By Kennedy Abang
The word ‘Bilingualism’ was conceived and implemented in the 1972 constitution following a surprise ‘referendum’ decreed by President Ahmadou Ahidjo just 24 hrs after returning from an official visit to Paris.
The intention; as demonstrated by the replacement of ‘two states of equal status’ with ‘Bilingualism; French and English of equal value’; was apparently to use the word ‘Bilingualism’ to substitute bi-cultural-ism and justify the dissolution of the state of Southern Cameroons.
This element of surprise; meant the concept was never studied as a project; and there was no committee to define its technical and scientific attributes or to determine its mode of application.
The change from the Federal Republic to a unitary state mark a historical pointer in Cameroon because it offers a reference point to the replacement of; structural issues with notional and facultative concepts; scientific reasoning with cliché and slogans; and substantive issues with rhetoric.
The change to the unitary state did not respect any scientific or technical reasoning; and no consideration was accorded to the alignment of the culture and structure of the state.
Once a decision was made, it became a question of propounding slogans and political rhetoric to justify a concept that is effectively notional and facultative.
The Bilingualism we preach and profess is farcical and a parody. Francophones are today in the habit of saying; “C’est le pays qui est bilingue. C’est n’est pas les camerounaises”.
In 1972, the Anglo-Saxon system was destroyed and assimilated into an entity whose administrative, governmental and institutional frameworks were designed exclusively along the French cultural orientation.
Learners and public officials are in principle, expected to incarnate both the French and Anglo-Saxon cultural orientation at the same time, in a political architecture constructed exclusively on the French system, and where about 80% of the population is made up of French speakers.
If the country (which is supposed to be ‘bilingual’), is then structured exclusively along the French system, it means Anglophones do not enjoy a default existence.
This concept did not go pass the ‘proof of concept’ stage; but was maintained on paper to be advanced whenever the Anglophone problem is raised with the slogan “le Cameroun est un pays bilingue”.
No country in this world describes itself as bilingual in the same format. Since the prevailing administrative and institutional framework operates on a French configured template; and the French language, spoken by over 80% of the population, is the de facto working language; Anglophones have been undergoing an aggressive and draconian form of acculturation that has lasted 47 years and placed the Anglophones on the periphery of public life.
With the advent of the Anglophone crisis; bilingualism has gone into overdrive. TV and radio programs, political personalities, and newspapers have been preaching Bilingualism with increasing vigor.
Pupils and Students have been drilled into the slogan; I am not Anglophone or Francophone, I am bilingual. Never has a country feted so much about national unity and Bilingualism like Cameroon; to the point where these concepts are given structural importance.
Bilingualism as a structural paradigm
In the opening lines of the constitution, Bilingualism is accorded a structural importance in; ‘Cameroon is a bilingual country; French and English of equal value’. Firstly, a language has no intrinsic value of its own.
It is simply a medium through which value is shared and stored. Secondly, neither the constitution nor any of its associated instruments gives any technical or scientific attributes to the concept of Bilingualism.
Since 1972; no decree, arreté or ordinance has ever defined the technical attributes or any measurable indicators associated with Bilingualism.
What are the benchmarks and milestones to bilingualism? And based on what references? What are the pointers to effective bilingualism? Or being perfectly bilingual? Is an incompetent bilingual Cameroonian more useful to Cameroon than a competent Anglo- or Franco-? How does a Southern Cameroons state and a French Cameroon state imperil Bilingualism? What is the difference between a bilingual federal republic and a bilingual unitary state?
For 47 years, the government has been giving structural importance to a concept that is in essence notional and facultative.
It is unthinkable for a government to formulate a policy objective that it cannot supervise or regulate because it is void of a scientific and technical content. No structural aspect of any state or people in the world can be ambivalently bilingual; especially if the different facet opposes each other.
What is the difference between an English-speaking Francophone Cameroonian and a Congolese or Ivorian English-speaker? They all profess English in an aerial and floating way with no structural reference for the way the culture underpinning the language influences society.
Bilingualism can only be consequential and incidental to the existence of dual autonomous socio-cultural orientations.
When some Francophones confess today that; “C’est l’état qui est bilingue; pas les camerounaise”, it demonstrates that because citizens are not bilingual, the state cannot be bilingual.
Is the state an emanation from its sociology or an implantation based on the whims of an individual or some obscure interests? In reality, ‘bilingualism’ (a concept that is circumstantial) has been used to supplant biculturalism and the substantive aspects of our 1961 political construct.
The Un-examined Notion of Bilingualism
The idea propounded was to evolve towards a hybrid ‘bilingual’ culture; independent of the Francophone and Anglophone cultures; but issuance from the blending of the two.
It was argued that, with time; the 20% Anglophone population would speak French and the over 80% Francophone population would also speak English, and Cameroon would evolve towards a hybrid ‘bilingual’ culture.
The first challenge with this postulation is the technical feasibility of the ‘bilingual’ culture. Our inherited European cultures are governed by rules and laws with well developed rules and dogmas; it would be practically impossible to innovate within cultures whose rules we don’t control.
Furthermore, the Anglo-Saxon and French cultures cannot be reduced to the English and French languages respectively.
Finally, the demographic imbalance makes it difficult for hybridization to happen at the same pace.
A pre-requisite for this project to succeed would involve placing each culture on the same pedestal; with both enjoying demographic parity, and within an identical administrative and professional framework.
Since there do not exist a framework that incarnates at the same time the Anglo-Saxon culture and the French culture; the project is impractical.
In reality, Bilingualism in Cameroon involves the Anglophone and Francophone cultures evolving separately, but housed in a common governmental and administrative structure.
Knowledge and skills are tools in the service of competence; and it is possible to have the right knowledge and skills set, and still be considered incompetent because you do not master the medium and framework on which you have to operate.
While principles, methodologies and concepts enjoy universal recognition, the application of acquired knowledge (competence) must be done within a framework that is developed according to a specific socio-cultural preference.
Conversely, it is the socio-cultural preference of a people that conditions the framework underlying systems and processes through which knowledge and skills are applied.
It is pedagogically incoherent and technically unfeasible to train students in one culture and language knowing they’ll be required to practice in another culture and language. Bilingualism in the Cameroonian context, evidently equates cultural imperialism.
In light of the prevailing demographic imbalance, this reduces the system to the ‘francophonisation’ of Anglophones with all the hallmarks of phagocytosis; the English culture being totally swallowed by the French culture. Mongo Beti described it as ‘la francisation des Anglophones’ (The ‘frenchification’ of Anglophones).
It’s like taking one million Germans to Shanghai and requiring of each; to at the same time incarnate the German culture and the Chinese culture, while hoping that the Chinese will do same.
The result is that Anglophones; though able to grow and enjoy predominantly Anglo-Saxon grooming in communities and schools; at the level of the professional and public life, are obliged to operate in the French language and on a framework that was developed exclusively along the French governance system.
Suddenly, an excellent student becomes an under-performing professional, or outright incompetent and unemployable because he/she cannot speak the language or excelled in a cultural environment alien to his.
We may have to double the number of hours in a day or extend the lunar calendar and re-engineer our genomes to incarnate in an individual, a dual French and Anglo-Saxon cultural orientations.
Even in IT, a computer can never perform an auto-correction in French and English at the same time. It is either English or French, but never both. What we call Bilingual schools are actually English and French systems cohabiting under a common administrative structure.
An exercise in futility
Like the word peace, Bilingualism is facultative and circumstantial. Peace is consequential to factors such as social justice, inclusiveness, transparency, equality etc.
We aspire and work towards peace but never define the country structurally as a peaceful nation. Constitutionally, defining Cameroon as a bilingual country could be equated to saying Cameroon is a peaceful nation.
Bilingualism can only emanate from two autonomous socio-cultural orientations domiciled in a political construct. Forcing bilingualism via the domiciliation of two opposing socio-cultural orientations in a single administrative and governmental apparatus is not feasible.
The state would first have to re-structure her sovereign domains according to the supposed ‘bilingual’ culture which unfortunately is non-existent and impractical. Which country and what system are we going to reference in our bilingualism adventure.
Scientifically, for this to happen, we must place everybody on the same pedestal: equal number of Anglophones and Francophones; a new ‘bilingual’ framework for the country; a new structural orientation for the country that is neither centralized nor federal; a new legal system that is neither English Common law nor the French Civil law etc.
The challenge is; can we have citizens who master the technical content of subject matters equally in French and English?
While it is possible to speak and express oneself in English and French, it is not possible to simultaneously incarnate the Anglo-Saxon and French socio-cultural orientations.
What should obtain in Cameroon is; a French or English learner or professional, who reasons and operate in his primary language, and on a wholly Anglo-Saxon or French framework; and then develop competencies in a secondary language in his specific area of expertise.
The second challenge is; can the government or the state be bilingual? No. The government is founded on a structural framework issuance from an ideological orientation that develops systems and processes on which citizens apply their skills.
What we have in Cameroon is an Anglo-Saxon system that serves as an appendage to a French body; completely non-existent at the sovereign level and must always negotiate to exist; while evolving in eternal approximation.
Consider a Francophone Cameroonian student who wants to become a Central Banker; why must he learn English when the apex bank (BEAC), the monetary policy documents are all defined in French? The same applies for the Insurance code (CIMA), the business law framework (OHADA), the penitentiary service, and a lot more.
The bottom-line is that the state has no moral or technical grounds to oblige anyone to be bilingual because her concept is incoherent, and the state does operate on a ‘Bilingual’ framework.
In multilingual and multicultural jurisdictions such as Switzerland, Canada, and Belgium; each sub-system evolves independently and in an autonomous model.
Never in recorded history has two systems ; with differing socio-political and socio-professional orientations ever been domiciled in a homologous state apparatus.
During the Anglo-French condominium after WWI, it lasted just 15 months and failed. Hybridization takes place when each component enjoys a default existence and exist autonomously ; while ‘buying-into’ positive aspects of the other.
Bilingualism Made in Cameroon
Former North-West Governor Abakhat Mahamat in his book; “l’Audace d’Etre Different”, surmised the French approach to bilingualism as
“Le piège de tout penser en Français et traduire en Anglais” (the danger of conceiving in French, and then translate in English).
In reality, it is not only the thinking that is done in French; the prevailing governance approach in Cameroon consist of thinking, conceiving, designing and implementing in French, and then translating into English.
Before 1972, Cameroon consisted of two systems (state of West Cameroon and the state of East Cameroon) with separate socio-cultural and socio-political orientations, and evolving parallel to each other under a framework of shared sovereignty.
What we have today are two sets of citizens; groomed in exclusively Anglo-Saxon and French communities; educated and trained according to Anglo-Saxon and French curricula; and later required at the professional level, to operate on a framework issuance exclusively from the French system, and in a population where French speakers constitute 80%.
Prima facie act of structural and systemic discrimination
It is clear that after performing an act of political fraud in 1972, it was necessary for the state of Cameroon to reconcile the fraud with the technical and scientific exigencies of the operational and functional aspects of governance and administration.
Further acts of political machinations were required to bargain the existence of the Anglophone population.
In 1972, a country that would still be importing toothpicks and body lotions 47 years later, became a world leader in socio-cultural re-engineering; in the form of a non-existent, unfeasible and impractical experimentation of a concept called BILINGUALISM.
What we called Bilingualism in Cameroon is actually a government that is an incarnation of injustice against the Anglophone population.
While a Francophone can succeed and be fulfilled professionally without the need to speak English; an Anglophone must systematically imbibe not only the French language but also the French culture to succeed professionally.
Based purely on the concept of Bilingualism; it would appear the original design was to absorb and eradicate our inherited Anglo-Saxon culture; while at the same time, denaturing and assimilating Anglophones.
Anglophones do not enjoy the privilege of a default sovereign existence; they struggle to speak French, but are not French enough; they incarnate the Anglo-Saxon mindset; but do not express enough of it. In the process; careers have been ruined, potentials unexploited, and performances have been sub-optimal.
All Anglophones in senior strategic roles in government are either fully ‘francophonized’ or doing essentially clerical and administrative work without the capacity to strategically innovate because the framework is alien to their socio-cultural orientation. The acculturation has been draconian, unrepentant and outrageous.