Dibussi Tande: Scribbles from the Den

48 Years Ago - Southern Cameroons and The Republic of Cameroun Form the Federal Republic

Exactly 48 years ago on October 1, 1961, the Federal Republic of Cameroon was born after the  United Nations Trust territory of (British) Southern Cameroons merged with the French-speaking Republic of Cameroun - this, in accordance with the results of the UN-sponsored plebiscite of February 11, 1961.

On this anniversary day, we will not be looking at the ground covered or not covered by both territories since 1961 - that will be a task for the 50th anniversary. Rather, we will walk down memory lane to revisit some of the interesting post-plebiscite debates about the fate of Southern Cameroons in the British House of Commons; debates which indicated that the decolonization of Southern Cameroons was not as straightforward as it seemed to the uninitiated. One of such debates was between John Tilney, Conservate MP from Liverpool, an unapolgetic proponent of Southern Cameroons independence, and David Ormsby Gore, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, defending the new reality which emerged from the Plebiscite. We will post both of their declations in their entirety.

Later, we will use the case of John Tilney to demonstrate that the competing political and economic interests within the British political establishment over the fate of Southern Cameroons  had little or nothing to do with actual Southern Cameroons  interests - - even when they favored South Cameroons independence without "integrating" or "joining' either Nigeria or Cameroon 

Memory Lane Video (February 11, 1961): The British Cameroons Plebiscite

UPDATE: Click here to watch video. (Youtube video embed not working)
Video erroneously labeled as 20th May 1972 West Cameroon plebiscite...

CAMEROON: Independence plebiscite

Reuters - 15 February 1961: A West African country divided in two..... this is likely to be the result of a plebiscite held in the Cameroons, on Feb. 11 and 12. Final results have yet to be announced, but in Northern Cameroons there is already an unbeatable majority in favour of union with Nigeria, while in the Southern Cameroons, it is reported that a final majority in favour of union with the Cameroon Republic is already certain.

Memory Lane Video (Buea, May 17 1958): Dr. EML Endeley at the Governor's Lodge

Scenes from Buea, Southern Cameroons, as new House of Assembly set to open.

UPDATE: Click here to watch video on youtube (Video embed no longer working)

Description of video

 1.
 Inside Secretariat, Buea - "Berlin" nameplate on safe door
 
 2.
 Bismarck on Buea fountain. Shots 1 & 2 to emphasise remnants of German influence still remain (Cameroons was German colony until First World War). Shot 7 also.

Joyce Ashuntantang: Foreign Publishers Determine the Nature of our Stories (Interview)

Interviewed by Dibussi Tande

“As long as foreign publishers remain the mid-wives of our stories, they will keep determining the nature of these stories.” Joyce Ashuntantang

Early this year, Joyce Ashuntantang published a book titled Landscaping Postcoloniality: The Dissemination of Anglophone Cameroon Literature which Bernth Lindfors describes as the "most comprehensive study of Anglophone Cameroon literature that has been published to date". In the book, Dr. Ashuntantang, who teaches literature at Hillyer College, University of Hartford, USA, demonstrates that contrary to widespread belief, literature from the English-speaking part of Cameroon is alive and well, in spite of a host of obstacles that have slowed its development and reduced its international visibility. In this interview, Dr. Ashuntantang discusses her ground-breaking book and the state of Anglophone Cameroon literature with Dibussi Tande. Excerpts:

Literature Apartheid in Cameroon

Patrice Nganang (Translated from French by Emmanuel Ndeh Avwontom) 

“Anglophone writers appear to me akin to the Albatross in Baudelaire’s poetry. The English language that they acquired from their colonial past arms them with broad wings, but the Anglophone issue clips them in their impeding flight.”

An intellectual crime is being committed in our country: that of segregation against Anglophone Cameroon Literature. The crime is unfolding before the very eyes of our national Intellectuals, with our consent as stakeholders and, often spurred by our most respected, yet conniving francophone Intellectuals. Salient in mind are Achille Mbembe’s fumble in an article he published on the Anglophone issue.  The fact, therefore, that a francophone student can complete education, beginning at Nursery school right up to a University degree – twenty years in all – without so much as touching a poetry collection, a work of prose or a drama piece published by an Anglophone writer is illustrative of the magnitude of the literary apartheid which has been used by our educational system to brainwash us.

Cameroon Literature in English – Vibrant but Invisible

By Dibussi Tande (Originally published in Palapala Magazine)

Anglophone Cameroon writing... is too little known and much underrated... consequently, much that has been written in English in Cameroon and what has been written about writing in English in Cameroon must have the character of a first encounter with the unseen, a getting to know and shedding of light on a dark spot in the literary development of Africa - Ekhard Breitinger.

In 1978, Patrick Sam-Kubam published an article in Abbia (31/33, February 1978, 205-208) in which he lamented about “The paucity of literary creativity in Anglophone Cameroon". In 1997, Juliana Nfah-Abbenyi picked up on the same theme in her seminal book on gender when she also commented about “the paucity of Cameroonian Anglophone writing”. To a certain extent, these two statements, made some two decades apart, reflected and still reflect a reality on the ground. Literature in English speaking Cameroon has not developed at the same pace as other “national” African literatures.

Memory Lane (Video): Foncha, Ahidjo & the Cameroons Unification

A brief report on the unification of the British and French Cameroons. What expectations did Southern Cameroons leaders have of unification? What promises did the leaders of the French Cameroons make with regards to unification? How did the erstwhile equal relationship between Premier Foncha and President Ahidjo become be a subaltern one? Documentary contains very rare archival video footage and audio clips from the 1960s and 1970s. (In French).

Memory Lane (1964): Vice President of Cameroon Get's St. John's Doctorate

For those who have always wondered where and how Dr. John Ngu Foncha, the former Premier of the Southern Cameroons, earned his doctorate...

The New York Times, June 3, 1964.

Vice President John N. Foncha of Cameroon received an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws yesterday from St. John's University at a special ceremony on the campus in Jamaica, Queens [New York].

The Very Rev. Edward J. Burke, president of the university, conferred the degree. He said that Mr. Foncha was " a distinguished statesman and diplomat who has shown rare qualities of leadership and dedication in helping to guide the young West African federal republic in the international community of states."

Mr. Foncha was educated in Nigeria and served several years as headmaster of the Catholic Mission School in Bamenda before entering politics in 1954.

The “Anglophone Problem” in Cameroon: A creation of “Counter Elite Intellectuals”?

By Jean-Germain Gros [Culled from « Preface » Cameroon: Politics and Society in Critical Perspectives. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America: 2003]

Rightly or wrongly, Anglophones in Cameroon today, or at least their elite, feel that they are second-class citizens of a country dominated by Francophones… I believe tat Anglophone nationalists (or at least the more ardent among them) miss several points about the Francophone-Anglophone divide.

First the division of Cameroon between “Francophones” and “Anglophones” is more historical and geographic than linguistic. A Mbororo (a member of the Peul ethnic group) cattle raiser, who has difficulties communicating even with her fellow Foulbe brethren in Fulfulde, might be quite surprised that she is “Francophone”.

Book Launch in London - The 1961 Cameroon Plebiscite - Choice or Betrayal by John Percival

School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) University of London; Thursday 18th September 2008 from 6-8 pm

"East of Bakassi" - A Special Issue of Palapala Magazine on Cameroonian Literature in English

In its second issue, Palapala magazine, the newly created Pan-African e-journal of culture, strikes gold with a special on Cameroonian literature in English.

This rich and diverse issue includes a toast to the late poet/playwright Bate Besong by Africa's leading poet, Niyi Osundare; Chinua Achebe's appeal to Anglophone Cameroon writers to find - and tell - the story of their marginal and marginalized condition; playwright Bole Butake's dilemma of either dealing with the hardships Cameroon or going into exile;

New Book Coming Out Soon - Imperialistic Politics in Cameroon by Carlson Anyangwe

Carlson Anyangwe. Imperialistic Politics in Cameroon: Resistance & the Inception of the Restoration of the Statehood of Southern Cameroons. Langaa publishers, 2008. Available soon on amazon.com and other online booksellers.

Book blurb

It always comes as a surprise to many that the British-administered UN Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons was not granted independence like other colonial territories but was allowed to fall prey to the territorial expansionism of the contiguous state of Cameroun Republic, a former French-administered UN Trust Territory granted independence on 1 January 1960. Th is book focuses on the unresolved Southern Cameroons colonial predicament, giving insightful accounts of how Cameroun Republic hijacked the Southern Cameroons and is holding its citizens under colonial bondage.

Goodbye Bakassi / Welcome Bakassi

Conflicting emotions as Nigeria cedes Bakassi to Cameroon.

The final transfer of the disputed Bakassi Peninsula from Nigeria to Cameroon took place today, in accordance with the 2002 ruling of the International Court of Justice and the 2006 Greentree Agreement.

Although Cameroon now exercises full control over Bakassi, the Greentree agreement establishes a five-year transitional period (non-renwable). During this period, Nigerian authorities will still have some level of access to the territory, while inhabitants will be exempted from a number customs and immigration requirements.

Under the terms of the agreement, the predominantly Nigerian inhabitant could either keep their Nigerian nationality and remain as foreign residents in Bakassi, take Cameroonian nationality, or resettle elsewhere in Nigeria.

Revisiting The Legacy of Dr. EML Endeley

By Dibussi Tande (Originally posted on the CAMNET discussion forum in 1998 on the 10th anniversary of EML's Death)

Had he not by accident of birth come from a minority tribe, monuments would have been raised to his honour in the Cameroons, for his thirty-seven years of counsel and vision to his people. N.N Mbile

Ten years have gone by since Dr. Emmanuel Mbella Lifafe (EML) Endeley, the first Premier of the British Southern Cameroons, passed away on June 29, 1988. Over the years, much has been said about and against him, particularly by a younger generation of Anglophone Cameroonians who still do not understand his naive romanticizing of the Nigerian option during the 1961 plebiscite, and his lukewarm attitude towards the so-called Third Option (i.e., the school of thought defended by P.M. Kale, that called for the complete independence of Southern Cameroons from both the Nigerian federation and La Republique du Cameroun).

Book Review: The 1961 Cameroon Plebiscite: Choice or Betrayal (An Eyewitness Account of a UN Plebiscite Officer)

John Percival. The 1961 Cameroon Plebiscite: Choice or Betrayal. Langaa Publishers, 2008. Available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, African Books Collective and Michigan State University Press.

The United Nations-organised plebiscite on 11 February 1961 was one of the most significant events in the history of the southern and northern parts of the British-administered trust territory in Cameroon. John Percival was sent by the then Colonial Office as part of the team to oversee the process.

This book captures the story of the plebiscite in all its dimensions and intricacies and celebrates the author’s admiration for things African through a series of reminiscences of what life was like in the 1960s, both for the Africans themselves and for John Percival as a very young man. The complex story is also a series of reflections about the effect of the modern world on Africa. It is a thorough, insightful, rich and enlightening first-hand source on a political landmark that has never been told before in this way.

Four Myths About the Unification of British and French Cameroons

By Nantang Jua et Piet Konings (Culled from "Occupation of Public Space Anglophone Nationalism in Cameroon", Cahiers d'études africaines, 175, 2004)

The regime and organic scholars (Ahidjo 1968; Forje 1981; Fogui 1990) have often attempted to historicise Cameroon only in terms of its present mobilisation needs, in particular the construction of a national consciousness as part of the nation-building project. They are, therefore, engaged in an impressive dose of historical amnesia–willed acts of selective remembrance of the past so as to erase Anglophone identity and heritage from national history.

Memory Lane (1967): A Loveless African Marriage Is Doing Surprisingly Well

By Donald H. Louchheim (The Washington Post, March 12, 1967)

Douala - When the wedding bells rang for French and British Cameroon in 1961, it seemed to be an unlikely match. For almost half a century, the two central African territories had gone separate ways under totally different colonial administrations.

British West Cameroon, about twice the size of Maryland, had been an adjunct to the sprawling colony of Nigeria. French Cameroon, more than 12 times as large, was a part of France's equatorial empire.

Cameroon Unification: Were Southern Cameroons Leaders Inexperienced and Illiterate?

Dibussi Tande

"While the UN and UK may be blamed to a certain extent for the bungled decolonization of Southern Cameroons, the bulk of that blame lies with the Southern Cameroons political class which allowed ethnicity, personality conflicts, and inter-party rivalry to interfere with the adoption of a truly pro-Southern Cameroonian agenda."

1961: Southern Cameroons Premier John Ngu Foncha returns from a trip to the United Nations

Cameroon's history is a history replete with half truths, myths, fallacies, and outright distortions. The Foumban Conference of July 1961, which sealed the fate of the British Southern Cameroons in its stormy marriage to French-speaking La Republique du Cameroun, is no exception to that rule.

A Baobab Fell in the Forest But Did They Notice? Bate Besong or the Symbol of the Cameroon Divide

By Dibussi Tande

“And yet, there was a time when people had faith, implicit faith - in this Union – without making any investigations. But I ask you, where is that faith now? It has vanished. So utterly! The bonds have snapped. We carry the scars of ‘brotherhood’ in a country so unaccustomed to candour.” Bate Besong, 1993

A common (in fact the most prevalent) theme in Bate Besong's writings (fiction and non-fiction) is the fate of Cameroon's English-speaking minority whom he referred to in his famous Beasts of No Nation as 'nightsoilmen" locked up in the antechamber of the bilingual republic; a people whose culture, history and even existence was an afterthought to the French-speaking majority of the bilingual Cameroon Republic.

 

Lamentations

By Lloney E. Monono (Author of Beyond the Promise)

With tears I remember -
Yes I remember
How you wooed me
You cooed to me
I was your apple
So young and supple
I was beautiful
Intelligent and resourceful – you said
Remember – you said
You love me
You needed me
You were in flames
When you called my name
Your need
Was my need