Southern Cameroons 54 years after: Anglophones are perpetually subdued, victimized and traumatized as house slaves ⁰

It is now 54 years since the Republic of Cameroun and the UN trusteeship state of Southern Cameroons came together in 1961. The now bastardized, skewed and imbalanced Unification gave birth to a premature and deformed baby we Christened bilingualism. 54 years after, the hapless child is still limping with one leg while the Union is standing on a tripod of injustice, discrimination and inequality of opportunity.

In honest, genuine bilingualism has never existed in Cameroon. The Francophones have never respected bilingualism in practical terms. What we have on ground is a charade, a Francophone fad and a masquerade- a fake! It is a sleazy stratagem, a shameless swindle, a freaky farce and a spineless political slogan engineered by the Francophones to get what they want from the Anglophones. Now that they have our crude, timber, cocoa…; they shamelessly and with great avarice grab and reserve all the juicy appointments and positions for themselves. The Anglophones are perpetually subdued, victimized and traumatized as house slaves and nannies, carriers of water and cutters of wood in a land where Communal Liberalism is a national mantra.

No Anglophone has ever headed ministries like Finance, Territorial Administration, Defense, Foreign Affairs … No Anglophone has ever been the General Manager of S.N.H., SONARA, S.C.D.P., despite the existence of these state corporations more than 40 years ago. From the current political configuration, it is very likely that no Anglophone can become the President and Head of State in this country in the next 100 years. As a matter of urgency the Anglophones need to begin NOW to protest and insist that as stakeholders in our bigoted and discriminating Union, thy also must start getting and enjoying some of the goodies and special privileges illegally and unconstitutionally reserved only for the Francophones beginning from the next Cabinet reshuffle.

Francophones are using bilingualism as a carrot, a political ploy, a cultural vogue and a hype to hoodwink and placate the Anglophones. It is a well-planned smokescreen to distract the attention of the Anglophones from their predicaments and the negative realities of their marginalization; a strategic cover up to give them a false sense of belonging and to mollify their suppression so as to keep them loyal, subdued, subservient and gullible to their mischievous whims and sneaky machinations.

In Cameroon, our democracy is on trial. Our country is engulfed in the flames a diabolical precipice and senseless cultural cold war masterminded by French language zealots, lingual saboteurs and cultural terrorists. Our bilingualism is under attack and the English language, the inheritance, the pride, identity and legacy of the Anglophones in the Union has been under siege and the target of elimination since 1961. The culture and language of every group of people is sacrosanct to them- so is English language to the Anglophones in Cameroon. This campaign of exclusion and war of attrition against the English language is a colossal and collective gang up spear headed by over ambitious Francophone elites: the ruling class, the academia, politicians, professionals, and the mainstream press including the religious leaders. A repressive miasma of resentment, a paroxysm of discontent and dark clouds of subjugation and uncertainty still hang over the controversial, one-sided and unfair Union.