Opinion: Here is why schools must resume amid ongoing conflict in NWSW regions

By Hans Ngala

As schools are set to resume this September, a lot of things call for deep reflection as the Anglophone Crisis enters its sixth year. Anyone who understands Cameroon’s history and the facts surrounding the events of the last two decades will understand that Anglophone Cameroonians have genuine grievances.

The truth is that Anglophones have been sidelined in national affairs from always being in secondary positions, to sometimes being appointed to offices that don’t really serve a meaningful purpose such as Prof. Ngole Ngole being in the ministry of wildlife.

However, to understand why schools must resume as a matter of urgency, we need to go back to how the current phase of the conflict started.

It would be recalled that demands were initially made by lawyers who wanted the legal system to be revised and for certain laws like the OHADA to be translated into English as well as for there to be more English-speaking judges in courtrooms.

The lawyers claim to have sent several letters about their demands to Yaounde but these went unattended, leading the legal minds to take to the streets in October 2016.

Teachers who had also voiced concerns to Yaounde, calling for reforms in the education sector, followed a month later with a sit-in strike after seeing how lawyers were brutalized by security forces.

Several trade unions including teachers, lawyers, bikers, taxi drivers, and traders later merged to form the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium (CACSC) which went into talks with the government. Talks collapsed in January 2017 when CACSC insisted that the only way out of the stalemate was for a redeployment of English-speaking teachers teaching French language and French-speaking teachers teaching the English language. The government responded by employing 1000 bilingual science teachers which did not solve the problem. Later it was said that the unionists demanded the return to the two-state federation on which the two Cameroons were founded.

The government outlawed the same CACSC that they had been negotiating with, arrested the leaders, and shut down the internet in the two Anglophone regions for approximately 3 months – the longest internet shutdown anywhere on earth to this day.

There have been several attempts at dialogue but while most of the movement’s leaders remain behind bars, Anglophones remain distressed with the government’s handling of the quagmire.

Anglophone separatist fighters who view schools as symbolic of the government have deterred learners and teachers from going to school, while the government in an effort not to look weak, has forced the same teachers and students to return to classrooms or face having their salaries not paid.

It is very true that schools have become a pawn in this show of prowess between government forces and ‘Ambazonia’ separatist fighters, but it would be wise for the latter to take a step back and ask how else a case for Anglophone grievances can be made but without jeopardizing the education of Anglophone children.

Yes, schools may be operated by the government but if those schools stand empty, Yaounde does not care and it is high time we ask who is really getting hurt by schools not being functional.

The Western world is not coming to save us. We should learn from history that there have been even bloodier wars in Africa that did not bother the West until when the time came when they felt some ‘pity’ and they would use it to make money in the name of shooting movies about these ‘calamities’. Take the case of Rwanda in 1994 for example, hundreds of thousands were killed there but they did nothing. However, years later, they came and shot the film Hotel Rwanda and Hollywood made millions from it, why were they silent and only decided to come years later when the damage had already been done?

Apartheid persisted in South Africa for decades and in fact, the US government labeled the African National Congress (ANC) a “terrorist” organization until they saw that Nelson Mandela was not a threat to Western interests and he became a celebrated icon. Years later, they came and shot the famous Sarafina .

The complaints that Anglophones have raised in the Cameroonian public square are valid and deserving of attention, but we cannot put our children’s future on hold, waiting for a ‘savior’ from somewhere, when it is clear that no one is coming to save us.

We are on our own and it is high time our leaders understand that. Schools can still be functioning while the struggle continues.

It does not have to be a bloody struggle. Even President Paul Biya acknowledges that there are problems and has made efforts (albeit insufficient), at addressing the concerns. Until a time comes when he chooses to enter into dialogue with the Anglophone leaders both at home and in the diaspora, it is in the interest of the Anglophones that schools should resume because when success in this fight for a fair life, finally comes, then it would be good to have an educated generation and not a half-educated or uneducated one that would not be capable of handling or addressing the issues of the day.

It is understandable that schools are the last institution where both parties are able to show who is in control, but if we have learned anything from history, it is that even in the midst of war, learning can still go on.

In Syria, students still go to school even as rockets fly around them, and thank God, we have not yet come to that. In Sudan, students still brave the odds and go to school.

South Africa at the height of apartheid still had schools even if they were segregated.

So yes, if the Anglophone is to be taken seriously, then schools must as a matter of urgency resume in earnest, this September in the Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon.