By Franck Essi
Ruben Um Nyobe was one of the leaders of the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon, who led an exemplary struggle for the reunification and independence of Cameroon. He was assassinated on September 13, 1958.
Beyond this symbol, there are thousands of activists, both famous and anonymous, who have demonstrated exemplary commitment, a sense of sacrifice that is unmatched to this day, and a generosity that obliges present generations.
The work begun decades ago must be completed. It cannot be completed if we remain ignorant of history, of the political thought of our ancestors, of the sacrifices made, and of the task our generation must accomplish.
For the current generation who have often heard of Um Nyobe and his comrades, the men and women of 48, here is an anthology of quotes as an introduction to their thoughts and political project.
These quotes cover the following topics:
- The need to commit to the development of one’s country
- The responsibilities of African political leaders
- The Rightness of the Struggle Against Colonialism
- The true meaning of the Cameroonian people’s liberation struggle
- Racism and discrimination
- Tribalism
- The non-alignment of Africans in conflicts between powers
- On culture and national identity
These quotes are an introduction to the struggle that was waged by the true founders of our country.
May these quotes inspire current generations to discover the work of the figures who initiated the path to our emancipation and strengthen their commitment to building a united, democratic, just and prosperous country.
Let’s not forget:
« Among the thousand ways of despoiling a people of its memory, there is one which consists of disqualifying its struggles by assigning them meanings different from those which they themselves claim . »
Ruben Um Nyobe The Kamerunian National Problem, Paris, L’Harmattan, 1984, P.9.
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I – UM NYOBE ON THE NEED TO COMMIT TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIS COUNTRY
« How can you, students, properly prepare for the responsibilities of tomorrow if you show contempt for the political struggle of your country? Scholarships and school credits are regulated in political assemblies. […] That is why we place the political struggle at the forefront. »
Ruben Um Nyobe, extract from the “Report presented at the 2nd UPC Congress”, Eséka, September 29, 1952.
« We have urged our compatriots, who are being given advice to warn them against politics – this « dangerous enterprise » and our compatriots especially the intellectuals, to say that they are not involved in politics, because they are preparing some unknown material situation – We have therefore urged them to show them the deception that such a campaign consists of. Everything is political and everything is framed within politics. Religion has become political. Commerce is political. Even sport is political. Politics touches everything and everything touches politics. To say that one does not do politics is to admit that one has no desire to live. This is why we believe that it is necessary, above all, to fight for fundamental freedoms, the essential guarantee of material success. »
Ruben Um Nyobe, extract from the “Report presented to the 2nd Statutory Congress of the UPC”, Eséka, September 29, 1952.
« Naive or dishonest Africans, to justify their refusal to defend our interests, claim not to engage in politics, because they have been told in the administrative corridors that politics is a bad thing. […] Do not engage in politics, for the Administration and the colonialist Government in general, simply means that you must not defend your interests. This can also be translated: « Only engage in my politics, the one that approves of my arbitrariness and my illegalities. »
Ruben Um Nyobe, extract from the “Report presented at the first UPC congress”, Dschang, April 10, 1950.
« If you refuse to pursue the policy of fighting by all means and in all forms for the emancipation of our country, you leave the field open to the colonialists for their criminal policy, that of forced labor, of indigenous peoples, of the shameless exploitation of our wealth, of imprisonments and assassinations. »
Ruben Um Nyobe, extract from the “Report presented at the first UPC congress”, Dschang, April 10, 1950.
« So, the « rebellion » of which we are guilty […] is nothing other than the rebellion of Kamerunian nationalism against national treason and we can only congratulate ourselves on being at the forefront of such a rebellion which is at the present time the most sacred duty that History has assigned to Kamerunian patriots. »
Ruben Um Nyobe, in “Resignation or French complicity in the worsening of the situation in Eastern Cameroon”, maquis, December 2, 1957.
« Let no one believe […] that we will allow ourselves to be intimidated by shootings, looting and torture into giving up our noble mission, which is to continue the good fight for the immediate reunification and independence of our beautiful and rich Kamerun. »
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II – ON THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF AFRICAN POLITICAL LEADERS
« …My duty as Secretary General of the UPC is to enlighten the Cameroonian masses on political issues, because tomorrow our compatriots will be forced to face reality. If, through our errors of interpretation borrowed from our adversaries, we were to tell them entirely false things, this would diminish both our prestige and the scope of our action as leaders of a national movement. This is why we must be objective and sincere. When we adopt such a position, we have the satisfaction of bearing witness to the truth. We may not be understood at the moment we speak, but we always end up triumphing. »
Ruben Um Nyobe, extract from his speech at the Kumba Congress, December 14-17, 1951.
« The duty of UPC leaders is therefore to be at the forefront of the struggle for peace […] We are not insignificant in this matter. We must also make our comrades and all populations understand that no government can wage war without the consent of the people. »
Ruben Um Nyobe, extract from the “Report presented at the first UPC congress”, Dschang, April 10, 1950.
« We are Cameroonian politicians. To varying degrees, we assume responsibilities before the history of our people. In the great turmoil that this provokes, we detect our shortcomings and our capacities. We then draw from the sources of the peoples who preceded us and from the past of our own people to establish our line of conduct, and this, with the assistance and the succession of events. »
Ruben Um Nyobe, “Letter to Mr. André-Marie Mbida, Prime Minister of the State under the supervision of Cameroon,” Maquis, July 13, 1957.
III – UM NYOBE ON THE JUSTNESS OF THE FIGHT AGAINST COLONIALISM
« Colonization is an evil that affects all colonized countries. To find any remedy for this evil, we must study its origins. It is said that white people came to Africa to civilize our « savages, » and a certain number of our compatriots take up such theories for their own purposes. »
Ruben Um Nyobe, extract from his speech at the Kumba Congress, December 14-17, 1951.
« Popular discontent is caused by colonialism, which exploits and oppresses our country and opposes the achievement of the objectives of the guardianship regime, which are the political, economic, and social progress of the natives with a view to achieving independence. Men like Messrs. Allaire, subdivision chief of Eséka, Pinelli, subdivision chief of Babimbi, Joud, former regional chief of Sanaga-Maritime, to name but a few, create personal laws to arbitrarily dissolve our meetings, violate the homes of individuals, seize our brochures and newspapers that develop the ideas of the independence of our country, and commit acts of violence against patriotic supporters of Unification. These are all causes of popular discontent. But we are making every effort to overcome this discontent by creating in the country a national consciousness and a constantly high level of political maturity, reducing to ridicule the provocateurs and agents of colonialist arbitrariness. »
Ruben UM NYOBE, “Danger Aujoulat. Who represents the discontented?” in La Voix du Cameroun, issue of January 17, 1955.
« There is another discontent, real and serious this one. It is colonialist discontent. […] We know that when a cause is defeated, the defenders of this cause are more affected, let’s say more affected than anyone else. This is why the discontented with the reactionary newspapers, those with colonial exploitation, those with the clergy […] the discontented with the clique of native servants who sell our country at the price of meager favors, the discontented of all calibers of the colonialist camp, shed their tears of blood on the shoulders of the one who presents himself as the champion of the assimilation of Cameroon as a French colony: Doctor-Deputy-Minister Louis Paul Aujoulat. But today, events cannot remain indifferent to a man who has done so much to mislead Cameroonian opinion. »
Ruben UM NYOBE, “Danger Aujoulat. Who represents the discontented?” in La Voix du Cameroun, issue of January 17, 1955.
« If we fight to the death against the arbitrary integration of our country into the French colonial empire, it is because we want to remain the conquering defenders of the right of peoples to self-determination. We have thus remained at the service of Cameroon and Africa.
Ruben Um Nyobe, in « Atlantic Charter and Atlantic Pact. Right of peoples to self-determination », Maquis, January 25, 1957.
« …The colonialists have a curious way of considering as interlocutors people who betray the interests of their country for personal ends and they are quick to baptize them « valid interlocutors ». […] In Kamerun, faced with the relevance of realities, the French authorities were obliged to recognize the quality of valid interlocutor to the UPC. But instead of engaging in a sincere and loyal dialogue, capable of leading to the resolution of the Kamerunian crisis, the French authorities have striven since 1955 to send us emissaries whose sole mission was to bring us to carry out a « strategic withdrawal » in the manner of Houphouët-Boigny.
Ruben Um Nyobe, in “Resignation or French complicity in the worsening of the situation in Eastern Cameroon”, maquis, December 2, 1957.
« The success of our meetings and demonstrations imposed by the force of the masses creates restless nights for those who no longer find here the scope of application of the colonial doctrine which is to impose the law of one man on an entire people. One cannot but notice the difference in attitude between the servants of the colonialists, men in search of favors, always worried about an uncertain tomorrow for them and for their masters and the aspect of the militants of the national movement, bullied, humiliated, subjected to privations of all kinds, but always cheerful because they have the strength of soul and the deep conviction of a victory of the noble cause they defend. Thus, popular discontent is transformed today – is it not so, Mr. Aujoulat – into a vast movement of enthusiasm supporting the cause you are fighting: the Unification and independence of Cameroon. » Ruben Um Nyobe
« So, the « rebellion » of which we are guilty […] is nothing other than the rebellion of Kamerunian nationalism against national treason and we can only congratulate ourselves on being at the forefront of such a rebellion which is at the present time the most sacred duty that History has assigned to Kamerunian patriots. »
Ruben Um Nyobe, in “Resignation or French complicity in the worsening of the situation in Eastern Cameroon”, maquis, December 2, 1957.
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IV – UM NYOBE ON THE TRUE MEANING OF THE EMANCIPATION STRUGGLE OF THE KAMERUNEAN PEOPLE
« We must fight for the implementation of everything that is progressive in the trusteeship agreements, for example the development of education, the participation of indigenous people in the administration of their country […] respect for the primacy of indigenous interests in matters of land ownership and others, respect for fundamental freedoms (freedom of speech, worship, assembly, press, conscience, petition, etc.). »
Ruben Um Nyobe, extract from his speech at the Kumba Congress, December 14-17, 1951.
« What we want to affirm once again is that we are against the colonialists and their henchmen, whether they are White, Black or Yellow, and we are the allies of all supporters of the Right of peoples and nations to self-determination, without consideration of color. »
Ruben Um Nyobè, Félix Roland Moumié, in “religion or colonialism? », Douala, April 22, 1955.
« We must also combat the practice of our compatriots who, at police stations and public counters, often tend to serve Europeans first, even if they are the last to arrive. This also constitutes racial discrimination in its most reprehensible form. »
Ruben Um Nyobe, extract from the “Report presented at the first UPC congress”, Dschang, April 10, 1950.
« Some Catholic priests, forgetting that the Gospel speaks out against injustice, act like griots of colonialism and treat us as anti-religious, which is very false, firstly because there cannot be anti-religious Africans, and secondly because we do not consider forced labor, indigenous status, land dispossession, and colonialist exploitation in general as recommendations prescribed by the Bible. On the contrary, it is these priests who, by making the Church a political platform, resemble those traffickers whom Jesus chased from the temple. »
Ruben Um Nyobe, extract from the “Report presented at the first UPC congress”, Dschang, April 10, 1950.
« Slander is the act of attributing to someone facts that cannot be attributed to them or that should not be attributed to them. We therefore ask our Catholic compatriots whether saying that priests preach politics in church, whether saying that they tamper with the sacraments for political ends, constitutes slander, when this is done at any time, in broad daylight. We know that slander constitutes an offense against religious morality because it is said somewhere in the Bible: « You shall not bear false witness against another, » which is, for example, the act of calling all union activists and activists of the Cameroonian National Movement communists without being able to prove it. We will therefore understand that the slanderers are rather on the side of the authors of the famous « common letter » [of the French bishops practicing in Cameroon]. »
Ruben Um Nyobe, Félix Roland Moumié, in “religion or colonialism? », Douala, April 22, 1955.
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V – UM NYOBE AGAINST RACISM AND DISCRIMINATION
« The colonialists do not want to admit that a Black person is equal to a White person. This concept is manifested in the social sphere, in the salary scale, in medical treatment, in housing, in justice, and, alas, in the Church. What freedom-loving soul would remain indifferent to this revolting fact of a foreigner who treats the children of the earth like second-class men? »
Ruben Um Nyob e, The Kamerunian national problem, Paris, L’Harmattan, 1984, p.23.
« We are therefore busy, for our part, demanding the elimination of racial discrimination, and radically opposed to the system of forced labor, indigenous status, and bloody provocations […]. We have repeatedly stated that we want a Free Africa, but an Africa friendly to other free peoples. The colonialists know this very well, and the slander tending to make people believe that we are in the pay of a foreign power can only serve to ridicule them. »
Ruben Um Nyobè, extract from the “Report presented at the first UPC congress”, Dschang, April 10, 1950.
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VI – UM NYOBE AGAINST TRIBALISM
« We invite Mr. André-Marie Mbida and his colleagues to understand that « tribalism » is not valid in politics and that the interest of Kamerun does not lie in the politics of corruption and African opposition. (…) We ask them to place the interest of Kamerun above struggles for influence and personal problems. »
Ruben Um Nyobe, in “Franco-Kamerunan friendship in danger. Alert to Kamerunan and world opinion.”, Maquis, August 27, 1957.
« They [the colonialists] set tribe against tribe, making some believe that they are more intelligent and others that they are very rich and will dominate the country. Both naively believe this and engage in vain internal struggles that ultimately lead to the ruin of all, and the only one who benefits is the colonizer. They set chiefs against intellectuals, making some believe that they are the holders of tradition and that power belongs to them, and others that they are « like the Whites » and that it is to them that the privilege of modern civilization belongs. But the colonialists believe neither in the power of the chief nor in the intelligence of the so-called « evolved » man. They simply seek to draw from the hatred of these people the greatest profit and the prolongation of the misery of all. »
Ruben Um Nyobe, extract from his speech at the Kumba Congress, December 14-17, 1951.
« Tribalism is one of the most fertile fields of African opposition. We are not ‘detribalizers,’ as some claim. We recognize the historical value of our people’s ethnic groups. This is the very source from which the modernization of national culture will spring. But we do not have the right to use the existence of ethnic groups as a means of political struggle or personal conflict. »
Um Nyobe, the Cameroonian National Problem
« We must warn our brothers against the danger of the policy of anti-racist racism. We cannot, under the pretext of fighting for the liberation of Black people, pursue a policy of hatred against White people. Racial hatred is incompatible with any idea of progress. »
Ruben Um Nyobe, extract from his speech at the Kumba Congress, December 14-17, 1951.
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VII – UM NYOBE: NEITHER PRO – EAST NOR PRO – WEST, 100% PRO – SOUTH.
« Men of Bandung, we are the true architects of international détente. Revolutionary nationalists, we are fighting to achieve for Kamerun and for it alone, true national independence, with unification as a prerequisite, whether simultaneous or consecutive, but never excluded. »
« We are called communists. But everyone knows that we are not a communist organization. We do not say this because we hate communists, but because we believe that the struggle for our national liberation does not have to take into account this or that ideology. »
Ruben Um Nyobe, extract from the “Report presented at the first UPC congress”, Dschang, April 10, 1950.
« We are therefore busy, for our part, demanding the elimination of racial discrimination, and radically opposed to the system of forced labor, indigenous status, and bloody provocations […]. We have repeatedly stated that we want a Free Africa, but an Africa friendly to other free peoples. The colonialists know this very well, and the slander tending to make people believe that we are in the pay of a foreign power can only serve to ridicule them. »
Ruben Um Nyobè, extract from the “Report presented at the first UPC congress”, Dschang, April 10, 1950.
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VIII – UM NYOBE ON CULTURE AND NATIONAL IDENTITY
« The community of culture [among Cameroonians] exists from the beginning. We have only tried to falsify it by establishing the pseudo-French culture on the one hand and English on the other. But this enterprise itself is thwarted by the colonial fact which opposes the cultural development of the colonized peoples. »
Remarks of Ruben Um Nyobe before the Fourth Committee of the United Nations, New York, 1954.
“…The Germans remained in Cameroon for more than 30 years, is there anyone who can provide us with proof that all Cameroonians at the time spoke German? […] The English and the French have been administering Cameroon for 38 years. However, in Cameroon under French administration, out of a population of more than three million inhabitants, we cannot count three hundred thousand people, that is to say, a tenth of the population at the broadest estimate, speaking French. In Cameroon under British administration, with the exception of Pidgin, which is also in Cameroon under French administration, there are few elements who express themselves correctly in English. […] If after more than seventy years of presence of the colonial powers, the populations of Cameroon have not yet been able to find a common language, we must not blame the patriots who are fighting for the unification and independence of our country. This simply means that if we wait another seventy years [to demand unification and independence. [Editor’s note:] in the year 2014, we will still hear that Cameroonians do not speak the same language.
Remarks of Ruben Um Nyobe before the Fourth Committee of the United Nations, New York, 1954.
« …Language is one of the fundamental elements for the development of a nation’s culture; colonization would lose its raison d’être if it were to work to enable the colonized country to establish a national language. »
Ruben Um Nyobe, Remarks before the Fourth Committee of the United Nations, New York, 1954.
« …In addition to the possibility we have of establishing a national language after the accession to our national sovereignty, we have proposed for the immediate future the popularization of the teaching of French and English in both parts of the country, starting from elementary education. »
Remarks of Ruben Um Nyobe before the Fourth Committee of the United Nations, New York, 1954.
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In conclusion
Let’s let Mpodol speak again…
« We only want to trust our activists and all Cameroonians, who must organize the necessary action to put an end to these kinds of scams which have lasted too long. »
Ruben Um Nyobe, extract from the “Report presented at the first UPC congress”, Dschang, April 10, 1950.
« I will simply add that it would be pointless to note and denounce [the injustices and arbitrariness of the colonial system] if action is not organized to put an end to them. »
Ruben Um Nyobe, extract from the “Report presented at the first UPC congress”, Dschang, April 10, 1950.
“A people determined to fight for their freedom and independence is invincible.”
Ruben Um Nyobe, in “How the massacre of the Cameroonians was prepared and carried out by the French government”, Maquis, January 3, 1957.
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