Shackled in Darkness

Shackled in Darkness presents through a poetic format some of the burning, contemporary, and existential issues facing humankind.

This poetry collection is a clarion call not only for everyone to become aware of what is happening in the world, but to motivate people to make the necessary mind-set changes that can be the basis for veritable and sustainable sociocultural and ecological transformations.

Shackled in Darkness is divided into seven parts:

1. Presents the concept of development as a series of "myths," based on the underlying voracious self-centeredness of "dominant world powers."
2. Offers through graphic verses the HIV and AIDS scourge, especially in Africa, which is sustained by certain cultural stereotypes.
3. Focuses on the causes of violence surrounding the phenomena of apartheid, xenophobia, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and the Holocaust.
4. "Rape of the Mother" recounts the systematic destruction by humankind of the inestimable resources of Mother Earth, and showing no care for future generations.
5. Recounts "The Twilight of the Indigenous Peoples" about the sorry plight of the excluded, dispossessed, and brutalized Native American Indians, Australian Aborigines, the Khoi-San of South Africa, and the Pygmies of the equatorial rainforests.
6. Describes pseudo-education systems that proliferate and lead to massive unemployment and underemployment, and the frightening unemployability of the products of the former.
7. Highlights the psychosocial dramas and hopes accompanying the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

About the Author: Ilongo Fritz Ngale grew up in the English- and French-speaking regions of Cameroon. He is a senior lecturer in psychology and counseling, and his hobbies include creative writing, sports, and traveling.