EU, AFD support “Agir Pour Le Vivant” to screen Achille Mbembe´s works.

The first public screening of the film, now in the hands of the famous ARTE Chanel, was done in the Centre Culturel UBUNTU, CCU, in Yaounde, February 3. 

In the film that tries to reawaken Africans to their glorious past, and chronicle the damage inflicted on that past because of contact with Europeans, Achille Mbembe insists that there was something of envy that existed in precolonial Cameroon, and Africa generally, before European invasion wiped out everything.

But Africans did not just allow Europeans to destroy their past without putting up a fight, according to the Mbembe. This is the point at which Achille Mbembe brings in the story of one of Cameroon´s frontline anti-colonialists and martyrs, Reuben Um Nyobe. 

Mbembe told the audience that he left his village at age 12, in search of education. But he did not leave home without taking along the core values, stories and memories that his father and mother shared with him. 

All through his stay in Europe, France to be specific, and later in the United States, Mbembe said the words of his parents continued to be reechoed to him.

That is why in the film, Achille Mbembe retraces his steps in his published works that cut across disciplines like history, philosophy, and politics in Cameroon.

The author dwelled extensively on the cruelty that French colonialists inflicted on Um Nyobe; the injustices the liberator and Cameroonians in general suffered from the hands of colonial masters.

“Simply because Um Nyobe had the audacity to go to the United Nations and ask for not only the independence of French Cameroon, but also for the reunification of French and British Cameroons,” Achille Mbembe recalled.

He described how Um Nyobe was not only killed, but his remains were mutilated. 

Agir Pour Le Vivant Au Cameroun in a nutshell

His Excellency Prof Charles Binam Bikoi, the Executive Secretary of International Centre for Research and Documentation on African Traditions and Languages, known by its French acronym, CERDOTOLA, expatiated on the main organisers of the event, “Agir Pour Le Vivant Au Cameroun”.

He said CERDOTOLA is a platform that provokes reflections on new ways of managing human relations so that all of humanity can live in solidarity, irrespective of race, class and continent of origin.

He said this year, the group decided to honour Achille Mbembe, whose works, especially on the colonial excesses the French colonial administration perpetrated in Cameroon, has been put on the limelight, and raised the author to the status of an international scholar.

As a second prong, he said “Agir Pour Le Vivant Au Cameroun” also organises tours to any part of the world, every year towards the end of the month of August. This year, the centre plans to visit Japan and Brazil.

Prof Binam said they have started their activities at home this year with weeklong activities that are running from February 3 – 6. 

After the film that was screened on February 3, activities continued yesterday, February 4, with debates and exchanges with the public at the French Cultural Institute in Yaounde.  

The debate question was: “How can we reconstruct the damaged history; ask for appropriate reparations; and create a veritable climate of justice?”

Today Wednesday February 5, at the ‘Cabinet de Sciencage’ in Yaounde, scholars will be brainstorming on how to decolonise Cameroon, and African history in general, in circumstances where virtually all the history of this part of the world was written by foreigners, mostly Europeans.

In the evening, the scholars will reflect on the topic, “Memories of the living; the urgency of reconciling ourselves with our common history”.

Tomorrow, February 6, the team will rally Cameroonian experts at the National Museum to reflect on how to integrate knowledge and memories of indigenous peoples in current conservation processes.

On Friday, February 7, the experts will again assemble at the ‘Cabinet de Sciencage’ to brainstorm on many topics. The last but not the least important being, “the role and place of artistic and cultural creations in a society in search of reconciliation with its past memories”.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post issue No:3360 of Wednesday February 5, 2025