Deliver us from Crab Mentality
Crab Mentality.
Is a metaphor that refers to the fact that if you put a number of crabs in a bucket and one crab starts trying to climb up and out of the bucket, the other crabs below it will bring it down. The problem is not the crab trying to climb to safety. The problem is the bucket they are all stuck in. So why not just collectively push the bucket to the ground and climb out?
That’s a question for Cameroonians.
To understand the intellectual principles that are shaping our current world and nations, one must get a grip of these 3 theories: Machiavelli, Hegel and Darwin. Ignorance about how the world works, about how our nation is governed and principles by which the ruling elite think and act is a major cause of our naivete and incompetence. It is why pulpit mentality is rife.
On the crisis in Cameroon and how the above analogy relates to it:
(Disclaimer: There is no stronger condemner/fighter of the government and their actions than me. There is no one who understands the anger of the people better than I do. Let’s just get that out of the way.)
I cannot for the life of me, reconcile the mentality that pushes a people to say: ‘’Biya is oppressing us.. Biya is killing us… Biya is the source of all our woes… Biya has ensured we remain in poverty and endless suffering… Biya has usurped our children and children’s children’s future… Biya has stolen everything from us… Biya and his cronies have destroyed us… We are tired of Biya and his cronies…’’
Yet refuse to say: “Biya must go…’’ and rally behind a greater — more realistic — common ideology to make it happen since Biya is obviously the most visible source of the majority of our problems since November 6th 1982.
We have refused to articulate, and fight for that one agenda that will begin the upturn we truly seek. We have created a great momentum albeit with demands that do not target the real target and now, that momentum is spiraling out of our own control because in reality, we are targeting the innocent even though we are genuinely expressing our frustrations and even though we are being violated against even as we do so. It is not sufficient that the government is being repressive, we too are being oppressive. The consequences of our lack of method to the madness is affecting us terribly as an armed faction of a group of secessionists is claiming responsibility for attacks targeted at citizens. We will find it hard to live through and contain such extremism in the years to come. Boko Haram is at our doorstep. We know how that one started and how devastating it has been and it is to date.
I cannot for the life of me reconcile that we categorically say Biya is the problem yet our actions in order to get a solution to this very clear problem is to pull down everyone else but Biya.
Biya is the problem — so we say. But let’s bring everyone else down — so we do.
We are blowing out the candles of our own people, yet our own candle isn’t getting any brighter.
We need catharsis.
