NORMALIZATION OF MEDIOCRITY VS THE NEED FOR CHANGE

By Brian Mackwright Afanyu & Jude Bame

Just like the Prayers of a sinner, our cry for “Change” as Africans and Cameroonians to be precise always seem to fall on deaf ears or never reach the right quarters. Sometimes I wonder if we really want these changes to happen or is that the slogan “We need change” makes only for a great cliché? As Cameroonians, not only have we become numb to our bad behaviors, we go a step further to defend it with many citing the famous John 8:7 from the Bible: “ So when they continued asking Him (Jesus), he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” Is it because we all have sinned that we shouldn’t denounce sin and call it what it is? I guess we all have in our own small ways spoiled this nation once or twice but this does not ip so facto mean that we shouldn’t press for change in every small way and or opportunity we get to point out that which can be changed for the betterment of us all.

Recently a friend posted a video on Facebook of himself at a financial institution in Cameroon while he was waiting to be served, the lady behind the counter could be seen making a PERSONAL PHONE CALL. The video prompted a debate of whether or not he was right to have made the video and posted on social media with some saying he could have handled it more “Maturely” by talking to the lady directly or reporting the issue to her manager, arguing that posting such videos is an attempt to “bring down a sister” and how nothing will change because of the said video (Wrong). The poster of the video even got a “law suit threat” from a close relative of the girl in the video should she lose her JOB. According to this gentleman relative of the girl, he was or is also a shareholder in the said institution. The video may not have had the required gusto to effect the desired change on the entire system, but it is and will be a reminder to many in her position that they could be on video should they attempt to use their PERSONAL CELL PHONES on duty while a CLIENT waits to be served right in front of them (You will agree with me that SMALL CHANGES matter right?)

Secondly, there was another video of a military personnel dancing and showing off cash he allegedly has been collecting as bribe from road users and drivers. The family of the individual as well as sympathizers requested the video be deleted because the person in the said video had passed away and it was disrespectful to him (Dead) and his family. All attempts to understand the reasons behind such requests did not add up but rather prompted more questions in my mind and made me wonder if the video depicted the young law enforcement officer doing a heroic act or sending a positive message for change amongst Cameroonians would the family as well as sympathizers request the video be taken down? (I doubt).

One thing all these events have in common is that almost everybody agrees that the actions portrayed by the individuals in these videos are WRONG but “massa na Cameroon, nothing no go change”. REALLY! To Cameroonians living in the diaspora, we all know and understand the “advantages” that comes with naturalization and the power of your new country’s passport, but what I might never understand is how eager and anxious we become to travel home and rub this our “new nationality” in people’s faces so they’ll FEAR and RESPECT us more for this “achievement”, we feel so invincible and untouchable with this our new nationality when we visit our birth countries so much such that one will think it comes with the “Blood of Jesus”. Perhaps what is even more disturbing is the fact that this has become the “new normal” as nobody sees anything wrong with this and nobody is doing anything (At home and abroad) to address this epidemic. Mind you I did not say I’m perfect but at least my skin crawls every time I think of it. Maybe if we stopped NORMALIZING these issues, we could actually find ways to eradicate them. 

When we dig into these cited examples of misconduct that only help to draw us as a nation backwards, we realize that they resonate with the Cameroonian cankerworm syndrome of “man know man”. Unfortunately, this syndrome gives us as citizens the largess to wave such negative behaviors with a flip of a finger for fear that we are and may be hurting our own in the process of pointing them out for the purpose of change. As earlier intimated, we must as a nation agree that such an epidemic will only encourage us to maintain the status quo but go back home to complain of how bad and rotten the nation has become.

I must say I am prompted from the preceding paragraphs to examine such “man know man” syndrome that normalizes mediocrity within the entertainment industry in Cameroon. I have most often wondered to myself why we as Anglophones and Cameroonians most especially take so angrily at criticism. Why are we seemingly afraid to call a spade a spade? Is it because those involved in what we may denounce within the showbiz industry are our relatives, friends and loved ones? The answers to these disturbing questions as earlier observed in the afore substantiated paragraphs are a sweeping YES.

Unfortunately, it is not uncommon within the 237 entertainment milieu to get individuals pick up fights with bloggers and content creators for delivering an objective evaluation of a song, movie or some other content and ending their analysis with a failed mark or negative comment. These fights and brouhaha are stimulated because such individuals are in one way or another related to the artist whose content has been critiqued. In our holy mind of minds, do we really hope to get to the at which countries like Nigeria, Rwanda, Ghana and the rest of them have attained? Instead of wasting our time in meaningless beer parlor affiliations that only will bring down our industry, we should rather see how we can forge ahead while accepting and making changes that readily accrue from criticism that content developers and writers provide.

The rate at which mediocrity has cribbed into every fabric of life within our nation is so alarming and appalling. We must agree to the fact that from the highest level of government to the lowest ranks of social life and society, mediocrity seems to have been instituted as the new normal. Politically, we may have noticed how individuals who seemingly have nothing to offer have grappled with the corrupt nature of the country to secure appointments and elections at various levels. Of course it goes without saying that these only have been made possible because of their political affiliations. As a result, we are stock with mayors who verily can bring no change to their constituents, ministers who can only close “connection doors” of their predecessors in order to open theirs. We are stock with medical doctors who seemingly care not about the health of their patients but for the extra consultation fees they illegally collect at hospitals. We are definitely stock with a mediocre system that glories in political affiliations and personality cults. This is a lamentable situation that seems not to preoccupy anyone since they are connected in one way or the other to the perpetrators of such acts that denigrate the nation and put to jeopardy the economic, social and political wellbeing of the common citizen of the country.

 

Personally, I don’t believe we have been jinxed in Africa to live through such debasing human circumstances that glorify and normalize mediocrity. It is a choice our forefathers at the inception of independence laid down and bequeathed to their predecessors in the name of postcolonial European watchdogs today. It is regrettable therefore that we have seemingly endorsed and conformed to such practices. If we do not see beyond the benefits we personally make from such mediocre attitude, performance and show of our own “bad belle” then, of course, we shall never liberate this country from the sociocultural and politico-economic labyrinth in which our normalization of mediocrity has plunged it.

In this 21^st century cutting edge technology, networking, and amalgamation of individual strengths into collective forward pushing force, in this modern age of multiculturalism and globalization, we in this country are clearly so far behind to foolishly be caught in the false believe that mediocrity can enable us compete with equality against other nations on the world stage because seemingly, these other nations had and have realized early enough that mediocrity, ill will, corruption and profiteering can never and will never pull forward the ship of their nations.