Reflections on President Paul Biya’s New Year Address & Matters Arising

The President is in a better position to appreciate the parlous state of the nation and do something about it instead of just lamenting. He should, for now, spare Cameroonians the crocodile tears.

By Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai

     The avuncular admonition over the inertia and lack of performance in government,by President Paul Biya in his traditional year-end address to the nation,was preposterous and ridiculous, to say the least.Coming from a President who has been in office for 32 years; and is very much aware that under his watch, Cameroon has become a forsaken nation riddled with corruption and institutionalized banditry, Biya’slamentation and ostrich fatalism amounted to naked provocation and acollectiveinsult on the intelligence of Cameroonians. How could the President expect high performance from clueless, inept tired old men,ill-equipped for the enormous responsibility of 21^st century nation-building?Even if their age is no problem; what about the age of their ideas? The nation undoubtedly gets a raw deal when the wrong people run the country -garbage in, garbage out! The point must therefore be driven home to the President, in whatever language he chose to understand that democracy thrives on regenerative change.It might be good for Paul Biya to reviewhis own performance to realize that, at 81 years and counting, there is something absurd in him still ruling Cameroon. Otherwise, bemoaning problems rooted in a system he created is meaningless.

     Given the woeful state of affairs in the country, manifested through bad governance, and misplaced official policies that have given vent to mass unemployment, abject poverty, high corruption in government, gross official recklessness and near zero governance,the President did not say anything useful. Rather, the muddled speech was a damning self-appraisal that underlined Biya’s profound lack of strength of character; indicative of leadership dysfunction and a pointer to the manner in which the country is run. Biya must get his act together and seriously address nagging problems facing the country. The job of the president, after all, is to solve problems and not lament. The buck stops at the President’s desk. For now, he should spare Cameroonians the crocodile tears.

     The President accurately captured the gravity of governmentfailurewhen he noted that: “in some sectors of our economy, State action often seems to lack consistency and clarity. Why is it that in many cases, decision-making delays still constitute a bottleneck in project implementation? Why can’t any region of our country achieve a public investment budget execution rate of over 50%? ”This kind of glib talk reeks of self-righteousness and if Biya thought Cameroonians would clap for him, he was wrong; his candor and honesty of speech notwithstanding. It is pathetic that, by his own admission, Biya has failed to elevate the budget as a document of vision for the nationto a priority policy tool for national development. It is a sad comment on the President’s style and an unflattering advertisement of his apathetic approach to governance, which illustrates another amplification of the absence of good leadership examplesfrom the person Cameroonians elected as their President. Theunacceptable budget anomalyis symptomatic of a collapsed systemthat should worry all Cameroonians, including the President. Certainly Biya can do better than he has done in tackling these problems.

     As President, he bears direct responsibility for the perfidy and ineptitude. The fact that his actions account for the nation’s continuing misfortunes renders hissermonizing as a moral ombudsman and conscience of a drifting nationinsincere. It may be just that Biya is frustrated knowing, from his own self-assessment, that he has failed Cameroonians.Hence, to assuage his conscience, he is doing what he thinks is statesmanship. Yet, in advertising his lamentationfor public consumption,Biya unwisely reflected on his own leadership failures. His lamentation would have made sense only if he had taken steps to ensure that political appointees and top civil servants take ultimate responsibility for what happens under their watch. The buck must stop at someone’s desk! Ministers will bear ultimate responsibility for lapses in their departments only if Biya demonstrates leadership and acknowledges responsibility for the quality and performance of national institutions. This is about setting powerful precedence by personal example; not reciting slogans andempty platitudes about economic emergence by 2035. Not until that is done would Mr. President have the moral authority to insult Cameroonians the way he did.

     Among other notable misrepresentation of reality was the President’s assessment of the Senatorial and twin Legislative/Municipal elections organized by ELECAM.The standing view is that the electoral process in Cameroon continues to mockdemocracy with impunity. There was no excuse for ELECAM, whatsoever, to have delivered such a poor performance, other than gross incompetence and partiality.The shoddy manner in which the Senatorial elections were conducted and the fact that the President appointed 30 of the 100 Senators not only belittled Cameroon before the international community; more importantly, it advertised to the whole world a certain Cameroonian definition of democracy that diminishes the ideal and mocks the primacy of the people in the process.

     The President castigated Cameroonians for individualism - working against the national interest. This is unfair; in fact, look who is talking!Unless Biya has the memory of an elephant, he cannot claim ignorance of the fact that most of the corruption and gross embezzlement of public funds has been perpetrated by his Beti tribesmen, whom he has appointed tocommanding heights of authority in all important positions in the country. In a country where government has crowded out the private sector, and the public sector is the biggest business entity, government action remains the oxygen of national life.Thisis a country where a few citizens live in untold opulence, while the vast majority wallow in poverty.Hungry and unemployed, many youths lend themselves to criminality. The social systemhas collapsed placing the people at the receiving end of official mismanagement and bad governance.

     With serious economic, infrastructural and security challenges to contend with, the worries of an average Cameroonian are about the basic necessities of life -food, shelter, healthcare, education andjobs all of which remain elusive. The point must be made with emphasis that, the cause of the unbridled individualism Biya decries is poverty; which is rooted in bad governance. The looting and waste going on in Cameroon in the name of governance has no parallel anywhere else and is responsible for breeding avampire ruling class,who suffer from incurable money-mindedness, and will stop at nothing, in their quest for personal gain.Collectively, the subterranean spoils of office in the executive, legislature and judiciary and the abuse of office among public officials, far exceed in quantumthe billions of francs regularly reported as stolen in Cameroon. Long-suffering Cameroonians have been waiting for Mr. President to sanitize the system but it gets worse all the time.

     While the need for public enlightenment is crucial in the circumstance, to re-orientate the people towards a Pan-Cameroonian vision beyond tribal, ethnic and regional jingoisms, Cameroonians can do little or nothing, faced with asystem of abusive patronage and ethnic-inspired clientelism which has become the official currency of governance of the Biya regime. The blame goes directly to the President for allowing a system where public officials would rather serve their personal interests and those of their paymasters than serve the state for whose sake they were appointed.It is this negative individualism, buoyed by rapacious corruption that has bogged down the nation.In Cameroon today, the standing view is thatfrom the high office of the President to the policeman at a checkpoint, everybody has a price.This is a tragedy for the country!

     Interestingly, the President did not even mention corruption; yet, corruptionremains the bane of national development. Cameroon shares the podium of infamy as one of the most corrupt nations in the world, according to Transparency International. Corruption is a national killer disease and its continued spread is a sad reflection on Biya’s style. Biya should prove himself as a man with zero tolerance for corruption by looking critically inwards and dealing with those around him or in his government, who are literally committing murder with state finances. Public officials are stealing the people blind and the war against corruption has been reduced to an embarrassing circus against perceived enemies of the regime. Regrettably, thePresident’s actions and body language exhibit a profoundly disturbing and confounding enthusiasm tonot only tolerate corruption,but to actuallyencourage it.

     This has created a human integrity problem; whereincorrupt public officials transfer corruption unto national institutions and create an institutional integrity problem for the country. Of course, Biya has been there as President;presiding over a nation plagued by monumental corruption, leadership profligacy, executive lawlessness and widespread impunity. Cameroonians have had, at the turn of each year, the assurances of Paul Biya that better times were at hand. For thatmany times, they have ended up with shattered hopes, broken promises and failed commitments.No wonder Biya’s address was at once an anticlimax and the butt of cynicism by ordinary citizens.

     Although every message is linked to the messenger,it is imperative,toisolate the intrinsicvalue of the message,while scrutinizing the messenger. It is just as well thatBiyais confronted with a hydra-headed national problem fuelled in part byhis own dereliction of duty. Either way,Biya’sadmonition was an apt reminder that,Cameroon as a nation is bigger than any ethnic identity, personality or interest. It was a restatement that the value of any individualor group should be reckoned with only on the basis of its potential to edify and enhance the collective wellbeing of the nation. As 2014 begins,Cameroonians who cherish the values that define a true democratic societymust rise to the occasion and demonstrate to the leadership by every means legitimate, that authentic power and sovereignty reside in the people. Cameroonians concerned about the country’s slide into dysfunction, must take up the challenge, speak truth to power and demand a commitment to a positive change in values.

     But the ultimate responsibility rests on the President, who must take the lead in giving meaning to responsibility and accountability.Rhetoric on national transformation is meaningless when the country preserves a system in which individuals convert institutions and official responsibilities to personal gain. Biya can arrest the drift if he reaches out beyond narrow, self-interested circles, for ideas that will promote effective functioning of national institutions.The dexterity of the leader is important. If the leadership is corrupt, the country would be corrupt. If the leadership is dynamic, the country would be dynamic. Cameroonians are confused about the present direction of their country. They are asking whether the President is really in charge and where the country is headed.Biyaseems to have perfected the fruitless modus operandi of running the country with the same questionable hirelings he has been recycling in the last 32 years. They are still in charge, repeating theirold mistakes.This must stop.

     What the country deserves at this critical point is a crop of young leaders endowed with the gift of steady application, imbued with the ability to control events rather than drift with the tides, and who in range of vision and depth of conception, tower above their contemporaries. Cameroon needs leaders of iron resolve, indomitable courage and sharp intellect with acute and exceptional sense of history to lead the country out of the doldrums. Such people abound in their numbers but are choked by a warped and corrupt recruitment process, which celebrates mediocrity and godfatherism. Something, afterall, is wrong with a process which arrogates to a few persons, in certain offices; with dubious connections, the exclusive right to nominate people for public office.

     In conclusion, Biya must accept that he set the compass that the country is following. His 32 years in power has featured too many malfeasances all of which has rendered a majority of Cameroonians helpless and hopeless.What holds the country together is the resilience of the Cameroonian spirit, now obviously stretched to the limit.Time is running fast and Cameroonians are losing their patience and running out of options.The status quo is not sustainable; Biya must think outside the boxand be a man and half to end the nation’s drift.It is not enough to throw up his hands in befuddlement, as he did in his speech. History is beckoning and giving him a chance at winning the battle for both self-redemption and national rebirth.Paul Biyahas a unique responsibility and an historic duty to redirect the ship of state in a new direction. To fail to do so will be the ultimate betrayal of the Cameroonianpeople.

 *Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai is a Public Intellectual and graduate of Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he was Managing Editor of the Harvard Journal of African-American Public Policy. A former Research Analyst for Freedom House, he is a Consultant and lives in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Talk back at ekinneh@yahoo.com

Cameroon: Unnecessary Reunification Anniversary Celebration

President Paul Biya and government officials at all levels, should bury their heads in their hands in shame; meditating on their failure to the nation and seek restitution, instead of celebrating.

                                           ***********

Those who failed in their education and some who at one time or the other, contributed to the economic downturn of the nation continue to be recycled in public offices giving them the opportunity to continue perpetuating their failure in the affairs of the nation.

                                      By Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai*

The point needs to be made, and with emphasis, that whatever the motives of its organizers, there is no compelling need for any elaborate celebration of the much-touted independence and reunification anniversary. So, the planned celebrations in Buea should be cancelled. Only a day of sober refection should be observed with all Cameroonians pondering their journey to where the nation is and what they should do to turn things around. If, and whenever the President decides to visit Buea, Cameroonians should dress in black; in mourning, and use the occasion to remind him of all that has failed in the country. No celebrations. No public fanfare. Three years behind schedule, and still uncertain of the exact date, there are no indications, as to when the President will travel to Buea for another waste of time and taxpayers money. When every direction points to the way back, the road does not lead to anywhere new! As such, two things are evident: either the journey has been futile or the navigator is a scalar quantity: having magnitude but lacking direction. Sadly that is what Cameroon has become.

When Southern Cameroons achieved political autonomy from Britain in 1961 and voted to reunite with French Cameroon, Anglophones envisioned a bountiful country. Although there was a foreboding sense that the new nation might be unworkable, the federal constitution coordinated the bonds between the two federating units to ensure national cohesion.This architecture was unhinged in 1972, when in a fit of authoritarian madness, President Ahmadou Ahidjo staged what undoubtedly was a constitutional coup d’état; unilaterally abrogating the federation in an emblematic display of forced statecraft. Many years on, Anglophones who have been reduced to second class citizens in their own country can only look back in anger and imagined what would have been had Ahidjo not abolished the federation. It is just enough to say that this was probably the most wicked act perpetrated against this nation by Ahidjo.

With that singular action, Ahidjo snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and Cameroon’s manifest destiny with glory was halted by a mindless dictatorship.The result has been a Cameroon still questioned by many Cameroonians; a nation full of promise but still in doubt of itself. This inevitably, has led to a rising crescendo of misguided calls for secession.Truth be told: whatever marginalization Anglophones have suffered within a united Cameroon dispensation, is far more the product of the politics of personal destruction by self-seeking Anglophone politicians than any concerted effort by successive Francophone-led governments from Ahidjo to Paul Biya.Therefore, the challenge for all Cameroonians is to rise above those parochial considerations that cripple our aspirations from becoming a more attractive and progressive country. Glib talk of secession and “anti-frog” lamentations are, therefore, inappropriate and inconsequential in the present circumstances.

It is just as well that the President has recognized that there is really nothing to celebrate. What on earth can be the justification for such celebration in a country beset with multidimensional antediluvian and pedestrian problems such as lack of potable water, decrepit infrastructure, poor health care, insecurity, grueling poverty, deteriorating standard of education, unemployment and receding fortunes which have forced its best brains to flee the country? Would it not smack of a giant dancing naked in the full glare of the public? Cameroon is burning and the leaders are fiddling! Any reunification celebration is some fiddling too much.To make matters worse, the bond that binds Cameroonians together appears at the very best, tenuous; if not snapping, and threatening fundamentally the unity of the country. It is perhaps right to say that at no time has the basis of Cameroon’s existence as a nation been as furiously assailed. The unity in diversity, hitherto advertised as “Africa in miniature” has been supplanted by the diversities in the unity, such that an average Cameroonian sees himself first in the mould of his tribe and ethnic nationality. This explains why the country is structurally fragile, giving rise to negative and frightening prognostications. This state of affairs is exacerbated by insensitive political leadership that prides itself in a false sense of direction with little or no accomplishments to show.

The political culture, ethical values and high moral standard bequeathed to the country by the fathers of reunification have given way to a culture of incompetence, political opportunism, graft, brigandage, self-centeredness, insensitivity, impunity, mediocrity and greed. Nothing seems to be working in the country today due largely to a heart-breaking and pathetic dearth of statesmen and patriotic leaders. Only a cynic and an unpatriotic citizen would find something to celebrate in the life of a nation that has lost her way, shredded her heritage and dumped the values that made her promise so much so early. What this portends basically is that for Cameroon, the labor of heroes past has turned out to be largely in vain, and their hopes now lie forlorn. What then is the basis of the reunification celebration? If it is intended as a nation-building tool, it is at once trite and futile, as it sits logic in the head. Patriotism comes not from the celebration of a coupling arrangement, but the benefits it has delivered.

Does it not advertise the tragedy of the celebrations that tired old men who should be savoring the joy of deserved retirement after years of service to the country are the people coordinating the event? It is bad enough to have a reunification celebration at all; the symbolic gesture inherent in charging those responsible for the sorry state of the nation with its prosecution makes it worse. A country that recycles its men of yester-years, especially as a result of their past failures, as is typically the case with Cameroon can hardly be said to have made progress and embraced the world of new ideas. Of course, a leadership, having proven incapable of rising up to the challenges of personal example, is not necessarily redeemed by its constant reappearance at the rescue gate. That, unfortunately, is one of the tragedies Cameroon has had to grapple with.

It is so bad that the refrain is that the best Cameroonians are outside the government. This tragedy is a vicious cycle: the woeful state of the country due to poor political and economic decisions have made government and politics the most rewarding source of livelihood, the only thriving business, the surest way of climbing to the top with little or no sweat. Those who failed in their education and some who at one time or the other, contributed to the economic downturn of the nation continue to be recycled in public offices giving them the opportunity to continue perpetuating their failure in the affairs of the nation. The result is what obtains today: widespread ineptitude compounded by honor and integrity deficit.Cameroon has suffered enough from a recruitment policy based on considerations other than merit; enough is enough!

After many false starts, dashed hopes, and perennially low expectation, now is the time to seek a change of direction. We need to reset the agenda for the country, to lift the conversation from the mundane level where it currently resides. And this can only be done by a new kind of leadership. Such leadership must be driven by a sense of urgency to correct the contradictions in the nation, to infuse hope and purpose in the citizenry. It is a different culture of leadership that will galvanize the country in a totally new direction, and place emphasis rightly on the interest of the people, not the temporary occupants of high offices.

It bears repeating that what the country needs is not any celebration at all. The proper thing on this auspicious occasion is to do stock-takingor self-evaluation. Like an arranged marriage, reunification is a work-in-progress; not a comfortless union, in which neither husband nor wife can negotiate reconciliation or divorce.Cameroonians need to do a thorough examination of themselves to see whether they are where they should be at this point in time; whether the dreams of the fathers of reunification have been accomplished. This would enable them chart a path to the future devoid of past mistakes. Certainly, a return to true federalism within a 10-state federation is the ultimate step towards rebuilding the country and redefining its sovereignty.

The American historian, Gerda Lerner, tells us that: “the main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other choices and thus they determine future events.” This is the hard and bitter lesson of the 1961 Plebiscite. Anglophones better accept and live with this reality because all their yearnings for independence will remain at best, a luxurious desire and mere wishful thinking.Let every Cameroonian stand up for a few minutes on the celebration day to reflect on where the nation is and where it is headed. Just a day of reflection; no celebrations, please!

*Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai is a Public Intellectual and graduate of Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he was Managing Editor of the Harvard Journal of African-American Public Policy. A former Research Analyst for Freedom House, he is a Consultant and lives in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Talk back at ekinneh@yahoo.com

NATIONALITY LAW IN CAMEROUN: NEED FOR A PRAGMATIC APPROACH TO INTERPRETATION

By Martin Tumasang

Introduction

I have dealt variously with the interpretation of the Cameroon Nationality law and supported opposing positions at various points in order to put forward the various possible reasoning on both sides. Whilst prima facie this might appear like intellectual flip flopping, it helps to show the softscape from different angles.

Despite the generally strict rules in interpreting wills and limitation on the correction of non-clerical errors in wills, should the court use a pragmatic approach in interpreting documents like wills and laws like the nationality law?. This does not suggest that wills and the constitution are the same but it shows how the Administration of Justice Act 1982 in the UK is interpreted.

Starting on wills, the approach below in the interpretation of a will by the UK Supreme Court might give an insight into how a pragmatic approach might solve issues concerning wills or such issues as found on the nationality law in Cameroon. The below treaties on wills is culled from an article by another.

Interpretation of a will

The Supreme Court has allowed rectification of mirror wills in the case of Marley v Rawlings [2014] UKSC 2, where a couple had signed each other's wills by mistake.

Background

In 1999 Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings instructed a solicitor to prepare mirror wills. Each spouse left his or her estate to the other and upon the death of the surviving spouse to their informally adopted son, Mr. Marley. Their two biological sons were disinherited.

Due to an oversight by the solicitor, Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings each signed the will meant for the other. Mrs. Rawlings died in 2003. The mistake was not noticed until Mr. Rawlings died in 2006. Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings' sons challenged Mr. Rawlings' will on the basis that it was invalid as it was not signed by him. If the will was invalid, Mr. Rawlings would have died intestate and his sons would inherit his Estate. If the will was valid, Mr. Marley would inherit the Estate. Mr. Marley commenced probate proceedings.

The solicitor who drafted the wills admitted that he had accidentally given the wrong will to each spouse to sign. At first instance the claim was dismissed on the grounds that the will did not satisfy Section 9 of the Wills Act 1837 (in that the will was not signed by the testator) and, even if the will had been signed by Mr. Rawlings, the Court was unable to rectify the will under Section 20 of the Administration of Justice Act 1982 (as the mistake was not a clerical error). The Court of Appeal upheld the decision on the first ground and hence did not consider the second.

Decision

The Supreme Court allowed the appeal by Mr. Marley and held that the will should be rectified so that it contained the typed parts of the will signed by Mrs. Rawlings.

The Court considered the approach in commercial contracts, where the court is concerned to identify the intention of the contracting parties, and considered that the approach to wills should be the same. Further, the Court considered that section 21 of the 1982 Act (which allows for extrinsic evidence to be used to assist with the interpretation of a will) supported this view and therefore a will should be interpreted in the same way as any other document. In addition it was also possible to refer to evidence of the testator's intentions.

The Court referred to circumstances where a solicitor inserts the wrong word, figure or name into a clause in a will. That would be a clerical error which could be rectified under section 20 of the 1982 Act. The Court considered the outcome should be no different where the mistake is the insertion of a wrong clause, provided the testator's intentions were clear. The Court held that whilst the expression "clerical error" can have a narrow meaning it could carry a wider meaning to include a mistake arising out of office work such as preparing, filing, sending and organising the execution of a document. A mistake in connection with these activities could be "a clerical error" and hence a will could be rectified.

(Above Article on wills by Bond Dickinson LLP (© Copyright 2014).

Conclusion

If the Supreme Court of England and Wales can take a business approach in interpreting wills despite previous restrictions, then it might be suggested that the Supreme Court in Cameroon should adopt such a pragmatic approach in interpreting the nationality laws to avoid a possible absurd and strange situation where a foreigner acquiring Cameroon nationality might keep his original nationality, but a Cameroonian acquiring a foreign nationality must renounce his Cameroon nationality. A pragmatic and reasonable approach to interpretation is advised.

Dr. Martin Tumasang is a Barrister at law, Advocate/Notary Public/Solicitor, International Arbitrator, Chartered Valuation Surveyor, Principal Quantity Surveyor, Claims Quantum Consultant. He lives in England and he could be reached via email @ Tumasangm@hotmail.com

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King’s Transition from the Struggle for Black Political Rights to Economic Rights for All to Death by Hatred, 1955-1968

                               

By Emmanuel Konde
           Introduction

Having just recently concluded the first phase of the struggle for civil rights by 1965, the second phase of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s struggle was consumed by his obsession to obliterate poverty in America. This compelled him to oppose the Vietnam War because he felt that the latter war was distracting attention and detracting resources from the former.  But by opposing the Vietnam War, Dr. King placed himself in the middle of two wars—the war of imperialism abroad and the war on poverty at home. In both wars he sought to dismantle the prevailing order that was supported by significantly powerful groups. By opposing the Vietnam War and advocating for the War on Poverty, Dr. King simultaneously became the enemy of both the political and economic power brokers of America.   

Dr. King’s opposition to the Vietnam War would ultimately result in his assassination in Memphis on April 4, 1968. Whether Dr. King was killed as the result of a conspiracy hatched and executed by political, economic and other hideous forces, as some have speculated, is beyond the capacity of this writer to determine.  Abundantly clear, however, is that the assassination of Dr. King was inextricably connected to his putsch to end the war in Vietnam and redefine the workings of capitalism in American society.  Drawing on his previous success that culminated with the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Dr. King transcended race in his pursuit of justice and real freedom for all Americans.  This essay maps out the trajectory of Dr. King’s last year on Earth that witnessed the transition of his struggle from political to economic, his personal transformation from mere man to legend, and his eventual premature death resulting from his sense of conviction and love for America.  But first some background information about his rise to national prominence.

                              Background to the Transition

The 1950s-1960s Civil Rights movement in the United States was first and foremost an intellectual revolution that drew its ethos from a long Western tradition of transforming society with ideas dating back to the Italian humanists of the 13^th century.  Humanism spawned the Scientific Revolution of the 17^th century, which likewise provided the necessary impetus for the Enlightenment of the 18^th century.  Although few activists knew the source of the ideas propagated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-twentieth century, the movement was a direct descendant of the Enlightenment that provided the steam for the American and French revolutions. To this end, Dr. King was a son of the Enlightenment and, like the philosphes of the Enlightenment who came before him, he, too, was an advocate for justice and the advancement of humankind.

Initially ignited by the Montgomery Bus Boycott event, the Civil Rights Movement reached its apogee during the 1963 March on Washington—the largest politically-motivated assemblage of humanity at one place at the same time in America’s history—whose crowning moment came when Dr. King delivered his electrifying and visionary “I have a Dream” speech.  Drawing from the ideas that made the modern Western world and gave birth to the United States of America, Dr. King tailored his words to the social crisis at hand.  His speech penetrated deeply into the soul of America and directly contributed to persuading Congress to pass the civil rights legislation that guaranteed voting rights of the hitherto forgotten Americans of darker hue.  That speech also exposed two interlocking variables about the African American who dared to dream so publicly: (1) the power of persuasion that lurked in the small frame of Dr. King; and (2) the revelation that if he was left unchecked the speaker could pose a formidable challenge to the then extant capitalist economic order in America.

After the signing of the Voting Rights Act by President Lyndon B. Johnson in August 1965, however, it became obvious that some measure of success had been attained.  This success brought some degree of closure to the first phase of the Civil Rights Movement, which was essentially political and involved principally America’s black population.  The need for expansion into the economic sphere to include other impoverished and forgotten Americans—Latinos, Amerindians, poor whites and blacks through articulating and executing a new civil rights agenda—naturally intruded itself.   Whereas the first phase was political, the second was to be economic.  The latter campaign would seek to bring the benefits of the world’s richest nation to all of its citizens.  But was the quest for inclusion of poor whites and minorities into the wealthy white dominated American economic order attainable?  Obviously, this question did seem to matter but Dr. King was progressive enough to understand that the political right to vote was not in and of itself a panacea for freedom. Surely, a homeless and hungry person can hardly be said to be politically free.   To be truly free poor Americans would have to be included in a new social contract that guaranteed them a living wage.  

Dr. King was thus poised to resolve the contradiction arising from the dichotomy in capitalist America between the idealism of political equality and the realism of economic inequality.  Well-versed in the ideas that made America the first nation-state contrived by the human mind, King methodically undertook to tackle this seemingly intractable contradiction by taking up the question of “economic rights” on behalf of the dispossessed American masses.  By embarking on this quest for economic rights for poor Americans, Dr. King placed himself squarely at variance with the established economic interests of the nation.  This essay examines how Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) sought to resolve the inherent contradiction between political equality and economic inequality in American society via the medium of the Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) organized by Dr. King himself.

                    The Poor People’s Campaign

On December 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. announced the “Poor People’s Campaign” (PPC) in Atlanta, Georgia.  At the press conference, Dr. King declared to the reporters there assembled that

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference will lead waves of the nation’s poor and disinherited to Washington, D.C. next spring to demand redress of their grievances by the United States government and to secure at least jobs or income for all.  We will go there, we will demand to be heard, and we will stay until America responds.  If this means forcible repression of our movement we will confront it, for we have done this before.  If this means scorn or ridicule we embrace it, for that is what America’s poor now receive.  If it means jail we accept it willingly, for the millions of poor already are imprisoned by exploitation and discrimination (See “Press conference announcing the Poor People’s Campaign,” Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.[1]

Barely four years after the successful 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington, this announcement signaled the beginning of the transition of Dr. King’s struggle from political equality among America’s races to some degree of redistribution of wealth among America’s classes, from the haves to the have-nots.  This transition was bold in conception and equally bold in its proposed method of execution.  It sent off alarm bells, which rang in the ears of the traditional “liberal consensus”—comprised of blue-collar democrats, a collection of liberal intellectuals and the press, policy makers, progressive-minded businessmen, church leaders, and students—that had lent support to the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington.

The proposed PPC was in fact progressive in its orientation but, unlike the African American civil rights struggle that was embraced by many Americans, it ran counter to the philosophy of the “liberal consensus” enshrined in the belief that “American capitalism was a revolutionary force for social change, that economic growth was supremely good because it obviated the need for redistribution and social conflict, that class had no place in American politics.”[2] In the eyes of those whites who had supported the March on Washington in August 1963, the Civil Rights movement was in accordance with, and an affirmation of, the liberal faith.  Nothing in the ideas of the movement at that stage seemed to contradict the liberal orthodoxy.  The political phase of the Civil Rights Movement’s goal to integrate blacks more fully into white society was championed by the liberal consensus, stretching from the White House, labor, churches, and intellectuals, to sectors of the business community.  There was hope, as late as the fall of 1963, that integration could be achieved without posing a challenge to the basic structure of white society.[3]

As long as white liberals controlled the agenda of the civil rights struggle, all was well.  But no sooner the SCLC began to articulate a course of action at variance with the “liberal consensus” than the liberal reaction set in.  Professor Manning Marable has noted that “effective power is never exercised solely by a single race, but by a dominant social class. Thus Black political movements are simultaneously movements that seek to restructure or radically transform class relations.”[4]

Dr Martin Luther King understood just too well what needed to be done to alter the negative sides of both race and class relations in American society.  Where he might have miscalculated was in the timing of the launching of his Poor People’s Campaign.  At the height of the Vietnam War, Dr. King’s simultaneous opposition to the war and his linking of the Vietnam War to the War on Poverty in America meant that he was not only alienating the liberal consensus that had been instrumental in the civil rights gains, but also that the hostile right could now find common ground with liberals in their opposition to the PPC.

             Vietnam War and the Fracturing of the Civil Rights Coalition

Following the Meredith, Mississippi March in 1966, the slogan “black power” became a distinct philosophy that contrasted sharply with King’s ideas of integration.  In 1965, national issues arising from the Vietnam War coupled with African American frustration with respect to a perceived stagnation of goals and progress in the movement confounded King and the SCLC staff.[5]  When on March 2, 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson launched “Operation Rolling Thunder” that occasioned the bombing of North Vietnam, in a speech at Howard University Dr. King openly questioned U.S. policy in Vietnam and called for a negotiated settlement.  Not wishing to provoke Johnson for fear that the president might turn against the Civil Rights movement, Dr. King exercised caution and did not fully rebuke U.S. efforts in Southeast Asia.

Like King, other civil rights leaders were well aware of the politics of collaboration that entailed support for the black civil rights struggle in exchange for black silence on the Vietnam War.  Consequently, Whitney Young of the Urban League noted that “Johnson needs a consensus.  If we are not with him on the Vietnam War, then he is not going to be with us on Civil Rights,”[6]  When the Student Non-Violence Coordinating Committee (SNCC) publicly denounced the Vietnam War in 1966, Dr. King neither issued a statement of support nor did he join the rising chorus of Civil Rights leaders condemning the SNCC.  Speaking for the Urban League, Young stated that his group would renounce Civil Rights organizations that “formally adopted black power as a program, or which [tied] domestic rights with the Vietnam conflict.”  Roy Wilkins of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) similarly remarked on the SNCC’s position against the war by labeling them as “only one of many civil rights groups,” and added that their statement was “not the statement of other groups of what is loosely called the Civil Rights movement.”[7]

                Dr. King was slow in condemning the war in Vietnam, even as he progressively moved toward a position that coupled the war with the social spending programs at home.  Accordingly, in April 1966 Dr. King and the SCLC board passed a resolution condemning the Vietnam War.  In August of that same year at the SCLC annual convention that met in Augusta, the organization called for immediate and unilateral de-escalation of the Vietnam conflict.  Concerned with the plight of the poor, King proposed three initiatives for the organization during an SCLC strategy session in October 1966.  One of these called for the organizing of America’s impoverished towards a “crusade to reform society in order to realize economic and social justice.”  In November of that year, King spoke at Howard University and told his audience that African Americans needed to confront “basic issues between the privileged and the underprivileged.”  While lending his support to Byard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph’s 1966 “Freedom Budget” that asked for a guaranteed annual wage,[8] King’s transition from civil rights for African Americans to human rights for all impoverished Americans culminated with his speech against the Vietnam War at Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967.

Entitled “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence,” King noted with particular emphasis the link between the war in Vietnam and the War on Poverty in America that,

Since I am a preacher by trade, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. [9]

Consequently, by Dr. King who had by 1967 concluded that ending the war in Vietnam was a moral imperative, and thus could draw a clear link between the war in Vietnam and the need for a real “war on poverty” at home.[10]  The proposed PCC, at least for Dr. King and the SCLC, was an appropriate strategy for winning the “war on poverty” at home.  To this end, the quest for African American civil rights was effectively subordinated to the human rights of America’s poor of all races.

                   Strategizing for the Poor People’s Campaign

After the passage and signing of the civil rights legislation in 1964, the emergence of Black Power and abating of urban riots the previous summer, the leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference met in November 1967 to discuss a new direction of their movement.  From these discussions sprung the idea for the Poor People’s Campaign.  As leader of the SCLC, Dr. Martin Luther King was barely 38 years old in 1967. His calling to uplift America’s poor and disinherited may well have been providential. Yet he was by no means oblivious to the difficulty of the task that lay ahead.  King knew that a multi-racial poor people’s movement aimed at redistributing America’s wealth might prove more daunting to build than the non-violent tactics employed by blacks with a uniform history of suffering to end legal segregation in the South.  King was obviously moving toward a new direction, a direction few Americans were willing to veer toward in 1967.  Although many Americans were opposed to the Vietnam War without equating it with issues of class and poverty in America, Dr. King believed that there was an intrinsic relationship between the federal expenditure on an “immoral war” and the paucity of funds to spend on President Johnson “war on poverty.”  In an interview with Jose Yglesias, “King explained that although the cost to the nation of wiping out poverty had not been reduced to a dollar figure, the war in Vietnam—this unjust and immoral war,’ as he always characterized it—cannot be waged if the campaign’s demands are met.”[11]

                The proposed PPC march on Washington was planned for early April 1968.  The SCLC was to organize people to move on Washington from ten major cities and five rural areas.  It was to be no ordinary march, “no mere one-day march in Washington but a trek to the nation’s capital by suffering and outraged citizens who will go to stay until some definite and positive action is taken to provide jobs and income for the poor.”[12]  The campaign was to entail a massive dislocation without destroying life or property, but consciously designed to dramatize the situation, and “channelize the very legitimate and understandable rage of the ghetto….”[13]

                Expectedly, King’s call for a poor people’s campaign—which was essentially a coalition based on class and race that called for militant non-violent confrontation—did not sit well with members of the liberal establishment.  The reluctance of many Americans to embrace this approach was understandable.  Americans have always been averse to class wars.  They pride themselves as a classless society in which the greater majority belong in the amorphous middle class.  Dr. King’s “poor people’s campaign” therefore posed a direct challenge to an American myth that articulated a non-existent economic equality that drew its ethos from America’s democratic principle of political equality.  It is no wonder that members of the liberal press, who had hitherto supported the Civil Rights movement, immediately took to expressing their discontent with King’s “poor people’s campaign.”  A New York Times editorial responded to Dr. King’s new campaign as follows:

Like the threat to ‘close down’ Federal induction centers, Dr. Martin Luther King’s plan to seek ‘massive dislocation’ of the national capital violates the principles of responsible protest.  Dr. King insists that the massive civil disobedience campaign he plans in Washington next April will be nonviolent.  But his proclaimed goal of massive dislocation belies Dr. King’s profession of peaceful intent.  If such a result were achieved, by whatever means, it would probably involve some overt violence and it would certainly violate the rights of thousands of Washingtonians and the interests of millions of Americans.  This is one more case in which the means are not justified by the end.”[14]

In other words, the New York Times was opposed to King’s “poor people’s campaign” and its opposition was also class-based.  It feared that the rabble of society, if brought in huge numbers to Washington, D.C., might end up resorting to violence.  Such violence would disrupt the accustomed way of life of the bourgeoisie who had worked hard for what they had and were not ready to share their wealth with America’s poor.

                For what it is worth, the leadership of the SCLC was very progressive in its thinking than many Americans.  The late-Rev. Hosea Williams, the PPC’s “political action” director, had captured the essence of this new orientation of SCLC rather eloquently, when he accurately analyzed the situation at hand thusly:

We will never get free by eliminating racism or bringing about integration.  If black people were able to eliminate every aspect of racism and integrate every aspect of American life, we would not be free. Black folks will never be free until we have our fair share of the economy.  We live not in a political society, nor in a social society, nor a religious society, we live in an economic society.  So we had to launch a movement to gain our fair share of the economy.[15]

                      Contextualizing the Struggle in Time Prespective

To understand why Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated short of unveiling the actual actors who orchestrated his assassination, we need to place the struggle he led within the context of his  times as well as the then prevailing national political and economic values.  The United States of America was founded on laissez capitalism, which from the onset established a high wall separating the government and the economy.  Over time Americans have come to believe that capitalism provided an avenue of upward mobility to all, hence capitalism obviates the need for redistribution of wealth through socialist experiments.  Consequently, Dr. King’s “Poor People’s Campaign” posed a challenge that portended a viable threat to the prevailing American economic ideology of laissez-faire capitalism. By proposing a redistribution of wealth in a country that did not espouse such an idea and in fact felt that such an idea was contrary to American values, Dr. King effectively placed himself in direct opposition to the guardians of the American system. 

Timing is important in everything that human beings do.  The timing of the “Poor People’s Campaign” could not have come at a less propitious moment.  The 1960s saw the United States and the Soviet Union embroiled in a Cold War, a period of global tension brought to the fore by two hostile camps representing two contending economic ideologies of capitalism and communism.  Each of the two major powers were determined to spread their ideology across the globe.  In the ideologically-ridden atmosphere of the time, one was either for or against the American Way.  It was therefore not the content of King’s ideas that mattered as much as how he was perceived by those who mattered.

Granted, the contradiction between political equality and economic inequality within the context of a democratic society is yet to be resolved.  Whether it was King’s desire to force this resolution on American society is not clear.  What is clear is that for good or ill, Dr. King had made himself the ultimate anti-establishment man on two important fronts: his opposition to the Vietnam War and his proposal to alter the economic arrangement of American society.  Never before in American history has an ordinary black preacher risen to such prominence; never has a black-skinned American been so able to galvanize American citizens to mass action with mere words.  An exceptionally well-educated man who understood the power of Western revolutionary ideas and knew how to use them, Martin Luther King, Jr. was deemed a dangerous man who had to be eliminated. Incidentally, his campaigns were executed during a troubling period of political assassinations in America’s history.

The 1960s was a period in America’s political history in which political assassinations were rampant.  One cannot but wonder whether these assassinations were not linked to the Civil Rights aspirations of African Americans, especially when viewed from the vantage point of the individuals who were assassinated. Medgar Wylie Evers was assassinated on June 12, 1963; President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963; Malcolm X in 1965; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968; and Robert Kennedy on June 5, 1968.  All these men were involved with the civil rights movements in varying degrees, either as activists or sympathizers.  Whether the plots to eliminate these men were in any way connected, whether their deaths were the result of a concerted conspiracy, whether they were killed as a result of the convergence of hatred against African American aspirations, is not clear.  But all five men were all killed within a time span of five years.

                    The Man Who Defied Death

Martin Luther King, Jr. was barely 26 years old when he was catapulted to the position of spokesman charged with articulating the aspirations of African Americans in the Jim Crow South.  There are few instances in history when a man so young has been invested with such a heavy burden.  Martin was neither the man for the time nor the man for the responsibility that was suddenly thrust on him.  He was too young to shoulder the great American burden of racism more than 300 years in the making.  The times caught up with him, entangled him, and thus the young preacher, unable to disentangle himself from that web of historical destiny, was swept by the whirlwind of his calling.  His people called him to service, and Martin answered their call. Barely thirteen  years (1955-1968) into the mission that destiny had ordained for him, the eloquent and compelling young preacher’s promising life was cut short by deep, ingrained hatred.  Today, however, we cannot but ask these questions: Why was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. killed?  And why did the Civil Rights Movement die with him, even though his legacy lives on?

Chronology of the Poor People’s Campaign (PPC)

November 1967	Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the staff of SCLC met to discuss the direction of the Civil Rights Movement after the passage and signing of civil rights legislation, the emergence of Black Power, and the urban riots of the previous summer. The SCLC decided to launch the Poor People’s Campaign, a movement to address economic equalities with nonviolent direct action.
Dec. 4, 1967	Dr. King announced  the Poor People’s Campaign at a Press conference in Atlanta, indicating that it will be set in motion in early April 1968
Measure of the PPC	The SCLC planned the PPC to be the “second phase” of the civil rights struggle, involving poor blacks, American Indians, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and poor whites. It was to be the most massive campaign of civil disobedience, causing complete dislocation in Washington, D.C. in order to dramatize and compel government to address the issue of poverty in American society.
April 4, 1968	Unfortunately, Dr. King was assassinated on April 4,, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was attending a rally for the city’s sanitation workers’ strike
May 12 – June 19, 1968	After Dr. King’s death leadership of the SCLC passed on to the Rev. Ralph Abernathy.  The King family and SCLC leadership decided to carry out the PPC campaign in honor of the slain leader. On May 12, the first wave of demonstrators descended on Washington, D.C. A week later Resurrection City, a settlement of tents and shacks to house the protesters, was built on the Washington Mall. Demonstrators were sent out to various government agencies to protest and spread the message of the campaign.
Demands of the Campaign	Specifically, the campaign requested a $30 billion anti-poverty package that would include A commitment to full employment A guaranteed annual income measure Increased construction of low income housing
Ineffectiveness of the Campaign	Ralph Abernathy lacked the inspirational qualities of King The national press was opposed to PPC Robert Kennedy was assassinated Overwhelming number of protesters (7,000 at its peak) undermined the campaign’s effectiveness Failing to move legislators to action, the PPC closed camp on June 19, 1968.

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[1] See www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications

[2] Geoffrey Hodgson, America in Our Time: From World War II to Nixon What Happened and Why (New York: Random House, 1978), p. 89.

[3] Ibid., p.179.

[4] Black American Politics: From the Washington Marches to Jesse Jackson (London: Verso, 1985), p. vii.

[5] Robert T. Chase, “Class Resurrection: The Poor People’s Campaign of 1968 and Resurrection City.”Essays in History. Volume Forty. Corcoran Department of History, University of Virginia, 1998), p. 3.

[6] Adam Fairclough, To Redeem the Soul of America: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and martin Luther King, Jr. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1978), pp. 23-25; Young quoted in James Forman, The Making of a Black Revolutionary (New York: Macmillian, 1972), p. 309.

[7] Young and Wilkins, quoted in Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer (eds.), Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights movement from the 1950s Through the 1980s (New York: Bantam Books, 1990), p. 339.

[8] David Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (New York: William Morrow, 1986), pp. 539-540.

[9] See “Beyond Vietname: A Time to Break the Silence” By martin Luther King, 4 April 1967. BRC-News list at http://www.ssc.msu.edu/-sw/mlk/brksInc.htm

[10] Chase, “Class Resurrection,” p. 3.

[11] Jose Yglesias, New York Times Magazine, March 31, 1967.

[12] Press conference announcing the Poor People’s Campaign. December 4, 1967, Atlanta, Georgia. Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., p. 1.

[13] Ibid., pp. 2-3.

[14] New York Times Editorial, “The Responsibility of Dissent,” December 6, 1967, p. 46.

[15] Reverend Hosea Williams, interview with Robert T. Chase.  See Chase, “Class Resurrection,” p. 5

***Dr. Emmanuel Konde is a Professor of History, Political Science & Public Administration at Albany State University in Albany, Georgia***