Culture Minister criticised at Mathew Takwi’s book launch

University dons, playwrights, novelist and poets who thronged the conference room of Ayaba Hotel in Bamenda on October 30, for the laucnhing of Mathew Takwi’s ‘Messing Manners’ hauled verbal attacks on the Minister of Culture for despising Cameroon writers.

Professor-Emeritus Ibrabim Talla Kashim of the University of Buea, in a keynote address at the ‘Messing Manners’ launch, said the Minister of Culture, Ama Tutu Muna, was not recognising and supporting works of arts, especially authors who have excelled in publishing books.

Hear him; “Let us as Cameroonians be proud of, rather than be ashamed of our writers. Let us bear in mind that Literature is part of culture and that no society in the history of mankind has ever been able to progress socially and ethically on the basis of unrestrictedly borrowed cultures.”

According to Prof. Kashim, an awakened Cameroon cannot be built on a bankrupt culture.

“We need to rehabilitate our culture in general and our Literature in particular as part of the National transformational process which Mathew Takwi is championing. We need to follow the river, if we are ever to find the sea. Let me remind the Minister of Culture of five things or more which she has failed to do, Cameroon does not award literary awards like other countries.

“Anglophone writers are suffering to extinction point when there exist the Ministry of Culture; creativity needs to be paid as they do to musicians. Arts is not limited to music, especially Bikutsi”. Prof. Kashim averred that unlike some modern Cameroonians who are separated from the ordinary people by virtue of their education and social status, Prof. Kashim said Takwi is an integral part of his society. He lives and moves and has been in the Cameroonian society.

He explained that the philosophy of Mathew Takwi can be said to be Marxist in orientation because of his commitment to the social cause and because he uses his realism as a potent literary toll to criticise those issues that bedevil and undermine his society.

“He refuses to be a passive observer and chronicler and insists on helping to form a vision of the future direction of his society,” Kashim stated. In his respect, he went on, Takwi shares the views of the maverick Nigerian poet, Niyi Osundare, that a poet must proofer a specific social and cultural philosophy towards the field of action.

The poet ought not to be a prophet or God’s hollow ventriloquist who remains superior to others on account of his possession of the so-called innate traits… since the poet’s eyes are washed in the common spring, he must, therefore, serve as a social activist and salvage society from its own decadence.”

Kashim regretted that Cameroonians in general and “Anglophones in particular do not read.” To him, Cameroonians tend to “adopt an animalistic attitude and a debilitating indifference towards philosophical ideas. Hence, Takwi’s critical message is likely to be lost to the same society that he strives to serve as a poet and mouth piece.

“It goes without saying that any society that refuses to read its own writers is a doomed society. It is, therefore, a matter for regret that we live in a country that does not read; a country in which a creative writer cannot live by the fruits of his pen; a country made up of gregarious people who are insensitive to literature,” he lamented.

Welcoming guest at the launch, Christopher Kaba, praised Takwi for making book launches an annual event.

“This is the most useful way of investing in our education and, as such, we can only support Mathew to publish more books by buying copies and reading them,” Kaba said.

The Chairman of the occasion, the Mayor of Bamenda III Council, Cletus Fungu said: “Education, through poetry, is another pillar of human development because the mind is novelised and so it can better reshape the world, especially in Cameroon where people are messing up everywhere, in the public service or private sector.