Politics at the margins: alternative sites of political involvement among young people in Cameroon

Abstract

This paper analyses young people’s political discourses and experiences, highlighting their disillusionment with the postcolonial state. Drawing on ethnographic data and interviews with young people in the city of Bamenda, the article argues that young people’s perspectives and discourses on politics constitute alternative forms of political involvement and resistance. Their actions, inactions and discourses about politics and political personalities are informed by their specific identities and positionalities. However, taken collectively, these voices reveal current national anxieties about the postcolonial state whose legitimacy is widely believed to have eroded.

Résumé

Cet article analyse les discours et l’expérience politiques des jeunes, en mettant l’accent sur leur désillusion vis-à-vis de l’État postcolonial. En s’appuyant sur des données ethnographiques et des entretiens avec des jeunes vivant dans la ville de Bamenda, il avance que les perspectives et les discours des jeunes sur la politique constituent des formes alternatives d’engagement politique et de résistance. Leurs actions, leur inaction et leurs discours sur la politique et sur les personnalités politiques sont déterminés par leur identité et leur positionnement spécifiques. Cependant, prises en compte collectivement, ces voix révèlent les angoisses nationales actuelles concernant l’État postcolonial, dont la légitimité est largement considérée comme s’étant érodée.

Keywords:

• Agency
• youth
• political involvement
• resistance
• activism
• Cameroon

Acknowledgement

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Canadian Association of African Studies (CAAS) conference and benefited from the comments and insights of the panel participants. The current version has been reworked, thanks in part to the feedback of three anonymous reviewers commissioned by the Canadian Journal of African Studies. I am also indebted to the many institutions that have supported my research on African youth identities and politics, including the Social Science Research Council, the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada and the University of Toronto. Whatever shortcomings are apparent in the current version remain entirely mine.

I would like to acknowledge the support of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) through its fellowship programme on African Youth in the Global Age for sponsoring my initial research project on young people’s politics in 2001. Additional funding for this study was provided by the International Development Research Council (IDRC), which enabled me to carry out ethnographic research on young people’s associations in Cameroon between 2005 and 2006.

Notes

1. Based on 2012 statistics, over 40% of the population falls between the ages of 0–14 years and those over 60 constitute only 6% of the population. Source: http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx?crName=CAMEROON#Summary, accessed 4 November 2012.

2. Dibussi Tande, “Gerontocracy in Cameroon – These Old Men who Govern Us”. : http://www.dibussi.com/2009/03/gerontocracy-in-cameroon-these-old-men-who-govern-us-.html#more accessed 15 March 2009. The core claim here is that over 80% of Cameroon’s ruling class is past the stipulated age of retirement.

3. In September 2012, the former interior minister Marafa Hamidou Yaya was sentenced to 25 years in jail on charges of corruption. Former prime minister Ephraim Inoni has also been charged in connection with a fraudulent deal to purchase a presidential jet in 2004. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19687328, accessed 30 September 2012.

4. See Marceline Chick, “Corruption Bedevils Recruitment of 25,000 Youths”, The Post. http://www.thepostwebedition.com/Content.aspx?ModuleID=1&ItemID=5477 accessed 18 March 2011.

5. See Unemployment: True Figures Out. http://www.cameroon-info.net/stories/0,17687, accessed 26 April 2012. The report, based on statistics from the National Institute of Statistics, reveals that those most affected are young people between the ages of 20 and 29.

6. Some activists have insisted on the term “restoration” rather than secession.

7. See Francis Wache and Azore Opio, “Dark Days in Cameroon”. http://www.postnewsline.com/2008/03/dark-days-in-ca.html, accessed 3 March 2008.

8. The strike emerged in the wake of Biya’s success in parliament to remove the two-term presidential limit that had been inserted in the revised 1996 Constitution.

9. PRESBY emerged from a defunct ethnic militia, Auto-defence, popular on the campus of the University of Yaoundé during the early 1990s (see Fokwang 2003).

10. There is sufficient evidence that the 1972 referendum which resulted in the dissolution of the federation was staged and its results questionable (see Kofele-Kale 1987; Konings and Nyamnjoh 2003).

11. See “2500 Youths Disqualified from Army Recruitment in NW as Authorities Reject Attestations”, The Herald No. 1637, Friday 29 April‒1 May 2005, p. 2.

12. The prerogative to announce the election results have been vested in the Supreme Court, whose members tend to rule in favour of Biya’s administration.

13. The SDF’s parliamentary seats have declined from 43 in 1997 to just 18 in 2013. See http://www.voanews.com/content/cameroons-ruling-party-wins-parliamentary-elections/1771799.html accessed 20 December 2013.

14. This finding is not only true of Cameroon. Surveys in South Africa revealed that many young people opted to abstain from the 7 May presidential elections. See “Third of Young Adults Don’t Plan to Vote – Survey”. http://www.news24.com/Elections/News/Third-of-young-adults-dont-plan-to-vote-survey-20140206, accessed 6 February 2014.