Impossible Missionary
If you’re here you couldn’t fail to know that the Pope’s heading this way soon.
Not here in Bamenda obviously – not sure the Popemobile could deal with the roads, but he will be in the capital and ahead of his trip the Government has been doing some spring cleaning.
YAOUNDE, March 10 (Reuters) – Cameroonian security forces have smashed up the street stalls, where thousands of people earn a living, to give the capital Yaounde a face-lift for a visit by Pope Benedict next week.
The report continues:
“My 10 years of investments have been ruined. I don’t know now what to do to survive,” wailed Mariane Ngoupendji on Monday when she found her typing and printing shop reduced to rubble.
“Will the Pope’s visit replace what I’ve lost?” she said.
And:
“I saw gendarmes and police chasing after fellow Cameroonians, beating them up with such ferocity and smashing their goods,” said a Cameroon Telecommunications company worker, who watched from a third storey window as police cleared stalls near Avenue Kennedy on Saturday.
So far so horrible. I watched the story break on Twitter and there was plenty of coverage and condemnation. A new VSO intake were in town and saw much of the “clearance” going on. The Pope will arrive to a spring cleaned city – they arrived to one of ugly violence and intolerance.
You’d think it would be a hard job to defend the government on this one. But support for them comes from an unlikely source – a US missionary based in the capital.
He writes: (Post now removed by Impossible Missionary – see update below)
…even if these people were asked to leave, they would probably not do it anyway until they were forced to. So it’s easy to read an article and accuse the government of being so mean and nasty – which indeed could be very true, especially if the reports of police brutality are factual – but the vendors are not simply innocent bystanders in the whole process either.
He also refers to the stall holders as ignorant saying:
I’m glad that the city is getting a face-lift – it sure makes things look a lot nicer, and the big street lights make driving at night or trying to get a taxi along the main route so much easier and safer. But it’s sad that some of this clean-up has to mean the destruction of people’s way of life. Unfortunately, these people were simply ignorant, some willfully so, of the rules and are now facing the consequences.
Woah.
Street stalls are a way of life here. They are everywhere. It’s easy just to say they are illegal but they can be pretty solid structures. What’s more, if they are illegal I’d imagine that they have only been allowed to remain because someone, somewhere is taking a regular few thousands Francs in bribes.
People here struggle. You can bet these structures don’t turn over much and in a country where enterprise and entrepreneurship is so minimal…well what a way to reward it.
I ask you, if you are in general agreement with what I have written and also find the missionary’s take as ignorant as I do, to leave a comment. Not below but instead on the missionaries own blog. Go here.
Thank you.
Update 18/03/09: Our Impossible Missionary after posting something akin to an apology in his own comments box (you’ll also find it in mine), has decided simply to delete the post from his own website. Also, his apology has gone too. Anyone who knows anything about blogging will tell you that you live with your own mistakes and when you’ve messed up you don’t just press delete and pretend it didn’t happen. The home page of the IM’s blog is here.
On the side of that page he writes:
Whatever your hardship or affliction, bear up under it for the sake of the gospel.
I guess that doesn’t include comment box criticism – easier just to delete everything and pretend it never happened.
Elsewhere I particularly like this article on fasting – very relevant for Africa that one.
Tags: cameroon, clean up, pope, street stalls, yaounde
You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
March 12, 2009 at 9:00 am
I hope his Holiness is aware of what is going on to make his visit more pleasant, and then condemns it. But that is unlikely, isn’t it?
As to a missionary criticising the local people, whose town this is, for trying to earn a living, if not altogether legally, he should go back to his nice clean USA, wher ether eare no street baggars, hobos living under bridges, or street kids begging.
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
March 12, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Wow! I never knew my husband could cause such a stir. I think sometimes we think that only people that know us read our blogs and those people know how to take what we write instead of tearing it apart line by line without knowing us at all. Trav, thanks for putting in a good word.
Dad A, thanks for the humor. You always put a smile on my face. I just wish all of you that commented here and on his blog knew my husband — you wouldn’t be so harsh as you pull apart sentences.
He and I have had many conversations about how horrible it is that people’s livelihood is taken away from them and all for a few days visit from the Pope. When we were in town on Monday and saw stuff being thrown into trucks, it made me sick to my stomach. More than once, we said, “But how are people going to eat tonight? and the next day and the next day?” It goes even beyond that in…
And then today, I saw him helping people move their sewing machines, their tables, their bags of stuff farther down on our road as the government came through with the bulldozer. No, that was not emphasized enough in this post to show all of our conversations and actions, but wow… that doesn’t mean that my husband doesn’t feel for the people here! Maybe I can convince him to write another post, but I’m not sure because it may be best just to leave this rather than getting things torn apart again. I’d better just stop. A wife sticking up for her wonderful husband isn’t much of a mind changer.
March 12, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Karis,
I’m sorry but moving their sewing machines and their tables? Very good of him – but I wonder if he told them to their faces that they were ignorant.
Did he say to them they were not innocent bystanders and it was, at least in part, their fault? Did he tell them he was glad the city is getting a facelift? Did he tell them the law is the law and they had to face the consequences?
Or did he just write that for his wider audience overseas? Like you said – you thought that only people who know you read your blog. What does it matter what you say about these poor people who will never have access to a computer?
What does it matter that you misrepresent them and their problems on the web?
And I am sorry but the picture you paint of this deep concern for these people is not remotely reflected in the piece he wrote.
If you’re putting in time now trying to right that wrong and helping these people then for that, at least, you have my admiration.
March 12, 2009 at 2:24 pm
His holey-ness’s outfit – it’s the same one that bans contraception, helps spread aids by being anti-condom and limits life saving medical research. That’s the fellah, isn’t it? So having a few people’s livelihoods destroyed on his behalf, well I guess to him it’s all par for the course. It’s important, very important to this kind of evangelism that a visit from a god-man should make a big splash. This is how religion maintains control. Until he espouses religious freedoms, gives money with no strings, allows people to take control of their lives, these attacks are totally predictable. See how slow Pop was to deal with the holocaust denier in his midst. This former member of the Hitler Youth (yes a long time ago etc) deserves no respect.
March 12, 2009 at 2:55 pm
As I said in my first post to Dan’ blog, I thought I’d not get into a dissertation of illegal people, actions and consequences, but “ourmans” posts have gotten me somewhat stirred up. I’m suspicious of the attitude of people working for charitable organizations that don’t have a God-centered reason for existence – the organization or the people. I’ve personally found too much feeling and too little reasoning in most of their thought processes. Then there’s the tendency to accuse others of the same, in two posts so far “ourman” to Dan.
I’ll be brief and probably stir up more of the gasses in this quagmire.
Try this approach: Reread the article and Dan’s comments substituting “crooked accountants” for the people suffering and “offshore bank accounts” and “means of cheating landlords out of rent” for merchandise, and “laptops and printers” for stalls and buildings. And please, “ourman”, don’t ascribe to me or any missionary or any American the idea that we condone beatings. (Please have the decency not to go Guantanamo on me. That trope is sooo old and tired and blown sooo out of proportion.) Where there’s law, there must also be measured justice; beatings at the hands of the police are indefensible.
And finally, where’s the physical, dirty fingernail effort to help the victims from “ourman” and VSO, the world’s leading independent, international development charity that works through volunteers to fight poverty in developing countries? It seems to me that actually helping shopkeepers move their merchandise in order to stay in business is a good way to fight poverty. Telling them the Gospel story has longer effect, though.
March 12, 2009 at 2:59 pm
As I said in my first post to Dan’ blog, I thought I’d not get into a dissertation of illegal people, actions and consequences, but “ourmans” posts have gotten me somewhat stirred up. I’m suspicious of the attitude of people working for charitable organizations that don’t have a God-centered reason for existence – the organization or the people. I’ve personally found too much feeling and too little reasoning in most of their thought processes. Then there’s the tendency to accuse others of the same, in two posts so far “ourman”.
I’ll be brief and probably stir up more of the gasses in this quagmire.
Try this approach: Reread the article and Dan’s comments substituting “crooked accountants” for the people suffering and “offshore bank accounts” and “means of cheating landlords out of rent” for merchandise, and “laptops and printers” for stalls and buildings. And please, “ourman”, don’t ascribe to me or any missionary or any American the idea that we condone beatings. (Please have the decency not to go Guantanamo on me. That trope is sooo old and tired and blown sooo out of proportion.) Where there’s law there must also be measured justice; beatings at the hands of the police are indefensible.
And finally, where’s the physical, dirty fingernail effort to help the victims from “ourman” and VSO, the world’s leading independent, international development charity that works through volunteers to fight poverty in developing countries? It seems to me that actually helping shopkeepers move their merchandise in order to stay in business is a good way to fight poverty. Telling them the Gospel story has longer effect, though.
March 12, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Mike, I’m utterly fed up of people questioning my motives and morals because I don’t have a god centred reason for wishing to be a good person. Too much feeling and too little reasoning? Can you tell me in what possible way can telling someone stories from the bible will help them to fight their way out of poverty? Where’s the reason in that?
Helping shopkeepers move their merchandise is one thing – fighting corruption that would enable them to make an actual secure living, rather than handing out kickbacks with no guarantee that their livlihoods are safe is in my opinion far more long-lasting. Where do bible stories come into this, please?
March 12, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Mike – I really am sorry if your friends were upset, but I think that now you’re simply making Christians sound even more unloving and ignorant. I won’t rise to the attack on “non God-centered organisations” but I will say that Ourman and VSO are working actively in difficult and sometimes remote areas getting our “fingernails dirty”. Many of the VSOs I work with are committed Christians and many aren’t. That doesn’t stop us from making personal sacrifices to try to work together to reduce the effects of poverty. It isn’t just those of us who aren’t religious who get a little frustrated when we see large amounts of money being spent of churches or mosques in places where schools don’t have basic sanitation.
March 12, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Rachie: Short answer, the American people. A nation founded on Godly principles (Bible stories) that sends its citizens wages to people they never met to meet needs that those people can’t handle, with the full support of the people whose wages are being spent. Last big example: Tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Our reward certainly hasn’t been the outpouring of gratitude from those helped (no radical Muslim organization has renounced jihad against us), but then it’s a Godly principle to do right when you can without regard for the reward. I believe it’s called the Golden Rule. Name me a communist country that does the same or a socialist country that spends proportionally as much.
My fear of organizations that aren’t God-centered is the Rule with which they measure. Is the Rule elastic, changeable or given to emotional distortions? Not so the Golden Rule or other Godly principles. Sadly, when the person who is supposed to apply it fails, it’s through human weaknesses and others then claim the Rule itself is invalid and theirs is really just as good if not better. Then there’s the reported corruption in the UN’s assistance programs.
Name me a country that’s been lifted out of poverty by the UN or a charitable organization. People lift themselves out by applying Godly principles to themselves and then their form of government. I refer you to the Godly principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence (a number of those signers wound up in poverty or dead – including their families) and the Constitution (1/2 million men died deciding the slavery issue). And before you start slamming the USA, I probably agree with you. We have been drifting from Godly principles, going forward on the inertia of 2 centuries of our predecessors.
I don’t know you, your organization or the principles that guide you so I’ll let you decide whether you fall into my “fear of” category. I sincerely hope you’ve been inadvertently offended.
March 12, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Mike -
“Name me a communist country that does the same or a socialist country that spends proportionally as much. ”
I’m not sure what counts as “socialist” but Sweden gives about 0.79% of its GDP vs the US which gives about 0.15%, making the US one of the stingiest of the developed countries.
Subjective I know but where I’m working the I see plenty of aid projects financed by the government of Iran. Could you provide a link to a reputable set of statistics that backs up your claim of America’s generosity?
March 12, 2009 at 4:59 pm
p.s. OECD stats from 2004:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/40/3/35389786.pdf
March 12, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Mike – ah, now I understand. Thank you.
March 12, 2009 at 6:30 pm
A link to American’s personal giving is here: http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2007/June/200706261522251CJsamohT0.8012354.html See the comment: “In 2006, Americans donated 2.2 percent of their average disposable, or after-tax, income, a figure above the 40-year average of 1.8 percent.” We average Americans beat Sweden and USA GDP %. Point: A lot of this money stays in the USA.
A link to US government foreign aid is here: http://www.usaid.gov/policy/budget/cbj2009/ The total amount slated for Africa is $5,297,732,00, which came out of the average American paycheck before we donated to charitable organizations.
None of these figures include the USA taxpayer money sent to the UN to fund its projects. The USA contributes 22% of the UN budget. (This money would be the same taxes taken from our pay checks before charitable giving.) Apply that to the UN aid figures.
Cash giving for the tsunami was $1,620,452,212 plus the government aid. See footnote 65 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_response_to_the_2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake#cite_note-64
Question: How’d we get to this discussion? I was irritated by “ourmans” stopping by a blog to comment, then come back twice to throw rocks unnecessarily. Dan said what he said. Agree or disagree and move on.
March 12, 2009 at 8:03 pm
I’m the aforementioned “Impossible Missionary.”
Let me start this post (and hopefully end this conversation) by saying something that I obviously have not said clearly enough or often enough and what I should have said plainly in the first place regarding the “difficulty” that I mentioned in the title. By talking about the “positive side” (the “face lift” for the city), I did not mean to overlook the negative side or imply that the “positives” outweighed the negatives. They absolutely do not. I did not explain myself clearly or thoroughly before, for which I apologize – so let me do it now.
I HATE what is happening to the people here. It does not seem decent, fair, or humane in any way and it speaks to the sad state of affairs that exists in this country when the government feels compelled to treat its own people like this whether they have been warned or not. After all, they are just that, people, members of the human race, created in the image of God just like the Pope or the President.
I got a first-hand look at what all this means to the average person today when the Caterpillar 950H destroyed the “stalls” of people who we have gotten to know over the last six months. These are people we’ve interacted with on some level, talked with them, bought dinner from their restaurant, etc. I saw the panic and despair in the eyes of these people as we helped them carry their things farther off the road to safety – at least for today. I stood with the people as we watched shops (and even the house of the neighbor right across from us) being destroyed and ran with them when the water canons were sprayed toward the crowd. Of course I did not feel the hurt or despair the same way these people did, but my heart breaks for them since many of these people are simply living from day to day.
Mark, thank you for your kind response and for taking the time to post that even though you don’t know us. Often we (myself included) can be quick to criticize but much slower with words of grace. And to those of you who gave us the benefit of the doubt and shared your thoughts with us, I honestly appreciate it. You have challenged me to think and express my thoughts more clearly.
Ultimately I think that everyone who has entered into this conversation has done so because they truly have a heart of love for people – a heart that hurts when it sees others suffer. I too have that same heart and should have let it be seen much more clearly from the very beginning. After all, the Bible tells us that true love is to be without hypocrisy, to be devoted to one another, to honor others above yourself, to hate what is evil and hold onto what is good, to be active and not passive, to be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer, to share with those in need, to practice hospitality, to bless – even those who persecute you, to rejoice with those who rejoice, and to weep with those who weep (Rom 12:9-15). That is the heart of love that I desire to have and should have expressed more fully.
March 12, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Dan,
Thanks for that – and for your eloquent and heartfelt words.
Even as a non religious person I think I can say amen to you comment.
March 17, 2009 at 2:56 pm
[...] by British-born VSO volunteer blogging at Our Man in Cameroon. His reaction in a post entitled Impossible Missionary was simple: Street stalls are a way of life here. They are everywhere. It’s easy just to say they [...]
March 18, 2009 at 10:57 am
[...] in Cameroon van een in Engeland geboren VSO-vrijwilliger. Zijn reactie in een artikel met de titel Impossible Missionary [en] was duidelijk: Kraampjes langs de straat zijn hier een manier van leven. Ze staan overal. Het [...]
March 18, 2009 at 3:06 pm
[...] sehr heftige Diskussion wird auch bei “Our Man in Cameroon geführt”. Ein Spannungspunkt dabei ist, dass die Gebäude rein rechtlich betrachtet illegal [...]
March 18, 2009 at 5:55 pm
[...] auf Our Man in Cameroon bloggt, nicht wirklich geteilt. Seine Reaktion in einem Post mit dem Titel Impossible Missionary (Unmöglicher Missionar) war einfach: Straßenstände sind hier eine Lebensart. Es gibt sie [...]
March 18, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Re: your update — “Anyone who knows anything about blogging…” I didn’t realize there was a manual!
March 18, 2009 at 7:19 pm
There isn’t manual, that’s why I said: “knows anything about blogging” as opposed to “has read anything about blogging”.
I’m suprised they don’t teach that at Harvard.
March 18, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Dan – as I commented on your blog before you deleted the post, a good response and I think it was just a bad choice of words in the original post.
Mike – You are one of the reasons I dislike religious people. Generally, I don’t give a hoot over someone’s beliefs, but please stop trying to justify any and all actions by the text in a work of unproven documents. I won’t attempt to insult anyone by calling them fiction (despite that being *my* belief) but I just don’t understand why you have to criticise people for doing good just because they’re not doing it because some book’s told them to.
Basic humanity and perhaps good parenting are the things that should be telling a person to help the needy – whether it’s hurricane victims or old Mrs Miggins struggling to cross the road. If you need an oversized pamphlet to tell you how to be a good person then you really have to look within yourself and wonder why.
I’ve done a fair bit of work for charity over the last two years. Why did I do it? Partly because I love kids, but don’t have any of my own so wanted to do something for a group of them in Vietnam. Partly as I believe I’ve been very lucky in my life and wanted to share some of that. Partly, I admit, because it made me feel good.
Muslims are awesome – they help their poor, shelter and feed travellers and so on… but they do it because their holy text tells them to. Would they do it otherwise?
Jehovah’s Witnesses try to convert people because it means that *their* (ie the Witness’s) soul will go to Heaven if they convert enough people. Isn’t that ridiculously selfish?
So between the unbeliever, the Muslim and the Christian denomination mentioned above… who’s the one being charitable for the right reasons?
Mike, you’re entitled to your beliefs. I will 100% always support your right to that, as I will support someone’s right to read the Koran, Talmud or whatever. However, I also reserve the right to tell you where you can shove those beliefs if they result in you criticising people who’re doing some really good work just because they don’t go to church every Sunday.
March 18, 2009 at 8:16 pm
OurMan: Not to pursue this tautology of yours more than it needs to be — but pray tell, how do you “know” about blogging without having “read” anything about it? It would seem to me that blogs are all about the read and written word. Perhaps you “feel” blogs? Maybe “experience” them? By “know,” do you mean on some innate, oracular level? Because if they taught that skill at East Sussex, or wherever you took your degree, perhaps it’s high time to sign up as a post-grad! I see it now, a D.Phil. in Asinine Blogology…
Anyways, love the blog. Its politics give me something to roll my eyes at, and its bizarre-o personal edge (is this, too, a characteristic of blogs, learned sir?) has that self-righteous, dislocated-NGO-worker pathos that I find downright quaint.
March 18, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Methinks Mr Kavulla has:
a) not heard of “real world” experience. You don’t need to read about something to know about it.
b) swallowed a dictionary and has suffered a severe reaction which involves him having to chuck large words around in a bid to show off.
Yes, I know I’m feeding the troll but his attempt to prove how clever he is is just too hard to resist.
March 18, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Mosh,
Would this be a bad time to tell our friend from Harvard that I only have an HND in Business & Finance from Manchester Polytechnic?
Also four O’ Levels – one of them at B grade if that helps.
March 18, 2009 at 8:52 pm
BA Hons, Missed the Point University
March 18, 2009 at 9:12 pm
BSc Hons in something to do with computers, Open University
Plus a year’s Biomedical Science at Bradford
And three years travelling around South Asia, SE Asia, Australia, NZ, the Middle East and Europe. This is called the “real world” and perhaps our friend from Taxi should get out and see it.
March 19, 2009 at 2:03 am
[...] auf Our Man in Cameroon bloggt, nicht wirklich geteilt. Seine Reaktion in einem Post mit dem Titel Impossible Missionary (Unmöglicher Missionar) war [...]
March 20, 2009 at 6:44 am
[...] che lavora per l'Ong VSO [in] e scrive su Our Man in Cameroon. La sua la reazione, nel post Impossible Missionary [in], è semplice: I negozietti per strada qui sono uno stile di vita. Sono ovunque. Certo, è [...]
March 22, 2009 at 5:02 pm
[...] just in case you think this is a British class issue check out this comment on my Cameroonian blog from journalist Travis Kavulla (who still uses his Harvard email address). [...]
March 22, 2009 at 10:57 pm
[...] no blog Our Man in Cameroon. As reações chegam ao ponto de Karis, esposa do missionário, foi em defesa de seu marido: Wow! I never knew my husband could cause such a stir. I think sometimes we think that only people [...]
March 23, 2009 at 1:23 am
[...] na Grã Bretanha, que bloga em Our Man em Camarões. Sua reação numa publicação intitulada Impossible Missionary foi simples: Street stalls are a way of life here. They are everywhere. It’s easy just to say [...]
March 24, 2009 at 11:04 am
[...] Uingereza ambaye anablogu katika blogu ya Our Man in Cameroon. Majibu yake katika makala iliyoitwa Impossible Missionary yalikuwa ni mepesi: Vibanda vya biashara vya mitaani ni njia ya maisha hapa. Vipo kila sehemu. Ni [...]
August 2, 2009 at 12:14 pm
If you are angry by what this blog posted. Better try this
http://feathersproject.wordpress.com/2009/03/28/sweet-sour-adventure-to-cameroon/
Only validates what this blog said.