Cameroon: Pantheon of Hypocrisy

In opening the 17th Ambassadors’ conference in Paris on 16 August 2009,Nicholas Sarkozy said “2010 will be an important year for the relations between Africa and France: fourteen former colonies will celebrate the 50th anniversary of their independence.

It will therefore be a year dedicated to faithfulness in friendship and solidarity. But I also want 2010 to signal the completion of a substantive overhaul in our relations with the continent…” This was like a sneeze that set various actions in motion in “former colonies”.

Probably considering Cameroon as one of the “former colonies”, Paul Biya jumped onto the bandwagon, and announced on 31 December 2009 that 1st January 2010 is the 50th anniversary of “Cameroon’s” independence, before adding that 2011 will see the celebration of 50 years of reunification!

For 13 years from 1976 to 1989, the USA celebrated the 200th anniversary of the U S Constitution: 1976 being the 200th year since their Declaration of Independence, and 1989 representing the 200th year of the adoption of their constitution. Rather than jump onto the Sarkozy bandwagon, Paul Biya who usually prides himself with a concept he calls national unity, and presents it as one of the main achievements of his 28-year reign, would have done something similar to that. He would have declared a unified celebration of the independence of Cameroon from January 1, 2010 to October 1, 2011.

His decision to rather declare 1 January as the day to be celebrated as Cameroon’s Independence Day only further polarizes the country, confirms him as a nationalist of the “Republic of Cameroon”, and again plays into the hands of nationalists of “Southern Cameroons”.

Following the decision he created a 50th Anniversary Commission piloted by his civil cabinet;the commission has since announced on 22 February 2010 that a Pantheon would be built for “heroes” of the independence struggle!

If Voltaire wrote about “independence” rather than about “reason”, he would have probably written that many fought for independence, others did not at all, and others persecuted those who fought. This would have fitted the story of Cameroon very well. This decision to celebrate “heroes” vilified in the past,gives the impression that there is now a synthesis of the divergent views thatcharacterized our politics before and after independence.

Of course, it is not true.
The way in which Cameroonians came to understand themselves and their relations to one another was not the result of their own free choice – it was imposed on us.

First, upon gaining self-rule, the tension that always exists between the free individual in society and the autonomous society, and ultimately provides each citizen with opportunity and incentive to use common sense, imagination and their God-given talents to contribute to national advancement, was felt to be unbearable by those to whom the French handed the country. So Ahidjo quickly sought a synthesis between the free individual and the autonomous society, at the cost of loss of individual freedoms, and the autonomy of society; at the cost of the eradication of the culture of democracy.

One party and one man rule was instituted at the cost of the KNDP and its leaders, the UPC and its leaders,Bebbey Eyidi, Charles Okala, Andre Marie Mbida, Victor Kanga, Goji Dinka,Bishop Ndongmo, Albert Mukong, and many others.
The repressive mind-set that prevailed just after independence still prevails in our society today. Indeed, we are not yet vaccinated against the ills of the past that have kept us in the league of countries that are rich in all aspects,and yet are among the poorest countries in the world. We are daily reminded that like the one-party rule that was “given” us, “democracy” has also been“given” us by an all powerful “monarch”.

We should never lose sight of the fact that in such a culture of “giving” by strongmen, he who gives can take back at will, as we are witnessing with ELECAM.

The CPDM,like the CNU in the past is still the only source of new ideas, even if their new ideas are limited to designs to keep Paul Biya in power in perpetuity. This is unlike in open societies where the source of new ideas, especially long range goals and strategic paths towards them, originate mainly from outside government and outside a single political party. The Cameroon regime in power since 50 years has done its best to control grassroots organizations, and to make business and financial operators that are essential to the economy,members of the CPDM; the regime has co-opted and gagged scientific institutions and universities in which independent thinkers may threaten the power monopoly of the rulers.

The decision to build a Pantheon for “heroes” of the past requires that such“heroes” be identified by people. Invariably, such people will be members of the 50th Anniversary Commission, or some other such commission created by the regime in place. What is clear is that such people cannot recognize in other persons the quality they do not have themselves!

Our society is still governed as a single, “unified” collective, oriented towards the adoration of one man. It is not yet a democracy - a truly plural society - whose inherent divisions and tensions make it constantly open to the new. The recognition of “heroes of the past” is a statement against a past whose habits did not serve us, and yet there is as yet no rupture with that past. The Ngondas are still being murdered for selfish interests; the Fubes are still being arrested and locked up for their opinion; the Lapiroes are still being jailed for their opinion; public meetings and manifestations are still being banned at will and disrupted violently; students are still being killed in campuses, or banished from studying in state universities because of their effort to better their study environment…

The place of political culture in Cameroon is still occupied by populist “democracy”;the culture of democracy as epitomized by reflective public judgment has been subsumed under a culture of motions of support.
Creating a Pantheon for“heroes of the past” is nothing short of hypocrisy!