Snapshots: An X-ray of Cameroon�s Democracy, Governance and Unification

3. Parliament’s Queer Sense of Patriotism

9 3 Parliament’s Queer Sense of Patriotism August 05, 1991 Towards the close of this year’s budgetary session of the National Assembly, the “progressive” faction of the ruling CPDM parliamentary group issued a statement to the effect that the new budget was inspired by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and is therefore not Cameroonian. The statement said the budget was bad and advanced several reasons why it would not serve the public interest. These reasons include the increase in taxes on imported industrial inputs which would affect small and medium-size industries and salary cuts in the public sector which will severely reduce the purchasing power of tax payers. The “Progressive” deputies, who, one may assume, were also speaking on behalf of the majority of the people’s representatives who are too lethargic and dumfounded to openly identify with any line of thought, did register certain reservations over the budget which they said would have disastrous consequences on the tax payer. Despite their reservations, the deputies said they voted for the budget “out of sheer patriotism.” And what a queer sense of patriotism? The fundamental contradiction inherent in this justification only helps to cast more doubts as to the validity of what is now referred to as the “progressive wing” of the ruling CPDM party in the present political context. Indeed, by voting an anti-people’s budget, the deputies have lent credence to the observation that if at all there is any such thing as a progressive wing, its place is certainly not within the ranks of the CPDM because any truly progressive minded deputy ought to have voted against a budget that does not serve the public interest. 10 It can be accurately deduced that the invocation of patriotism as a justification for adopting the budget was a shameless act of political camouflage. While it is true that patriotism is the natural (not artificial) love for one’s country and the readiness to defend it, political sociologists have identified a certain kind of “patriotism which serves to establish an artificial sense of solidarity between the oppressed and the oppressors within a given nation.” In their attempt to take cover behind the altruistic motives of patriotism, the CPDM “progressives” have only succeeded in exposing their ineffectual reformist posturing, political emasculation and lack of guts. It is most exasperating and certainly not edifying to witness the people’s representatives endorse the economic suicide (which they want to make us believe is the economic survival) of the nation which they claim to love so well and later mount the rostrum to bleat like castrated he-goats that they did it out of love of nation. Love of nation is not enough. A patriot must also defend the nation, not become an accomplice to its destruction. But at last, comforted with an “IMF invasion, our “patriotic” deputies preferred to play Judas and proceeded to outdo Pontius Pilate; a desecrated form of patriotism that has been the hall mark of the Cameroon’s political hypocrisy since its flag independence. Indeed, the real sentiment behind all the crocodile tears shed by the deputies can be deduced from their very statement in which they complained that the new fiscal measures should have been carried out in 1987 (when the one-party system was still intact) and not at present when the country is in the process of setting up a multi-party democracy. Their fear is that the suicidal (not survival) budget they adopted would aggravate the swelling disaffection amongst the electorate who “in the coming months, it would appear, shall arbitrate between us who are voting austerity today and candidates of the emergent opposition who will be presenting an untainted parliamentary and political past record.” In short they fear the June session was 11 probably the last they shall ever attend. Therein lies the truth: concern for their personal interest. The public derision provoked by the deputies’ political capering has been further compounded by their pathetically desperate hope that posterity shall judge them leniently because of their contemptible reservations about the budget. In effect, they are hoping that history might acclaim them for their cowardly leadership. Maybe they shall be rewarded in their own coins but certainly not acclaimed. They should not pretend to bother about posterity’s judgment because they have already been tried and it only remains for the verdict to be passed - at elections. It is the...