Music has done so much good to humanity that a whole day is set aside to celebrate it.

 Yesterday, June 21 was observed throughout the world as World Music Day. According to the universal dictionary Wikepedia, the concept of an all-day musical celebration on the days of the solstice was originated by the American musician, Joel Cohen who spent two seasons as a producer of musical programmes for the French national radio. When Jack Lang was appointed as France’s Minister of Culture by President François Mitterrand in 1981, one of his first tasks was to formalize the event into a yearly Day of Music. June 21 was chosen and the idea immediately blossomed into what is today World Music Day, commemorated in some 120 countries across the world.

Revelers did not even wait until yesterday to begin the celebration as musicians took to the podium with sell-out ecstatic audiences on Saturday evening across the entire globe for musical shows. From Los Angeles to Paris; London to Hong Kong or Cape Town to Melbourne, it was with the same excitement that thousands of fans came out to mark what is fast becoming a veritable globalised feasting platform. Music is one of the rare heritages handed down from generation to generation with each one trying to improve on what was received. Its interest has remained virtually the same.

Who doesn’t stand by, even briefly and in the midst of the most intense moments, to listen to an intoning of one of the great masters as Beethoven, Mozart or Bath? The great Nineteenth century German philosopher, Frederich Nietsche said “without music, life would be a mistake” while his compatriot, the celebrated physicist Albert Einstein is also quoted to have said; “If I were not a physicist, I would probably have been a musician. I often think in music. I live my dreams in music. I see my life in terms of music”.

And more recent musicians unanimously accept the importance of music. One good thing about music, said Reggae king Bob Marley, “is that when it hits you, you feel no pains”. This simply means in our current world deplete with pockets of tensions and with the growing clash of civilizations which is fueling wars and strife across the globe, music, as a unifying element, can cause a turnaround.

In Cameroon, musicians joined their peers around the globe, but the celebration of World Music Day could have been a lot better if the music sector had not gotten itself entangled in senseless internecine bickering which have dealt a serious blow to the overall performance of the industry. Music here has in the past few years been a source of division. Once upon a time, music was considered as a non-partisan and neutral forum bringing together friend and foe in the simple pursuit of obtaining pleasure.

The various musician associations and copyrights groups are at each others’ throats and, of course, musical production is suffering because sponsors can hardly determine which one of the many feuding associations is sufficiently representative. The acrimonious situation in which Cameroonian musicians find themselves makes it difficult for new talents to emerge, neither does the situation encourage creativity or new ideas; because the focus today is solely on which of the many battling groups a musician belongs to.

World Music Day is therefore an occasion to summon musicians and decision-makers to the need to organize a sector which, like sports and unlike political affiliation, can greatly mobilize the nation to work for a sense of purpose while, at the same time, procuring very useful solace and enjoyment for a citizenry badly in need of the rare moments as those provided through music. So, stake-holders and musicians: Let the music play!