Cmr'nians desperately need God’s intervention - Takwi

The Secretary General of Anglophone Cameroon Writer’s Association, ACWA, Mathew Takwi, has stated that it is only God who can take Cameroonians out from the numerous crisis plaguing them.

He made the statement in Buea recently, while launching a a collection of poems, titled; Messing Manners.

The author was very bitter with the growing trends of homosexuality and lesbianism in Cameroon.

“I am looking forward to the day when homosexuals and lesbians will procreate,” Takwi quipped.

Explaining what he meant by Messing Manners and the reason for the too many satiric writers recently, Takwi said any committed writer can’t be singing a love song when his house is ablaze. He took a retrospective view at his inspiration from April 14, 1986, when he was visited by a noisy midnight mosquito. With the experience, he decided to write a poem which he titled Midnight Visit.

In a welcome address, John Teneng, Takwi’s colleague at the GCE Board, said commitment comes from a sense of responsibility.

“To be committed is be responsible,” he said

“I want to add that every serious writer is committed beyond his aesthetics, to a statement of value, to criticism of life. A related attitude to this concept of commitment is that of Mathew Arnold, the Victorian critic who insisted that a great literary work must possess “high seriousness,” Teneng reiterated.

According to the Chairman of the Book launch, Mgr. Emmanuel Bushu, Bishop of Buea, “When we have gifts, we have to exploit them. It is always good to write about things which concern our lives and communities.

Africans did great things. To bring out one idea that will help people, it has to mature. Ideas are meant to be born so that the world gains knowledge. A written word remains; it does not change from generation to generation.”

To clarify forthcoming debates as per the credentials of the manuscript, the 45- page book, was reviewed by Dr Andrew T. Ngeh. Dr. Ngeh began by quoting Jean-Paul Sartre, “The writer is a free man, addressing free men, has only one subject; freedom.”

Messing Manners, he added, falls within the rank of poetry of conscientisation and revolt. In The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire argues that the awakening of critical consciousness leads the way to the expression of social discontents, precisely because, these discontents are real components of an oppressive situation.

The biography of the author was presented by Rev. Fr. George Nkeze, President of the Catholic University Institute of Buea.