Decolonising neo-colonialism: Resistance in Mbuh’s The Oracle of Tears (2006)

Abstract

This article investigates the ways in which Mbuh Tennu Mbuh’s poems contribute to the on-going debate on resistance to oppression (in)direct Western hegemonies. European colonialism, having led to new, indirect forms of oppression in African states, is perceived as a continuing practice which obliges the oppressed to permanently rework their resistance strategies. This paper is premised on the assumption that Mbuh’s selected poems in The Oracle of Tears advocate a practice of resistance to neo-colonialism that consists in three important phases: re-visiting the colonial past, observing its present displays and overtly condemning its perpetuation. Postcolonialism is used as theoretical base for this study because it’s raison d’être is the dismantling of overt and subtle forms of Western domination. This paper arrives at the conclusion that the problems of post-independence Africa in general and Cameroon in particular are better understood when read as effects of the whole colonial syndrome. Such reading also reiterates the call for a united African resistance against (in) direct Western hegemony.