Universal Access to Education: The Democracy to Fight for

Its just being proclaimed by Cmaeroon's Supreme Court.77.9 Percent is the percentage with which Paul Biya, a 78 years old man who has ruled Cameroon for 30 years , has won the just ended October 9 presidential elections in Cameroon. Shocking in this 21^st century as this sweeping victory and this man’s longevity in power may be, more shocking is the limiting of democracy to just elections by a majority of Cameroonians. In this blog, I share my vision and that of a group of youths with whom I worked some years back of Democracy.

« Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves could free our minds…. ». These are the words of Robert Nesta Marley in his “Redemption Song”. In his own way, this Reggae legend was giving men and women of his generation, ours, and those to come the secret of a happy life-An emancipated life. Living a happy life now and/or in the future is what every human being longs for, but how happy one’s life is very subjective, as a happy life means different things to different people.

I no doubt cannot say with exactitude what a happy life is, what I however can say without doubt, is that there exist universal yardsticks with which  a happy life can be measured; among these are: emancipation. The quest for emancipation by man is innate and has from the dawn of humanity being its driving force-Man’s unending quest for new and ever innovative ways of living happily.

To some, it is just a word and to others a mere concept. The word “Democracy” is possibly one of the most misused, most feared, and most misunderstood of words. But to me, democracy, more than just a word or concept is the very epitome of emancipation and all that goes with it.

 An emancipated person is one who has a need, knows the need, and does everything in his/her might to get that need satisfied. An emancipated person is in many aspects similar to an unemancipated person, except that, the latter does nothing to quicken or facilitate the satisfaction of his/her need. The ability or inability to act, therefore, distinguishes an emancipated from an unemancipated person. The propensity to act, no doubt varies from one human being to the other. But far from being a state, I consider this to be a difference-A difference whose gap can be reduced to its barest minimum, if and only if the persons concerned are aware of the necessity to act-A necessity to act, which education only can inculcate in people.

“An underdeveloped nation”, once said Jean Faurastie, “is an undereducated nation’’. This intellectual’s assertion on the interrelatedness of education and development shows the fundamental role played by education in the emancipation and transformation of the lives of people of every nation. This is indisputably true, given that  all the nations we today admire, hail as ‘’a people of valor’’, and even dream of living in, have for decades, and even centuries had education as a watchword- which they  not only upheld, but promoted, and embraced for its indispensable nature.

The inadequacy of education causes a people to act not in the interest of the community, but against the common good. Given that, the fate of any individual in a community is interwoven with that of other community members, education provides mankind with adequate development tools which if well utilized, will lead to the improvement of individual and community well being. Going by this observation, and Conscious of the fact that, a nation is only a nation because of its people, it is undeniable that an underdeveloped nation is an unemancipated people-An uneducated people.

There is no iota of dignity for a person who has a need, is conscious of the necessity for this need to be satisfied, but does nothing to quicken or facilitate the satisfaction of this need, because such a person is frustrated and automatically becomes a perpetual complainer, a burden and even a nuisance to society. It is conscious of this reality and also conscious of the fact that, those who choose not to act in this battle field called life, will soon be strangled to death by their unfulfilled needs that, youths of my community decided to make action an imperative and by this means, play their role in the emancipation and democratization process of my village, Bafmeng.

In fact, after having experienced the abominable effects of inaction in our community both by the electors and the elected and deciding to see democracy contrary to popular opinion in  Cameroon, not as a battle between parties and individuals but rather as a perpetual battle for freedom- Freedom from the chains of illiteracy-freedom from the shackles of extreme poverty, we set out to seek this freedom. Because, Education emancipates Man and makes him a proactive rather than a reactive participant in the development and progress of the community, or nation from which he hails or in which he lives.

In the second part of this article, we are going to see how greater access to education  is viewed by people from Bafmeng, as the best expression and most explicit manisfestation of democracy.