cameroon

Your madness, not mine

by makuchi

There are many good writers from Cameroon, which enjoys a strong literary tradition, primarily in French and to a lesser extent, in English. I chose YOUR MADNESS, NOT MINE by Makuchi, mainly because of the variety in reading a collection of short stories, but also because the collection is written in English, where the majority of Cameroonian writers are French.

Reading Makuchi’s collection, I was struck by the similar themes that have emerged in so many of the books I’ve read so far. Themes of gender issues with women struggling to find a voice in the noise of patriarchy. Themes of modernism while staying connected to the wisdom of the old ways. Themes of colonial appropriation—of land, natural resources, people, and ideas. And themes of language, inescapable from colonialism.

In her story, The Forest Will Claim You Too, Makuchi writes of how the colonial timber industry literally tears apart the environment, while, metaphorically, tearing through a community. The feelings among the local village about the scars being scored on their land and the men responsible for them, is so powerful that they refer to the timber workers as, “the forest rapists.” Any local man who is lured to join them with the promise of good wages is viewed with shame. “How can a man, a son of the soil, participate in desecrating the land that fed his ancestors, the land that now feeds him, the land that will forever feed his family and his kin? It would be like raping his own mother...” The story centers on an elderly woman who loses her son to the industry, first as a worker, and finally as a victim of the machines.

But the issue that most interested to me, and something I was completely unaware of before researching Cameroonian literature, is the struggle of Anglophone speakers and writers in Cameroon, a hangover from colonial occupation. Cameroon is the only African country to have maintained two European official languages beyond independence. After Germany lost its colonies in WW1, Cameroon was randomly divided into two. Instead of being returned to the native African population, England seized West Cameroon—along the border of Britain’s Nigerian colony,—while France was awarded East Cameroon, a much larger territory. The country remained divided this way—a Francophone territory and an Anglophone territory—until the referendum of 1961, when the two were united and the smaller Anglo-controlled area became part of the larger, french Cameroon. Since that time, under the largely uncontested “rule'“ of President Paul Biya, who has been in office for the past 39 years, (the longest ruling non-royal in the world) there has been a steady Francophonization of the country, and with it, an equally steady political and cultural erasure of the Anglophones, who are treated as an inconsequential minority of second-class citizens.

Makuchi is part of this small Anglophone community, which she highlights by writing in English, and through her stories in YOUR MADNESS, NOT MINE. As is Imbolo Mbue, (author of HOW BEAUTIFUL WE WERE and BEHOLD THE DREAMERS) who uses the metaphor of her changing hairstyles to reflect on the challenges of growing up in Cameroon as a member of the Anglophone minority in this article in The Guardian. A new and growing literary generation in Cameroon confronts and asserts their status as Anglophone writers in Bakwa Magazine, which focuses on English writing, and this article in Open Country magazine delves deeply into the Anglophone literary community and the challenges they face.

The impacts of colonialism are so far-reaching, with tentacles remaining throughout Africa in land, industry, culture, and language. In Cameroon, this reach continues to infect generations beyond liberation, who must still struggle to own and protect their identity in a country distorted by random colonial borders and inherited language. I was fascinated to discover that France’s involvement in almost all her former colonies remains to this day, and extends far beyond the cultural. “It is not unusual to find French advisors a key points in many governments, nor is it unusual for French businesses to have a quasi-monopoly in certain areas. For instance, in Cameroon all textbooks are imported from France. French troops have never left the continent and are only a phone call away… The currency is still the CFA franc, which was used in colonial times… in 1994 the French devalued the CFA franc with dramatic repercussions all over West Africa. France maintains a coalition of over forty French-speaking countries worldwide through what is called La Francophonie, supported by an aid agency, Agence de Cooperation Culturalle et Technique, created in the twilight years of France’s colonial empire.” - Eloise A. Brière, in the Introduction to YOUR MADNESS, NOT MINE.