Railed Resistance: Memory and Political Discourse in Julius Angwah’s Before Our Eyes

The quest for selfhood results to internal conflicts between Webaz and Recam after the
departure of the colonial masters. Memories of colonial and post-colonial rule in Julius
Angwah’s Before Our Eyes reveal the desire for patriots from different socio-cultural,
linguistic and historical backgrounds to come together under the banner of a united
rainbow nation to rethink a new county. Ironically, through the visions and memories
displayed by different characters in the novel, the realities in Webaz and Recam make
one to interrogate and problematise the nexus of the new socio-political power that is built
on deception and exploitation in the post-colony. Using the Postcolonial and
Psychoanalysis theories, this paper hinges on the hypothesis that the political discourse
which is revealed through memory sets the rail as a new vista for both ideological and
physical resistance. Through the commingling of dreams, mysticism and memory,
Angwah uses Before Our Eyes to fictionalise and satirise an ongoing political crisis in the
Anglophone regions of Cameroon through Webaz and Recam who are in full panoply for
a battle to re-write their history and carve a niche for their future in contemporary
geopolitics. This crisis which is not based on retribution for decades of subservience, aims
at arriving at a political resolution that would celebrate difference as a force of unity
within an ideal state called WebazRecam.

Key words: memory, political discourse, vista, spirituality, rail, post-colonial, rainbow.