generationsacrifiées

By Roger KAFFO FOKOU, SG of SNAES

INTRODUCTION

If Cameroonians were discreetly asked if as individuals they are satisfied with the present situation of their country, no doubt most of them including a number of those who are apparently part of the happy few would give a negative answer. How deep is that feeling? Answers would surely vary but the fact is that this feeling is deepening as days go by.  The political fabric is in constant deterioration in spite of all the patch ups; the economic fabric also is in shreds; as for the social one, it is a complete disaster today. Do you find this appraisal too pessimistic? Then it depends where you sit, as the British say.  How can this situation be changed? Nobody seems to have any answer to it. So, the only solution left is apparently to wait and see. May be someday… who knows? That’s where we are: “On va faire comment!” is the most common statement one can hear throughout the days, year after year. This is because as years go by, we have made ourselves almost comfortable in a culture of failure. We have given up believing in ourselves, in the forces lying in us, making it appear as if these forces have never existed. In such a case, what is there left to us? Fate, providence, God or the gods, the devil if need be…? One can understand why the PMUC[1] is doing so well, why churches, whatever their obedience, spring up like mushrooms; why sects prosper so easily; why corruption has almost become not only a normal phenomenon but a noble one. All these are part of a strategy of failure. As long as we let things remain like that, we will remain the losers. Yet, Cameroon must change for our individual situations to change. In such a matter, there is no way out if we do not fight egoism. This is getting more compelling every day. To convince ourselves, we only need to review the international and national contexts, and put to effect our collective spirit together to design and apply appropriate strategies. These strategies exist. Our objective here is to propose our contribution (and the trade unionism of development is at the centre of it), with the hope that these will trigger some positive reactions from you

1. I.                  STATE OF SITUATION : the international and national contexts
   1. 1.     The market system in progress 

What characterizes the world in which we are living today? It’s difficult to give a comprehensive answer to this question but we can sketch a few main aspects of the present evolution. According to the most indisputable specialists, we are living in a world dominated by market forces. But in fact, saying things that way does not fully show them for what they really are. It is common saying the market is the most democratic place one can find but this is completely wrong; market democracy is nothing but a surface democracy. According to Jacques Attali in one of his recent books entitled  Une brève histoire de l’avenir[2](A brief  history of the future),  we are living today under the hegemony of the market system, a system whose foundation was put in place back in the twelfth century before this era. What does the term market system really mean? 

The market system is basically a hypocritical system: it speaks left and acts right. According to Jacques Attali, it is “an individualistic system that brandishes human rights as an absolute ideal. A system capable of producing wealth better than any other system before it, even against its own ideal” In reality, the market system has only one ideal: the production of wealth. It only speaks of human rights, peace, democracy and good governance so long as these by-products do not threaten its main product, the production of wealth. It is a system that commercializes everything: it sells to the highest bidder human rights, peace, democracy, certificates of good governance and so forth. Today, it is endeavouring to take over the collective facilities (education, health, security, road infrastructure…) from the State and turn them into new goods, in order to make more money.

The market system is also characterized by competition. And competition presupposes a permanent and often violent battle. Within the system you will hear a lot of humanistic, philanthropic talk:  such as help, cooperation, humanitarian interference etc. But these are just empty words. The market system has only one real ambition, that is to say dominate the world, and its only means is by building huge financial empires; its favourite strategy is the use of force. To paraphrase De Gaulle who was a worthy representative of that system, we can say that “the market system does not have friends, it only has interests it defends with all its energy, without concessions”. One can therefore understand why the system generates all forms of violence, making the world an essentially dangerous place to live in. In 2006, the most important activity sector was the insurance market, representing about 15% of the world GDP (gross domestic product) and a turnover of 2.500 billion US dollars.  In the same year, the total amount of military expenses according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute was about 1.204 billion US dollars, 184 US dollars per inhabitant in the world. The US administration’s military expenses represent 46% of the world’s total military expenses. Who are the people behind the market system?

Since the beginning of the 21^st century, the market system is mostly the West, and the United States of America as leader over Europe right from the start of the 20^th century which saw the decline of Great Britain as the leading country in the world. With 21% of the GDP/ purchasing power of the world, the United States of America is currently the first economy of the planet. The economic share of European countries has decreased from 28 to 20% while that of Asia has risen from 16 to 28%. After the decline of the soviet empire, the American hegemony has strengthened itself over a henceforth single-pole world. At the turn of the nineties however, a new pole began to materialize; south-east Asia led by China and India. Due to this new state of affairs, the competition inherent to the system has increased in intensity, and has become ferocious. Henceforth, the battle for world leadership was launched anew, and the middle-east (Palestine, Iraqi and Iran) is just one of the many battle grounds in this wonderful confrontation. What is the place and role of Africa (and of course Cameroon) in this configuration?

1. 2.     The status of Africa (and Cameroon of course) today and tomorrow in the world 

Theoretically, Africa is not doing as badly as it would appear. Economically, among the developing regions at the beginning of the year 2000, it had the highest economic growth rate (between 3 and 4%); at the same time the average growth rate of all the countries forming the OCDE (Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development) was only 1% in 2004. The private cash inflow into Africa has constantly increased since the beginning of the eighties, rising above 7 billion dollars in 1998. The income per inhabitant increases regularly since the nineties, at a rhythm of 2 to 3% per year.

Politically, the democratic policies implemented here and there seem to have improved governance and to have positively influenced budgetary policies, made it possible to improve public funds management. One could go on with this idyllic picture but for what use? Like many others, these indices would only hide a really critical situation.

In the socio economic plan, due to the population annual growth rate of 2.8% and the increasing number of persons living in poverty (at the beginning of the 21^st century, close to half the population of Africa live in absolute poverty, and almost 30% is considered to be extremely poor, with an income below 1 dollar per day.), Africa would need at least a 6 to 7% annual growth rate to be able to reverse the tendency in unemployment and poverty. The world unemployment rate is 6.2% (6.4% for men, 6.1% for women) that is to say 185.9 million people are unemployed. East Asia has an unemployment rate of 3.3% while the Middle-East and North Africa zone rate is 12.2%. In sub-Saharan Africa, unemployment reaches 18.1%. Let’s not forget that out of the 41 very poor indebted countries in the world, 33 are African countries. Moreover, Africa is one of the few regions where income per inhabitant has decreased during the past twenty years. In 1980, the GNP (Gross National Product) per inhabitant in Africa was 784 dollars; in 1997, in spite of three years of economic recovery, it had dropped to 680 dollars. The burden of external indebtedness remains too high because it represents as much as 50% of the GDP and almost two and a half times the value of exports. About one quarter of the total export revenue is used for external debt servicing. At the beginning of the year 2000, Africa represented only 2.2% of the transactions on goods in the world (Asia was already up to 24.6%, which was more than ten times the share of Africa), and that made a Prime Minister of Japan to say that Africa is delaying the world. There is no African country featuring on the lists of the first 35 countries exporting and importing goods in the world while Asia has thirteen countries on each of these lists. The picture is not different where transactions on services are concerned. Africa is also the most affected continent by Hiv/aids.

In the political domain, beyond good speeches and constitutions that are changed at will, dictatorship still flourishes. When it comes to the average number of years spent in power, Africa beats all the records. It also beats the records of electoral frauds. What about Cameroon specifically?

Cameroon is the pure reflection of Africa, of the worse part of Africa. The democratic process in Cameroon is at a standstill. Cameroonians don’t go to vote anymore and the country is gradually reversing to the one party system, as the Head of State subtly acknowledged recently. In the economic domain, in spite of the official growth rate of 4.8%, business is devastated due to the incompetence and cynicism of successive ministers and the policies put in place. Our unemployment rate is one of the highest in the world: 30% in 2001, and probably worse today. 48% of the population lives under the bread line. External debt amounting to 9.168.000.000 dollars represents 65.9% of the GDP. According to some specialized institutions, 70% of Cameroonian workers earn less than 23.500 FCFA. Corruption has eaten into all the structures and, to most of our young ones directly hit by crisis and unemployment, “foreign paradises” have become an obsession for them.

1. 3.     Consequences of this state of affairs 

Apart of the optimism of sensible and well-informed people, most people in African societies today are drowned in deep despair, as it is shown in the fury of emigration against which all strategies (the policy of charters back home) as much as the increasing number of those dying on the way (most of them drowned in the Mediterranean sea) are failing to achieve any result. But how can we expect to improve our personal situation in a country where the global situation keeps deteriorating? How can we keep on giving birth to children while loosing everyday the means to raise them, dress them, and pay for their health care and education? How do we manage to remain Cameroonians today?  It seems to me that the only way to make all these things come back to normal is to start dreaming for a new Cameroon, knowing that the dream is not going to come true by itself, that nobody is going to change Cameroon for us Cameroonians. To harbour this dream, we must be optimistic: we must believe that it is possible to change Cameroon, because it is true but at what conditions?

1. II.                CHANGING CAMEROON : an achievable objective

They say that comparisons are odious. All the same, it is commonly admitted that in 1958, South Korea, Ghana and Cameroon had comparable levels of development. 50 years later, things are no longer alike: in 2003 the total GDP of South Korea amounted to 605 billion dollars; its growth rate was 9% per year. Concerning international transactions on goods, South Korea today is the twelfth exporting and the thirteenth importing country in the world.  In the area of services, it is the twelfth exporting and the eleventh importing country in the world. In these two areas, Cameroon is not even ranked. Between 1990 and 2003, the economic growth rate of Cameroon was barely 2.7%. In 2003, the GDP of Cameroon was estimated 12.49 billion dollars, that is to say less than 1/48^th of the GDP of South Korea. As for Ghana, after a long period of stagnation, things have been moving there for the past few years. Between 2001 and 2006, the growth rate there has risen from 3 to 6%, which is sufficient to enable the country take off. One can understand why with time reliable specialists agree on the fact that by 2025, Ghana will perhaps feature on the list of the few African countries (South Africa, Egypt, Botswana included) able to breakthrough. Cameroon is in no position to feature in such a list today yet we only need to step in the right direction. History gives us many examples.

Following the First World War and the treaty of Versailles, Germany was relatively speaking in a situation very much similar to what we are living today in Cameroon: “handicapped by a chronic ministerial instability, the young republic had to face the sharp after-war economic difficulties”, so we are informed. It had to face a wild inflation that was eating up all fix incomes (savings, pensions and insurance funds), ruining farmers and labourers, pensioners and the lower middle-class. We are in 1923. Less than 15 years later Germany became the first power in Europe. Two steps should be looked upon here: before the arrival of Hitler at the chancellery (1920-1932), and after. Before, we hear that “the years 1920 are particularly rich in the scientific and cultural domains. German physicists and chemists (Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Gustav Hertz, and Werner Karl Eisenberg) were awarded many Nobel prizes.  The Bauhaus school created by Walter Gropius in 1919 revolutionized contemporary architecture. The influence of expressionism, a movement born before the war, found some of its best expressions in theatre with Georg Kaiser, in the cinema with Fritz Lang and F. W. Murnau, and also in painting with Otto Dix. Its representatives express a very stern view of the after-war society. In the theatre of Berthold Brecht under the Marxist influence, criticism is yet more radical.  Others like Thomas Mann the literary Nobel prize of 1929 or the philosopher Oswald Spengler are searching for a new society”. At his arrival Hitler awoke the German nationalism, basing it on “the sense of duty, of discipline, of submission to community”. Without its pan-German and anti culture side, no doubt Hitler could have changed Germany for a very long period.

France under Louis XIV, China during the era of the Zhou when Confucianism was the official doctrine of the State (according to Confucius political and social orders are linked), the Greece of Pedicles (He is said to have been a model of dignity and reservation; his eloquence, sagacity, honesty and patriotism won for him the nickname of “Olympian” meaning that he was the equal of gods. He was surrounded by prestigious friends – the dramatist Sophocles, Herodotus the historian, the sculptor Phidias and the sophist Protagoras – and his wife was a lady of great culture named Aspasie)…

So what brings about change seems to have always been the same: discipline, sense of sacrifice, submission to the interests of the community, the development of culture that is to say of what is the most essentially human in us. No doubt the absence of these values can explain why many of the most powerful states known could not last a long time: China under the Qin dynasty, Germany under Hitler, the Soviet empire…

How can we achieve such a change in Cameroon? We must absolutely get rid of this culture of failure and replace it with a new culture, based on discipline, enthusiasm for work, spirit of sacrifice, submission to the interests of the community, development of the humane qualities in men in order to foster individual and collective creativity. Once more, let’s have a look around us at those regions of the world where misery has receded or is receding, where death is giving way to life: life expectancy in Africa is 49.3 years, very far below the world average situated at 65.9 years. At the top of the ranking there’s North America with an average of 77.9 years, Europe with 74 years; as for Asia, with 68 years, it is well above the world average. How can such a boom be explained? The most serious hypothesis concerns the importance given to indices of human development: in what conditions are infrastructure and the offer of education in terms of performance and accessibility? If we limit our investigation to education the following facts will appear to us:

ü Schooling rates at various levels  for a few regions :

• Europe & North America

• A few Asian countries

• Case of Cameroon

ü  Quality (performances) of infrastructure

            There is no doubt that in the domain of health care tables would look the same. Do we need to go any further? It is a possibility. Our findings will certainly simply agree with the above found indices of underdevelopment. All this must change! Everybody must contribute, must be given the opportunity to contribute to this change: the conditions for this change must be put in place. Whose responsibility is it? First of all, it is the responsibility of the State. The civil society and its organizations are also called upon. And this is where trade unions in general chip in and most especially teachers’ unions, because it is about replacing an inadequate culture by a more appropriate one. 

1. III.           THE CONTRIBUTION OF TRADE UNIONS: the unionism of development.  

1. 1.     The political role of trade unions

Why is it necessary to attribute a role to trade unions in solving problems which are apparently political? Isn’t there a risk to bring politics into trade unions?

It is true that according to its most common definition a trade union is “an organization that represents the people who work in a particular industry, protects their rights, and discusses their pay and working conditions with employers”. Obviously, there is nothing political in that activity. But that definition limits its description of unionism to what this phenomenon can show at the present stage of its development in industrialized countries. It doesn’t take into account the origins of the trade union movement, neither its tendencies, not to talk of the necessity to contextualize it in order to ensure its future.

It is necessary to emphasize on the fact that the origins of the trade union movement were political. Once excluded the hypothesis raised by Pierre Besnard of elementary forms of trade unions in primitive societies, and if we also set aside medieval guilds, one has to admit that the constitution of workers’ association during the nineteenth century (1825 in Great Britain, 1864 in France) was an answer to a political problem: the problem of the distribution of the wealth of nations in a capitalistic context. Trade unionism therefore had from the outset a political ambition in the etymological sense of the term, and this ambition shows in the ideological divisions of the movement in favour either of a revolutionary unionism sometimes anarchist, or for a reformist type unionism attached to the principle of negotiation. That all the European trade unions could massively rally around their respective government on the outbreak of the First World War in a sort of “union sacrée” shows clearly that trade unions take part in the political game; and that in times of crisis when the highest interests of the community are in jeopardy trade unions should bring their contribution. Today still, in front of the market system with its ultra-free-market ideology, the international trade union movement is the mainstay of the organized resistance. The necessity for trade unions to take into account their environment in the course of their actions brought Pierre Besnard to say that “Their ambition (of unions, he meant), their only ambition consist of endeavouring to be at the foundation of the new social order; to progress technically and socially with that order, peacefully; to develop constantly their knowledge for a greater well-being of all; to lighten as much as possible the burden of mankind while seeking to provide for the needs of all”. Now, that’s exactly the task we, trade unions have to accomplish urgently today.

1. 2.      The historical justifications of the current western trade union model

Each society must face at one moment of its life one of the three following problems: production (under or overproduction) of wealth, evaluation and distribution of this production. When they talk of wealth, they talk of goods and services, both produced through labour. Evaluating them is purchasing or paying for them the right price and, by so doing, solve the problem of their distribution all the more so since each individual is at the same time producer and consumer. The higher will be the degree of justice used in solving these problems, the more stable will be the society.

At the beginning of the 19^th century when trade unionism became an institution to reckon with, the western society was facing the problem of distribution of wealth in a context of massive industrial production and unfair distribution.  It was therefore normal for them to insist on the duration of the working day, pay rises, working conditions and other similar advantages. That type of unionism still prevails in the western society, but we are hardly right to be trying to copy it at all cost.

1. 3.     A trade unionism that suits our context : the unionism of development

A really autonomous trade unionism emerged in our country at the beginning of the nineties. At the time just as today, the greatest problem confronting our society was rather the problem of production not of distribution of wealth. We were already poor and heavily indebted. Extreme poverty is settling itself more comfortably in our society, ruining the slightest sense of moral and fostering corruption. Extreme poverty as we know does not go hand in hand with virtue. Hence this dilemma: fight poverty in the first place to revive virtue or restore virtue to be able to fight more efficiently against poverty?  But when it appears that poverty is first and foremost moral – they keep telling us that Cameroon is immensely rich - the question becomes rhetorical. Our crisis is mostly a crisis of values. On the part of worker values such as the sense of duty, of discipline, of submission to the interests of the community; and on the part of the government and employers a sense of fairness, justice and a bit of humanism. That’s the price to pay if we want to overcome underdevelopment and solve the problem of the production of wealth in sufficient quantity for our people. Only after that can we step forward to tackle the problem of distribution without having to resort to loan or beggary, which are what we spend most of our time doing these days. What should exactly be the role of teachers’ unions in such a strategy?

BY WAY OF CONCLUSION:

The role of teachers’ trade unions today in Cameroon

Teachers are permanently in touch with tomorrow’s society and they even have the keys to it. Because they really understood this, the French made their Advanced Teachers’ Training College to be the best university level school in their country, the only French school at this level to rank among the twenty best universities in the world.

Teachers’ trade unions in Cameroon will have to fight on two sides:

ü  With public authorities to restore the image of the teaching profession : our Advanced Teachers’ Training Colleges and Schools must stop manufacturing mediocrity; they must stop appearing like show grounds where anybody has the right to access provided he buys a ticket. Teachers must be put in the conditions that can enable them to produce the human resources in quantity and quality required by our society for its development project.

ü  With teachers: they have the delicate mission to transform this country through the citizen of tomorrow, taking into account the challenges facing us. To be able to do that, he shouldn’t make confusion between the means needed and the objective to achieve. He can no longer be a common worker, somebody working just to earn his bread; he must become an agent of development, somebody working knowingly to transform society, and who in order to achieve this starts by transforming himself, the way he serves.

As once said by Victor Hugo, teachers are mind builders. When we think over the title of Axelle Kabou’s book (What if Africa refuses development?[3]) and even if we do not agree with the content of this book, it appears that she may have been trying to draw attention to the intense pressure mental predispositions could exert on the way our people behave, and the fact is that these behaviours can hardly promote development.

“Only spirit, if it breathes life into clay, can make it a human being”[4], wrote Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. But what type of human being? This depends on the type of spirit. And that’s where teachers come in. They only need to build up for our country a stronger moral and intellectual spirit, a spirit better prepared to overcome the challenges of development it is facing. That’s why today teachers’ trade unions must have as their new and paramount mission to produce that type of teacher, a teacher who is a committed militant able to get our young ones ready to face the challenges of our development in a context of globalisation where a wild competition prevails.