Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Hemley Boum

Quote by Hemley Boum

“Non-violent resistance supposes that the almighty enemy, at the very least, considers you to be a human being, capable of logically arguing why you disagree. It supposes that this enemy is ready to hear your demands and find common ground. Yes, Bamileke maquisards took up arms! But did they have a choice? Colonial masters feigned departure, but their cruel puppets continue to safeguard their interests through murder. We were cheated. Our struggle has been used to different ends. And, you will see, they will chop off any head that stands out, and then falsify our history. In fact, they won't; they will not even bother to record our history." "Who is "they?" I asked. "This 'they' is 'we’,” replied Louis. "We are the ones killing ourselves. Our killers are encouraged, trained, and funded by the former colonial power. But, and this is what makes it worse, we ourselves are the ones doing the dirty work with senseless enthusiasm," he added. That was how Cameroon—not just myself as an individual, or my village, Ombessa, or Bafia and Yaounde, the places where I had lived, but also this multi-layered, nuanced, bruised entity called my country—took shape in my mind.”

Quote by Hemley Boum

Work

Days Come and Go

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Hemley Boum

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Hemley Boum. more

You May Also Like

“You think there's something materialistic about collecting books, but really collectors are the last romantics. We're the only ones who still love books as objects." "That's the question," said Jess. "How do you love them if you're always selling them?" "I don't sell everything," he said. "You haven't seen my own collection." "What do you have?" "First editions. Yeats, Dickinson- all three volumes; Eliot, Pound, Millay..." He had noticed the books she read in the store. "Plath. I also have Elizabeth Bishop." "I wish I could see them," Jess said. "You would have come to my house." "Are you inviting me?" She must have known this was a loaded question, but she asked without flirtatiousness or self-consciousness, as if to say, I only want to know as a point of information. Yes, he thought, I'm inviting you, but he did not say yes. He was her employer. She could act with a certain plucky independence, but he would always be the big bad wolf.”

“At the behest of the criterion of authenticity, much that was once thought to make up the very fabric of culture has come to seem of little account, mere fantasy or ritual, or downright falsification. Conversely, much that culture traditionally condemned and sought to exclude is accorded a considerable moral authority by reason of the authenticity claimed for it, for example, disorder, violence, unreason.”