Anglophone Crisis: You may ignore a writer, but never ignore what they write!

In 2011, this is what was published in the book "A Global State through democratic federal world government" by Unity Elias Y. in pages 362, 363, 364; on the Anglophone problem. For reading purposes, get it here;

"The secret behind all successful democracies of the world is their strict adherence to Jefferson’s advice of respecting the opinions of mankind, and a fitting example in this case is to examine and compare the state and situation of bilingual Canada, an advanced democracy, with bilingual Cameroon, an amateur democracy. Both nations have English and French as official languages of government, business and teaching in school. The two nations have secessionist movements operating in their minority territory; which, for Canada, is the province of Quebec (French-speaking), and, for Cameroon, is the former state of Southern Cameroons (English-speaking), which was induced into a federated union with the former East Cameroon by the UN. In the case of Quebec in Canada, the province has all possibilities of attaining independence through democratic channels, whereas Southern Cameroonians have not even got the freedom to express their grievances; even when they do express them they are silently ignored, and instead, the government goes ahead to implant more structures to suppress any secessionist activity.

If wisdom were easy to come by, the government in Yaoundé should have been preoccupied with opening the cover of the boiling pot to reduce the pressure inside by engaging in purposeful dialogue with the anglophone opinion, rather than trying to pull off the wood that burns to boil the water inside the pot, because the wood can always be replaced with more from the vast forest, which nurtures even more violently burning wood as the days pass by and the realities of life are confronted by the younger trees, which usually have expectations and intensions to grow taller than their parents.

‘A stitch in time saves nine,’ the saying goes. While the Ottawa government spends time in dialogues with Quebec and with ever-increasing intensions to please this minority French community, the hegemony in Yaoundé does not want to hear of any anglophone problem, and under the pretence of national unity and integration, such a sensitive, time bomb issue is relegated to the list inconsequential in government priorities. In fact, it entails free and genuine education for the French-speaking community to realise that the English-speaking Cameroonian might have a better story to tell about what holds for the tomorrow of the nation.

After all, every practical man knows that the English culture from experience is more functional than the predominantly French procedural way of life. Grave error number two is in trying to cage the anglophone folk by removing their political liberty, which is unworkable, because political liberty and maturity are amongst the inalienable rights enshrined in every human being by natural law and re-emphasised by human law, and when one tries to arrest such rights by forceful confiscation, one commits a crime as a result.

The victim is pushed to the wall, from where he fights back. Should the anglophones in Cameroon resort to violence as a means of restoring their political rights, which are strongly required for self-determination and development, Yaoundé alone stands to blame for nurturing the dissatisfaction amongst a people who got up one morning to realise that the marriage was an aching one rather than a comforting one. This is quite authentic because a union is purposeless if it does not breed harmony, peace and progress, and if the true picture of life rather than its caricature is to be tackled. If Yaoundé wants to handle caricatures rather than substance, then undoubtedly, the whole system will grind to a halt subsequently. Greed should not continue to block the foresight of politicians and governments.

Great men have existed, men who placed reason ahead of self-pride men of humility, compromise and peace. Anwar al-Sadat, the pioneer searcher for peace in the Middle East pandemonium, extended his hand, which was still stained with the blood of Israeli combatants and civilians to Prime Minister Begin, whose own hand, too, was still shaking off the fresh blood of Egyptians just after the famous 1973 war. Ever since this unprecedented show of compromise, a perfect peace had reigned between the two nations. Sadat used the ensuring peace to build the Egyptian economy. "

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