We Shall Fight with Gandhi and King

The time to fight has come, and this fighting will not be done while our children are wangling their way through bullets and tear gas on their way to school.

The battle is on. It must be fought to the end. The necessary tools for this war are Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. for a remodeling of our national moral character. Ten thousand offences are punishable with imprisonment – marching in protest, civil disobedience, speaking your mind, stealing a guava fruit, and after all the excesses of the banana republic at home, the seas of blood they have spilt, the rapist soldiers of state, and the fomented prejudice and jealousies over its citizens are merely argued away and nothing is done. We shall not retaliate with violence. We shall humiliate them with love, with protest, with defiance. As long as the Southern Cameroons is in chains, the only commendable position for the Southern Cameroonian men and women is the position of rebellion.

Genuine Nationalism is Holiness

Restoration of independence is not new wine in the Catholic Church’s cup. The Vatican State itself is the paradigm par excellence. Remember, the Papal states had lost all their lands in 1870 as a result of the unification of Italy.

But thanks to the spirit of self-determination that grew in the hearts and minds of some brilliant Cardinals and bishops especially under the auspices of Cardinal Pietro Gasparri and Pope Pius XII, the clamor for Vatican’s independence became muscular. Mussolini had no alternative in the face of these uncompromising prelates. He bowed to them. Because of this inflexible determination for sovereignty, the Vatican did not only retain the autonomy of the present Vatican land; it also received £30 million in compensation for lost lands and the Pope was also given a State retreat house called Castel Gandolfo.

The Vatican city is country located within the capital (Rome) of another country (Italy). It has its sovereign rights and enjoys the autonomy enjoyed by sovereign nations. It has an area of approximately 44 hectares and a population of just about 1,000 inhabitants. It is the smallest nation in the world and its independence was hard fought, and restored in 1929 against the threatening clouds of Mussolini’s subjugation and political maneuvering. So in 1928, the Christian Vatican Country stood in the same position the Southern Cameroons stands today. By the daring and the doing of Pope Pius XII the Vatican restored its independence in 1929 with the signing of the Lateran Treaty. Thus the power of self-determination.

In the 19th century during the struggle for Italian unification and liberty, Rev. Fr. Vincenzo Gioberti did not hesitate to call upon the Pope to lead the Italians in their struggle for unity and freedom. In 1834 Rev. Gioberti wrote down his views for the liberation of Italy in a book entitled De Primato Morale del Civile degli Italiani. Giorberti worked alongside other Italian nationalists such as Manzoni, Mazzini, Garibaldi and Cavour for the liberation of the Italian people from foreign domination.

Today as a Phd student on Moral Theology in Rome, I salute the memory of Rev. Fr. Gioberti whose attitude and activities clearly showed that there is no contradiction between the struggle to be free and the struggle to go to Heaven.

Rightly understood, nationalism and the priesthood are not incompatible; for genuine nationalism is one of the surest roads to holiness and sainthood. If this were not so, why is it then that the Catholic Church in Tanzania is today calling for the canonization of their first president, Julius Nyerere, if not for his genuine nationalistic character and temperament?

Truly a genuine Christian is a genuine patriot and you cannot like Cardinal Tumi has done, act in a genuine Christian way without impacting on the nation political scene. Today, like Rev. Gioberti in 19th century Italy, I am compelled to be on the side of my people of the British Southern Cameroons in their struggle for independence and freedom.

So God help me to free my people of the British Southern Cameroons from the ugly claws of a flying and rampaging tyranny in LRC.

By Fr. Gerald Jumbam

kumbo Diocesan Priest

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