Fight against hate speech: Gov’t up from slumber but....

It has taken the celebration of the 51st National Day and perhaps the South West Peace and Development Forum in Buea, to rouse the CPDM government about the devastating impact of hate speech and xenophobia on national cohesion and unity.

"People we do not like" is the provocative and instigating quote that emerged from the South West Peace and Development Forum last weekend. It overshadowed all the good intentions of the organisers, and before one could say Jack Robinson, the Minister of Communication and Government’s Spokesmen, Rene Emmanuel Sadi, invited his counterpart of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji, and the Chairman of the National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism, Peter Mafany Musonge, to a press conference in which he dwelled elaborately on the destructive impact of hate speech and its consequences.

The vice, Sadi conceded, is on "a dizzying rise" in Cameroon. He however cushioned it with the fact that it was a global situation defined as “any kind of communication in speech, writing or behaviour, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factor”.

Narrowing it to the Cameroon context, he explained that: "... the most common manifestations of hate speech today include ethnic and social discrimination, stigmatisation, tribalism, irredentist claims, calls for insurgency and sometimes genocide, gender violence, violence against minorities, and so on. These hate speeches are also expressed vehemently through media channels, in both conventional media (print press, radio, television) and online media, but especially in social media. Obviously, there may be many causes for such behaviour".

The Minister, in expatiating with examples, added that: "Unfortunately, various antagonisms between natives and non-natives are increasingly emerging, especially in relation to land claims between farmers and herders, situations that are the result of tribalism and xenophobia. In short, situations that result in the rejection of Cameroonians by other Cameroonians. Among the significant events likely to weaken the State, it is also worth mentioning the decline in republican and moral values which constitute the prerequisites on which the solidity and stability of our country rests; namely peace, national unity, integrity, respect for institutions and those who embody them”.

“To the causes I have just mentioned, one could add the set of anthropological opinions, prejudices on the basis of which some ethnic groups confer a pre-eminence on others, thus granting themselves the right to particular privileges within the nation. This sometimes leads to disharmony, even clashes in inter-ethnic cohabitation and requires that we affirm that there is no superior or inferior ethnic group in Cameroon, and that all ethnic components are equal in our country," he stated.

He pointed out that the high cost of living to "a certain degree of precariousness provide an easy pretext for some to vilify the better-off and cry social injustice. There are also the issues at stake in political life, where for some, the unbridled lust for power has taken precedence over the debate of ideas, disregarding the basic rules of the democratic game, transforming the political arena into a battlefield where hatred, invective, verbal violence, bad faith, incitement to insurrection, intimidation and threats of all kinds and many other abuses prevail".

Minister Sadi concluded that "the existence and exacerbation of hate speech are real threat to the social cohesion and stability of our country".

The Minister was frank to admit that hate speech and xenophobia in Cameroon are caused by various factors. But what is the solution?

He prescribed campaigns, both in the media and in the educational milieu to sensitise children and the population. Isn't it what has been going on for years under the ambit of "national integration" and later "living together" policies?

Where Yaounde has gone into a sleep of dead in tackling the problem has been the application of numerous national and international laws in prosecuting perpetrators to serve as a deterrent.

Isn't it hate speech that pushes a lawmaker to say at a government-organised event and in the presence of the representative of the Prime Minister, that there are some "people we don’t like" in the South West Region?

Why did the Governor of the Region not order that such a person be arrested?

Would that speaker not have been arrested if he were a member of the opposition Cameroon Renaissance Movement, MRC, for instance?

What did the government do when a military man cum traditional ruler, Chief Moja Moja, posted a video warning people from the North West Region resident in the South West Region, to pack out?  Did Yaounde not look away, when a former Governor of the South West Region, the late Oben Peter Ashu, even recommended "poisoning" of people from other Regions living in the South West Region because they were not in the ruling party?

The Guardian Post is, nonetheless, delighted that government is now awake and has dusted the legal provisions against hate speech and xenophobia. But there is still a question mark.

Minister Sadi said: "…government may, if necessary, use the legislation in force to bring the perpetrators of hate speech to answer for their actions before the courts". 

At The Guardian Post, we are not comfortable with the use of "may," instead of "shall" bring offenders to book?

He said apart from the international legal instruments dealing with hate speech duly ratified by Cameroon, "a set of legal texts regulate hate speech in our country".

There is no gainsaying the fact that those laws should be applicable, irrespective of whose ox is gored to annihilate a vice that threatens national unity and peace, which are already absent in some Regions of the country.