The
Task of the Cameroonian Intellectual
By
Peter Vakunta, PhD
At a time when the Republic of
Cameroon is squirming under the pangs of misgovernment, bastardization of
political power, lethal tribalism, and endemic corruption, it is germane to
pose the following thorny questions: what does it mean to be an intellectual in
Cameroon today? Are Cameroonian intellectuals merely servants of special
interest groups or do they have a greater social responsibility? As I see it, the Cameroonian intellectual has
the choice either to side with the downtrodden and marginalized or with the
powerful. Without fear or favor, the genuine intellectual has to have the
courage to blow the whistle on blatant human rights violations. Most
importantly, the intellectual must have the forum in which to talk back to
authority, the more so because unquestioning subservience to authority in Cameroon
and elsewhere in contemporary society is tantamount to a threat to an active
and sane intellectual life. In this
essay, we will endeavor to address these issues as eloquently as possible.
Celebrated literary and
cultural critic, Edward Said, sees the intellectual as a scholar whose role it is to speak the truth to
power even at the risk of ostracism, imprisonment or death: “Real intellectuals…are
supposed to risk being burned at the stake, ostracized, or crucified”(7).
Thinking along the same lines, Jacoby (1987) defines the intellectual as “an
incorrigibly independent soul answering to no one” (quoted in Said, 72). Both Said and Jacoby agree that the
intellectual is supposed to be heard from, and in practice ought to be stirring
up debate and if possible controversy.In light of the status quo in Cameroon under the presidency of Mr. Paul Biya, it behooves the intellectual to speak the truth, ruffle feathers and rock the boat without caring whose ox is gored. We must caution that speaking the truth to authority should not be construed as some sort of Panglossian[i] idealism. Speaking the truth to the powers-that-be amounts to carefully weighing the options, picking and choosing the right one, and then sagaciously articulating it where it can do the most good and trigger desired change. The Cameroonian intellectual’s voice may be lonely, it nonetheless, has resonance because it associates itself the aspirations of a people, the common pursuit of a shared ideal—the Summum Bonum.
Said observes that “the hardest
aspect of being an intellectual is to represent what you profess through your
work and interventions, without hardening into an institution or a kind of
automaton acting at the behest of a system…”(121). He further notes that the
intellectual who claims to write only for himself or herself, or for the sake
of pure learning , or abstract science is not be, and must not be believed. To
my mind, nothing is more reprehensible than the intellectual frame of mind that
induces avoidance, the turning away from a principled position which you know
to be the right one, but which you decide not to take. You shy away from
appearing politically ‘incorrect’; you are scared of seeming untowardly polemical
because someday you hope to earn a big prize, perhaps even a ministerial appointment
or ambassadorship in your home government. In the eyes of a bona fide
intellectual, these habits are corrosive par excellence. If anything can
denature and neutralize an intellectual it is the internalization of such
nefarious habits.
Personally,
I have encountered these corrupting habits in one of the toughest unresolved
problems plaguing the wellbeing of Cameroonian polity—the Anglophone Problem,
where fear of speaking out about one of the thorniest national questions in
Cameroonian history has hobbled, blinkered and muzzled many who know the truth
and are in a position to serve it. The Cameroon Anglophone Problem manifests itself in the
form of vociferous complaints from English-speaking Cameroonians about the
absence of transparency and accountability in state affairs, in matters
relating to appointments in the civil service, the military, the police force,
the gendarmerie and the judiciary.
In short, the Anglophone Problem raises questions about
participation in decision-making as well as power-sharing in a country that
prides itself on being Africa in miniature. The Anglophone Problem is the cry
of the disenchanted, the socially ostracized and the oppressed people of
Cameroon. Anglophone Cameroonians incessantly lament over the
ultra-centralization of political power in the hands of a rapacious Francophone
oligarchy based in Yaoundé, the nation’s capital, where the Anglophone with
limited proficiency in the French language is made to go through all kinds of torture
in the hands of supercilious-cum benighted Francophone bureaucrats who look
down on anyone speaking English. [ii] Richard Joseph
talks of “the neutralization of Anglophone Cameroon” on page 82 of his seminal
work, Gaullist Africa: Cameroon under
Ahmadu Ahidjo (1978).
Despite the
abuse and vilification to which outspoken advocates of self-determination for Anglophone
Cameroon may be subjected, the truth deserves to be spoken, represented by an
unafraid and compassionate intellectual. The Cameroonian intellectual need not
climb a mountain or rooftop in a bid to declaim. The genuine intellectual must speak his or
her mind quietly and clearly where they can be heard. Most importantly, they
should present their views in such a manner as to drum up enough support for an
ongoing process, for instance, the cause of justice for marginalized Anglophone
Cameroonians. Informed Cameroonians know
that the statutes and constitutional stipulations on official bilingualism in
Cameroon, for instance, is a sham. Arguing along similar
lines, Ayafor posits: “There has been unrelenting efforts and frustration at
the fact that language policy has not contributed to national integration
through linguistic fusion” (2005, 140). Unlike most other African countries
which give pride of place to indigenous languages, French and English,
languages of predatory imperialists, remain official languages in Cameroon in
stark contradiction of the national constitution which stipulates: ‘The State
shall guarantee the promotion of bilingualism throughout the country. It shall
endeavor to protect and promote national languages (Article 1.3: 5).
No intellectual can speak up at all times on every single issue
plaguing national life. But, there is a compelling duty to address the
constituted and authorized powers of one’s own country, which are accountable
to citizenry, especially when those powers are exercised in a manifestly
abusive, arbitrary, and disproportionate manner. For the Cameroonian
intellectual, there is no sitting on the fence; there a reality to be faced,
namely that Cameroon is an extremely diverse nation with over 236 indigenous
languages and cultures, an abundance of natural resources and accomplishments,
but it also harbors a redoubtable set of internal inequities and inequalities that
cannot be ignored, not the least of which are unsound regional development
paradigms and human rights abuses. Cameroon is a signatory to the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, adopted and proclaimed in 1948, reaffirmed by
every new member state of the UN. Cameroon is also a signatory to solemn
international conventions on the treatment of workers, women, and children.
None of these documents says anything about less equal ethnic groups, tribes or
peoples. The aforementioned instruments stipulate that all
human beings are entitled to the same freedoms. Of course, these rights are
callously violated on a daily basis in Cameroon. Joseph decries human rights
abuses and oppression in Cameroon as follows: “Not only has the political
system been devised to deprive the citizen of any real say in the choice of his
governors, he has also been divested of any control over their
actions…confronted with concerted abuse by agents of state… the people of
Cameroon are legally powerless”(115).
Faced with this state of affairs, the onus rests with the
Cameroonian intellectual to raise moral questions as they involve one’s homeland,
its power, and its mode of interacting with its citizens. This does not mean opposition for opposition’s
sake. What it means is asking questions, making distinctions, and committing to
memory all those issues that we tend to gloss over in our rush to collective
judgment. Arguing along similar lines, Said maintains: “The intellectual today
ought to be an amateur, someone who considers that to be a thinking and
concerned member of a society one is entitled to raise moral issues at the
heart of even the most technical and professionalized activity as it involves
one’s country…”(82). There has been a lot of idle talk lately about something called
‘political correctness,’ which Said qualifies as “an insidious phrase applied
to academic humanists, who, it is frequently said, do not think independently
but rather according to norms established by a cabal of leftists…”(77). The
caveat is that blind adherence to this dogma is likely to curtail individual
and collective freedoms. The corollary
is that the intellectual does not represent an inviolate icon but a personal
vocation with a slew of issues, all of them having to do with a hybrid of
emancipation and civil rights issues.
In a nutshell, intellectualism
in Cameroon should be deemed fundamental to the attainment of knowledge and
basic freedoms. Yet, these constructs acquire meaningful interpretation, not as
abstractions but as experiences actually lived by the individual intellectual.
This is true of intellectuals in Cameroon as it is of intellectuals elsewhere. Thus, the fundamental task of the Cameroonian
intellectual is explicitly to rationalize local problems, universalize national crises, assign greater
scope to the sufferings of his or her people, and last but not least, to
associate those experiences with the suffering of underprivileged global
citizens. This does not imply being an arm-chair critic of the home government
at all times, but rather of thinking of the intellectual vocation as
maintaining a state of constant alertness, of a perpetual willingness to not
let half-truths blind us from seeing reality through a broad prism.
Notes
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[i] Person who views a situation with unwarranted
optimism. [cf. Dr Pangloss , a character in Voltaire's Candide (1759)]
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Works cited
Ayafor, Isaiah, Munang. “Official Bilingualism in Cameroon: Instrumental of
Integrative
Policy?” In Proceedings of the 4th
International Symposium
on Bilingualism.Ed. James Cohen et al., Somerville: Cascadilla Press,
2005.
Cameroon, Government. Constitution of
the Republic of Cameroon. Yaoundé.
Government
printer, 1996.
Jacoby,
Russel. The Last Intellectuals: American
Culture in the Age of Academe.
New York: Basic Books, 1987.
Joseph,
Richard. Gaullist Africa: Cameroon under
Ahmadu Ahidjo. Enugu:
Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1978.
Said,
W. Edward. Representations
of the Intellectual. New York: Vintage
Books, 1994.
Vakunta,
P.W. Cry my Beloved Africa: Essays on the
Postcolonial Aura in
Africa: Bamenda: Langaa, 2008.
Voltaire. Candide. Paris: Haitier, 1986.
About
the Author
Professor
Vakunta teaches at the United States Department of Defense Language Institute, POM-CA
