Social celebrations that ignore religion are fruitless

Rev Fr Peter Foleng, SD.

As the Christian world was busy on December 26 with the feast of Stephen, the first martyr, and the western world busy celebrating boxing day, the villages of Nkum-kov, in Kumbo Central sub division launched a week-long celebration of 'annual festivals'. It all began in Nseh on December 26th, followed by Nkeng on the 30th,  Ngondzen on the 31st and Kuvlu on the 1st January. In all the festivals, the chorus was development by internal and external elites formed in associations of various acronyms.

Nseh Development and Cultural Association (NDECA) Nkeng Cultural and Development Association, Ngondzen Development and Cultural Association (NDACA) and Kuvlu Development Union (KEDU).
When we look at the names, we could come up with common denominators like Annual, Festival, Development, Cultural and Association or Union. Annual simply means yearly or once a year. Festival according to the English dictionary is "a day or period set aside for celebration or feasting especially one of religious significance."
Unfortunately, there was little or no religious anything involved in these celebrations. Association is simply a group of people having a common purpose or interest, a society or club. In this case we are dealing with a group of people from the various villages with the common purpose or interest being development. This is exactly our point of focus. Development could be Social, cultural, economic or scientific.
I will like to dwell more only on social development, which at the end of the day, would have exhausted economic and cultural. In the opening chapter of the Bible we read: "God created man in the image of himself…male and female he created them. God blessed them saying to them 'Be  fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and conquer it." Gen. 1:27-28. Social development is the fruit of economic solidarity.
The human person has been created for development. Man and woman were not created to remain static but to develop into more capable, more sociable, more interactive beings, each one individually and also as groups. That is why we form associations, because no person is an island.
Each and every one of us is called by God to be committed to advancing the common good of all. The goods of creation belong to all people who must bring creation to fruition for the good of all. Development is to be accomplished with the framework of obedience to God. That is why humanity has the power of dominion over all creatures; "…fill the earth and conquer it" was the command of the creator. This dominion must be exercised wisely as the means of human beings to come to perfection.
When we disobey God and refuse to submit to his rule, nature rebels against us and no long recognise us as 'masters' for we have tarnished the divine image in our beings. Take as a simple demonstration, a man who thinks he can consume huge quantities of alcohol in one seating easily becomes drunk, thus spoiling the image of God in him. His whole being rebels; the liver becomes hard and does not purify the blood which turns toxic. We all know the effects of drunkenness on the family and society.
Who knows how many diseases in the world now are due to the abuses of that gift of God which is called sex, before those created by human waywardness for economic or domineering purposes. God gave his commandments not for his own happiness, but for ours. Our prayers of thanksgiving add nothing to His greatness, it only makes us grow in His love.
Keeping God's laws creates conditions for an honest, peaceful, happy society that is essential for any kind of development.  What stroke me very forcefully is that none of the villages thought of including any religious service in their programme.
In Ngondzen, which is dominantly Catholic, the parish Rector forced a Mass in the programme, but those who attended it were the normal few men and women who attend daily Mass in the parish church.
In Nseh and Nkeng, no mention was made and the religious authorities were not even invited. In Kuvlu, the religious authorities were invited with no programme, time and venue served. Unfortunately, when the priests went for the Mass in the village, as it was a solemnity in the Catholic Church, no member of the executive was present at Mass. It was all a development endeavour minus God equal to labour in vain.
"If the Lord does not build the house, in vain do the builders labour." If God does not develop the village, in vain do development and cultural associations in annual festivals labour. Inviting religious leaders to come and sit at the town green or podium in a village and watch juju and games is totally a fiasco.
Religious leaders should first of all come to preside at a religious ceremony to launch the celebrations, either in a Holy Mass or Service or Ecumenical or Inter-Religious services. In recent years, many civil administrators have developed the laudable tradition of organising inter-religious services at the end of the year in thanksgiving to God Almighty for the blessings bestowed on the people and asking for more blessings.
It is therefore surprising that villages come up with festivals excluding religion. It is important that the festivals begin always with a religious service, at the choice of the organisers and depending on the religious creeds professed by the villagers. We can talk all the beautiful things about development but if we omit liberation from Ignorance of God by avoiding anything church as is often the case, then we are building on sand or building our wings to fly high with candle wax.
If we want liberation from poverty, it must be through moral, honest and legal means; not through dishonesty, embezzlement of funds, bribery etc. If we want liberation from bodily diseases, we must also fight off spiritual disease of sin, pride, sex abuse and immoral practices that affect both the individual and the society. Any meaningful development must begin from the person.
There can be little external and social development without personal development. Personal development is always five fold: economic, social, political, spiritual and moral. That why, as a pastor, I endeavoured to attend the celebrations, invited or not invited to correct the mistakes.
We hope that next year there will be a difference. Every community must strive to develop academic and professional training, create jobs, encourage specialisations, cultural activities and other forms of entertainment. This again would have been a credit to the various festival, but the aims were again misplaced. More than 90% of the football competition that was aimed at encouraging sports in the villages came from urban areas like Kumbo and Bamenda, thus defeating the purpose. The village youth were once more on the spectators' bench.
Once more, the human person must develop before all this could happen. If one were to find out from the external elites, what they have done towards achieving all these developmental aspects, would the response be any use? It is not enough to dash into the village around election time and ask for votes. I will always ask the people never to vote visiting MPs or Municipal councillors. It is not tribalism, if in a vantage position, one assists qualified youth of ones village to enter professional schools or get jobs. In this way the children too must dispose and prepare themselves for such opportunities.
Cameroon’s first president, Amadou Ahidjo did what Biya is doing for the South in the North. Do same for your village. Development will bring peace and happiness only if it is opened to all. One illiterate in a village could be paste or an epidemic to the village. It is those who are out, the external elites who are well placed in government, who can lobby with government officials for developmental projects in their villages, schools, health units, electricity, water, good roads etc.
They should bring things to the village rather than expect from the village. One way of developing the village is by showing tangible attachment to it; build in the village, and when you retire come and settle in the village. It is rather unfortunate that many of the elites of this area build in the big towns and remain there. It was also not encouraging to find out that almost no external elite of Ngondzen was present at the festival, which was only the second edition.
In Nseh and Kuvlu, one could notice and feel the presence of external elites. There could be no better way of showing attachment to ones own village.

Comments

[Che Sunday J.]

On reading this article I come away with the perception that Rev. Foleng fails to make a distinction between religion and christianity. When a traditional leader or village head pours libations to get an ocasion started, does that qualify as a religious act? The answer to this question is critical because our thinking, especially Africans seems to to have gotten stock in a time warp where the word religion is religated to the major religions of the world. In Bafut for example,just before christmas, there is the fon of Bafut's dance. Several weeks before the dance, a sacred shrine (Nifoh) which happens to be a water fall is visited by traditional priests to offer sacrifices. The gifts of various oitments, such as calmwood, chalk etc are offered. Until this is done, the traditional dance will not take place. Does this qualify as as a religious act, or in christian terminolgy continues to be seen as worshiping "false Gods and idols?" We must not fail to take into consideration that christianity and other forms of religion such as Islam did not come to other parts of the world as unadulterated teachings from the heavens. They were infused with traditions from their respective points of origin.Islam for example took the biblical pronouncements of multiply and filling the earth to its very letter, thus enshrining polygamy in its teachings. Why, their numbers were few. The Mormons or what is known today as "Church of Jesus Christ of later Day Saints also adopted polygamy to increase its numbers. The bible had nothing in its teaching against polygamy, but Europeans, running out of space and trying to control population growth outlawed polygamy and and had it reinforced by religion. Christinity had a hard time selling in Africa, but deviced an ingenous mechanism to gain acceptance. It took the lead in African development, (it built schools, hospitals, orphanges and clinics.) This was too good for anyone to pass up. It is still in the forefront in these developmental areas. It is hard to argue with its track record. Where it has failed woefully is its continue lack of respect for local institution. Case in point, the quifon is still refered to as a secret society. There is nothing secretive about it. A closer look at quifon reveals that it is the only institution where a sitting fon or chief is not a member. Why? In the olden days, the chiefs and fons had absolutely power, including that of life and death. To forestall excessive use or abuse of such power, quifon had to be created. The fons were allowed to appoint no more than one sibbling from each family within his numerous wives to become a member of quifon. They then serve as their father's mouthpiece in deliberations concerning affairs of state. But early christian teaching required locals whom were members of quifon to give up their memberships to become christians.
I find it hard to farthom an ocassion of any significance where by some form religion is not envoked to enhance its success. Be it christianity, Islam or traditional. God in his infinite wisdom created everything, and within that mix, gave each and everyone and avenue to communicate with him regardless of the nomenclature signifying that entity.