Whenever a group of young Africans are invited to a European country to attend a cultural or sports event the original number hardly ever returns.
260 young representatives of the Cameroonian Catholic church went to the World Youth Festival in Rome for the third millennium celebrations. Only sixty returned. The others had evaporated. We are dealing with a social phenomenon which is related not only to the living conditions of Africans but also to the wonderland projected by the programmes of French television channels aired in Africa.
In his recent book about life in Douala Gilles Séraphin shows how the longing for social status haunts the young. Their prospects thwarted, they desire nothing more than to emigrate, in order to achieve, on returning, the social status so much yearned for.
For Father Eric Rosny, a Jesuit priest who has lived in Douala for forty-three years, this kind of pressure to emigrate seizes hold of a society which has lost its points of reference. Forty years ago Cameroonians saw going to Europe mostly as a means of getting a good education before coming to work in Cameroon. Today it is very rare to see a young person who would not want to leave for good. The length of the queue for visas outside the French consulate in Douala speaks for itself. In the year 2000 alone there were said to have been around 50,000 applications from the city of Douala alone. Those with no money keep on nurturing the secret dream of leaving Cameroon. It is more and more unbearable to live here, as someone put it recently, expressing what everyone feels: when one cannot be sure of being able to hold down a job, get married, build a house, support ones parents, or even throw a family celebration.
During the Iraq war, when it was announced that there were Cameroonians in the US army, the notion of joining it, or at least a European army, became an attractive prospect.
Economic collapse
The state of the economy lies at the root of all these problems. In 1986 the country was hit by an unprecedented economic crisis. Eight years later the local currency was devalued by 100%. This, combined with a reduction in the salaries of state employees twice in the course of the same year, forced workers to find parallel means of subsistence for themselves and their extended families. Inflation was in double figures. It was then that public service became corrupted. Everyone came actively or passively to condone corruption. This was when it began, the gangrenous corruption which it is Cameroons sad honour to lead the world for two years running. For those who believe in moral values it has made life impossible.
In 1990 the conference of Cameroons bishops published a letter which denounced the body politic, and in particular the theft of a sum of about 209 billion CFA francs which had been siphoned off into various private bank accounts in Europe. The money has never been retrieved. While life for the ordinary person becomes more wretched with every day, this colossal sum, which could have been used for social and economic development, sits in someones account. In the shantytowns where I work it is common to find families of more than six living on no more than $3 a week.
The state remains the biggest employer. At regular intervals, recruitment drives are announced by the Ministry of Public Works. Each time this happens, rumours start flying that for a certain sum of money, your candidature will be successful. Those whose parents are not on the right networks or do not have the money can only dream of leaving for some part of the world where these practices do not prevail.
The rise of tribalism
Having been locked into a monolithic and deeply repressive system since gaining their independence in 1960, Cameroonians felt the wind of change that brought down the Berlin Wall, and rose up with violence to demand democracy. The repression which this elicited left many hundreds dead, according to reliable sources.
It also led to a resurgence of tribalism in this young nation consisting of more than 230 different ethnic peoples whom the arbitrariness of Berlins colonial partitioning had thrown together. This tribalism dominated the presidential elections of 1992 and it grows stronger with every year. The government as well as opposition play ethnic politics, while blaming one another for this state of affairs. Official appointments are made on an ethnic basis, hence the habitual phrase in the government press: The Minister was feted by his supporters; the people of Y have sent a message of support to the head of state for the nomination of one of their peers to the post of
The chief consequence of this is clientilism, which though prohibited by the prime minister, remains in force through the quiet consent of the political party in power. The political elite is obliged to recruit from amongst its own people. In todays Cameroon one can obtain a university diploma simply by knowing which political party to choose. Once a person has been appointed to a post under such a system, he feels he has little option but to keep extending this web of ethnic nepotism. Meanwhile, those with the competence and knowledge resign themselves to work in the informal sector and nurture dreams of emigrating to some rich country where these practices do not exist.
The teachers plight
Education has suffered gravely since 1994, when devaluation and massive salary cuts pushed teachers to fight for their rights in repeated strikes. In circumstances where everyone was forced to make ends meet somehow or other, teachers have resorted to selling cribs for exams.
A few years ago there was even talk of people paying in kind, or with sexual favours. The result is that the once admirable Cameroonian education system has fallen into a profound state of disrepair. The privately owned local press regularly vilifies the theft of exams answers, the inflation of marks to avoid a massive failure rate, and the late, always incomplete, publication of exam results.
Anyone who wants a good degree which would allow them to work anywhere in the world is well advised to leave the country. Even the Catholic Institute is restricted to middle-class children because of the very high tuition fees.
The magical mentality
One day things will change, say those who complain about the frailties of Cameroons political and economic system, as if angels were going to come and make it all alright. They dream of a leader who will strike down the godfathers. This magical mentality, to use the phrase of the Cameroonian philosopher Eboussi Boulaga, is captured in the Cameroonian passion for gambling. There is no corner of the republic so remote that you will not find a gambling kiosk. This addiction threatens to destroy the culture of effort in young minds. People play in the hope of being able to get out and leave for Europe or North America.
So there it is, a system so blocked that for 71% of the population there really is no other hope. To attain the longed-for social status, you have no choice but to leave, even if it means having to sleep in a refugee camp when you reach the other end. Whatever conditions theyre living in, to have a child in Europe or North America is very prestigious for a Cameroonian family.
For all their harshness, the French immigration laws of Nicolas Sarkozy will not succeed in stemming this ardent desire of young Cameroonians to emigrate and earn money. France must accept its own share of the blame for facilitating this emigration by broadcasting programmes on its cable TV channels that make our youth believe that the European countries are a paradise.
Africans are very attached to their land. Our hopes of being able to build law-based states depend on our rights to this land. The Francophone states will be unable to do so until we have dealt with the corrupt links which bind us to France. The Elf court case which is going on now in France offers a unique opportunity to grapple with Francafrique, this nexus of corrupt business dealings over oil and arms which has implicated so many in power, from French politicians to African heads of state business connections.
The opportunity must be seized. Not to allow those who have been closely involved in this affair such as Andre Tarallo, Alfred Sirven and Loïc Le Floch Prigent, to testify about their business affairs would be to leave in place those very conditions which make life in Africa intolerable for its people.
Translated from French by Julian Kramer.
