Harry's Outlook

« Ne soyez pas des spectateurs. Osez! Votre bien-être dépend de vous. » Harry Acha, Generation Change Generation Change est un mouvement, un état d'esprit, une génération de citoyens camerounais qui, d'après leur site web "œuvrent pour le changement, d’abord de soi, et ensuite de son environnement." Harry Acha, représentant et membre actif sur le terrain nous en parle... ********************************************** Bonjour Monsieur Acha, Génération Change est un mouvement de citoyens Camerounais œuvrant dans les villes de Yaoundé. On compte à ce jour, la construction d’un pont, d’une école, le nettoyage de plusieurs quartiers, etc…  Comment vous est venue l’idée de créer un tel projet ? GC (Generation Change, ndlr) est honoré par l’opportunité que vous lui donnez de partager avec les Camerounais à travers votre médium. Votre site se démarque depuis sa création du fait d’accorder une place importante aux actions de jeunes Camerounais et à la protection d...

ACCOUNT I  I'm so confused. I'm so scared. I'm so angry. My neighbour was shot yesterday. He was a young man. Very popular in the neighborhood. It's not clear what he had done. The period for the curfew as officially declared had expired. And even if it hadn't, I don't know why he deserved to be shot. There had been a distress call a few blocks away. A few youths came out to assist. About seven or eight of them. I was peeping through the window and watched the scene. The soldiers routed them, tear-gassed them, then opened fire. As the young men ran away, a bullet caught one of them… on his buttock. The soldiers came after them. News had spread of people shot and their bodies taken away. So, before the soldiers reached them, the boys carried their wounded friend and vanished through the thin alleyways of the neighbourhood. They managed to take him to hospital but he had probably lost so much blood… I just heard that he died the next day.   ACCOUNT II  In t...

I entered a taxi today and something interesting happened. The music was a little loud and people couldn't listen to each other speak. A lady passenger in the car was on the phone. It seemed that there was an emergency that she was dealing with. But with the volume, of course, she couldn't communicate properly. She asked the driver nicely to turn down the volume... He didn't. He didn't even behave as if he had heard the request. She asked again... And again. In her exasperation, she became a little loud... Perhaps rude... And caused the driver to react... Finally, but curiously. Yes, curiously. Because he increased the volume. The lady screamed again and the driver increased the volume even more. Other passengers started to mutter and the atmosphere was becoming truly uncomfortable. The driver turned down the volume. Not enough for the lady to communicate easily. She appreciated the effort but complained that the effort wasn't good enough. The dr...

I’ve been looking at the following 3 maps with great interest and they have taught me some important things about the current crisis in Cameroon. The maps are numbered 1, 2 and 3. 1. In map 1, Parliamentary democracies are shown in red, orange and green.   2. In map 2, Francophonie countries are shown in brown.   3. In map 3, Federal countries are shown in green. PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY (MAP 1) A parliamentary democracy is a form of government where voters elect the parliament, which then forms the government. Usually, the leader of the party with the most representatives becomes Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, who remains MP, picks a cabinet from amongst the MPs. As such, the government is a direct emanation of the electorate. FEDERAL REPUBLIC (MAP 3) A federal republic is a form of government in which citizens elect officials to run the government according to laws that restrict the power of the central government and vest regional units with a d...

On 22nd September 2017, thousands of men, women and children rose like one man to exercise their right to protest. The mobilisation and turnout were massive in Bamenda, Buea, Ekona, Limbe, Kumba, Batibo, Bali, Ndop, Mbengwi, New York, Brussels, Johannesburg and elsewhere. As impressive as these manifestations were, it wasn't the first time in the past 12 months that Anglophones had protested, though public demonstrations were few and far between. In fact, the last major public demonstrations dated eight months back. There are lots of things that can be said about the causes of the protests, the legitimacy of the grievances, the solutions proposed by government and the psycho-social transformations that have taken place since the escalation of the crisis... But one thing stood out in the 22/9 protests... THE TAKUMBENG!   WHO ARE THE TAKUMBENG? On Friday 22nd, they were those women who led the protests, those women who sat in front of chiefs and Fons... some were half-na...

A joke goes around in which Mugabe was asked when he'll bid farewell to the Zimbabwean people. In typical Mugabe style, he asked in response... "Where are the people going to?" This joke gave birth to a whole brand of what has become known as Mugabe jokes. Jokes aside, with the events of the last ten days which culminated in the farewell (aka resignation) on 21st November 2017, Mugabe may not have gone anywhere. Rather, the people have moved on when he stayed on the spot.   It is in the very nature of peoples not to be static. It is in the very nature of peoples to be in a constant mental journey even when the impression is given that they are pinned to the ground. They are frightened by guns and made to fear even their own intelligence and ability to be masters of their destinies. They become zombies… reduced to the management of a physical existence that is devoid of soul, aspiration and hope. They rely on the monstrous big brother to think for them, to tell wh...

  Time. . . Traitor Spent, Wasted Never ends, Keeps running Killing Squeezing. Served as master Rewarded as slave. Tireless Purposeless Shapeless time But ruler, ruling, Omniscient... Coward ! Harry Acha

The past few weeks will be recorded in the history of Cameroon as a period when some Cameroonians decided to stand up against what they perceive as the systematic marginalisation of a people who, by virtue of their common heritage (education, culture, way of life, etc.) constitute a recognisable community ; and who, by virtue of history, constitute a political entity . These times will be known and remembered amongst chapters that include: The wind of change, by which a semblance of democracy made a breakthrough, and the reappearance of multiparty politics in Cameroon in 1990. The unrest that surrounded the amendment of the Constitution of the Republic of Cameroon in 2008. However, what is particular about the unrest currently witnessed is that it has not engaged the entire nation in the same way as those of 1990 and 2008 did. Rather, its epicentre is found in the North West and South West Regions, which – and it is no coincidence – are also the parts of Cameroon that consti...