secretary General of the IAB. I have been locked up in a cell here at the airport indefinitely because the telephone number on your invitation letter which could be discerned with difficulty was not responding when the immigration officials tried to call you. Luckily, while working with my laptop in the cell, I noticed that I could access wireless internet. Is there anything you could do for me?
 Godfrey

Only two people, Davinia Talbot and Ruth Macklin, responded to my plea from the airport cell; they were worried and almost alarmed and tried all they could but to no avail. The rest of the story is in the following email exchanges:

Dear Godfrey,  
  I hope you are home, safe and sound by now. I have told many people about your horror story and they are appropriately horrified. Some to whom you did send your earlier message did not receive it (were not on email). Last night I had dinner with Peggy and her husband, Florencia,
Alastair Campbell, and Hans van Delden. We spent some time discussing what would be an appropriate thing to do or say--and to whom--about your experience. By this morning, people were coming up to me, saying they had heard how you were treated. At the very least, the current IAB board should be informed. Our colleagues at dinner last night said I should forward your message to them. Since you wrote your original message to several people, including the local arrangements person, I assume it is OK to forward your message. This conference is very poorly organized. Some people are helpful, others are rude. In fact, we have found that Croatians in general are quite rude, unhelpful, cold and unfriendly. I have only been to a couple of sessions and decided to take the afternoon off.
regards,
Ruth

Dear Ruth,

Waiting at CDG Paris to board my plane back to Yaounde, I forward this message I wrote last night to Davinia in reply to your latest message. Enjoy the congress and kindly let me know how it went.

Kindest regards.

Godfrey

 

Dear Davinia,

Happy to let you know that I am already in Paris, in relative safety and freedom and by tomorrow night I should be enjoying the more familiar freedom and safety of Cameroon.

I could scarcely believe it when the Croatian police kept me locked up in that cell until this morning only to wake me up rudely at 06:00 and order me to take my bags and follow them. I asked if they could allow me ten minutes to wash my face and they said I could only take five minutes because the plane was already leaving for Paris. At past midnight they had opened the door and thrown some sandwiches on the table, announcing it was turkey and cheese. They had never asked me if I eat turkey and/or cheese so I asked if I could have some water instead and they said I should drink the tap water. They escorted me right into the plane, handing my passport and air ticket to the pilot. On arrival in Paris a similar team of armed police were waiting to receive me, like some very important criminal! I really felt like laughing but was too tired even to smile. These ones discovered that I had a valid Schengen States visa of several months duration and asked me where I WANTED TO BE GOING and looked surprised when I said of course back to Cameroon. I easily rebooked my return flight for tomorrow and found a hotel near the airport from where I am writing you this mail. The whole saga can be blamed on the lack of effective communication with the local congress organisers and, up till moment, only Ruth Macklin amongst those who are actually there expressed any concern.

Thanks! I WLL ONLY WRITE AGAIN FROM CAMEROON.

Ciao!
Godfrey

 

Dear Ruth,
This is just to confirm that I am back home safe and sound. I got back on Thursday night but had to go on an errand the very next day to my natal village, for my mother who is currently spending some time with me in Yaounde. I am writing this mail in a town called Bamenda on my way to Yaounde back from the errand. I'll arrive in Yaounde by tomorrow morning and only thereafter can I deal with my backlog of emails. It was perfectly okay to share my messages. I greatly appreciated your moral support during my nasty experience. I guess you must be on your way back from the congress and I hope that it was as exciting as it had promised.

Best wishes.
Godfrey

 

3.  For October 2008, the President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Prof. Dr. Horst Koehler, had invited me to the German Presidency, Schloss Bellevue, to participate in an International Discussion Group on “Forms of Modernity – Views of Modernity”, from 21-22 October.  Travel to Berlin was arranged for me from Dar es Salaam, where I was previously facilitating an AMANET Health Research Ethics Workshop, via Amsterdam. I traveled overnight from Dar es Salaam and arrived Amsterdam very early on the morning of Sunday, 19 October, with more than enough time for my connecting flight to Berlin about 08:00. Surprisingly, at passport control, in spite of my valid Schengen visa of several months’ duration, they seemed not to believe the invitation of the German President and the several email exchanges I had had with the Presidency over the invitation. My passport and other travelling documents went from hand to hand and I ended up having a full interview.  Who had invited me to Berlin? The German President. You can see his invitation in that envelope and the preceding email messages among those papers. Why were you invited? I don’t really know; the person who invited me is best placed to answer that; but I guess it is because I am a well-known scholar. What is your occupation? University teacher. Are you a professor? Yes. What is your specialization? Philosophy. Philosophy is too broad. Okay, Epistemology and Metaphysics. What is epistemology? I give a short introductory lecture. None of the telephone numbers you have on those papers is responding when we tried to call. Are you aware this is Sunday morning? Okay. Go and wait out there.  I wait and wait… my connecting flight departs. Finally, someone comes out and hands me my passport and papers and in a friendly-sounding voice “Okay, Professor Tangwa, you can now go”. I find my way to the AIR FRANCE desk and my flight is rebooked for 10:33.  I move to the boarding gate area, sit on the hard chair and instantly fall soundly asleep. I wake up around 12:00 to realize I had missed the flight yet again. I go back to AIR FRANCE and am told: Where on earth have you been? The boarding gates were left open for five extra minutes in case you came but you were nowhere to be seen and then the plane had to delay so they could take down your bag. I was rebooked for 14:25 and did make it to Berlin.

 
                 At the German Presidency, 20 October, 2008

Comments

[Matt Ryan Jersey]

Hm, I’m just comfortable with this but still not entirely convinced, hence i’m going to research a touch more.

[Longchamp Pas Cher]

Bibnepwkaul i'm a senior at Scappoose increased college combined with adore getting artistic | Longchamp Pas Cher I, get pleasure from a wrong parent, integrated a part just a little a lttle bit a small bit a good deal more that cyberbullying and sexting which no had not recognized before. Longchamp Pas Cher ヘ⊥mrihomahyq

[Ropa Online Barata]

Hello webpfsfyxq,
I wasn't capable to participate,Sorry weebly.Really pass earlier mentioned it. procxlaxxrw
good pfsfyxq!!

[Bolsos Tous 2012]

Hello webpcxsves,
consider into fund the delving functionality based p equals tremendously Bernoulli hardships a daily single with p = 0.02. propjjzissd
good pcxsves!!

[Longchamp Pascher Cuir]

Hello webpvdzcbs,
Mm, i know too! However, ha adore Draco Malfoy more... proomwqbqmw
good pvdzcbs!!

[travelling tips]

Everyone is happy to litigate. Bills Gates once said, don't share anything with me you don't want me to use later.