Anglophone Crisis:

Social Media Republics and the Vexing Complacence of Intellectuals

By Franklin Sone Bayen

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When opposition SDF candidate, Ni John Fru Ndi declared himself president-elect from the October 1992 presidential election which the Supreme Court awarded to incumbent President Paul Biya, most of the top newspaper publishers practically relocated to Bamenda, and remained there for weeks, loitering around Fru Ndi’s Ntarinkon residence.   They each wanted to be rewarded with cabinet positions for services rendered as supporter-reporters, highlighting Fru Ndi’s fairytales (the politically correct) and downplaying the "pariahs" (those who noticed early that he was a human being, not a demi-god. It was Fru Ndi's way or no way! He had a blank cheque. He could fill in any amount and whistle his way to the bank. Well, until it began to dawn that he was just fallible man. And later, all hell broke loose on him. Too late!

            All of the press glorification or leader-worship of the 1990s came through newspapers – the flourishing private press that both ushered and was fed by the multiparty Wind of Change; no internet (social media) then, and radio and TV access (only CRTV) was limited. Even access to newspapers was limited to those who had the means to buy and those who could read. Also deprived were those in remote or far-flung locations where newspapers were not circulated easily. For those thus deprived Fru Ndi glorification reached them through two-step flow or the rumour mill or hearsay.

            Today, here we are with a powerful, potent, rapid, democratized social media, besides the plethora of radio and TV channels. It is possible that once you click to post a comment, the first person to read it could be someone in Manyemen or Furu Awah straight from their mobile phones, thanks to 100fcfa airtime bonus data (if not for the government internet freeze).

            This provides a cheap, hyper-effective magic bullet (hypodermic needle) connection. In the administrative machinery of the SOCIAL MEDIA REPUBLIC as described by Abine Ayah Ayah in an applauded Facebook posting last week, there is no need for Rene Sadi’s governors, SDOs and DOs; no need for Joseph Beti Assomo’s soldiers and gendarmes; no need for Martin Mbarga Nguele’s police; no need to spend millions on nearly daily press conferences like Issa Tchiroma.

            In the SOCIAL MEDIA REPUBLIC, governance is simplified and cost effective. With just your keyboard, cheap bonus internet data, ideas and the intention and will to influence the public one way or the other, there you go! Choose your title (General, President of X, Chairman of ABC Governing Council or President of XYZ Republic). Yes, you are it! You become so influential that people in Mukru (Menchum division, North West region), Ntenmbang (Upper Banyang subdivision, Manyu division, South West region), Kesham, Akwaya subdivision, Manyu division, South West region) who hardly even know you, but for whom you are a virtual hero, break their sweet sleep at 3am just to check on your latest decree or some plan of action.

            Intellectuals (intelligent, intelligible, assertive intellectuals) ought to be the guide and conscience of the SOCIAL MEDIA REPUBLIC. It offers them an open, free amphitheatre. But see o! They have abandoned it to Tom, Dick and Harry. In our SOCIAL MEDIA democratic REPUBLIC (democratic is my addition) we conduct our show and pull our following, just like that. Find whether what we say makes sense.

            Otherwise, in the SOCIAL MEDIA peoples' democratic REPUBLIC (peoples' democratic republics are paradoxically those with totalitarian regimes like NORTH KOREA, China and other former communist countries) we profess peoples' democracy but silence and insult them, and unfriend or block those with views contrary to ours. Our intellectuals ought to remedy this. They ought to come to “class” with canalizing leadership, if not with a whip, to discipline us.

            Well, except they too are playing safe, imposing a spiral of silence on themselves (that is self-censorship for fear of voicing out what would appear to be in bad taste or unpopular to commanders in the SOCIAL MEDIA REPUBLIC). Perhaps they are being politically correct to please their ordained leader and remain in their good books. Perhaps they are doing so in order to eventually troop to the SLODGE (the historic Southern/West Cameroon Prime Minister's Lodge in Buea) for cabinet positions in the AMBAZONIA (Ambaland) government. Our intellectuals are vexingly complacent!

N.B: This write up was first published on Facebook with the title - Dumb Intellectuals: Tragedy of the Second Revolution

(Or the unsettling silence of unintelligent, unintelligible and complacent intellectuals)