Bernard Fonlon Through Today's Lens

BY CANUTE TANGWA*

Professor Bernard Fonlon died on August 26, 1986. This year marks the 22nd anniversary of the death of a “teacher, advisor, sage, writer, philosopher, academic, Africanist, nationalist, essayist, leader, and mentor”. Much has been written and said on the impeccable qualities of Fonlon.

I am beginning this encounter with a point or two less because I never met Fonlon nor was he my teacher. The only weapon I have is an intellectual baggage! I also draw inspiration from Bate Besong’s soul searching question, “what would Professor Bernard Fonlon had (sic) done had he been confronted with the present national tragedy?” in THE BERNARD FONLON REVOLUTION: IF GOLD SHOULD RUST, WHAT WILL IRON DO? (2005).

Our tragedy as a people, to paraphrase Ngugi Wa Thiongo, derives from the fact that we made a mockery of the gifts of independence. These invaluable gifts include a bi-jural and bilingual character, which could have constituted a laboratory or a test case of African unity (union). Fonlon alluded to this in 1964, “we…know the fervour and the determined will that animated the struggle of our people for reunification, and the high hopes that fired this struggle. We have also come to see what this enterprise means to Africa”. Almost forty seven years after independence, we seem not to realize that we hold the key to African renaissance/union!

Our tragedy also stems from the fact that the Kamerun independence struggle and proclamation were hijacked by those who did not really believe in our liberation because as Emmanuel N. Obiechina points out, “one can give soul only to what one believes in”. Another of our string of tragedies is the belated-toothpaste recognition of those who gave soul to our independence struggle (Felix Roland Moumie, Ruben Um Nyobe, Ernest Ouandie, Osende Afana and a host of others) and the deliberate denigration of exemplars in diverse fields, Fonlon inclusive.

Professor Fonlon was at the beginning of a nascent Cameroon nation. Back then, he already belonged to Ben Okri’s yet to be created Department of Seeing Things Clearly (DSTC). In fact, he saw, spoke, wrote and admonished in a succinct manner. Witness: The secret memo (THE TIME IS NOW) he addressed to Ahmadou Ahidjo on the state of the union in 1964. In the words of the ‘controversial avant-gardist’ Bate Besong, Fonlon was ‘a critical visionary of the imperatives of Cameroon Re-unification politics and a sublime purveyor of the desiderata of the Cameroonian condition.”  

How would Fonlon have acted faced with the present state of affairs as regards bilingualism, national integration, multiparty democracy and the Anglophone problem is a matter of conjecture. However, I would grapple with the last two.

1. Multiparty democracy. Though he embraced the one party system in 1966, Fonlon would have been a torchbearer of multiparty democracy in Cameroon within a political formation he understands best, CNU or CPDM! Witness: the late Samuel Eboua in his book UNE DECENNIE AVEC AHIDJO aptly recounts how Fonlon together with his bosom friend Professor Victor Anoma Ngu advised the late Ahidjo to introduce multipartism in Cameroon! From his writings and declarations, Fonlon was a cautious man, treading with the circumspection of the philosopher he was.  He could not have easily decamped, jumped boat or walked away!

2. Anglophone problem. I have the haunch that Fonlon at one time thought of himself as a spokesperson for the Anglophones but failed to get the required political back-up! I would explain. At the dawn of independence, he was one of the rare Cameroonians who could express himself in English and French. He was Ahidjo’s interpreter/translator and held positions at the presidency and in government. He was once an MP and CNU Central Committee member. In this position, he was the most privileged Anglophone since he had the president’s ears. However, he never completely assumed this role because he came to realize in his own words that “the greatest enemy of the Anglophone is the Anglophone” (ABBIA 1982).  Apparently, real or imaginary prejudices and parochialism had eaten so deep into the Anglophone firmament that Fonlon had to pen down this phrase in despair.

I believe that if Fonlon were an undisputed Anglophone spokesman cum leader, Anglophones may apparently have got a better deal and Cameroon would have been a place to be.      

Our tragedy as a people, to paraphrase Ngugi Wa Thiongo, derives from the fact that we made a mockery of the gifts of independence. These invaluable gifts include a bi-jural and bilingual character, which could have constituted a laboratory or a test case of African unity (union). Fonlon alluded to this in 1964, “we…know the fervour and the determined will that animated the struggle of our people for reunification, and the high hopes that fired this struggle. We have also come to see what this enterprise means to Africa”. Almost forty seven years after independence, we seem not to realize that we hold the key to African renaissance/union!

Our tragedy also stems from the fact that the Kamerun independence struggle and proclamation were hijacked by those who did not really believe in our liberation because as Emmanuel N. Obiechina points out, “one can give soul only to what one believes in”. Another of our string of tragedies is the belated-toothpaste recognition of those who gave soul to our independence struggle (Felix Roland Moumie, Ruben Um Nyobe, Ernest Ouandie, Osende Afana and a host of others) and the deliberate denigration of exemplars in diverse fields, Fonlon inclusive.

Professor Fonlon was at the beginning of a nascent Cameroon nation. Back then, he already belonged to Ben Okri’s yet to be created Department of Seeing Things Clearly (DSTC). In fact, he saw, spoke, wrote and admonished in a succinct manner. Witness: The secret memo (THE TIME IS NOW) he addressed to Ahmadou Ahidjo on the state of the union in 1964. In the words of the ‘controversial avant-gardist’ Bate Besong, Fonlon was ‘a critical visionary of the imperatives of Cameroon Re-unification politics and a sublime purveyor of the desiderata of the Cameroonian condition.”  

How would Fonlon have acted faced with the present state of affairs as regards bilingualism, national integration, multiparty democracy and the Anglophone problem is a matter of conjecture. However, I would grapple with the last two.

1. Multiparty democracy. Though he embraced the one party system in 1966, Fonlon would have been a torchbearer of multiparty democracy in Cameroon within a political formation he understands best, CNU or CPDM! Witness: the late Samuel Eboua in his book UNE DECENNIE AVEC AHIDJO aptly recounts how Fonlon together with his bosom friend Professor Victor Anoma Ngu advised the late Ahidjo to introduce multipartism in Cameroon! From his writings and declarations, Fonlon was a cautious man, treading with the circumspection of the philosopher he was.  He could not have easily decamped, jumped boat or walked away!

2. Anglophone problem. I have the haunch that Fonlon at one time thought of himself as a spokesperson for the Anglophones but failed to get the required political back-up! I would explain. At the dawn of independence, he was one of the rare Cameroonians who could express himself in English and French. He was Ahidjo’s interpreter/translator and held positions at the presidency and in government. He was once an MP and CNU Central Committee member. In this position, he was the most privileged Anglophone since he had the president’s ears. However, he never completely assumed this role because he came to realize in his own words that “the greatest enemy of the Anglophone is the Anglophone” (ABBIA 1982).  Apparently, real or imaginary prejudices and parochialism had eaten so deep into the Anglophone firmament that Fonlon had to pen down this phrase in despair.

I believe that if Fonlon were an undisputed Anglophone spokesman cum leader, Anglophones may apparently have got a better deal and Cameroon would have been a place to be.