By Mwalimu George Ngwane (Originally published in The Sunday Eden)
A major fallout from a seminar that AFRICAphonie organised on ‘Arts, indigenous culture, and human development; the case of Cameroon’’ in January 2003 was the need to get the Cameroonian media involved in the promotion of visual Arts and design in Cameroon. This is a new traditional and trendy discipline called Cultural Journalism. I observed that the media’s focus remained political and economic with the creation of media Associations in these two domains to the exclusion of relevant cultural issues or creative industries that can both enhance a creative economy and showcase the rich cultural patrimony in Cameroon.
I also observed that the Anglophone cultural voice is peripheral on the Cameroonian media especially on Television, both private and public. The programme policy of our local Television channels is so lopsided that one is tempted to conclude that there is a deliberate attempt to misrepresent the bilingual cultures and artistic diversity of Cameroon.
Culture plays a vital role in the health of the individual. But most importantly arts and culture are relevant to the extent that creative industries have emerged as one of the world’s most dynamic economic sectors offering vast opportunities for cultural, social and economic development. In its widest sense, culture may now be said “to be the whole complex of distinctive material, emotional and intellectual features that characterise a society or social group”.
Cameroon is home to 200 historical monuments and sites. Of these 200 historical monuments and sites, the region of South West is home to about 22, some of them dating before 1914. A feat which if compared to the few found in other 9 regions of Cameroon makes the South West unique and worth considering for special media cultural attention.
By involving media practitioners in the creative industry there is bound to be an upsurge in creative products and services in Cameroon’s economy and a boost in the lackluster cultural tourism sector in the country. On a global scale the United Nation Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) ‘Report showed that international trade in creative goods and services surged to 445.2 billion US dollars in 2005 from 234.8 billion US dollars in 1996.
Observance Of Cultural Values
The broader issues incorporated in Cultural Journalism include the wider dissemination of Art, culture in the media; the establishment of a media policy on Art that shall encourage the observance of our values, traditions, customs and culture on our local media; a media policy that reiterates a shift of emphasis in the allocation of prime time of indigenous culture over foreign culture on our local media; the creation of an Art Association of media practitioners on culture (one is already existing on political and economic matters) in Cameroon and the recording and documentation of the artistic richness and cultural heritage of the past through Audio Visual medium or Information and Communication Technology
Cultural Journalism aims at identifying and developing the rich cultural patrimony of Cameroon; transmitting knowledge on the wealth of history represented by monuments and sites as well as the fading exposure of our rituals (birth, marriage, initiations, deaths etc) in their de-westernised modes; transforming our intangible cultural patrimony into touristic attractions and cultural development bearers for both national and international cultural managers; and enabling the public appreciate the historical treasures around this cultural patrimony so that they (public) can cooperate in its maintenance, promotion and preservation.
As the erstwhile Provincial (Regional) Delegate for Culture for the South West Province (region), I visited Lebialem division on 13 May 2004. The Lebialem lap was the fourth in my tour coming after Meme, Kupe-Muanenguba and Manyu and followed by Ndian and Fako divisions.
My visit to Lebialem was meant to coincide with the World Museum Day. It was part of a vision I had of scouting for cultural industries far from the metropolitan capitals to what is banally called the hinterlands. The exhibition of diverse art objects by more than 30 sculptors, painters and craftsmen in Lebialem on that day was a manifest of the rich array of cultural professionals who need to transform art to commerce and culture to tourism.
On the surface, the rolling hills and steep valleys that characterise Lebialem division would scare a first time visitor. Yet for me this geographical landscape is what makes Lebialem unique the same way the dry savannah and long distant virgin forest makes the road to Sun City in South Africa intriguing.
Which other city could be home to the World Museum day in the South West region than Menji (capital of Lebialem division)? Others would argue Buea or Limbe. True, Buea is home to the Prime Minister’s Lodge built in 1901, the Bismarck Fountain built in 1904, the old Secretariat built in 1903, the old German burial ground with graves dating from 1898 and the old native Authority scholl built in 1901 and situated opposite the former West Cameroon Archives.
True, Limbe is the abode to the District office (now the Senior Divisional Office) built in 1890; the Basel Mission House built in 1874 by George Thomson, the Cape Nachtigal light House built in 1903, the Senior Divisional Officer’s house built in 1890 and the Botanic Gardens founded by Dr. Preuss in 1892.
So what does all this cultural historiography signify? First the state of art and culture today goes beyond mere anthropology and cultural jingoism. The new phrase coined “creative economy” has entered into our cultural lexicology. It means making art and culture a sustainable industry that can attract both domestic and foreign investment. It means strengthening local creative industries and developing cultural capacity for wealth creation and entrepreneurship. It means weaving the strands of isolated creative artists into a web of an endogenous cultural market.
As UNESCO puts it, today the product of human creativity must take an additional economic dimension.
A new cultural revolution that would make a trillion flowers to blossom can only be possible if we all give arts the same financial value and albeit, the same aphrodisiac stimulation we give our bottles of beer.
Culture pays and needs to be paid for. I was a student in University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland in 1991 at a time when Glasgow was the city of culture in Europe. I paid every pound and pence to attend every cultural function that related to the management and preservation of the moveable and immoveable cultural patrimony. I visited the Burrell Collections, the Glasgow Art Gallery, the lush vegetation up the mountain country side, tried to learn the Gaelic language, wore the kilt dress and even danced to the music of the bagpipers. You could not be aloof to the rising Scottish nationalism demonstrated in their pursuit to be politically different but culturally diverse.
The menu of our pub conversation with the Scots was either our legendary Cameroonian football or their loyal cultural renaissance. So after my whirlwind tour of the South West region in the three months I served as a functional Delegate for Culture, I mapped the region into cultural zones.
Meme division epitomised the film sector; Buea-the city of theatre reminiscent of the Musinga days; Limbe-the land of literature; Kupe Mwanenguba- the division for traditional dance; Ndian-the Mozart of choral music; Manyu-the home to indigenous music and Lebialem- the Picasso of monuments and sites.
These zones were not isolates but cross-cutting spaces in thematic verve and cultural projections complimenting and feeding into each other the same way the various colours make up the rainbow. These zones would have contributed to a meaningful artistic development and cultural iridescence that could have forged a resounding South West Personality.
But mid 2004 I was, out of inordinate political irredentism, awoken to the fact that my vision was a pipe dream. Yet I still cling to that vision the way Barack Obama stuck to a new American dream because when I see urchins in Mile 14 to Mile 16 Buea jostling to sell beautiful flowers for a mere pittance at a time when the economy of Botswana has become the second fastest in the world due to horticulture, tourism, and of course sane governance.
I know the potentials are there if only we refocus our economic orientation and put a bit of sugar patriotism in our present tea of prebendalism.
Cultural production, promotion and consumption are first and foremost the preserve of organised societies and civil society agents (media). Arts and culture is not just an annual display of folklore or an occasional menu for political entertainment or party triumph (culture of ululation). It is a life service event.
The link between art products and wealth creation is so intricate that most West African countries (Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria etc) have become very proactive in the enhancement of a sub regional African cultural market. When I read the pages of our newspapers and watch our local televisions I wonder whether we do not have media practitioners who can transcend the boundaries of culture reporting to embrace the fundamentals of culture analysis and showcasing.
We sure do have journalists who can focus on art and the artist like late Kwasen Gwangwaa did with brio. We definitely have media practitioners who can borrow a leaf from the “Studio 53” arts and culture programme that I religiously watch on M-net channel every Thursday at 7pm local time.
I was therefore elated when Eden Media Group spontaneously accepted my suggestion that a column called “Culturescope” be introduced in The Sunday Eden that would permit all art and culture lovers showcase the views and values of our indigenous muses (books, movies, rituals, orature, monuments, sites, plastic, visual, culinary and performing arts, indigenous knowledge systems, marginalised identities etc).
This write up is therefore a wake up call for contributions from art lovers and media practitioners to occupy this column and eventually fill the void of cultural journalism in Cameroon that would jumpstart discussions on how the development potentials of culture can be realized in Cameroon.
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