Can Cameroon repeat February 2008?
It happened 3 years ago. It led to the deaths of hundreds of people, among whom was a 13 year-old child. When it happened we all decried the ruthlessness of the Biya regime. Lets take a short walk down memory lane. I published this email on February 28, 2008.
Dear reader,
Below are three accounts of the situation in our country. It is sad that human life is sacrificed for any goals to be attained. It is equally sad that some of the objectives of the strike action (according to some sources), to revolt against an incessant toll that high living costs are imposing on our brothers and sisters, are bashed by and exacerbated paradoxically by the strike action.
The pro government press sees the strike action as ridiculous and scoffs its rationale. Newspapers that have been vanguards of change and pro everything good couldn't give the strike a definite intent, at least those that I read. Now, I begin to ask myself some questions: why a nationwide strike?
The price of fuel seems to be the first reason. The government's proposed increase and other measures aimed at regulating the transportation sector met with some resistance as was expected. Government officials cite global rise in prices as cause, forcing a magnanimous (implied) government to subsidize fuel currently at CFA 100 per litre. To their credit, even here in the US, we have begun to restrict our movements to go an extra necessary mile. From all indications therefore, an increase in gas prices is quite legitimate and comprehensible albeit abhorred.
Why has the same kind of revolt not manifested itself in the US (besides the local and national news mention)? For one, the US enjoys low fuel costs as compared to Cameroon. A gallon of gas costs on average, $3.40 (yes!) while a liter of super grade fuel in Cameroon is proposed at roughly CFA 700. One gallon is 3.78litres. Not very good at math, I have the characteristic tendency of rounding off my figures to make things a bit easier. Don't trust my numbers. In the US, a litre of fuel will cost approx $.90 ($3.40/3.78). The current exchange rate is about CFA 432 to one US dollar. So how much will a liter of fuel cost? Well as a better person with figures, you probably guessed about CFA 389.
Okay so gas is "a little" bit more expensive in Cameroon. Where's the problem? Putting aside the ministers, the justices, directors and all those big guns who do not feel the pinch thanks to their expansive COLA (cost of living adjustment) in the form of a free or subsidized anything, "bon d'essence", etc, incomes in Cameroon are abysmal in relation to the cost of living. In the US, workers get an increase in salary to cope with the rising living costs. In Cameroon, at least when I worked there, there was some kind of advancement in place every two years depending on your category as a civil servant. It wasn't automatic (6 yrs ago) and getting it involved costs of its own (the ubiquitous fiscal stamp, the occasional bribe to get the decision from the Min. of Public Service then to the Ministry of finance...). At the end of the road, any increase has an insignificant effect on lifestyles.
For a little piece of history (and for the purpose of perspective), in 1991, a packet of sugar cost about CFA 300, bread CFA 70, 33 export CFA 300 … The average salary for a teacher then was CFA 250.000. Gas? My guess puts it at CFA 300/litre. By 1993, everything had changed. Prices almost doubled. Salaries were slashed to about half, including pension. My first salary as a civil servant in 1994 was CFA 70060 (USD 108). Had I graduated from the same school two years previously, I would have had a net salary of about CFA 140.000(USD 216).
Another perspective: a high income earner in Cameroon who makes yearly, CFA 3,000,000 (CFA 250,000x12) spends about twice more money on gas than a low income worker in the US who makes only $24,000 (CFA 10,368,000) a year.
Maybe the discontent in Cameroon is not fueled only by the matter of fuel. After all, how many can own a car? The Cameroonian pays more for sugar, bread, flour, milk, and much more-if one were to do the same kind of risky arithmetic above-than the average American worker. What magic do we expect them to perform to survive?
Second reason: revision of the constitution. It all started as a bad joke whispered here and there, gradually gaining steam as anything promoted by the Cameroonian government money or promise of. It eventually became the keynote for juggernauts of the Biya regime. These honorable men and women well fed and paid have the audacity (how else can it be termed) to imply that in a country like Cameroon, there is NO ONE capable of handling the reins but Paul Biya. It is beyond simplistic and philistine reasoning. These people want to drive a derelict people to insanity or… to revolt. Warning: "Le temps appartient au peuple" (S. Labou Tansi).
If one were to pretend that Paul Biya is Cameroon's wunderkind, politically speaking, what will we hail as his accomplishments and argument for an extra term of office: salary cuts, increased unemployment, record corruption, nepotism & tribalism, unaffordable housing, degraded road infrastructures, an expanded array of highly paid ministers, justices, directors, etc?
Paul Biya's vision, at a time when he had his sanity one might be tempted to presume, guarded him against seeking another term, hence the present constitution in need of an unnecessary facelift. Revising the present constitution for the sole purpose of abrogating the confused and seeming trust of the Cameroonian people will be the biggest blunder that any politician (Cameroonian I mean) has ever made since Ahidjo stepped down in favor of Biya in 1982. It smacks of haughtiness from a man who has weighed all the risks and categorized his own people as feeble marionettes incapable of resisting his insidious and insipid policies viz rigor and moralisation, the new deal, Cameroon des grandes ambitions...
Many who have tasted democracy, real democracy, will easily agree that an individual at the helm of a country, no matter how great she/he is, is incapable of sustaining the same popularity as that given at the beginning of a term. To imagine that men the ilk of Biya, Bongo, Nguema can continuously inspire their people positively is to purport that a man will be intensely uxorious after twentysome years of marriage as he was at the beginning. A British politician (Enoch Powell) best describes this when he says "All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs".
I have been amused by the pharisaical moaning from overseas and electronic calls to action, not because of my nascent cynicism, but thanks to the ignorance and disdain the folks back in Cameroon (those that matter that is) hold us here abroad. To think that some believe we CAN do something! Come on! We are the same people who just happen to live in different geographical spheres: we still crave the positions, that notoriety a la Camerounaise. We are still personality blind, support ridiculous ideas for the sake of conforming or because they emanate from people we like, have no defined ideals, frivolously shift our positions for gain, etc. Watch the rhetoric and commotion when Paul Biya makes a furtive appearance in the USA and you'll understand.
Some honorable men of the opposition use every single opportunity-at the detriment of the depraved and naïve youth who always falls- to stand on rostrums preaching gleaming lofty ideals, ready to decamp at the slightest fiscal temptation. They will preach anything from liberational (my neologism) expeditions to land redistribution. They have lost the respect of all but a bunch of die hard sycophants. No need for names, they know themselves.
As for SCNC... I'll prescribe that to my daughter's child.
So to answer the question about the rationale for a strike; there needn't be any fundamentally. The stage is set and the moment is ripe. It has been so for a while. All that is needed is a spark for things to become ugly. The spark can be anything. For reference, read a history book: one only may be necessary. History has a way of repeating itself they say.
E. Etah
So, the question is: can Cameroonian people replicate the 2008 strikes?
Check back later for my reflections.
http://www.lemessager.net/
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