SPEECH DELIVERED TO OROKO CULTURAL ASSOCIATION MEMBERS IN TORONTO

Speech to Oroko Toronto August 1, 2009

by
IyaMelissa Nambangi
Executive Director, Minnesota African Women’s Association, MAWA

My Dear Oroko Brothers and Sisters, Guests and all here present:
It gives me great pleasure to be in Toronto this evening… my first trip out of the United States since I arrived there in 1992. This gathering was worth the trip because Oroko and matters related to Oroko are very close to my heart.
There is so much I want to share with you today – and I was told I could talk for up to 25 minutes. I don’t know who told any of you that someone with a journalism and university lecturer background can speak for only 25 minutes. I have a feeling I will be speaking for 25 and a half minutes.
A speech like this one needs to be a presentation. I can not only celebrate the fact that my Oroko sisters and brothers – and children too in Toronto – have realized the importance of coming together as family with all the demands of time that implies – and end there. I must also point out to you – from my experience, from other people’s experiences – the challenges and opportunities that such a venture brings along.
First of all, I want to remind you of the experience back home whenever someone is travelling to mbeng’a bakala… there is much joy. Even those who are not friends or family but belong to your village are proud that someone from their village is going abroad. To their mind, whether they benefit individually or not from this person going abroad, the fact remains that they can also say “someone from their village is in a developed land” and this implies that their village is not left in the dark ages. We need to take a leaf from the Europeans, explorers, Vasco da Gama and co. When they went to other lands, they sought to make it benefit their own land. Granted, this was at our detriment as the explored but think how much their countries and descendants have benefitted to this day from the blood, sweat and riches of Africa.
So it is, that we cannot come abroad here and make it all about ourselves. We are out here and Oroko land must feel and see the results of her children being abroad.

When I first arrived in the United States in 1992, I met an African American lawyer who told me the strangest thing. She said that God planned for her ancestors to be slaves and struggle to build America so Africans too could enjoy the beauty of that land. I thought that was extreme but I could see her point. However, I don’t think we have to shed blood and tears for Oroko land to benefit from her children being abroad.
What we have to do, is borrow the good ideas, good procedures that work in the lands we now sojourn in and adapt those to suit and improve our Oroko land in particular and the South West Region and Cameroon in general. For example, as individuals or a handful of friends, we can send a few books back home, send some medical supplies but all that is a drop of water in the bucket in the face of what will truly constitute development for all Oroko people.
We have to learn how to act as a group. Too often, we get confused by the notion of democracy and freedom of speech and end up holding up projects with interminable arguments. Everybody wants to express their own opinions; we set deadlines and do not meet them because one or two people are not satisfied. And in true “divide and conquer” tradition that we have learned from our colonizers and now see our politicians utilizing this same tactic all the time back home, when we can’t force the group to do things our way, we splinter off and start trying to promote our individual village groups.
We have to remember that there is strength in numbers. Let me use an allegory to make this point: My village is Big Bekondo. I am a Big Bekondo leaf on an Oroko branch on a Meme or Ndian trunk on a South West tree on Cameroon soil. No part is too small or too big. Take away the leaf and photosynthesis suffers which will affect the whole tree; take away the branch, and there is nothing to connect the leaf to the trunk, etc. etc. We all need each other.
If the people of Massaka get a road, the people of Big Bekondo should rejoice because the law of proximity prescribes that Big Bekondo will most likely get a road next or it will be easier for a road to be built to Big Bekondo because there is one so close to it. Instead, our usual tendency is to say: “Why did Big Bekondo get the high school. It ought to come to us.” Then the neighboring villages start trying to bring down the Big Bekondo High School or destroy it. We tend to see our neighbors getting something as though it deprives us of getting the same thing. We need to learn from these countries we live in how to live and let live. If Big Bekondo has a High School, maybe the next village should focus on trying to get a vocational school there, or a health clinic or a bank. That way each village is supplying a need for its neighbors and all the establishments are sustained.
By this same token, we should recognize that if something bad happens to the people of Kumba, or Muyuka or any of the towns of Fako Division, the Oroko people should be very concerned because it is not too far from us and may be reaching us next.
Many of us have forgotten or never learned our history. We do not know the ancestral relationship we have with the Doualas, the Bakweris, etc. The interconnectedness of the South West province is something that will give us strength if we learn about it and make that land our business too. My Oroko identity is not diminished by my claiming the Ndian, Meme, Sawa, South-West identities. It all comes in handy at various levels. My role as Cameroon TV news anchor opened my eyes to this inclusiveness. I was tagged the South West anchor immediately by my colleagues who wanted to keep out South Westerners from certain top positions in the CRTV structure. But then I realized that all South Westerners were proud of me, not only the Oroko people. In fact, when I went to Buea to cover the President’s visit to the South West, I was very touched by the Mayor of Buea, Mr. Becke Smith, taking me round to all the older respectable elders at the grand stand and telling them in Bakweri, “this is our daughter from CRTV”. Then he kept on speaking to me in Bakweri and I just felt embarrassed that unlike my parents, I could not understand and speak Bakweri, Duala and all our other cousin languages. In fact, most of our parent’s generation can communicate with the Doualas and Bakweris, each speaking their own language but each understanding what the other is saying.
From that day of the President’s visit to Buea, I recognized that I was a child of the South West region too. So, if anyone is destroying the Korup Forest, it is my business. So is it my concern too, if the deep sea port of Victoria is never resuscitated, or a son or daughter of the soil is not allowed to head the CDC or Sonara, or the roads to Mamfe remain non-existent, etc.
To best illustrate the point of unity, let me recite this well-known poem by a German Pastor Martin Niemoeller
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a communist;Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a socialist;Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a trade unionist;Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a Jew;Then they came for me-- and there was no one left to speak out for me.
This is why we must speak up. When we speak out for others, we are actually speaking out for ourselves. When we take care of others, we are taking care of ourselves. Remember that. So, too, it is that, when we destroy others, we are also destroying ourselves.
I don’t want to lose track of the fact that we need to talk on ways to make Oroko land look like it has educated children as you all are; that it has children o mbenge. It will take all of us to make this land great. It takes the men, it takes the women, and it takes the youth.
We are all connected.
Inasmuch as we should try to emulate democracy and freedom of speech, we need to apply the other rules that put a stop to the abuse of this democracy and freedom of speech. I have been part of so many Cameroonian groups, African groups and we all end up suffering a lot of abuse in trying to lead such groups. Last year, I decided to do a paper on why many of our Cameroonian and other African projects die a natural death and I discovered that all the dynamic and hardworking leaders I knew of, in so many Cameroonian and other African groups, eventually got fed up and stopped being part of the group. When I asked them, the general response I got was that: I can never do anything for that group again. The amount of abuse I got there was enough”. So, we eat up our leaders.
This is an experience I have had. It seems as though the concept of the “servant leader” that is so prominent in the US is something we cannot handle. To us, a President of a group should sit back and pass orders. When we have those who work very hard and selflessly for the group, we immediately start treating them like our servants. If you have not been in such a position, you may not know how insulting and annoying it is for a group member who is not putting in any time or constructive effort to achieve something in the name of the group, to come to meetings everyday just to grill those who do the work about how they do it or how they should have done it. So, Oroko Toronto, if you want your hardest working members to continue doing the work, show them some appreciation and also take on tasks yourselves. As I said, Oroko is about all of us.
I am not trying to say we should not criticize each other or the association leadership. We should but it should be done with love and respect, not with the intention of hurting feelings but with the intention of getting things done. If you really believe that using another approach will work better than the one currently used, then by all means, offer your services and do it. Nobody likes to be constantly told what to do by someone who is not doing anything for the general good. We all have the same time constraints – work, taking care of children, work, etc. If you think you are too busy to contribute your time and effort to developing Oroko, and then by all means, let those who contribute the time and effort do it the way they know best. I have seen so many groups that have turned on their leader at the instigation of a blow-hard, and when that leader is out of the group, they remain stagnant. You cannot afford to let your active leaders be hassled so much that they get fed-up and drop the whole effort. If it really comes to making a choice, always choose the person who sacrifices much for the group over the loud mouths who only talk and do nothing constructive.
I saw this story on the internet that I don’t know if it is true or was just a made-up story but it illustrates a point I want to make:
Apparently, this guy – a paysan, I’m told – was driving on the Freeway in Houston when he realized that the traffic camera had taken a picture of his car. He thought to himself, “I was not going above the speed limit. Why would that camera take a picture of me? It must be faulty.” So, to prove his point, he turned around and drove slowly past that same camera. It took another picture of him. He obstinately decided to give it one last try. He drove by a third time and it took a third picture of his car. A week later, he got 3 tickets for driving without his seat belt on….
The point I want to make here is that, oftentimes we are looking for faults so much that when we see one, we focus on it and spend so much energy trying to bring down someone because we do not like him or we want to be President, that we miss out on all other things that are going wrong in the group. Or we miss out on all the good things that are equally happening.
We have to make Oroko an “all-of-us” affair, not like the Tortoise in the folk-tale with the name “all-of-us”… in fact, that tortoise could also be a lesson for us because see what happened when he took on the name “all of us”, ate all the food and the birds abandoned him. If you don’t know this story, ask any older Oroko person to tell you. If you have not told it to your kids, you are missing out on a wonderful opportunity to teach some ethics and morals.
When I say Oroko is an “all of us” affair, I mean we must learn to be inclusive but also know when to cut off the limb that is causing “go slow” or discord in the group. I want to reiterate the importance of those leaders and members who contribute fully to the cause of the community: never let such people go. Let me tell you this other experience:
A few years back, the Oroko Atlanta group spearheaded this project of an Oroko Cultural and Resource Center back home. I was so impressed by it that I flew to Atlanta about 4 times that year just to help with packing up the shipment, adapted the manual I had prepared for my organization, MAWA, for the Oroko Cultural and Resource Center board and sent it to the representatives in Kumba, worked with an Atlanta lawyer and got a non-profit established for Oroko-USA. It was a wonderful affair back home. I received a DVD of the opening ceremony with various Oroko dance groups and elite present at the ceremony. I was so impressed that one of the board members had actually read through the 40-page manual I sent and was quoting copiously from it. Well, what became of that Oroko Cultural and Resource Center? It died down and I was told that one of the prominent members in Cameroon decided to kill it and turn the idea into his own individual business. I am so disappointed and feel personally hurt by this act. This is a situation where the Oroko group out here should have taken action to stop this man from appropriating our hard effort. Maybe we should start drawing up legal contracts and following through with law suits when an individual usurps the whole group’s effort. By the way, I brought that manual here for you because it is my hope that Oroko Toronto would one day do something back home for us all to be proud of.
On to other matters: one of the biggest fears I have, is that some centuries later, history books may record that “there used to be a group of people in this land called the Oroko people but they ceased to exist”. It scares me because it can so easily happen. This is my rationale for making this statement: Being welcoming, as our name Oroko implies, does not mean being foolish. If we keep on ignoring some of the things that undermine us, undermine our group efforts, undermine our villages, we may come to this unfortunate pass. If we continue giving away our land to non-Orokos, selling our land… in my village, residents from a non-South-west group actually have their own chief and have the nerve to confront Big Bekondo people and tell them: “We chief talk say …” This is incredible. I don’t know if that situation still exists today but you cannot have more than one chief in your own village – every other visitor, resident may be a stranger but he or she is still subject to your village chief. Better yet, a non-Oroko person being chief in an Oroko village? How’s that? Why are we so laid back that we will truly have our land pulled out from under our feet? Lesson number 2 to take from these developed countries we live in … be nice to strangers but make them work for everything they get from you. If they want to become chiefs in your land, then they have to take on citizenship. But... I don’t know about Canada, the United States makes it very clear; you can become everything but president if you are not a natural born citizen of the US. Let’s be proud enough of Orokoland to make those who want a piece of these villages actually work hard for them. I’m sure we have chiefs and members of Oroko royal families here… take these words to heart and make your land friendly to strangers but let your village benefit from their presence and let there be definite advantages for children of the soil and boundaries that no visitor can cross.
So, you are in Canada, we are in the US, others are in China, Korea, Italy, etc. Most of these countries when you hear them mentioned an image immediately pops into your mind. Japan – electronics! Belgium, cars! America – heaven!! Okay, that may be an exaggeration but what comes to your mind when you hear Cameroon (sorry, soccer slacked off, it appears), South West region? Ndian – oil? Korup Forest? Oroko... what? Can we create an image for the Oroko area? We have to find a way to bring some of the great things we have learned abroad to our land. I know one of our biggest drawbacks is that a whole group can make every effort to achieve something and one member will either misappropriate the funds or do something equally selfish – like the case of the Oroko Cultural & Resource Center in Kumba. Such a situation is the right time to go the American and probably Canadian ways… sue them! Let them pay back the funds or face the law. When it comes to Oroko, it is not about you or about me. It is about us. If I don’t like a plan but the majority likes it, I have to hold my peace and go with the flow because it is about us all.
For nine years now I have been involved in the world of community based non-profit organizations. For 7 years I have been running one I created. So, for 7 years I have been championing African women’s issues not because I don’t think men have issues too, but because there were many other groups championing African men’s issues. But in working on women’s issues, we have always looked for ways in which our efforts will benefit the whole family which includes our precious men, of course…
Together with other African women leaders like Naomi Tutu and the women of Akina Mama wa Afrika, and various other African women leaders and scholars, African women in the Diaspora have come to determine the role of African women abroad. After looking at them closely, I realized that they can be applied to African men, Oroko men and women abroad. So, I decided to share them with you because I’m cool like that ---
Here are the roles: translator, interpreter, upholder, enforcer, and change agent, to Empower, representative / ambassador and connector.
As a translator, we make sure that our cultures and values, our people are not misrepresented. We make sure that for every negative image the media shows about us, we tell of ten positive things about us. We cannot continue allowing those images be our reality otherwise; your children will be ashamed of being African and probably just neglect their Oroko identity. This is why I applaud Florence Ayissi, an Oroko woman in England who decided to counter the negative stories by showing Africans in positive pursuits. That’s how come we have the BBC-produced Award winning documentary – Sisters In Law – which follows 4 cases in Kumba before Judge Ntuba – my own younger sister – and Justice Ngassa, and others. I brought along a copy and maybe we can watch it over the weekend.
I have this very Minnesotan approach – passive aggressive – to dealing with unpleasant remarks about Africa. I immediately counter by recounting some really bad stuff on the news about things that happen in my state of residence or the country. For example, one of my students at the University – when I was teaching there – decided to embarrass me by stating very loudly that there is so much AIDS in Africa because of polygamy. My response was, “then all the people of Utah should be dead or dying from it too.” The rest of the class laughed uneasily. This also happened to be around the time that the polygamous cults of Utah were in the news and nobody was feeling too proud of them. He then continued by talking of too much prostitution in tourist East Africa and I countered by bringing up Heidi Fleiss. Needless to say, that was the end of the battle and the semester ended without my having to deal with such grief from him anymore.

I have had to learn a lot about my culture in order to handle this translator role well. When other Cameroonians think they will make a mockery of our people living in “calabod” houses, I first of all correct them that it is clapboard, and then talk of the coolness inside when the weather is as hot as it gets in the South West region – this I explain, shows the scientific mind of South-Westerners to realize that using clapboard for buildings will give them respite from the heat. There is no insult too small or too big – each needs to be dealt with immediately because the intent of the insult on your tribe or any group you belong to is in order to make you feel small or insignificant.
Some years ago, I was housing a Cameroonian woman and her child – rent-free, and all in the US – and she had the nerve to say, “those Oroko people, we had our own houseboy from there”. I looked at her, living off an Oroko woman and having the nerve to say that especially since I know she did not come from a family that could afford houseboys. Then she went on to insult Kumba people as a whole. Unfortunately for her, I knew enough history to tell her how Kumba gave refuge to her people and how the former regime punished Kumba severely for giving refuge to maquisards, etc. She shut her mouth. Passive aggressive… Minnesota style. It actually works!

Interpreter – a bit similar to translator.
Upholder – we cannot let our children abroad lose touch of our culture. We have to uphold it and teach them. Every culture changes but the change must come from within. If you do not know your culture, then you cannot improve it. So, we have to teach our children our culture.

Enforcer – a stiffer form of upholding. When I got to the US, I learned to value my culture because I met so many Americans who admired the fact that I had a culture and lamented the fact that they had none or were just trying to create some.
I don’t want to leave everyone with the impression that the cultures we now live in are in any way superior to ours. By no means! They do have some good qualities we can learn from and use, but we do have our own good qualities too.
Look at the way we respect each other and age. I remember when I was growing up; I never heard any of my parents call their friends by their names. It was Mami this or Papa that, Mr. Ayamba, Mrs. Motale, Nyanga’asu, Sang’asu, Iya, Tata, Sango… and so on and so forth, and we are rich in those titles. That also taught us to respect those friends and they in turn treated us like their own children. Now, out here, what do I hear: Some guy calling his wife across the dance floor: “Dialle!”, or some woman calling out: “Sakwe. Let’s go!” What are we teaching our children? Calling an adult like that is quite disrespectful because we grew up knowing that you do not call adults like that. I remember most people respond to that by asking: “Why are you calling me like a child?” When you yell out your spouse’s name like that, or introduce him or her to younger people as “Dialle, or Malike or Ote”, you are engendering disrespect for that man or woman. Then when some smart mouth kid walks up to you and goes, “Ote” you are shocked.
You have to realize that we live in countries which are inhabited by others who came from different lands and therefore they do not have the same sense of community that we do. In trying to level the playing field of their past atrocities in the days of slavery where only certain colors could be called “Mister” or “Master”, they are taking away all marks of individual respect that still mean a lot to us. As a result also, they have become very individualistic, a thing that cannot work in our cultures – at least not for a long time. So, when we try to pick up certain behaviors thinking that they are cool because they are practiced out here, let us also remember that we do not have their history or their practices.

I’ve heard some Africans argue that if they tell their children to call adults with respectful titles like Mr. or Uncle or Aunty, their children will not have self-esteem. Really?! So, they have these kids who go around annoying most African adults by calling them by their first names. As one Liberian woman told me: “It hurts me to my bones when an African child especially calls me by my first name”. “Why the African child mostly,” I asked her. “Because they know better”, was her simple response.
We need to bring up our children so that other people will love them, because we cannot be by these children 24/7. I have 3 kids whom everybody tells me, “o they are so polite. What nice children, etc.” But the fact is that, if anybody were to behave in an abusive manner towards my children, as polite as they are, they will tell you very politely to back off! The fact that they address adults respectfully does not mean I have brought them up to be doormats.
Change Agent – that is what we must be for our Oroko people. We take what we have learned here and make a positive change back home.
Empower – need I delve into that? We are out here, we have the resources, and we know where we can go for certain things. We need to use this knowledge to help our people. Every now and then, I go on the internet and search for funding that has been giving to villages in Cameroon for projects like pipe-borne water, electricity to the village, farmer’s cooperatives, etc. I never saw an Oroko village listed. But I saw so many other non-South-West Villages with $100,000 from various European firms, American foundations, etc. Does it mean we don’t have these needs? Is there really no Oroko associations back home that we can trust and partner with to help them get some of these funds? Always remember that hardship is a reality and we must try to compensate one or two persons back home to enable them chase down and acquire such funding.
We are representatives or ambassadors of Oroko abroad. Let everyone see you and know that Oroko people are educated. Are caring but not foolish….
Connector...
Among the many other positive aspects from our culture is how we love and care for each other. You and I know people who are now something in life because a neighbor or family friend educated them. We know those who were houseboys or babysitters and the families rewarded them by educating or training them in a vocation. So, when foreigners and some of us who have lived abroad so long we are confused enough to think we are now Americans, criticize our Cameroonian Middle and upper class for having houseboys, we need to point out that the fact that out here some of us do similar jobs and are called home makers or some such fancy-schmancy name does not make the job any different. What we should be concerned with is the abuse that some families back home heap on their house-help. It is not right at all!
What kind of a mother and big sister will I be, if I don’t talk of women and girls issues? To put it very short and simple: if you think something or practice done on you will hurt you, then it should not be done to a woman either. We have the same red blood running through our veins; get hurt by the same things, etc. I once remarked to an Oroko colleague out in the US about how I’ve noticed Cameroonian men doing chores at home, caring for the baby, etc. WHEN they are married to a white woman. And his explanation was that the white women are not used to harsh treatment. Excuse me?! Who are these women who are used to harsh treatment? I am not, and neither are my friends and we are not white women. Please, respect. We have to respect each other.
And one big plea on behalf of the women: Oroko people, you have to do something about this issue. Number One, that whole deal of the man’s sister’s children inheriting him. What do you want to happen to your own children and wife? It is so bad in my family that our paternal cousin has boldly given birth to 10 children and though she has a husband, has declared that my first brother does not need to have any children, he should just come and take some from her and raise them! It is okay to take care of your sister’s children too, if you have the money. But please, stop insulting Oroko women with this traditional belief that “only a woman knows the paternity of her child, so the man’s true relatives are those born by his sister”. Please! I’ve not yet met an Oroko woman who marries a man but plans to have children with someone else. But, if you really have that fear in you, go for a DNA test and take care of your children! I know many individual Oroko men who now resolve that matrilineal inheritance issue by leaving wills that give their property to their widow and children. That is good, but we need to re-evaluate this issue at the level of the Oroko group so the poor and uneducated will be equally protected even if they do not leave wills.
That said I am so glad and honored that you invited me. I want to reiterate that this business of being Oroko is about all of us. We must build and develop our land and people. We cannot in all good conscience stand on the outside looking in. Oroko is about all of us – not one person. It is about the villages, it is about the towns, it is about the divisions, it is about the South West region. It is about the coast, it is about Cameroon. We have to leave a mark so everyone hearing Oroko will say, “Ah, yes, I know them. That region has children in the developed world. That region has people who are educated”. I thank you for your attention.



Ms. M. N. Nambangi, M.A. (Journalism & Mass Communication, Univ. of MN) - Executive DirectorImmigrant of Distinction Award, 2008; Woman of Distinction Award, 2006Minnesota African Women's Association - MAWA2207 N. 2nd St., Minneapolis, MN 55411Ph: 612/588-7666; Fax: 612/588-7972
Satellite Office: Brooklyn Park, MN 55443 -PH: 763/541-2224www.mawanet. org; check out African dolls & decorative pillows at www.mawanet. org/shop
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