The 17th of January will forever hold meaning for me. For one, it’s the birthday of a close friend and founding member of Better Breed Cameroon- the youth development organization I coordinate. Sama Randy, passed away three years ago this month and has since been remembered by the Youth Essay Contest we have since renamed in his honor (please click here to learn more about the Sama Randy Youth Write Contest). Last year, another memorable event took place on the 17th of January. On the evening of this day last year, our government decided to take stifling of opposing voices to another level. It was a Tuesday, around 6pm. We heard rumors- turned fact- of the arrest of leaders of the Consortium who were at the time heading protests against the government over Anglophone marginalization. These arrests were followed by an internet shut-down in the two Anglophone regions where protests were situated. Looking back, I can say that day marked the greatest mistake our government has made in years. With the decision made on that day, our government not only validated our protests but equally gave the opportunity to fanatics to spread and grow leading to the impasse we now experience. See, that day marked a turning point for people of my generation. We of the “android generation” (as they call our 90’ Babies forward) have known our government to be corrupt, our officials to be power-drunk thieves, selfish brownnosers to their core. Yet, we had until this past year only known of our governments’ brutality only through the lens of history, through exaggerated quartier tales we grew up hearing; like “did you know the first lady’s former lover was killed when our president took interest in her or did you know our former first lady died mysteriously?” All rumors we could not confirm but which ensured we looked at our officials with the right tinge of fear. Similar to the way our parents and those generally older and more aware bowed lower in the face of gendarmes and generally feared to talk about politics in certain places. Yes, up until last year we knew our government was bad, but we hadn’t known the fear of those who had witnessed it firsthand. As a Nigerian proverb goes; a child who crosses the river carried on the mother’s back would say the water was not deep. We had read of Ahidjo’s governments’ complicity with the French in crushing the Maquisards and assassinating Cameroon’s early patriots. We had listened as our parents discussed the infamous disappearance of the Bepanda 9 incident following the opposition to our current president’s changing of the constitution. But still, we had been sheltered and had yet to witness our government shutdown a part of the country, arbitrarily arrest hundreds on flimsy excuses and cart them off to Yaoundé as though they were Jews to Hitler’s concentration camps. We had not lived the fear of militarized towns, nor imagined government officials could lie so blatantly about the regions we inhabited. We had not experienced government imposed curfews and ‘states of emergency’ nor had we known that the police we scorned as thieves could also be heartlessly brutal batterers. January 17th 2017 set off a chain of events which brought an end to our relative naivety and unleashed possibilities- possibilities of the worst kind- into our minds. After experiencing months of internet shutdown, closure of free press, brutal repression of protesters (peaceful or otherwise), refusal to dialogue, arrests of those who so much as expressed opinions of the issue online or in public… and even when the internet access was restored, even when some of those arbitrarily arrested were released, even then we saw that our administrators lacked basic managerial skills as they continuously chose force over dialogue, and denial over addressing of the problem. A year later, as I ponder on how things have developed, Langston Hughes’ most popular poem comes to mind. In Harlem, Hughes’ ponders on what happens to a dream deferred. Harlem BY LANGSTON HUGHES What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode? Today I consider the state of my country, the effects of ignoring and then suppressing justifiable protests. I ponder on the consequences of whitewashing our history, denying the existence of two Cameroon’s and of having a government which- like the ill-famed ostrich- have buried their heads in the sand insisting there is no problem… and as I do this, I think of the above poem and I feel I can answer Hughes. A dream deferred shall fester and run. Like the dream of Ndeh Ntumazah’s One Kamerunn party now crusting over as ‘Ambazonia’. A dream deferred stinks rotten like the death of Bate Besong still an open sore in our history as with every other revolutionary who spoke up and was cut down. And by all indications, if the Anglophone dream continues to be deferred…it shall explode. Perhaps we should stop postponing and address the dreams this country was built on before they become nightmares.
So… What did 2017 teach you?
Earlier this year, I wrote on the development of the now year-long crisis which has plagued the Anglophone regions of Cameroon. I outlined the emergence of the struggle and build-up due to utter mishandling from the government and the frustration of a minority, all in hope of our collective learning as a nation. As the year comes to an end and the crisis still rages- with more violence than ever in some parts of these regions- I have wondered if we actually did learn anything. For me the end of year period is meant for reflection; a time for assessing the year about to pass by and preparing for the one about to begin. I have thus considered the lessons 2017 has taught me personally, lessons like: i. Some things/people will never be yours no matter how hard you work, how hard you pray and how much you may deserve it/them. We do not always get what we deserve. That is both a good and bad thing. ii. You matter. Someone impressionable is watching you, looking up to you, believing in you. So act like you matter. iii. Your work matters. Invest in it. Hone your craft. iv. Pain too can bloom things. It’s not the best fertilizer but it works. v. Not everyone you admire is right for you and you are not for everyone. And now I consider the lessons 2017 and the experiences of this year should have taught us all as Cameroonians. In case you’ve been dozing throughout the year, here are some takeaways in point form: 1- Before you start a protest have a plan. Advocacy is targeted, and meaningful. You can be an online activist, your voice is a powerful tool and your social media page is no doubt a useful platform BUT for you to be an advocate, you need to be targeting those in power able to change things or actively following procedure in changing them. Otherwise you’re not doing much. Anger at this government is justified, however misdirected anger and lack of strategy is deadly. We’ve been under this regime for 35+ years… anyone trying to save us from it should have used this time to come up with a good plan. It doesn’t have to be foolproof, but it should be logical. As a friend of mine put it a while back: Before you demand my allegiance to a new order, convince me that what you offer me is better than the last. 2- Hold your heroes to higher standards, this is not a game. A popular adage goes: An unchecked virtue is a vice; meaning what/who is good can easily go bad because of too much praise and too little criticism. I think this is the strongest lesson of the year. In our desire for change we, as Cameroonians have come to crown any loud voice as messiah. However this, the future of our nation and our collective well-being, is not a scenario where we can make do with “a one-eyed man in the land of the blind”. Perhaps because we’re not all that blind, most of us are just suffering from nearsightedness. So please check and double-check your heroes, does your hero/leader of choice make sexist remarks? Is he/or she knowledgeable of the laws/constitution they criticize? Is he or she transparent? Does he or she have lingering scandals? Is he or she a trusted source of verified information? Can he or she handle power without becoming power-drunk? We should have learned that he who cannot handle criticism now will be no better than Biya when it comes his turn to rule. He who would sacrifice others and ignore their real needs at this time, will not suddenly change with power. And not everyone who speaks up for us is meant to be our mouthpiece. Someone can appreciate the general problem, but due to their background and context, be out of touch with the other intersecting oppressions people in different classes, with different levels of education, and so forth experience. 3- Do your research, verify information. Fake news is real; spreading it is not a joke. We may all scoff at the government’s annoying message with veiled threats regarding the spread of fake news- particularly considering how much fake news they spread by lies of omission. Yet, it is an undeniable fact, that unverified information “forwarded as received” caused a lot of destruction of property and loss this year. Unverified information readily shared because it sounds sensational, appeals to our desired outcome or because we’re too damn lazy to cross check sources and possibility, caused a great deal of damage this year. Fake news damaged the credibility of a revolution and led to loss of property and life every time a rumor went around inciting young people to the streets where they were met with certain police brutality. Pray we have learned that not everything is worth sharing. In fact, let me make it clear in our most common language: *holds ear* make this thing sey forwarded as received end this 2017. If you don’t know the source and are not certain the info is true, keep it to yourself.4- In the words of MJ ‘They don’t really care about us”. It is hoped that we’ve learned that no one is coming to save us. That no one owes us more than we owe ourselves. That no one can do for us what we have yet to do for ourselves. This is for those who marched before embassies of France, the United Kingdom, Canada etc. but failed to hold their own ambassadors accountable. This is for those who readily spread rumors about UNESCO canceling a school year only to see some (middle class) children progress to higher institutions with the release of results while theirs were at home. If nothing else, may 2017 have taught us that we must organize to save ourselves. The international community has never been an impartial judge. If we don’t care about ourselves,
No-Internet Cameroon: Two months on
On the evening of 17th January 2017, two regions in Cameroon- one of which is my permanent domicile- were indefinitely cut off from internet access. Today marks two months. The government claims it “had to take drastic measures to curb the spread of false information and extremist messages”. This could be debated. However collectively punishing over 4 million people by limiting their freedom of speech, hindering their business operations and so much more just because our government cannot stand bad things being said about them? That is not debatable. It is just wrong, short-sighted and dictatorial. I have no doubts that if Cameroon were a lot more united. If my people had a stronger sense of social justice, this would not be happening. The other eight regions would not have taken it in stride that two were being silenced. Both Anglophones and Francophones make up the other eight regions. If we had even a tenth of self-respecting government administrators, this would not be happening… again, I find myself concluding that we are all to blame. No one person can successfully mess up a country with tens of millions. Yet here we are. I wrote about my experience living under the internet ban and my thoughts on #BringBackourInternet for ThisIsAfrica.me Find an excerpt with a link to the full piece below: Life in No- Internet Cameroon It used to be difficult to explain that there were two Cameroons. At conferences, international round tables where Africans and Afro-inquisitive Westerners would swap stories, as well as questions and assumptions about each other’s countries, you would often have to debunk the myth that you were fluent in French by virtue of being Cameroonian and being called Monique. It would take too long to explain the invisible divide of that Picot Line. This problem, which has since either been ignored or normalised, would be too broad to broach. So you limit your comments on your country to corruption, the president’s everlasting reign, conveniently patriarchal cultural ‘values’ – issues all Africans understand and face, unfortunately, irrespective of their country of origin. But recently your government has made it easier to explain that there are two Cameroons. They somehow found that dividing line that no one would acknowledge existed and now it is clear: There is Internet Cameroon and No-Internet Cameroon, that is, La Republic du Cameroun, which gained independence from French rule on 1 January 1960, and former British Southern Cameroons, which gained independence by merging with ‘long lost brothers’ on 1 October 1961. Now when your colleagues from other countries ask you about Cameroon, it is easier to explain the problem that has long been ignored and subdued. Easier, not easy. The issues of who and what you identify as remains as complex as ever. Now your colleagues ask you, how are you coping? What is it like living under an Internet ban? You attempt to help them envisage it. Imagine this, you say: So, what is it like? It is 7pm. Just two hours earlier news had broken of the government banning the associations at the forefront of the longest and largest strikes in recent national history. Now you are reading reports online, stating that some of the leaders of the strike (and one of the now banned associations) have been arrested. Upon reading this you feel alarmed. You attempt calling those you know to check on their well-being. Your call doesn’t go through. You try reaching out to mutual friends and family online to discuss your fears and ascertain their safety, but your messages keep loading. You can’t see the tick next to your WhatsApp messages, the one that would confirm that they had been delivered. You assume it is the network; that the lines are probably crammed as the news of arrests sends everyone scurrying to call their loved ones. Things will surely escalate. And they do. You see cars held up on the road just outside your window – bikers have taken to blocking the roads with burning tires and abandoned cars to show their displeasure. You hear shots being fired into the air, the police descending with tear gas. People try to park their cars on the pavements to hide in the safety of neighboring buildings like the one you live in. Others use the opportunity to loot and steal – you see them running with gas bottles stolen from the local gas station. You have dismantled your phone and reassembled it twice, removing and replacing your SIM card, restarting it, feeling confident that the network will return so you can check in with your loved ones or follow updates on the situation. An hour later you receive a call from a friend who is stuck a mile from your place due to the road blocks. Could he come spend the night? he asks. The roads are blocked and the police are arresting whoever they can. When he arrives at your place, he tells you of the fear on fellow passengers’ faces when they saw tires burning on the road and bikers with bottles – ‘kerosene bombs’ – only for the gendarmes to follow with batons and tear gas. He tells of running for his life and feeling ashamed for not stopping to help a female passenger who fell into the gutter as they both tried to escape. He says all this while reassembling his phone. You both still think it is a network problem. Hours later, you can’t sleep. You receive an SMS from a friend in Douala: Has your Internet been cut off too? she asks. It dawns on you that this may actually be it; the government may actually have cut off Internet access. You two laugh. Crazy people! you remark. How long can this last? Douala, the economic capital, needs Internet access or else businesses will crash. Heck, everyone needs Internet access. You two discuss the government’s lack of foresight until you fall
What’s happening in Cameroon? Learning, I hope
On the 10th of October 2016, Lawyers in two out of ten regions in the country went on strike/industrial action, after giving the government fair warning in 2015. For two weeks they sat home and did nothing. No one paid them any mind, in fact the Minister of Justice insulted them. They took permission to hold street protests (confirm) and after successfully marching across Commercial Ave (with a crowd of people joining them out of curiosity) their union president gave a speech calling for the end of the protests, thanking his colleagues and police who he claimed had “behaved like police of America and Britain “. He praised them prematurely it seems, because by the time he finished the police aimed teargas at their group to disperse them. Well two weeks after that incident teachers- the most populated occupational field in the nation- decided they would go on strike too. To support lawyers and to bring attention to their own issues with the government’s attempts at harmonization which tend to be more of an assimilation of one system by another. Of course this particular strike won’t be limited to the workers. It would also mean students, their parents in other professions etc. would be affected. THE MAJORITY OF THESE PEOPLE WERE NEVER FORMALLY OR CLEARLY INFORMED OF WHAT EXACTLY THEY WERE STRIKING FOR NOR FOR HOW LONG THIS WOULD GO ON. This omission was allowed to slide because we all know there was a problem with the way our government marginalized our unique systems. So we didn’t bother to define the problem knowing that there were, what harm could come of not knowing exactly which one we were fighting eh? Well as the strike progressed, language changed. The fact is, the issues raised by teachers and lawyers were a result of a much larger problem- the Anglophone problem- the problem our government tried to ignore and which a lot of our citizens have been unable to correctly diagnose. So language changed, it was no longer a fight for industrial action but gradually becoming a political revolution fueled by long repressed anger over the Anglophone predicament in this country and being used as an opportunity by a group of secessionists calling themselves Ambazonians (the name they had given the citizens of a country yet to exist which they are fighting for). In an attempt to ignore the strike thinking it would go away students of the University of Buea were called to school to write tests. However their teachers had set no tests and no one would be there to administer them, the administration basically attempted to show they were superior to the teachers they administer and it backfired. After two weeks without classes, students turned up and saw empty classrooms, then proceeded to storm the administration building and vent their anger. In the absence of the VC, the Director of Students Affair approached the students and asked for representatives to take in to see the VC’s deputies. The crowd chose the most vocal to represent them before the VC’s deputies. They presented their issues: · Anger over the fine which they were being asked to pay for late registration, · The fact that some students (Level 400 students) had yet to receive their Excellency awards Anger over being asked to come to school thereby disrespecting their teachers’ calls to stay home and respect their strike. Of these three reasons forwarded by the students only one had to do with the strike and only one was legit (and even then still questionable). The Level 400 students had already been set to receive their cash award. The proof is in the document dated Friday 25thof November. The last working day before the strike. That information had not gone out fast enough so the students didn’t know that the administration had actually had to force Yaoundé to fulfill its promise and “gift students with the award”. The fine the students complained about though was a more legitimate problem, not because students were being fined (quite frankly given the way we do things at last minute, or abuse deadlines we need to be fined) but rather because the fine was too steep 1/5th the school fees and it didn’t help that students were late to pay their registration fees this year as a result of technical issues with the school’s website. While they had a legit problem few of them had attempted to complain to the right office nor did they use their elected student leaders to lobby for them. In essence, being called back to school they used an already tense atmosphere to vent their frustration without prior warning. In fear of aggravating the situation, the deputies agreed with all student demands: The fine will be revoked, level 400 students will receive their awards as was already arranged, and the students would be asked to come to school only after the teachers called off their strike, the director returned with the student reps. to the crowd of students in front of the building. But things had changed, the peaceful students had been infiltrated. Students were now being encouraged by members of the banned student union UBSU to demand for the reinstatement of the union. The director thinking he had done all to appease the students was told no, they want to see the VC and have their union reinstated. This was obviously unexpected as that association had been banned for several years and few undergraduate students new of it enough to demand reinstatement. Later, when I would leave the security of the administrative block I would recognize alumni, UBSU members of the batch ahead of me, and see their vandalism of staff cars which would be blamed on the peaceful group who were obtuse to their protest being used. I would realize that calling students back to school rather than addressing the striking teachers at that time, created fertile grounds for manipulation and chaos. These UBSU members who had
The Silent Majority
August of this year shall make five years of my blogging here on Musings. It was in August of 2012 during a trip to Nigeria for Chimamanda’s Farafina workshop that a friend of a friend, Martin Takha first introduced me to the world of blogging. Helping me with everything from the Gmail account to deciding the first template I used for a couple of years. As Cameroon’s ‘blogosphere’ has become crowded with a plethora of people aspiring to be Cameroon’s Linda Ikeji, I am proud to say I’ve stayed true to myself and the purpose of this blog. A dual purpose actually; to ensure I write regularly and to create platform through which I could share my views, defend my opinions and if possible tell a side of our story which may be otherwise missed as popular mediums echo a single often incomplete story. I have promoted blogging through my youth advocacy as a means for young people to get their voices heard. Through BetterBreed Cameroon I have preached to young people on the necessity in telling their own story, sharing their thoughts on issues they are affected by or care passionately for through Medium, LinkedIn, as Commonwealth Youth Correspondents, via World Pulse and of course through their own blogs. I suppose I should have considered the possibility of an internet ban imposed to hush us. In fact I did consider it, for about 5 mins during two different conversations. First being about six months ago when a friend told me of her experience in Ethiopia under the internet ban and then when we laughed about Turkey’s president need to abate anxiety over the attempted Coup d’état via Face-time? after recently banning social media. My friends and I discussed these incidents shook our heads, shrugged, laughed and let it go. Then it was my turn. Today makes a week since two regions in Cameroon have been denied internet access as the government attempts to quench protests against Anglophone marginalization in these regions via brute force. The protest leaders were arrested that night and smuggled out of the regions, simultaneously internet access was shut down so as to hamper the spread of news. During the last week I’ve had lot of time to think (the absence of social media distractions will do that for you lol), and two quotes came to mind: These two quotes spoke to me as I lamented on how the internet ban affects budding tech-entrepreneurs in Buea’s “Silicon Mountain”, how banks (which pay Cameroon’s exorbitant taxes) are closed for lack of internet access, how those who work predominantly online either for webzines, as researchers or just communicating with clients/business partners are now grounded along with scholars (like myself) who have online classes to follow and participate in. I wondered how backwards our leaders must be to punish over 4 million people in two regions because they didn’t like criticisms of them being spread via social media and couldn’t find another way to solve a problem they let grow out of proportion. But above all I thought of HOW this could be happening. It’s 2017 for God’s sake! Then the above two quotes reminded me that this happened in 2016 and I said nothing. It happened in two countries I know of (three counting Gambia during elections) and I barely tweeted my disapproval. Evil prevails because good men failed to act. A lot of people didn’t stand up in those circumstances, so it happened then, and now it is happening to me. Yet not enough people are reacting. Within my own country, a great deal of Cameroonians in the French speaking regions are either unaware or could care less about the ban. Three days into the ban I ‘crossed the border’ into the Francophone section of the country and when I checked online only a handful of people were talking about it. Some acquaintances online even attempted to justify the government’s actions saying “social media was spurring terrorism and the government had a right to take it away”. When I told one of them he was stupid for that I was told “you shouldn’t bring in insults when we are having a peaceful debate”. How can one be peaceful when they are justifying (and therefore an accomplice in) your suppression? How? Today I’m a bit calmer, I crossed the border this morning to find that voices- online at least- have grown against the internet ban using the hashtag #BringBackOurInternet. Yet there are not enough in my honest opinion, and there is a noticeable lack in Francophone voices. Yesterday it was Ethiopia, Turkey and Gambia, today it is my Northwest and Southwest regions, tomorrow it will likely be the whole of Cameroon as we face the 2018 elections… Please join us to speak up now. Speak now that tomorrow you still have your voice. Tweet to the Cameroonian government, our telecommunication agencies and all those you can using #BringBackOurInternet. Remember: If you are silent, they will kill you and say you enjoyed it- Zora Neale Hurston.
Imagining My President’s New Year Message- A Christmas Wish
I have been unable to do any real writing for weeks now. Between losing several friends and experiencing a peaceful strike turn into a brutal scary revolution, 2016 is leaving me drained. As I assess the year in these last days, I can only compare it to Sour Cream and Vinegar flavored Pringles. It has fed me but left a bad taste in my mouth. My musings this month have ranged from existential questions (Is this life so fleeting, so unpredictable? What’s my Life Purpose again and what’s in it for me?) to political debates (How to best explain to outsiders and the fellow Cameroonians who don’t understand what the Anglophone problem is, Is this revolution on the right course etc.). Several pieces could be written from the thoughts this month has brought. But as I said, I am drained and I just want to think happy, hopeful thoughts. Every year, on the 31stof December Paul Biya, the president of Cameroon for 34 years now, makes a New Year’s speech. In fact the first ‘Musings’ post of 2016 was a review of his speech heralding in this year (read that post HERE). As this year closes and we await another speech. I’ve decided to be hopeful and muse on what I wish my president would say in that speech. I wish he would, as he did last year, look for words to describe the year our nation has experienced. I imagine the suitable words for this year would be ‘fed-up’. It seems his praise of our resilience at the beginning of the year marked our reaching the limits of tolerance. I wish he would express regrets at driving a truly resilient people to this breaking point. In this ideal speech, I imagine my president acknowledging how those he put in power, and the foreigners who he has all but sold us to, contributed to poor maintenance of the Yaounde-Douala road and eventually the loss of lives in the Eseka train crash. I imagine my president apologizing for the laissez-faire nature of his leadership and cabinet which led to legitimate complaints of Common Law Lawyers being ignored and the strikes and protest which followed. I expect him to condemn the violence, arbitrary hoisting of flags and looting done by protesters, but I wish he would avoid branding protesters “terrorists” and acknowledge that had his administration adequately addressed early complaints and the initially peaceful sit-in strike, nipping this in the bud, things would never have gotten this bad. In this ideal speech my president would for once address the nation in English attempting to prove that we are indeed bilingual and equal. Whilst speaking the language of the minority he would equally condemn the spirit of secession and express understanding of its origins. While I expect him to criticize those spreading hate between the Francophones and Anglophones, I pray and wish he is gutsy (or just tired enough) to acknowledge the problem rather than shy from it. I expect him to know that this is not an issue of who gets what ministerial post, nor an issue of what regions are more developed (quite frankly the South region from which the president hails is just as much- if not more- undeveloped). I pray that as president he is informed and conscious enough to know that this goes way beyond Francophones taking opportunities in Anglophone regions though these are the reasons you’ll hear brandied about. I imagine that in his often long-winded speech he takes the time to acknowledge that while people of all regions have problems, the Anglophone problem is unique because it has institutionalized one group as superior to the other. It has made bilingualism an option for one group, while for the other bilingualism is necessary for survival irrespective of which part of the Mungo they reside. After all you could get arrested in Limbe, never knowing your crime because the person arresting you does so while speaking French. I pray my president acknowledges that over the years since 1972’s “unification” there has been a systematic disregard for the minority (English speaking) thus creating a bias in favor of the majority (French speaking). I would be okay with him sharing the blame for this; he could blame his predecessor – Ahidjo- and the setup which was the 1972 referendum, he could blame the bevy of present day Anglophone politicians who remain mute on the problem for fear of losing their positions, he could even blame the citizens who pretend like he’s the perfect president when they meet him, and the numerous traditional rulers of Anglophone regions who have made him “Fon of Fons” and continuously convince him they love his reign with their ‘motions of support’. He need not take all the blame, there’s enough to go around. Heck I wrote an Open Letter to Cameroonians calling them out on this same thing almost three years ago. I shall be lenient as to just how much blame ought to be shelled out to him, but I expect my president to ‘man up” for once. I pray he truly dearly loves his country somewhere deep down beneath those double-breasted suits. That he loves the country enough to condemn the violence his armed forces used on students and other protesters. That he censures ‘forces of law and order’ who have done the opposite of their duty to protect and serve just as much as he does violent protesters who use a peaceful strike to cause chaos. I pray he recognizes that when the people fear the police rather than call on them for help, there is a problem. A grave problem. Make Cameroon Hopeful Again! Finally, I would be most ecstatic if my president would crown his speech with acknowledging that his aged self cannot see us into that ‘land of Canaan’ the government has painted Vision 2035 to be, and declare like Angola’s presidentthat he, Paul Biya, will not be running for future elections. Such a declaration would give Cameroonians