LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND NATION-BUILDING IN AFRICA: 

THE CASE OF CAMEROON

There is need to accommodate Linguistic Diversity in Africa instead of sacrificing it on the altar of national unity. The recent uprising in Cameroon has been erroneously judged to be “the Anglo-Saxon rebellion”. Current news reports from Zimbabwe speaks of some “hellish” attempt by a Shona led government to wipe out the Ndebele tribe In Sudan it’s a worsening and ever deepening crises between an Arabic(Islamic) north versus a peril Christian African south. The situation is not any better in Lybia, CAR, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Chad etc.

Have we in Africa, been witnessing the fulfilment of some ominous prophecy that “once the colonialist have gone, ethnicities shall rise against one another, region against region,” political polarization, internal wars, massive refugee camps, devastating famine, diseases and, in the wake of it all a worsening economic situation everywhere? This is Africa more than half a century after liberation from colonial /foreign domination.

If most of the continent’s problems are derived from the complex nature of the African societies, is it not that complexity that the ingredients of a solution are to be found?

In their attempt to cope and grapple with the challenges of retaining and consolidating their hard won independence from western colonial rule, African countries have a number of economic, social, political and cultural problems to contend with. Amongst this is the delicate task to transform a multiplicity of ethnic and cultural patterns into unified and modern nations. It has often been stated that, in an ideal nation, all citizens would be amongst other things, speak the same language and therefore share the same culture and view the world with the same eyes.

According to this conditions, few political entities will qualify as ideal nations. The apparently monocultural countries of Europe contain within themselves linguistic and cultural subgroups, which intermittently claim some form of identity and recognition. This is the case in Spain, Great Britain and to a lesser degree France. In Africa, the various ethno-cultural groups that make up the modern states have, starting from the colonial days, been labelled as “tribes” with rather derogatory and primitive connotations. In itself the question of “tribalism” has become anathema to the idea of nation building and progress.

The point would be, therefore, in the thinking in a number of leaders, to play down or even to do away with the “plague” of tribes for the sake of unity. This article is in fact, a reflection on the question as to whether ethnic and cultural pluralism within African states is an evil to be sacrificed on the altar of national unity, or if it can be accommodated into the national whole as it has been somehow achieved in such lands like Yugoslavia, Switzerland, and the defunct soviet union; whether diversity may contain the cornerstone for building strong-based nation-states

The “big-bang” that was the hectic scramble for Africa by the end of the 19^th century, left the continent torn open and divided between territory-hungry Europeans powers. They latter mapped the limits of their conquest according to artificial criteria, such as ravines, water courses, mountain ranges, or just meridians and parallels, regardless of pre-existing cultural and ethnic entities.

The independent African states that were born around the 1960s inherited the territorial structures as set by their colonial rulers. In fact, the principle of the sacrosanctity of the colonial inherited boundaries has received, and rightly so, the blessing of the Organisation of African Unity today the African Union in its charter.

As they stand today, sub-Saharan African countries with the exception of a few like Botswana, Burundi, Madagascar, Somalia and a couple more contain within their border, an amazing variety of linguistic and cultural communities. These are in many cases more akin to fellow tribesmen living across the border in a neighbouring country than to their actual countrymen. Nowhere has this tendency been more manifest than in the irredentist and bloody quest for “Greater Somalia” in the horn of Africa which has brought political unrest for decades.

While Tanzania is fortunate to have Swahili as a common language on top of some 120 ethnic tongues, Nigeria and Zaire (DRC) count respectively 410 and 540 languages and dialects. With a population of about 37 millions, Uganda has no less than 37 languages belonging to four distinct language families. The effects are glaring with Laurent kunda, the rebel leader in the east commanding part of this multiplicity.

As it is often remarked, the presence of different European languages in Africa constitutes a sizeable obstacle to the realisation of the dream of African unity, the multiplicity of indigenous languages within individual countries, may pose a more immediate threat to national integration. The case of Cameroon is a model for these colonial inherited languages where unbalance relations do exist between one people just because they either speak French or English. Some Ministries in Cameroon  are said to be language sensitive.

Indeed, linguistic diversity underlines regional and ethnic identity and loyalties which potentially can trigger of political tension, rebellions and even attempts to secede. In times of crises, for the most part when certain privileged categories of citizens enjoy undue political power and economic favours, the rest of the population would tend to regroup and close their ranks along ethnic lines to defend and further their rights and interests.

Ethnicity is a force to reckon with in African politics. It finds expression in power structures, economic lines and political alliances of all kinds. This accounted for the creation of federal forms of government in Uganda and Zaire in the 1960s and for the attempted secessions of Biafra and Katanga. It is an important factor in Sudan’s politics and Zimbabwe and in the movements in Angola and Namibia.

In this context, the attempt to revive national cultures and the adoption of such national resounding philosophies as “authenticity” can remain a dead letter as long as its genuine application would entail the re-awakening of “tribal self-awareness” which stand contrary to the reigning centralisation ideologies in many African states.

Up to now, the official language for administration and politics remain for all sub-Saharan African states, with the exception of Tanzania, Uganda which also uses Swahili, the ex-colonial one. English, French, Portuguese, Spanish are still considered as the only efficient means for carrying out national business and for maintaining national cohesion at least at the elite level.

The paradox here lies in the fact that, those foreign languages in which the head of state addresses the nation on critical issues, the national anthem, the constitution and other vital text are written, remain an inaccessible mystery for a majority of citizens. The latter are therefore not only marginalised vis-à-vis public life but they are also made powerless somehow, because, as they say “POWER LIES AT THE END OF THE DICTIONARY”. This can be seen as the origin of the present standoff between Common Law Lawyers in Cameroon and the state. In Malawi there has been an attempt to impose Chichewa and popularise it at the expense of many of other minority languages in the country. Identically, in Zimbabwe, the shona language seems to be taking an upper hand as a predominant language, shadowing the other numerically less important ones.

Any Machiavellian strategy of linguistic and cultural manipulation, with mixed motives, but certainly favouring the interest of those who are in power, may contain in itself the seed of national disunity by provoking resentments from minority groups who feel themselves the victims of an internal form of cultural imperialism which may be less acceptable than the external one. In the Tanzanian context, Swahili has been naturally accepted by the entire country as a national language, without any political manoeuvring. On the cultural side, Tanzania is a success story, not easily imitable anywhere in the region. The continued insistence on the imported languages being the main channels of school instructions to the detriment of children’s mother tongues or familiar local languages, whose educational and cultural virtues are undisputable, has not only logistic and economic justifications, but also strong political overtones. The often assumed inadequacy of African languages for teaching modern sciences is in no way backed by scientific evidence.

Linguist and Anthropologist agree that all languages are in a perpetual progress of growth and adaptation, through borrowing and integration. It all depends on the functions a society assigns them to perform. English, which was once relegated to lower class and menial activities, has risen to become a world language. Latin the former language of the learned and the gentry has fallen to the level of a dead language. Therefore, there is nothing in the nature of African languages which could prevent them from embracing all aspect of modern knowledge.

The assertion that national cohesion and economic development in this war plagued nations of Africa can only be achieved if ethno-linguistic differences are suppressed or at least minimised, needs to be given a second thought. In fact what deserves a fresh reconsideration is the kind of “national unity” or “national integration” that we want. It seems like letting loose the self-assertion of tribal/cultural identity and of ancestral customs and practices may, given certain circumstances, prove detrimental to nation building in the economic, social and political sense. On the other hand, the elimination of a country’s rich and varied cultural heritage in the name of oneness and of western-inspired form of progress, which is commercial and consumption-oriented in nature, may result, in the long run, in the creation of a sterile, shapeless and colourless society having the elements of neither a “tribe” nor a nation.

In any sense, the elimination of cultural differences within a country is no automatic guarantee or magical whip for political cohesion amongst the people. Political and economic inequities between various geographic entities, sub ethnic groups, religious affiliations remain potential disruptive forces. It appears, then, that the solution to Africa’s problem of wedding happily national political unity to cultural diversity lies in a commonly agreed compromise between the various relevant groupings in the country. It seems like our nations need to devise an original blend of democracy, taking inspiration from traditional anthropological concepts that haven proven themselves right in the state crafting system of modern political states.

The proposed order would be a federal or semi federal form of government based as much as possible on the natural divisions of the populations such as ethno-cultural groups. What is needed would be a democratically negotiated allocation of duties, rights and resources, between the common government and regional centres of power.

Within this scheme, tribal or ethno-linguistic groups far from being disbanded and flattened, would be given legal recognition as mini nations in their own right, enjoying their cultural attributes ,values, norms, and having their regional assemblies where some local languages would be used for debates to better the peoples understanding of their country. In Cameroon the national anthem, constitution and other vital text remain an inaccessible mystery. Within this system of governance. This system accounts for the relative stability in Nigeria with its federal system of Administration. There is need to recognise once and for all, that cultural diversity is a necessary condition for the vitality of nations and the survival of humanity. We cannot even suppress it, let alone kill it.

For Economic development, to be genuine, it must be “endogenous”. That means that, it must take root in the cultural personality of the rural and urban communities who, in the spirit of self-reliance, need to define the nature of their needs and problems with sustainable methods to solve them. The Americanised or western handouts have and shall never solve our problems in as much as the cultural undertones are neglected. This accounts to the supreme failure of concepts like the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP), Millennium Development Goals, (MDGs), African Growth and Opportunistic Act (AGOA), HIPC initiatives, Poverty Reduction Strategic Papers etc. The center of development should be man, in his own environment, with his own values, resources and motivations.

The citizens of tomorrow who are been polished in schools and colleges have a sacred right to learn as much as possible about their local tongues and cultural traditions. An educational system that is rooted in the cultural creed and originality of each people would not prepare the young for sterile imitation of imported models, but for autonomous and creative lives. A dissection of the cultural provisions within the natural environment would be a needed catalyst to reduce the activation energy which is western.

Within the context of education some form of accommodation needs to be reached between the national languages on the one hand, and on the other, the official foreign language and its cultural load. Anthropologist and linguist will agree that language in itself carries a vital weight in cultural movement. Whether it is English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, etc these languages have their specific functions in inter-African and international levels. In a way they constitute a windowpane that opens up the universal communion.

For more than half century after conquering political ‘sovereignty’, there is an urgent need for African states to re-assess and re-adjust their assumptions, aims and attitudes. They need to sort out their assets and liabilities; in fact, they have just to face up the realities as vivid as they are without any simulation untended to please a western external force. This is more essential if African nations are to step on a firm foot, into this more demanding and challenging 21^st century.

CONCLUSION

In Africa, we are not dead weak as we are been told. We are as of now (be it as it may) the greatest lovers of unity. The subject of African unity has fully fledged nowadays to all Africans. 56 Years after independence, we will all agree that Africa has taken a leap in the wrong direction and has disappointingly regressed. The standards of living, infrastructural development, life expectancy rates etc have all fallen drastically. There are conflicts in Somalia, CAR, Sudan, Congo (RDC), Uganda, famine in Zimbabwe, poverty in Cameroon, diseases in sub-Saharan Africa etc. We cannot even afford to name our problems. Without prejudices and intuitions, I presumably think that Africa is not the most hostile part of the world. If Africa takes a silver medal, then the Middle East will take gold.

There is much we will and must win in unity than in division. Through it we can reduce continental exploitation by promoting the dreams of Kwame Nkruma, Ghadaffi and Mbeki. We can ensure that, our dreams are accomplished, visions attained, hope achieved. Brain drain will no longer be an issue, xenophobia will be buried, diseases conquered, famine eradicated with the millions of bread baskets African has. We shall produce and have a market for our products, America will be forced not only to teach us democracy ( as though it is a vaccine) but will also tell us how to produce cars, computers. If truly they love us, nobody will talk about aids, but technological empowerment.

Though with the atomicity of African societies, and the ever increasing identity of each group compounded by anthropological cleavages, the reality is still clear. My hypothesis is that, the creation of more stable states, through cultural and linguistic provision, conflict, famine, etc will be reduced. When this is achieved, the later will be African unity which will just be a bi-product. Thus, my perspective is inductive. “Charity begins from home”

Obama, told Americans on November 4^th 2008 to believe in themselves and for their future. Africans need also to believe in their aptitude, to ensure a bright future for our children who are already in debts and on credit.

Moses Ngwanah