Wallowing in Ambiguity

Wallow: to roll, especially in something dirty or unclean, as a hog does to cover its body with dust against biting insects, or to cool itself with mud.

Ambiguity: something open to more than one interpretation, explanation or meaning, when the meaning cannot be determined from its context.

In today's world, it is not enough to cry out "Help!" and expect the world to come running to save you. After calling for attention, one needs to explain, adequately and appropriately, why the world should help. That is where the wordsmiths come in (like a blacksmith who bends and shapes iron). Or else we will wallow in ambiguity, and our audience will be even more confused than we are, after half a century of induced intimidation and staged, fake assimilation and integration.

The bottom line is that we live in a context of questionable citizenship. Simply put, we are in fact "stateless". When asked, we may give our location as "in the country called Cameroun", but deep down in our guts we know that, practically speaking, the rug was pulled from under our feet before we could even walk or talk. Something to think about.

We should learn to smith words that adequately describe our predicament, or else wallow in ambiguity and confusion longer than necessary.

My two pennies.
TribalMonk

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If you have asked yourself, "Where exactly am I in this known universe, and where am I headed, in the context of the Cameroons?", maybe you are one of the lucky few who can feed their own brain, soul and heart with answers that are at least reassuring. Others (many) are not so lucky. Why? Who knows?

How does one get to know something one doesn't yet know? You tell me. If you ask me, I will say close, studious observation, or what some call "research", can lead to conclusions closer to right than wrong.

But we are not talking about research here. We are living the experience: wallowing in the ambiguity of ignorance, the kind often compared to physical darkness. Not that one can touch darkness, but the kind we are dealing with is so palpable it could start a skin rash.

Our present context in the Cameroons is one where we are present. So it is not fiction. And what is this non-fiction? It is daily life, from sun up to sun down and through the night: we seem to wallow endlessly in ambiguity. What one sees and hears is not exactly what one gets. Why? You tell me.

Great civilizations have some characteristics in common. Can one say the Cameroons has a civilization? What is it, then? And what are its characteristics? I will leave that stone unturned here.

If one put a microphone on every citizen of the Cameroons and turned up the volume, what would one hear?

Countries, states and nations have often been compared to ships. Question: what happens when a ship gets stuck in park (cannot move)? Again, you tell me.

In a "global" world, there is an urgency to become less ambiguous, and more transparent and clear-cut in national policies, in order to be taken seriously by both citizens and the world at large. Presenting a murky, ambiguous portrait to the world is close to self-suffocation, as the nations most of the world considers "globally unfriendly" show.

Are our people "unfriendly"? Nothing could be further from the truth. But a local proverb says, "It is conditions that made the back of a baboon to be curved." So if, as a visitor, you feel insecure, tense or ill at ease in this region, it is not because our people are unfriendly. It is because of the conditions that history (with all its events, actors and ups and downs) has placed on all our people. It is in these conditions that all of us are wallowing in ambiguity.

Our soundscape is a cacophony of incomprehensible noises, comparable (again) only to the Tower of Babel. Trying to build a house with engineers who can hardly communicate with each other is doomed from the get-go. That's why:

• a policy of "debabelization";
• a policy of literacy (the ability to read and write in any language) for all;
• a policy of safe record-keeping, to make accountability possible (only the mafia keeps no records, so that when someone is accused of a crime they can say "prove it". With no record, how can you prove anything? Again, you tell me.)

are a few ways to begin fixing the situation. They would help us reach the first stage of recovery: a base culture on which to lay the foundation of the kind of state or nation that generations of our citizens could rely on and be proud of.

Anything less is expedient, time-wasting and just plain wrong. And the children know it. Even if they cannot see the pretence of adults, they can feel it. Feelings can lay eggs in human DNA: unforgettable feelings, even over several generations.

— Wanaku Verdzekov