Politics

For over a decade, 18 African nations have been ravaged by war, exposing military personnel and civilians to violence and trauma. As a result, one hundred million Africans now suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and in parts of Africa, 50 percent or more of the population is afflicted with PTSD. Its effects debilitate individuals and ripple into their families and communities. PTSD affects not only military combatants but also anyone who witnesses or experiences extremely terrifying, tragic or traumatic events such as natural disasters, rape, torture or kidnapping.

PTSD comes with a variety of symptoms, including inability to sleep, horrific and intense flashbacks to high-stress combat experiences, depression, and difficulty relating to friends, family and spouse, etc. The brains and personalities of those with PTSD simply have not been able to process the intensity of past trauma. These experiences continue to haunt and debilitate the lives of those suffering from its effects.

Research has shown that the practice of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique can result in large reductions in PTSD symptoms in short periods of time. In a study on Congolese refugees, 90% of subjects improved into the "non-symptomatic" range within 30 days and stayed that way throughout the 135 days of the research (2). A follow-up study replicated those findings and showed that two thirds of the benefit occurred within 10 days of learning the TM technique (3). Effect sizes were larger than those seen with other behavioral and meditation, relaxation or stress management techniques.

American Vietnam-era veterans with PTSD were taught TM and showed significant reductions in anxiety, depression, and negative personality traits (4). Similarly, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans had a 50% reduction in PTS symptoms in a three-month period after learning the TM technique (5).

TM is a cost-effective, easily learned, effortless mental technique from the ancient meditative traditions of India. Over five million people worldwide have learned this non-religious technique. It is taught in a systematic, highly structured and standardized manner by trained teachers. Over 350 peer-reviewed studies have documented its positive effects on mental and physical health.

The efficacy of TM practice has been confirmed by the American Heart Association, which concluded that TM is the only behavioral technique that can be recommended for lowering hypertension (6). Previous meta-analyses have also shown TM to be the most effective behavioral technique in reducing anxiety (7).

TM practice produces a state of "restful alertness" - deep rest that allows for a kind of passive processing of trauma. TM dissolves the deep stresses incurred by trauma on the physiological level and thereby attenuates identification with the trauma on the mental level.

During TM practice brain wave activity becomes highly coherent, an indicator of orderliness and brain integration. Biological age and stress hormones such as cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine decrease. Indices of relaxation and well-being such as serotonin levels, galvanic skin resistance, and immune-modulatory effects all increase (8). Although conventional approaches to PTSD can improve self-confidence, sense of mastery and coping mechanisms, TM practice apparently goes deeper. It provides a broader spectrum of benefits, including increases in ego development, executive functioning, personality integration, creativity, problem-solving abilities and intelligence. More "side benefits" of TM practice include significant global improvement in psychological functioning and well-being beyond disorder-specific symptom reduction (8).

In addition, African military personnel and veterans may be hesitant to seek PTSD treatment because doing so might be viewed as a sign of weakness. TM is a self-sufficient technique, free from the possible stigma of mental health services. The faces and words of people with PTSD whose lives have been changed by TM practice can reveal far more than this article.

Details: Ngwa Bertrand; 15.Oct.2015; Hits: 1762

Shakespeare’s villainous Iachimo may also advise us “to leave unspoken that which, to be spoke, would torture thee.” Nobody asked Paul Biya to express worry about the performance of his government in his December 2013 New Year address. Since he did so, Cameroonians expected him to proceed immediately to form a new, more effective and efficient government, especially because it was not the first time he was complaining about the performance of government.

The government had been regularly discredited not only by scandals, but also by the appearance of its being incapable of meeting the tasks of the day, most of which were undreamt of in November 1982. Government had cut the image of a quarrelsome lot working in dispersed ranks; it seemed to have lost sight of its “core business.” Strategic thinking for the urgent transformative actions needed seemed to be absent, but all mind-readers were predicting that the “overall” boss, when he would decide to act, would only move ponds around the chessboard, as usual.

All of 2014 was a long enough wait, but to extend it to 2015 seemed to be too much! Since nature abhors vacuums, the long wait filled the vacuum with doubt and complacency; the government seemed to be doing nothing, just resting on its laurels, waiting for the unknown. Inertia became the order of the day, and society became restive. The best option seemed to be to put pressure from outside to precipitate action. Dozens of “leaked” governments were published in the press. Stories of wrongdoing in the presidency were spun into sources of leaks of new governments. Protests by our valiant soldiers for their dues were mockinglylinked to the advent of a new government. And so expectation of a new government became the talk of the town.

It is usually said that public opinion allows the nation to participate in its own affairs because it is an invisible power that rules even in the palaces of kings. Even if the limited political experience of the “opinion” makers caused public opinion to be dominated by general and speculative ideas, this did not diminish its power. It was all like our traditional smoking of the rat mole out of the comfort of its hole with the smoke of public opinion.

And so the new government was smoked out at last! As mind-readers had predicted, it involved mainly the movement of ponds around the chessboard. It did not include the SDF and UDC that public opinion had so pompously included in the government. It did not also include those that feed on the carcass of Um Nyobe in total disregard of his legacy and his heritage.

Once the list of the “new” government hit the public place, the paradigm of opinion shifted to critique. Most critiques and analyses have been directed more at individuals for their disobedience or corruption or lack of solidarity, less at systems. Politics may be more about the citizen than the private individual, but solidarity, whether between members of a government or between individual citizens, is the foundation of politics.If critical public opinion finds those who lost their ministerial posts guilty as individuals, it will mean that they were ill-prepared to be ministers; if they are guilty as ministers, it will be a condemnation of the whole system.

The “new” government will most obviously continue to waste the time of the country because it will be operating in the same system. It will face the same internal struggles against entrenched bureaucratic interests and a power-distribution architecture that encourages fraud and corruption. It will enter the same self-serving routine that is usually blind to outcomes.

Systemic institutions need to be strengthened by large-scale overhaul in government and public-sector agencies. Clear, enforceable rules of discipline that create a meritocratic environment and ethical behaviors that are friendly to creativity, innovation, and talent have to be present in all fronts. The “new” government needs to shed its CPDM divisive mindset and build a social consensus around growth-oriented strategies and policies by providing equal opportunity to all citizens, irrespective of political opinion, area of origin, gender, or religion.

If there are clear, transparent rules that can detect errors and fraud fast enough, the fallouts can be managed on a continuous basis. “Epervier” should no longer work in tedious cycles but on a continuous basis. With all the people that populate the prisons today because of corruption and fraud, there should be much familiarity with the tools and methods they used; these should be exploited to correct and strengthen existing systems, and to design tighter security of public funds. This will meet the common saying that prevention is better than cure. It will end the wasteful and shameful practice of punishing after the fact; of using the process to punish potential rivals.

The visionaries and the all-knowing humans variously called proletariats, Bolsheviks, communists that Karl Marx and others envisaged that would be produced and would only speak the fact, not argue or convince, eventually failed to emerge where the experiments for their production were conducted. They nevertheless emerged in Africa around the ‘60s at the head of the new countries that came to being at that time. Although they emerged without the “lightening of thought” that Marx said would cause their emergence, they have endured and prospered till today in Africa!

And so one of the problems with our “new” government is that like the one before it, the members will consider themselves as “creatures” of this type of being, and will work in fear and total submission –with the being representing their own “specter” that will haunt them throughout their ministerial tenure.

Societies can be governed only with ideas. Government must be open to itself and to society as a whole, so that governance ideas can be bounced back and forth to increase their chances of producing the good. All governments need strong leadership not only from the top but from all its members.

Details: Ngwa Bertrand; 15.Oct.2015; Hits: 2010

The sound and sight of Russian cruise missiles and smart bombs dropping on thousands of ISIL fighters in Syria is a thing of joy. It is like music to my ears. At last someone has cultivated the courage to stop the pampering and to desist from trying to rationalize the evil of ISIS and the forces of terror. I have no doubt that President Vladimir Putin is being used by God to deliver the world from the greatest evil that we have witnessed since Hitler’s fascism. The Russians are doing a great work in Syria.

They confronted and crushed the evil of terrorism in Chechnya and now they are doing it in the Middle East. Mr. Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi and his ISIL fighters deserve no mercy. They deserve even worse than they are getting. We must encourage the Russians to keep the bombs flying and to send the demons to hell where they belong.

This ought to be a lesson to the world and to President Obama. You don’t encourage and tolerate evil on the altar of political expediency and neither should you support or covertly fund terrorists. More importantly whether the west wishes to accept it or not there is a new kid on the block who refuses to take prisoners and who understands the importance of wiping out the dark forces and bringing in the light.

Those that believe that terrorists should be treated lightly, should be granted amnesty, should be negotiated with or should be used for a greater purpose have failed to grasp the importance of the following counsel: when the rubbish begins to stink you must throw it out. When slaves begin to overestimate their own importance and relevance you must cut off their balls.

When dogs seek to rule in the land of men you must shoot them in the head. When a chicken starts to believe that it is an eagle you must cut off its beak. When the witch begins to afflict humanity you must burn her at the stake. When demons begin to call themselves angels you must send them back to hell.

When psychopaths and sociopaths rule the land you must kill them all and ensure that there is no trace of their existence. Clearly Putin has imbued this philosophy and this set of principles very well. And it serves our collective purpose. Four years ago I advocated the Putin approach to confronting Boko Haram in Nigeria. In a series of essays I argued that we must wipe them out and if necessary blow up the communities and towns that covertly give them support.

I made the case that they were nothing but pure evil and that they represented something so reprehensible and beastly that it was far beyond the understanding or imagination of the average Nigerian. I told the Nigerian people that if it required the systematic slaughter of entire populations to remove the cancer of jihadist terror then we must cultivate the courage to get on with the job and do it.

I argued that President Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern-day Turkey, killed over one million fundamentalists and terrorists in his quest to establish a modern-day Muslim secular state and that it worked. I told the world that as long as Saudi Arabia continued to propagate and covertly fund the Wahhabi philosophy and the Salifist movement that the world would not know peace and that neither would we be free of terror.

More importantly I warned the world about the danger of trusting President Barack Obama and how his covert policy of supporting terror groups like the Al Nusra Front in Syria against a secularist Syrian government would lead to disaster. As usual all my counsel fell on deaf ears and I received nothing but insults from the majority of our people who labeled me as hater of Muslims and who couldn’t see beyond their noses.

They were unable to make a distinction between a true Muslim and a radical jihadist who believes in the use of terror and violence. The result of their lack of understanding and foresight is what we have today both in Syria and Nigeria. Abuja is being bombed again and once again our soldiers are being slaughtered on the war front. Ever since the present administration has come to power the gains that were made by the previous administration against Boko Haram have been lost.

Worst still the terrorist group have managed to mount a major counter-offensive against our cities in the north-east and to slaughter thousands in our civilian population. Just a few days ago no less than five bombs went off in one day. There is no doubt in my mind that now more than ever we need to retrace our steps and look to Putin’s Russia as our natural ally in our fight against terror. If we want to stamp out Boko Haram we must look to the Russian Federation.

If we refuse to eat humble pie and get the help that we need then we must prepare for greater casualties and more losses in our fight against terror. This is all the more so given the fact that Boko Haram has now joined ranks with ISIS.

Permit me to end this contribution with a few words about the nature of the jihadists. They have an insatiable appetite for sadism and cruelty. They do not have the milk of human kindness in them and neither do such creatures react to gentle appeals. I say this because they are fundamentalists and zealots that are totally committed to destroying everything that we hold dear. Simply put they have gone beyond the realms of reason and rationality. If anyone doubts this they should find out about the horrific plight of the Yazidis’ in Iraq and Syria whose women are treated as nothing but spoils of war by the ISIL fighters.

These are ruthless and bloodthirsty men and they are committed to the destruction of the secular state, to the abrogation of our most basic civil liberties and human rights, to the waging of a global jihad and to the creation of a new Islamic caliphate where full sharia law is practiced and where Christianity and all other forms of religion, except for their own perverse understanding and interpretation of Islam, are banned. They also wish to change our way of life and impose their will on us through violent and barbaric means.

People that are so debased and that have such little regard for human life and values are hardly likely to listen to appeals from anyone. You do not offer carrots to beasts. The only things they understand are bombs and the only language they appreciate is violence.

A leading Pakistani politician made an interesting and relevant contribution on CNN last year when he spoke about the horrific stoning to death of a young lady outside the High Court in Islamabad simply because she married the man of her choice. He said, ’’Pakistan is a country in which some people are fighting to keep us in the 21st century whilst others are fighting to take us back into the 8th century”. This is the bitter truth and the same conflict is playing out in parts of the Middle East, north Africa, east Africa and Nigeria.

It is time for us to come together and cleanse our land of these godless creatures. They should be cleansed from the land and eliminated in the same way that cockroaches and rats are cleansed and eliminated from a filthy house. This is because they are nothing but vermin and vampires from hell sent to our nation by Satan to torment and destroy us.

They have slaughtered and raped our women and children, they have butchered and crucified our men, they have burnt our homes and bombed and desecrated our places of worship, they have slaughtered our religious leaders, they have taken over our communities and they have flown their evil black flag in parts of our nation.

What more do they have to do to us before we cultivate the courage and the firm resolve to rise up and resist them? This is a call to arms. I call on every Nigerian to rise up, to fight the evil and to protect the integrity of our land and our people.

I call on the military to be professional, thorough, brutal and ruthless, to show no mercy and to hold no quarter. I call on our people to have no dealings or interaction with ANYONE or any group of people that suggest that we should have dialogue with or that we should grant amnesty to Boko Haram.

I call on them to view such people with the utmost suspicion. I say this because you do not reward mass murderers, sociopaths, psychopaths, homicidal maniacs, child abductors, king-slayers, child rapists and criminally insane terrorists with amnesty or dialogue. Instead you dispatch them to hell where they belong. It is the same for Boko Haram and all those that secretly collaborate with them.

We must not view them as human beings but as savage beasts and demons that eat human flesh and drink human blood. That is what they are: the spoilers and abductors of little girls. They are not worthy of life. They are not worthy of God’s mercy.

They are not worthy of our people or of our nation. To destroy them is our holy duty before the Living God: it is God’s will that they should be wiped off the face of the earth and that the Nigerian people should be rid of them forever.

Details: Ngwa Bertrand; 13.Oct.2015; Hits: 1750