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119 Chapter Eight Anglophone Liberation Journalism and National Deconstruction in Cameroon Francis B. Nyamnjoh Journalism, Government and Nation-Building in Cameroon In Cameroon the public service journalist is little more than a public relations (PR) man for the government. He/she is committed much less to the truth and the public than to building a positive image, selling the ideas and promoting the interests of government and the ruling elite. In general any journalist who plays a PR role, “is no longer an active gatherer of information but has a mediating function in that he/she publishes, processed or not, information material made available” by those who have hired him (Kunczik, 1988:172). Often, such PR journalists take for granted the truth of what they are fed which they in turn present to the public as if it were the fruit of professional or disinterested journalism. This category of journalists serve as night-soil men or scavengers for those who hire them. Although the struggle for decolonisation in Cameroon was genuine in many respects, what Cameroonians got as independence was a mirage, an illusion of freedom and democracy. At ‘independence’ the government identified nation-building and development as priorities. In this, journalists, especially those of the public media, were called upon to play a vanguard role. They were to faithfully transmit government policies, doctrines, thinking and actions to the masses who, even at their best and most creative, were portrayed as having little to say or do that the government could not say or do better. Journalists of the public media have had very little professional independence from government, which has always claimed to know the interests of the state better than the people it purports to represent. The task of journalists has thus been that of explaining government action and policies to the people, and seldom a question of explaining to government what the people’s real needs and aspirations are. The assumption has been that the people are ignorant and in dire need of information and education on how to 120 transform their backward traditions and attitudes, and how to be mobilized and set firmly behind the government’s modernization program. The people have been expected to execute decisions taken unilaterally by government. The thinking being that it suffices to listen to the media for the government’s messages, which if followed without questioning, would bring about salvation and abundance. Before the official re-admission of multipartyism in December 1990 (see SOPECAM, 1991:57-60), it was subversive to question government policies, outlooks or options by suggesting alternative ways of going about nationbuilding and national development. There was room only for “constructive criticism”, and criticisms were thus considered only when these were made by those who had accepted the system, not by those who did not belong to the ruling party. The government was against the propagation of “unconfirmed news”, and such was generally anything printed or broadcast without prior authorization and/or significantly at variance with government views and policies. Even with the current multipartyism, the government has consistently shown itself unable to authorize the broadcast or printing of stories or ideas that differ fundamentally with official tenets, policies and doctrines. Its repression of the critical private press through selective application of administrative censorship, is a further illustration of such government impatience with alternatives (cf. Nyamnjoh, 1995a). This attitude portrays the government as omniscient and infallible, and as showing preference for a monolithic Cameroon. The government’s preoccupation with development media is little more than an alibi that masks a much deeper concern by the ruling elite to reaffirm and consolidate its authority, even to the detriment of individual liberties (Eone, 1986:220). Thus, instead of tackling the “real and substantial differences” of society (Goulbourne, 1987:35), successive governments have tended to hide these differences, opting rather for a repressive centralized state in their pursuit of the ‘nation-state’ which Smith (1986:230) has termed a ‘Western mirage”. To justify repression, they have argued that it is unwise for a country with limited resources” ‘.’to dissipate its energies in the niceties, or luxuries, of allowing all and sundry to put their views about national matters when the task of prosecuting development is the national project over which independence was fought” (Goulboume, 1987:36-7). But as Soyinka (1994:79 ) argues, using ‘‘the exacting task of nation-building” to justify repression and alienation for their citizens as African leaders have done, is predicated on [18.223.107.149...

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