Rejecting Ethno-Fascism in Cameroon

 

I am concerned by some of the terms some Cameroonians with ethnofascist tendencies  are using to befuddle if not amaze or hoodwink unsuspecting Cameroonians into going along with their game plans to divide us even further and create microstates based on their dominant ethnicities or group of related languages, or based on a present or former geopolitical entity and other identifiers. They use examples that are solidly nations or nation states  to lend credence to their application of the word(s) nation, nationhood to the geopolitical entities they want to create, geopolitical entities that are diverse, multi-ethnic and even multi-religious; they are trying to create new geopolitical entities where other Cameroonians would be excluded from. I am talking about the ethnofascists among those who are peddling the notion of creating an Ekang State that they are calling a nation, an Amabazonian state that they are calling a nation, and whatnot.

 

One of them talked of an Ekang state whose people are related to the people of the Levant (Syrians, Lebanese, Israelis, Jews, Palestinians, and Jordanians) when modern genetic studies show no interrelationship between the Cameroonian peoples or ethnicities he is talking about and the people of the Levant (as the Cameroonian groups and the Levantines have polar opposite haplogroups, for one).

 

Another talks of an Ambazonian nation from the territory of the former British Southern Cameroons, an Ambazonian nation that is separate from the rest of Cameroon, like the Scots, the Welsh, and the Irish. He forgot to understand that these are European nationalities or nations based on ethnicity---having been moulded from the different Celtic tribes of the area; he forgot that those nations have clearly delineated territories, and that other nations like the Cornish people exist in England or the rest of the UK.  In a nutshell, the Cornish people, the Welsh people, the Northern Irish people, The Scots, the English, and other smaller indigenous peoples of Britain are nations or nationalities (words derived from ethnic nationalism as identified by political philosophers, anthropological linguists, and even international law) of the UK. However, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales are constituent nation-states of the sovereign state of the United Kingdom (UK) based on their unique nationalities and designated territories where they are or were a majority as a unique people or ethnicity.

 

In the case of British Southern Cameroons,  it became the constituent State of West Cameroon or a federal unit of the sovereign state of Cameroon (The Cameroon Federation) upon its independence and reunification with The Republic of Cameroun (LRC) on October 01, 1961. The other constituent state or federal unit was East Cameroon (the former Republic of Cameroun).  The Federal Republic of Cameroon was then regarded as a sovereign state made up of two constituent states or two constituent federal units, not two constituent nations.

Kamerunists, or union-nationalists always had a "NEW CAMEROON" in mind that would be a civic-nation built around shared citizenship within the state, involving foremost all the ethnic nations (ethnicities) within Cameroon, and based on civic-nationalism, which is an advanced form of patriotism and liberal nationalism grounded on traditional liberal values of equality, freedom, individual rights, multiculturalism, and tolerance.

 

The historic UPC of 1948-1970, the One Kamerun (OK) of Ndeh Ntumazah and Albert Mukong, and the historic SDF of 1990-1997 when the civic-nationalist faction was dominant in the party and before the derailment of the SDF, all embraced civic-nationalism like it is practised in the United States of America. They aimed to create a "NEW CAMEROON", a state based on civic nationhood that would promote the evolution of a unique Cameroonian identity that would be the prototype for the future NEW AFRICA, a New Africa that is developed, free, independent, united, and self-confident.

 

The shortcomings of the geopolitical entity called Cameroon are entrenched in its political control---the Ahidjo/Biya regimes and the anachronistic French-imposed system---and the resultant dysfunctions that is not a reflection of Cameroonians. The decades of social engineering failed to damage the social harmony if not social tolerance among Cameroon’s different groups. More than a century of shared destiny has resulted in an advanced social cohesiveness, which proves that Cameroon’s civic-nationalists are vindicated even though they are yet to get their hands on the levers of power. A good example is the current reality where more children are being born from inter-ethnic relationships in our urban centers than from parents identifying with a single ethnic group. Cameroonians who are socially accepting would be able to realize their full potentials(individually and collectively) after they are politically liberated.

 

A civic nation emerges from a territory of diverse nationalities or ethnicities  only when the 28 Fundamental Principles of  the United States of America’s Founding Fathers, especially the principle which states that “All mankind were created equal.”, are applied, by which The Founding Fathers meant that all mankind, and more specifically the citizens of that territory, are theoretically treated as:

1.  Equal before God.

2.  Equal before the law.

3.  Equal in their rights.

 

So, those with the exclusivist agenda in their separate  dreams to create an Ekang State and  an Ambazonia State do not qualify as civic-nationalists and are incapable of creating a civic-nation out of the fundamentally all-embracing Cameroonian people, a civic-nation that would uphold human decency and promote humanitarian values. Any Cameroonian who holds biases against other Cameroonians based on their ethnicity, religion or language of expression to the point of advocating for the exclusion or the hurting of these Cameroonians he or she does not like, is an ethnofacists, an ancient-thinking mind and a person with either the Demonic Mindset or the Zombie Mindset. They should never be taken seriously, should be dismissed altogether or we can put some sense into their heads.

 

Often times these Cameroonian political monsters lack the empathy to  accept or even relate to the traumas in Cameroonian history---the avoidable deaths from the Franco-Ahidjo war against  the UPC Maguisards (liberation fighters)  and the populations supporting them, and the avoidable deaths from the conflict in the Northwest and Southwest regions.

 

Janvier Tchouteu                                                                 October 29, 2021

Janvier Tchouteu is the author of Triple Agent, Double Cross

The curse of Ethno-centricism and Regional Biases in Cameroon, especially West of the Mungo and Metazem Rivers

 On November 16, 2020, a compatriot  whom I respect despite the fact that we sometimes share opposing political views, wrote on Facebook that:

“In the last few weeks, I have read a series of Xenophobic posts written by CPDM surrogates of both SW and NW origin using nuances to abuse, disrespect and sometimes express hatred against people from NW origin living in the SW... “

 

The compatriot was accused by his friend of making biased statements against others in the past. The compatriots past faux pas could be considered flukes.  All the same, I dwelled on the subject by sharing my views below:

 

 “He is right for accusing you of spewing hatred against other peoples in the past. All the same, I applaud your words above because it shows that you saw the light and now abhor ethnic, racial ...etc discrimination. Good!”

 

Countless times have I interceded against words by some Amba leaders and others supporting the Anglophone Cameroonian (SCNC) cause, calling for doom to befall Francophones and certain ethnicities, especially those east of the Mungo, and more especially the Bamilekes.

 

Something I can claim which none, or perhaps few can, is the experience of having participated in the team that implanted the SDF in the Southwest (SW) in the early 1990s--- a deep participation I should add. And it was a Herculean task convincing many Southwesterners(indigenous especially)  that it was not a “Bamenda Affair” and that it would not be a repeat of the Muna/Foncha etc. or Northwestern  domination of yesteryears.

 

Southwest (SW)-born and bred Bami Anglos played a disproportionate role in the implantation, passing the leadership mantle over to Ndoki Mukete and co in July 1993. The fact that SDF became the dominant political party in the lives of indigenous Southwesterners was a big achievement; and that was done confronting many of our Northwest (NW) brothers in the SW who thought it was “Wia Party” affair, and held some of “US”  responsible for preventing them from controlling the party. Even in Limbe, my base, uplifting Jarvis Muambo who later became the mayor in 1997, was a case in point, against the interest of the NW pal I spent time in jail with as a political prisoner. I did not consider taking my interest into account in that particular indigenization process. The Bami Anglo factor also played an outsized role in convincing Francophones (West and Littoral regions in particular) to join the SDF.

 

The Truth is bitter, but it must be spoken. The successful indigenization of the SDF in the SW formed the base of the Anglophone Movement and greater cooperation between the NW and SW in the SCNC, and later Ambazonia. Oben Peter Ashu acknowledged that during one of his soul-revealing encounters in 1999 with Dr. Samuel Tchwenko (head of the SDF implantation team in the SW from 1990-1993, and front man in luring Littoral and West regions into the SDF).  Alexander Ngomba Motanga, the former Governor of the Northwest Province’s revelation to me in 2000, explaining his decade estrangement from his good friend Dr. Samuel Tchwenko, partly touched on that.

 

 But then, I started observing a phenomenon which I initially ignored in 1994, downplayed later, was perturbed by in 2000 during an encounter with Dutch Professor Koning and Professor Paul Nchoji Nkwi in Amsterdam in December 2000, and was crushed by it in 2002. The elites (Nfor Nfor, Nkwi, Professor Anyangwe, Susungi, Ngwasiri, etc) of the pro-secession or SCNC (today Ambazonia) faction in the SDF, overwhelmingly from the Northwest,  were cultivating a narrative blaming Bamilekes and Francophones in general as the ones sabotaging the SDF and Anglophone Cameroonians from realizing their goals. They made Bamilekes in particular the scapegoat. It moved to tagging Foncha completely as a Bamileke man.  I warned in 2011 that these bigots with the “Native Mindset” will create another narrative tomorrow that Fru Ndi is Bamileke. But they even beat my expectations with a thesis by one young man supposedly with the backing of pro-Ambazonia professors from the NW claiming that Bamilekes formed the SDF and that they hoodwinked Northwesterners and Southwesters into voting for reunification in 1961, even though the Founding Fathers of the SDF were all from the Northwest region, and even though results of the plebiscite showed that those districts where most Bamilekes were living in at the time (Victoria and Kumba) voted for Endeley/unification with Nigeria. And we all know that the reunification vote was before the 1962-1964 sweep and destruction of the Bamilekeland by the French army and the Cameroonian army under Ahidjo that France created, a disaster that saw some 10% of the internally displaced (IDPs) moving to West Cameroon, mostly to the Southwest.

 

In one of our exchanges on Camnet some seven (7) years ago, I warned that the Bamileke baiting was coming mostly from a fringe of Northwest origin, and that it would dawn on some that these knuckleheads promoting hate or ostracizing their Graffi relatives (Bamilekes) --- something Southwesterners do not do to the related peoples of the Littoral province --- would turn their attention to Southwesterners too, or that the Southwest people would wise up one day, understanding that after these knuckleheads of  NW origin succeed in eliminating Bamileke/Bassa and Francophone influence with their acquiescence, they would turn to dominating Southwesterners again.

 

 The CPDM, the Biya regime, and the French-imposed system as a whole are exploiting that growing realization of fringe elements of Northwest origin holding chauvinistic views on domination. After all, one Amba spokesperson of Northwest origin said “the population of the Northwest province is four to five times that of the Southwest ”. He thus came across as dismissive… A long time vocal vanguard of the Southern Cameroons (SCNC) cause said half a year ago that;

 “…indigenous Mboh people of the Southwest region are complaining that Amba fighters are targeting them on false grounds that they are of East of the Mungo.”

 

 Were those Amba fighters of Northwest origin? The feeling of being targeted by fighters from another province prevails not only in Kupe Manenguba Division. People in Ndian, Fako, Meme, Lebialem, and even Manyu feel that way too. That is why the concern should be addressed fast  before it gets out of hand, before it degenerates.

 

I hate to see the harmony in the Southwest that I was also involved in building, being trashed by people with the “NATIVE MINDSET”. There should never be any inter-ethnic conflict in the Southwest region or any other region of Cameroon. Those inflaming ethnic hatred should be discouraged and the forces sowing resentment among the different indigenous people should respect their hosts and stop their activities that are hurting the people in the villages and towns.

Janvier Tchouteu                     November 18, 2020

 

 

Janvier Tchouteu is the author of Triple Agent, Double Cross

Triple Agent, Double Cross

Book 2 of 2: Compradors Series  | by Janvier Chouteu-Chando, 

A DEATH IN GENEVA THAT PUT A NATION IN A COMA AND TRAUMATIZED AFRICA: The Assassination of Félix-Roland Moumié and Cameroon’s Unfinished Liberation

by Janvier Tchouteu and Janvier T. Chando