ByTazoacha Asonganyi in Yaounde.
It is to the credit of good journalism that we know that at a recent meeting with Diplomats of EU countries in Yaounde, the Minister of External Relations made the following declaration: "I would like you to note that in Cameroon it is the president and not the constitution that is the guarantor of state institutions. The president is responsible for what he does and he knows what he is doing..."
Further, we also know that at another instance the Yaounde Government Delegate Gilbert Tsimi Evouna made the following statement in response to a journalist’s question: "Ça me fait rire. Finalement c’est chacun qui va dire ceci ou cela. Dans un pays il y a un seul centre de pouvoir. Qu’est ce que vous voulez ? On verra bien qui aura le dernier mot. Tout patriarche qu’il est, on verra..." [That makes me laugh. Finally everyone will say this or that. In a country there is only one centre of power. What do you want? We will see who has the last word. The patriarch will see...]
The German philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas described two schools of natural law: The Anglo-Saxon and the Continental. The Anglo-Saxon school is optimistic: that which is natural is good; good/natural society can be "corrupted" or "deformed" by an external intervention. The task of politics is to restore society to its natural freedom – a freedom that society itself is best placed to administer.
By the tenets of this school, to solve a problem in society, it has to undergo political analysis that identifies the social problem that calls for political action; the political action in turn prepares the social terrain to accept the measures that follow. In other words, the political determines the actions of the social.
In contrast to the above, the Continental (French) school of natural law begins from the premise of a corrupted society which must be guided by a state. It does not hesitate to construct a state capable of imposing itself upon "disorganised" society. Power therefore is a reality and has the capacity to influence society in a "positive" or "corrective" manner.
The Jacobins were a club of violent republicans during the French Revolution. Their actions were guided by the principles of Continental natural law. They saw revolution as the rational transformation of society by the state.
Constitutions directed by Jacobinism provide a central place for power which is exercised to achieve state-led initiatives. This contrasts with constitutions in which the place of power remains unoccupied, with checks and balances ensuring that strong institutions of power control and complete each other.
The belated effort to give Yaounde a face-lift may be laudable, but it is marred by the brutality and haughtiness of a power-wielding state that seeks to impose social action on a supposedly inert, recalcitrant society. This home-bred Jacobinism blocks the political reflection needed to preserve the freedom that guarantees the distinction of the social from the political. It leads to carelessness, abuse, bullying and suffering, instead of understanding, cooperation and adoption by society of the on-going changes.
Like Marx used to say, we have to use what men are already in fact doing, to teach them through critical questions and actions. This requires that a society reflects – acts - upon itself; that members of society define continually, in words and deeds, the kind of society they are and want to be. This approach is made impossible by the Yaounde version of Jacobinism that is characterised by the existence of only one centre of power with one man as the guarantor of state institutions!
We have to refuse actions that in the guise of cleaning up Yaounde, destroy the very preconditions of politics. Gilbert Tsimi Evouna has to rethink his actions. He has admitted that it is the fault of the Yaounde City Council that inhabitants settled where they were not supposed to settle. Whatever excuses he may have, it is immoral and indecent to continue to render thousands of families homeless without providing any land for their resettlement.
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