Trouble where English is second to French
Violence erupts in Cameroon over traditions
NAIROBI, KENYA • To be brought up as an English speaker in a world where the language remains the lingua franca of trade and diplomacy is normally to draw first prize in the linguistic lottery of life.
But in one corner of Africa, having English as a mother tongue has proved a curse, thanks to a colonial anomaly that left a seething anglophone underclass in a sliver of the overwhelmingly French-speaking Cameroon.
The two populations live side by side, equal under the law since independence in 1960, which united the former French and British colonial territories.
For the past four months, the two English-speaking regions of western Cameroon have risen up against a perceived decades-long assault by the francophone elite on their language and British traditions, staging a campaign of general strikes, demonstrations and the occasional riot.
A ruthless response by the government, characterized by the killing of protesters and a two-month Internet shutdown in English-speaking regions, has hardened antagonisms, pitching the West African country into crisis.
Amid growing secessionist mutterings, Britain has become more active in recent days in attempting to defuse the confrontation. Last week, Brian Olley, the British High Commissioner to Cameroon, met Paul Biya, the country’s 84-year-old president, and is understood to have called on him to end the use of force against protesters.
“We have raised our concerns with the government of Cameroon and will continue to raise these issues,” a Foreign Office spokeswoman said.
But such quiet diplomacy has also angered some anglophone activists, who accuse Britain of abandoning its responsibilities in the former British Southern Cameroons, which united with the French Cameroons in 1961.
Despite the anger, anglophone Cameroonians, who make up less than a fifth of the county’s 23 million people, remain stubbornly loyal to their colonial traditions.
To the bewilderment and often the derision of French speakers, they insist on forming orderly lineups, refer to bars as “off-licences” and dress up their judges and lawyers in powdered wigs. Both British common law and the British high school syllabus remain deeply cherished.
It is a loyalty that has rarely been reciprocated by Britain. The After independence, the British Cameroons were wooed into union with the much larger French Cameroons by a promise that they would be equal members of a federal, bilingual state — a pledge broken when the federal constitution was abandoned in 1972. Since then, English speakers say they have been shut out of jobs, denied fair political representation and deprived of revenues from oil, much of which is from former British territory.
Matters came to a head in November when a group of lawyers staged a small protest outside the courthouse in Bamenda, Cameroon’s largest anglophone city, to demand the withdrawal of judges who spoke no English and had no understanding of British common law. The protest was broken up with tear gas.