Dismantling the Anachronistic-French-imposed System in Cameroon, and Founding the New Cameroon that is a Federation

The anachronistic French-imposed system in Cameroon needs to be dismantled for anything meaningful, sustainable, unifying, and progressive to take roots in our beloved but haunted Cameroon being ravaged by those who did not contribute to its independence and reunification. The problem in that beloved triangle in the heart of Africa otherwise called “The Microcosm of Africa” or “Africa in miniature” is not between Anglophones and Francophones. Make the government 80% Anglophone and 20% Francophone with the system in place and with the positions in high office not having been won through the genuine choice of the people, and the problem would still be there. The half a century system is one managed by compradors, most of whom have little concern for the wellbeing of Cameroon. They do not truly have Cameroon at heart. Cameroon is like a person having cancer with all the symptoms that come with it---pain, fatigue, weight loss, cough, fever, etc. Yet we find that the custodians of the system and those whose interests for the wellbeing of the land are haunted by parochialism focus on those symptoms with painkillers, antioxidants, etc. instead of operating on the cancer, chemotherapy etc...

 

 

 

A federation is good for Cameroon, but we should bear in mind that the 1961 federation consolidated a dictatorship in the former French Cameroon that was shaky at the time and contributed to ensuring the defeat of the humane forces that were fighting for Kamerun’s total, complete, and universal liberation---the historic UPC. Our politicians from West Cameroon unwittingly contributed to making Ahidjo the monster that he became and made Biya inevitable. Our politicians who wielded power in the 1960s were appeasers and ended up making Anglophone Cameroon (West Cameroon) to be subjugated like the rest of Francophone Cameroon. Winston Churchill is quoted as saying:

 "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile-hoping it will eat him last."

Our early politicians were forewarned. Even some of our contemporary Anglophone politicians too. Alas, who listens. Few are capable of thinking things through, especially when they stand to gain something from the action that they are being warned about.

 

 It is obvious today that the unitary system that the custodians of the French-imposed system are trying to  maintain has resulted in a dysfunctionality that is haunting Cameroon and leading it into the abyss; it is obvious that the "AMBAZONIA" project of  separatism  is messy and retrogressive; however, it is also obvious that the most progressive, humane and all-embracing ideal ever churned out in the lands of the former German Kamerun was its civic-nationalism espoused  by the historic UPC of 1948-1970, the reunificationist political parties in British Cameroons (One Kamerun--OK of Ndeh Ntumazah and Albert Mukong; KNC--- Kamerun National Congress of E. M. L. Endeley, Salomon Tandeng Muna, John Ngu Foncha and Sampson George formed  in 1952 from the merger of two pro-unification parties, the Kamerun United National Congress and the Cameroons National Federation; and finally  the KNDP---Kamerun National Democratic Party of Salomon Tandeng Muna, John Ngu Foncha formed in 1955), and the heirs of Kamerunian civic-nationalists, including those who lost their way either because of the exigencies of the times or out of human weaknesses.

 

 

 That civic-nationalism, otherwise called Kamerunism or Cameroonian union-nationalism acknowledged our mutual compatibilities nurtured by a unique geographic space, social interaction, economic ties, cultural affinities, long history of connectedness, and spiritual links that the Anglo-French partition of Kamerun in 1916 did not and could not break. The game-plan of those historic civic-nationalist forces (Kamerunists) was to found a "New Cameroon" built on a consensus hammered out by Kamerunians who were separated through no fault of theirs to suit the interest of foreign powers, Kamerunians who managed to see through the social-engineering project of the foreign powers and their Cameroonian compradors and decided to found a nation-state that would be an embodiment of the future economically united and politically integrated Africa.

 

  

It is on that most humane of ideals that our land has ever produced, an ideal whose exponents have been ferociously haunted down by foreign and internal enemies of the Cameroonian people; it is on this great vision that over time has proven to be the only progressive way forward for our people, that all our human and material resources should be focused on to bring it to reality.  The "New Cameroon" would be a federation where no individuals or group of Cameroonians with a historic connection to the land would feel less at home in. The New Cameroon would be the prototype or model for "The New Africa" that would take our land and people into the fourth industrial revolution. The New Cameroon should consider the concerns, hopes, dreams, fears, and aspirations of all the different Cameroonian groups, but not their self-centered or divisive dictates.

 

 

 

 

 

Janvier Tchouteu       September 01, 2021