Review of Bernard Fonlon’s The Genuine Intellectual By By K.K. Bonteh
Lead-in:
In BOOK IN FOCUS today, K.K. Bonteh focuses on The Genuine Intellectual by Bernard Fonlon, a man of diverse abilities. Professor Nsokika Fonlon was born on the 19th of November 1924 in Nso, North West Region of Cameroon, died 26th August 1986 and his book still lives. K.K. Bonteh presents a synopsis of his book and interviews Dr Hans Mbonwuh Fonka, a lecturer in the Department of English in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Bamenda who makes a recommendation of the book to every freshman.
Summary
The Genuine Intellectual by Bernard Fonlon reflects on the role and responsibilities of intellectuals in society. Fonlon argues that a genuine intellectual must be committed to truth, integrity, and social justice. He emphasizes the importance of critical thinking and the need for intellectuals to engage with and challenge the status quo, rather than merely conforming to prevailing ideologies.
Fonlon also discusses the moral and ethical obligations of intellectuals to advocate for the marginalized and to use their knowledge and skills to foster positive change. He warns against the dangers of intellectual complacency and the temptation to prioritize personal gain over societal improvement. Overall, the work serves as a call to action for intellectuals to fulfill their potential as agents of transformation in their communities.
This book is by one who has been described as the “African Socrates”. The author stresses the idea in the 1980s that what Africa needs to fight imperialism and neo-colonialism is Capital and Knowledge. It is Prof. Fonlon’s chief concern in this book to show the scientific and philosophical Nature, End and Purpose of university education, which should produce the intellectual. He shows that every educated person can use the Scientific Method to discover Truth and put his specialized knowledge to the benefit of the commonwealth first, then, to himself. Although The Genuine Intellectual is addressed to all African students at the beginning of a university career, it challenges everyone who is supposed to be the gad-fly and goad of society.
Prolegomena
This book, slim as it looks, took Bernard Nsokika Fonlon the best part of five laborious years to write, 1965-9 inclusive. In the Prolegomena of his book, he writes:
“I was penning away as students in France were up in arms against the academic Establishment, and their fury almost toppled a powerful, prestigious, political giant like General de Gaulle. In America students, arms in hand, besieged and stormed the buildings of the University Administration, others blew up lecture halls in Canada – the student revolt, a very saeva indignatio, was in paroxysm. But in England (save in the London School of Economics where students rioted for the lame reason that the College gate looked like that of a jail-house) all was calm…“
Fonlon drew on these events to define the role of university education in this precious treasure of a book, which he dedicates to every African freshman and freshwoman. The book details his reflections and vision on the scientific and philosophical Nature, End and Purpose of university studies. He calls on African students to harness the Scientific Method in their quest for Truth, and to put the specialised knowledge they acquire to the benefit of the commonwealth first, then, to themselves. To do this effectively, universities must jealously protect academic freedom from all non-academic interferences. For any university that does not teach a student to think critically and in total freedom has taught him or her nothing of genuine worth. Universities are and must remain sacred places and spaces for the forging of genuine intellectuals imbued with skills and zeal to assume and promote social responsibilities with self abnegation.
Dr Hans Mbonwuh Fonka is a lecturer in the Department of English in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Bamenda. He is a teacher, a researcher and a writer. His interest is in Poetry and he has published poems in Songs for Tomorrow: Cameroon Poetry in English and other poetry collections. As a researcher, his research interest focuses largely on Contact Languages, especially Pidgins and Creoles. He is a member of the Anglophone Cameroon Writers’ Association and many other academic institutions.
I caught up with Dr Hans Mbonwuh Fonka to find out why he would recommend The Genuine Intellectual, and he has this to say:
Why would you recommend Genuine Intellectual to every freshman or as a course book to the University Institute?
I will recommend Genuine Intellectual to every freshman and even as a course book in the University because The Genuine Intellectual by Bernard Fonlon is still very relevant to the University community today as it was more than 40 years ago. The depth of knowledge from different disciplines, scientific writing (method), history and literature, philosophy amongst others and moral values that should accompany knowledge acquisition are a whole lot that every freshman should put on as a uniform during and after university education.
Knowledge acquisition
Fonlon makes a difference between being intelligent and being a genuine intellectual. University education as he says is not just the acquisition of knowledge (intelligence) because “a pile of stones, however high, does not constitute an edifice”. University studies, well done, “should be imbued with the principle of life and growth”. By this he recommends multidisciplinary studies because what one studies in the university may not be exactly what will give one a future. This book will enable the university community to help every freshman to understand that they need to correctly, diligently and thoroughly pursue University education to graduate as “thinker-scholars” (intellectuals).
Moral Values
Fonlon points out that it not just enough to acquire knowledge. Knowledge accompanied with character constitutes the hallmark of a genuine intellectual. A genuine Intellectual concerns himself/herself with the search for the truth. He relates this to history and points out that “history can be false not only when lies are told, but also when essential facts are left out”. A Genuine Intellectual is an “ardent lover and servant of human kind, the affection brother of every human being”. When students graduate with these values, we can be sure of a better society where graduates are not only the wisdom of the society, but are equally the moral conscience of the society.
Conclusion
Published by Buma Kor in its Third Edition, an incisive contextual Introduction is written by Leke Tambo, Professor of Education; and a Postscript to Chapter Four written by both Professor Rose Gana Fomban Leke, Laureate of African Union 2021 Kwame Nkrumah Scientific Award for Women, and Professor Robert John Ivo Leke who highlight the scientific method discussed in this chapter.
And that was, CRTV’s BOOK IN FOCUS.
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We were technically assisted by Justine OBEN.
For Presentation, I am, K.K. Bonteh
