By Denis Atemnkeng
February 28, 2017

If we do not learn from history, then we are doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes. Something that does not seem to learn with time or from history is power, might. Power always believes that it will succeed where others have failed. It never yields without first trying, even where reason and wisdom show the complete absurdity of its efforts! And so one colonial master after another tries the same tricks, employs the same intimidation and violence tactics, each time trying to be more extreme in its belief that the others failed because they were not extreme enough or were not smart enough.

Under Hitler, the Germans resorted to killing or carrying away almost every male in villages that opposed them, in the belief of course that the terror would be so extreme that no one would dare again to challenge their power. But it turns out that the more extreme the terror gets, the more opposition it draws, even from those who are commissioned to carry out the atrocities. This is a natural law: that all evil must ultimately kill itself; every evil generates an opposition against itself. Even when you turn the executioners into animals so that they no longer have a conscience, nature always has its way!

Does the above sound familiar to the current tactics of Republique du Cameroun against Ambazonians? Somehow, Republique is trusting more in its guns and prisons than in the lessons of history. And perhaps its historians have either joined their government in that illusion or they have not actively become involved in telling their government that it is going down a road that has never succeeded in all of human history. Terror may delay, but never prevent; terror may work for a day but never forever; shutting down internet and social media, banning assembly of Ambazonians, prohibiting all discussion on the Southern Cameroons case, except those allowed and selected by the colonial regime: all of these methods have been tried time without number in history and have all failed! When a house is falling, you may do what you like, but you can only delay is collapse!

In its desperation, Republique will try every method it knows, including hiring prisoners to march; bringing crowds from its country to deceive the world that the people of the Southern Cameroons belong, putting up the biggest banners it has ever put up, all in the delusion that these deceits will manufacture the truth for it! For how long will it do so? For how long will it deceive itself? There is no miracle that will turn a lie into truth! All the gimmicks will sooner or later meet the limits of their usefulness, and then Republiquewould have to face reality from which it has been hiding and refusing even to contemplate: Southern Cameroons independence! Republique may even offer federation which it said it would not hear, but it would all be in vain! Today, they are terrified at that word “independence”, but they better begin to recite it in their minds.

The good book says there is a time for everything: a time to be insane and a time to be sane; a time to deceive and a time to be deceived. So far Republiquehas been like the devil which comes only to kill, to steal and to destroy. That has been what it has been in Ambazonia and against the people of Ambazonia, a devil. An armed robber tries to kill anyone who uncovers his act, isn’t it. That is it!

Now is the time to be sane, to be sober, to reflect and learn from history. History teaches that colonisation will always be defeated; that the truth will triumph; that 99 days for the thief one day for the owner. And so it will be in the case of Ambazonia! All the motions of support from those calling themselves elites will not change a thing.
Let us all therefore now, accept the inevitable: that Southern Cameroons will become independent. There is no need to kill one more person or imprison another before we accept this truth. This is what history teaches us and how it will be. Others have had the illusions that lies and deceits will triumph; that power and guns will rule, but they have all been silenced by mighty truth.

Sweden ruled Norway for 90 years, yet she got her independence; apartheid ruled in South Africa for close to 44 years, yet it was defeated; Britain ruled Ireland from 1801 to 1922, yet Ireland got her independence; the one and indivisible Yugoslavia is now five different countries; the Soviet Union existed for 68 years, yet it was dissolved; Czechoslovakia existed for 75 years, yet it dissolved, having itself broken away from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918; the Soviet Union went into Hungary how many times to silence the quest for freedom with tanks?
Today, Republique is virtually trying to stop a dam with its bare hands: shutting down internet and social media; arresting everyone they can arrest; banning peaceful assembly of Ambazonians; killing those it can kill: how long will this go on? All of these are childish and insane methods which have failed over and over again. Why can we not learn from history?

Think of the bright and peaceful day when Southern Cameroons will become independent; the good neighbourly relations and understanding that would reign between the two countries, and the joy of Ambazonians happy at last to be free within their own territory and governing themselves; the end of the perpetual conflicts and unhappiness! What a mighty step for peace that will be for Africa! But in our smallness and ignorance of the laws of nature, we think we can create truths or change the course of history!
Therefore I call on all right-thinking people in Republique du Cameroun to acquaint themselves with the truth and reality that Ambazonia will be independent, and to try to stop it is like trying to stop the river with your bare hands. Happy is he who learns from history and the laws of nature.