Ireneaus Chia Chongwain
Ahead of the resumption of
State universities for the 2007/2008 Academic Year, an organisation dubbed
Campus for Peace and Dialogue (CAPED) International has called on State
authorities to, amongst other recommendations, depoliticise university campuses
as part of measures towards the establishment of a culture of peace and
dialogue within the conflict prone university milieu in Cameroon.
The recommendation was made recently in Yaounde
after an international conference
that held under the theme, Building a Culture of Peace and Dialogue in African
Higher Institutions of Learning. The conference, important as it was, got off
to a jerky and uncertain start because, according to officials of the University of Yaounde I, the organisers
failed to obtain a clearance from the Presidency of the Republic.
While pointing out the need
to depoliticise university centres in Cameroon as one of the measures that
could be used to cultivate a genuine culture of peace and dialogue on campus,
participants also urged public officials to carry out a deeper research to have
a better insight into the reasons behind the frequent conflicts and
violence that rock different
universities, institutionalise campus policing and student unions, outlaw the
use of live ammunition while quelling student riots, initiate frank dialogue
amongst members of the university community, prohibit the activities of
unauthorised religious sects and well and above all, carry out inherent
structural university reforms.
“Considering that most of our universities suffer from
self-inflicted crisis of mismanagement and neglect, and that most conflicts on
campus are due to inherent structural weaknesses,” the final report states, “there
is an urgent need to modernise and democratise university governance.”
Participants went further to propose that as part of a university good
governance option, (…) “an electoral college of lecturers should be in charge
of voting university managers rather than they being appointees of
politicians,” the report concludes.
Some of these recommendations are similar to some of the demands
made recently by disgruntled striking students of some State universities. The sensitise nature of the conference and
its resultant recommendations may, predictably, have been one of the reasons
behind the last minute withdrawal of the University of Yaounde I from the
conference.
However, Yaounde I University
officials did not only desist from taking part in the conference, but made
futile attempts to prevent the conference from holding. According to these
university officials, Cameroon is a State of Law and all international conferences
need a clearance from the Presidency of the Republic, a claim the organisers
refuted, arguing that not only had other international conferences been
organised without any such “presidential clearance” but that “(…) considering
that the organisers were organising the conference with the university, they
had assumed that such clearance was not needed … and that the University itself
would take care of it.”
This was just an umpteenth indication that the much vaunted
necessity to promote a culture of peace and dialogue on campus remains a piece
of “good rhetoric” as opposed to “good action.” But who does promoting a peace
culture hurt and do people need authorisation to discuss peace? Many participants
questioned.
But over and above the counter arguments raised by officials of the University
of
Yaounde
I, the organisers said the
attempted suspension of the conference may equally have been the underground
effort of detractors who did not want to see the organisers succeed where
university authorities had failed. Pecuniary interests certainly came into play
as university authorities may have suspected that the financial stakes were
high and thought the organisers were more interested in the financial gains to
be made from the conference. The Executive Director of CAPED International was
forced to take the rostrum to clear the doubt.
“Understandably, coming at a time when the majority of Cameroonians
believe in the dictum that, nothing goes for nothing, and when the spirit of
volunteerism is almost non-existent amongst Cameroonians, many did not actually
believe that Cameroonians still exist who can afford to spare their meal ticket
for the cause of peace,” the organisers
explained.
According to the conference organisers, the event was and remains
context relevant as African university campuses remain conflict and violence
friendly environments and this has had what they described as, “--- a calamitous effect on teaching,
research and the capacity of the university budding staff.” Many students have
equally lost their lives in attempts to force public officials to carry out far
reaching reforms, while hundreds of lecturers have abandoned their universities
in search of academic greener pastures overseas. In attempts to alleviate the
situation, the University Reforms of 1993 have paradoxically only triggered, in
the words used in the conference report, “--- a rise in tension between
students, University authorities and the forces of law and order.”
Participants posited that the calm which reigns in university
campuses is deceptive as peace, they hold, transcends the mere absence of open
conflict to include conditions that ensure justice and self fulfilment. But
every good initiative has a price tag affixed to it and that is why the
conference organisers defied the ban and held the conference because in their
view, “---it is better to be persecuted defending a good cause than a bad one.”
However, it is highly unlikely that the recommendations made will be
taken into consideration for not only has Cameroon a reputation for shelving
recommendations ever so often, but the above recommendations emanate from a
conference which did not receive the approval of university authorities. It is
strange when the pursuit of peace overtures, paradoxically generate further conflict.
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