:::United (Yet Divided) :::

Cameroon is “ONE” united and indivisible.

 However, in every aspect of our daily lives the divisions are clear!

Most apparent is the distribution of key government positions. 

The majority of Ministerial positions are occupied by people of a certain “Tribe” and if you are an English speaking Cameroonian you are required to learn to speak French if you plan to make any progress. Alternatively, you can travel abroad and obtain a different nationality… Oh I almost forgot! The problem is Cameroon does not recognize dual nationality. 

That aside, I would like to place my focus this time on the Church and how being a Bilingual country has affected it. All of this will be based on my experience in parishes in Cameroon and abroad. 
I joined the St Louise Parish Bonaberi when I was in form five in the year 1996 and we would attend the second mass at 11am. Most often, mass was fine and the church was full as that was the only mass offered in English for those from the NW and SW provinces of Cameroon living in Bonaberi. 
At the time, the protestant counterparts in Bonaberi were still trying to build a house of worship at ancient route. 

Funny enough, if you did not arrive on time you were bound to sit outside as the church as it did not have the capacity to accommodate all the English speaking Cameroonians of Bonaberi. Very often, we would have to wait outside for up to thirty minutes for the French mass to finish before we got in and if it was the rainy season, we would make our entrance with soaked clothing or better still the sun might give us “Reinforced Tans”. 
At times too we would be forced to hurriedly finish mass as the francophone Catholics wanted to use the church for other activities. Our priest mainly MSP missionaries form Nigeria had a rough time dealing with the French speaking diocesan priest of the Douala diocese. As progressive people, we continued in that church and began building an English speaking primary school for the English community. 
This should give you an idea of how long we stayed in this community united but divided. So the tension was too much our parish priests of the English speaking community could not eat with the other priest, he was scared of his life and we could not concentrate in church anymore. The interruptions before and after mass were unbearable we decided to move. We bought a piece of land at Ndobo and there St Joseph Anglophone Parish Bonadale was born. Pure English community Parish that celebrates mass the way we want and as long as we want. 
Ten years after living in the UK and moving back to Cameroon, I became a member of the same Parish, we had built a church, the father’s house and a hall. The community had grown and recently the church was expanded as it had become too small new Catholics have been born into the church and we had to increase the church. 
Believe me there is now a French speaking mass offered in this Parish. No one in the church was opposed to this and accepted once the Bishop sought our consent as we are one and united (In our minds).
Due to work I had to move to Yaoundé and joined the St Joseph English speaking community in Mvogada in Yaounde and this Parish also Born from the St Joseph Mvogada Parish had the same issues with the French speaking Catholics and decided to build another church. The peculiarity about this church is that it used to have only English speaking priest but after the Parish was built the bishop started appointing French speaking priests to this Parish. What followed was the mismanagement of funds. It has been mentioned that at one point up to ten million FCFA got missing from church accounts and the Parish Priest after so many petitions from the Christians was later removed and yes promoted to Bishop, he is now of blessed Memory. This affected the population numbers as many English speaking Christians moved away from this church to the chapel Nsimeyong and other parishes where we had an English mass.
While at Nsimeyong, the English speaking Catholics had their mass as well but it seems the same issues faced by brothers and sister in Douala and in the other churches in Yaoundé was to follow them here too. They started having issues with the French speaking Christians there. Well one very faithful day it was raining and the English speaking Catholics were standing in the rain waiting for mass to finish before they could get in and start their mass. The idea of constructing own church was born and on that day fundraising began which eventually secured us a plot on the hills of Nsimbock where we now have the St Peter and Pauls Parish in Nsimbock and we are in the process of finishing construction work on our church that looks like a “Mini-cathedral” in its own right. 

It should be noted that when we left Nsimeyong they had started a project to increase the capacity of the church. Yet we started from scratch and we are now finishing our church yet the Nsimeyong church still stands with little progress. In December, I was enjoying a meal of fish and sat looking at the church and wondered how much more it may have progressed if the English speaking community was still there.
This experience is quite the opposite of the French speaking Catholics in the NW and SW. There is nothing like a French speaking parish in the NW and the SW because our French speaking brothers have special masses in most of our main Parishes in the NW and SW where they can pray and thank God for their lives. Preferential treatment or a division? I will let you judge. 
I was talking to a protestant friend of mine who said they no longer had this problem. He explained that though they do have the PCC which is the Presbyterian church in Cameroon, this is mainly for the English speaking Presbyterians and the EPC the Eglise Presbyterian du Cameroun which is for the French speaking brothers and sisters.

So, we say we are The Republic of Cameroon “One United and Indivisible” as I saw at the Buea monument (which I must admit is beautiful), however in the church which is such an important part of citizens lives this is not the case. 

In comparison to my experiences elsewhere it’s clear that there is a lot to be done to make Cameroonians feel that “Oneness”. In the UK after the flood gates were open allowing for free movement from the Eastern European countries to the UK, one of the things the bishops did was to make sure that the spiritual uniqueness of the poles who are MAINLY Catholics be preserved. Priest from Poland were shortlisted to help in Parishes and Polish masses were instituted in most Parishes and strong Polish communities exist in most Parishes now in the UK. With the BREXIT hanging over their heads the dynamics might change.
In the DRC a pure French speaking country, the dynamics are even more interesting. We have three main English speaking communities in Kinshasa in our lady of Fatima, in St Joseph and in St Luke where I attend mass. St Luke is the international community for ambassadors, and expats etc , St Joseph is purely the IBO community and Fatima is for those who like but evening mass as mass is at five pm. Amazing for these masses the choirs, readers, priest etc are mostly Congolese trying to make sure English speaking foreigners pray in their language of origin in this way too they are learning English and this positions them for good jobs as English is a prerequisite for most jobs in DRC in the INGO sector of course. This is something you will rarely see in Cameroon.

As the Catholic bishops are being dragged to court on Friday I have had to ponder.
If there are such divisions in our Church does this mean that this so called unity is just for those who want for display? Is this a sign that truly were are two different people and should have our own systems of governance to protect our distinct cultures and uniqueness? Is it a sign that we should really don’t force people to stay together in a united but divided society just for the sake of it? 
Also, could this be a sign that we are having a “light bulb moment” and realizing that that we should have voted for a Southern Cameroonian State and not to join the Republic of Cameroon. Come to think of it, who would have thought loving and welcoming a prodigal son would have caused trouble in future. I leave you with this quote from my colleague who said “I would love to be Cameroonian as I would love to be able to speak English and French”. But is this what truly defines a Cameroonian or we are United (Yet Divided).

Our problem brothers and sisters is POOR GOVERNANCE. If these people have the good will of Cameroonians we will not be where we are now such discriminatory divisions will not exist. It is rumored however that this strategy actually helps maintain the status quo which is beneficial for the ruling MINORITY.

Let us pray for a strong united Cameroon and pray that darkness is defeated and that light shines through in favor of the Bishops court on Friday.

..... Venatius Tsi Fon .....

Betty Atia 

(Editor)