The Anglophone Cameroon Predicament

Foreword

xi Foreword Regime members and organic scholars tended to be quite optimistic about the integration of the Anglophone minority into the Francophone-dominated post-colonial state in Cameroon. For instance, in his book The One and Indivisible Cameroon published in 1981, an Anglophone scholar, John W. Forje, insisted that Anglophones and Francophones belonged together for historical reasons and had come to form an inseparable whole in the aftermath of reunification in 1961. There is also no doubt that the relative absence of any open resistance in Anglophone Cameroon to the Francophone-dominated state’s integration efforts from the achievement of reunification to the political liberalisation process in the early 1990s gave the false impression of the success of the integration process in the country. Cameroon actually used to be praised as Africa’s sterling example of nationbuilding from two colonial blocs of Anglo-Saxon and Gallic origin. In this book, the Anglophone Cameroonian political scientist, Mufor Atanga, challenges such claims of a successful Cameroonian integration process. He instead claims that what has come to be called the ‘Anglophone problem’ constitutes one of the severest threats to the post-colonial nationstate project in Cameroon. His study focuses on the people’s perceptions and actions in the Anglophone region, which was christened West Cameroon after reunification, and it largely covers the period 1961, the start of a unique experiment in federation, to the first years of political liberalisation in the 1990s. One of the principal merits of this book is its attempt to expose certain myths on colonialism, reunification and federalism propagated by regime members and organic scholars. The first myth is that Cameroon has always been one. It stresses that Cameroon was already in existence before colonial time when all people in Cameroon lived together amicably and peacefully. Colonialism, it is said, fostered a rupture in pre-colonial conviviality and cordiality traditions. Atanga’s book, however, convincingly shows that the colonial state was far more important than the (largely mythical) pre-colonial state in mapping out the historical trajectory of the post-colonial state. In fact, the colonial state was instrumental in ‘inventing’ Cameroon itself and creating two distinct communities on Cameroonian territory. The discrete British and French colonial legacies since World War I have left a wide gap between the peoples on either side of the linguistic and administrative divide. While the xii completely different colonial legacies were already likely to hamper the postcolonial state’s integration efforts, another potential obstacle was the superior bargaining strength of the Francophone majority vis-à-vis the Anglophone minority. The second myth is that reunification signified a long-awaited reunion of people separated for many years by arbitrarily imposed colonial borders and thus was warm-heartedly and freely embraced by both parties. Atanga’s book provides ample evidence that for Anglophones reunification was more like a loveless United Nations-arranged marriage between two people who hardly knew each other. Deprived of their preferred option, an independent state, Anglophone Cameroonians were given only two options in the 11 February 1961 UN-organised plebiscite: achievement of independence either by joining Nigeria – the British mandate and trust territory had been administered as an integral part of Nigeria – or reunification with Francophone Cameroon, which had already become independent in 1960 under the new name of Republic of Cameroon. In the end, the majority of the Anglophone population voted for what they considered the lesser of two evils. Their vote in favour of reunification appeared to be more a rejection of continuous ties with Nigeria, which had proved detrimental to Anglophone Cameroon’s development than a vote for union with Francophone Cameroon, a territory with a different cultural heritage and one that was then involved in a violent civil war. A third myth is that the constitutional negotiations in Foumban in June 1961 were a historic event when estranged brothers mutually agreed upon a federal constitution for a reunified Cameroon. In this book, however, Atanga argues that for Anglophones the conference was an occasion where the Francophone majority used its superior bargaining power to control negotiations and enforce a form of federation far below Anglophone expectations. By reuniting with the former French Cameroon, the Anglophone elite had hoped to enter a loose federal union as a way of protecting their country’s minority status and cultural heritage. During the constitutional talks, the Francophone elite were only prepared to accept a highly centralised federation, which was regarded merely as a transitory phase towards the formation of a unitary state. Such...