Government’s Marginalization Of Anglophone Press:

A Threat To National Unity

In his yet-to-be-published work: “Cameroon Cultural Myths: A Study in Contemporary Political Parody” Gwain Colbert posits that every nation on earth has its cultural myth. The United States of America strives on the myth of the founding fathers. Since independence and by extension, reunification Cameroon has functioned on the myth of peace and national unity. The book outlines other cultural myths in Cameroon that politicians in contemporary times have parodied in and out of season. They include the myth of Cameroon being a land of promise and glory where milk and honey flows; the myth of peace and national integration; Cameroon being one and indivisible; the myth of Cameroon being Cameroon, and you can name them. Perhaps it is important to know the place such myths play in the life of a nation.

In a New York Times column (March 30, 2003), critical of how President Bush has betrayed the “foundational myth” of the American cowboy, author Susan Faludi offers a succinct description of the role shared stories play in the culture of any country or people. “Mythologies” Faludi suggests, “are essential to defining who we are and, more importantly, who we want to be”. One can hardly imagine a clearer way of explaining the concept we tell stories to bind us to one another, reinterpreting and retelling the tales with each generation so that we eventually accumulate many versions of the same defining narratives. We have attempted to explain a few of the many myths that make up the Cameroonian story. Of course, for Russians the themes often shared focus on the myth of endurance and suffering, not surprising, given the history and geography of that sprawling nation. For other ethnic groups including the Jews and African Americans the defining myths include tales of persecution and Diaspora.

The Cameroonian myths of being one and indivisible and above all, of national unity are particularly important now as the nation braces up to celebrate 50 years of reunification in Buea. This national unity myth, interpreted in numerous ways, since became part of our national consciousness.

In the past, people we brought together in Cameroon on the myth of the country being a “land of promise and glory, where milk and honey flow”. To my mind, part of the greatness of the myth of national unity in Cameroon is that it obliges future generations to fulfill promises its signers or promoters could not meet. Otherwise, why is it that 50 years after reunification Anglophones should still be crying of marginalization and discrimination? In the past, the Anglophone press was used by other segments of the Anglophone population to vent their anger and frustration over express marginalization by the Francophone regime. Today, the Anglophone press has joined the fight, no longer as chroniclers of events but as victims of such blatant maltreatment in the hands of Francophones. The marginalization is visible on all fronts even as just recently a caucus of Anglophone publishers met in Bamenda to single out some key points.

The Facts of the Matter

The decision by Anglophone publishers to come together and stand up for their rights especially against a francophone regime that is insensitive to their cry of marginalization makes them the newest kids on the bloc. Practically all segments of the Anglophone populace had complained at one point or another.

The story about the marginalization of the Anglophone press is glaring. It starts with the very basics of the profession; access to information. Access to information is an uphill task in the English media. In the first instance, all official information comes in French. Anglophone journalists both in the public and private media have to make do with what the French organs have published. Even at CRTV, the state-owned media, critical information only gets to the English desk after the French desk has finished exploiting it. Even when it finally gets to the English desk, it is still in French and the English audience must get use to the distorted and spontaneous version translated on air by the journalists. Anglophone publishers hardly have access to government documents. Government officials treat them as second-hand press. They stress to get what their francophone colleagues take for granted. The worse thing is that francophone decision makers hardly ever know the name of any English language newspaper or media house. Even the minister of communication. Proof of this fact is that when Yaounde officials plan an event in any of the Anglophone regions, they come along with their francophone reporters from Yaounde. While they are treating them to hundreds of thousands of Frs, the local English journalists has to make do with 5000 frs or less from the local organizing committee.

Government Adverts

This is another thorny very thorny and vexing area of conflict. The point being made here is that, it is a truth universally accepted that even the best selling newspaper on earth cannot rely on sales to break even. Think of New York Times, The Economist, News of the World, The Washington Post. Proof is that even the national daily, Cameroon Tribune that is not only enjoying yearly government subvention but has most of its staff paid from the public treasury, and still gets all the official adverts, is always ever desperately scouting for more money from all corners. What more of a private newspaper, talk less of an Anglophone newspaper. The phenomenon in Cameroon today is that practically all the adverts from government and para public corporations got to the French papers. Interestingly, even adverts from English corporations still find their way into the French papers. There is no way this cannot be seen to be the express handiwork of the francophone regime in Yaounde to stifle the Anglophone press. This unfortunate incidence has naturally clipped the wings of critical English newspapers that have today reduced themselves to singing praises on the few wealthy Cameroonians in a desperate move to survive.

The Much-Talked of Government Subvention

It is important to note that if the government came to the conclusion that the private press needed government subvention it was not just because the press assists government in its constitutional role of informing, educating and entertaining the public but more importantly, because it knows that even the highest selling newspaper on earth cannot survive only on sales. After paying for printing, after paying staff, after paying rents and other utilities, an average media house can barely survive. Despite this knowledge and despite this move by government, what obtains in reality is that the francophones in the ministry of communication has decided to turn the exercise into a sharing arrangement among their brothers and sisters. Papers that had not published for the past two years receive the subvention while English newspapers that struggle every week to cater to the interest of Cameroonians are dished out paltry sums. This is even after under-the-table negotiations.

The bitter part of this story is that when during the last presidential elections campaign, the civil cabinet decided to subvent newspapers and audio-visual houses with upwards of 600 million, no English newspaper or media house was deemed fit to receive that money. Come to think of the fact that this was tax payer’s money. Come to think of the fact that some francophone newspapers receive over 20 million each, and see how you will not call that marginalization.

Marginalization: A Threat to National Unity

When this issue of marginalization was brought up the other day in Bamenda somebody joked that it was no longer news. He had as supporting evidence the fact that even in Operation Epervier, Anglophones are still marginalized. To him, the fact that till date very few Anglophones have been arrested means that no Anglophone has ever been close to any juicy management in Cameroon. Marginalization is the root cause of all malcontent in Anglophone Cameroon. To the uninitiated this is difficult to understand. But the fact is that the myth national unity pales down dangerously when not everybody is seen to be sharing from the national cake. All francophone papers can become dailies, not because they have a large market as many erroneously think but because they have access to all the adverts. If government does not immediately redress the situation, our unity, our much-talked of national unity would be seriously threatened.