ON THE ISSUE OF THE FRENCH LGBTQIA AMBASSADORS VISITE TO CAMEROON

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It has been a tumultuous last few days in Cameroon. We have been sitting on the sidelines and watching the flurry of opinions on the now-cancelled visit of a French ambassador for LGBT rights to Cameroon.

What we have seen, however, is a very rare moment of communion between the people of Cameroon for the most part and their very inept government. It would seem the question of sexual orientation is the one common thing that Cameroonians (for the most part) are in accord with, with their government.

We are not going to play an intellectually dishonest card like many people we have seen try to short-circuit the argument by saying that Cameroonains do not know how to complain about their rights on any given day but are quick to draw daggers when the question of what people do in the privacy of their bedroom is brought to the front.

We complain about these things. And as a society, we are as homophobic as we are cowardly. Make no mistake, we truly are. It is easy to get blindsided by the many voices on social media that ask people under the LGBT umbrella to be left alone, and think that this is representative of the real world. It really isn’t. While many people who are connected online can be viewed as being more enlightened on the topic and even more tolerant, we have to remember that they remain an infinitesimal number with loud voices and that internet penetration in Cameroon is still wanting.

That being said, there are many who would agree that the current pushback is somewhat reflective of the place where the fight for the rights of the LGBT people is today. Irrespective of your feelings on the topic, these people are first of all people. They bleed red like every other person and they deserve basic human rights like every other person. More and more the LGBT fights today in Western countries has gone beyond that basic demand that they had to fight for so many years, to now include what we can term as rather lofty ones on the issues of identity and gender.

Make no mistake, many people under that umbrella are still being targeted and harassed and beaten today just as The Two trans women who were caught and beaten in the streets of Deido two years ago. One cannot say the battle is entirely won for them. But in the eyes of many, the group that was once marginalized has somehow been able to gain power and influence to the point that they have influenced corporations, have gotten disproportionate representation in media entertainment content, and have increasingly become repressive in how they want the rest of the world to see and interact with them Particularly in the western part of the world.

It is not uncommon today to hear that people are being cancelled and losing their jobs because of the use of the wrong pronouns to address someone. Their sway on politics and institutions is becoming a bit of a chokehold and there’s some unnecessary fear-mongering that is stirred when the issues of the community are brought up.

And still on the subject of football, footballers are not allowed to show any political leanings on the pitch. But the Rainbow community gets a pass and footballers, like Idrissa Gueye, who refused to wear a rainbow-ed jersey are taken off the match sheet.

We all remember the day Ketanji Jackson Brown, the first black woman to serve as a supreme court justice in America was being heard by the Senate judicial committee before her official swearing-in. She was asked to define what a woman is, and she couldn’t. Rather, she wouldn’t. Why? Out of the fear of the backlash she would get from the rainbow community. And she has since been sworn in as a supreme court justice of the USA.

Understandably that is one reason for the pushback from some Cameroonians who feel that “things are being forced down their throats.” For the others, it is just simple and overt homophobia. Nothing more. At the end of the day, we are going to have to deal with the issue. There is still a lot that people, in general, have to learn about the topic; like breaking the erroneous belief that homosexuality was brought by white colonialists. A lot of learning and unlearning is to be done. We often feel like we have been given the short end of the stick. For many Western societies, many have been up the Maslow pyramid for so long that they have the philosophical largesse to entertain this topic and the wide spectrum on which it lies today.

For us at the bottom still trying to figure out our basic needs and are now having to deal with issues that are best dealt with on a full stomach and with no fear of ENEO cutting your lights, we obviously have a hard time grappling with it. We treading a very tenuous argumentative line, but sure, you are smart enough to understand what we are trying to say. One way or the other, we as Cameroonians are going to have to deal with it.

We live in a global village and an ambassador doesn’t need to hit the tarmac at Nsimalen to carry out his mission in the digital world we live in today. People are going to be reached no matter what. But for us, perhaps we have to understand that this issue is first of all an issue of human rights.We live in a country in which administrative buildings and universities are built in 2023 with no wheelchair ramps.

That too is an issue of human rights. And it is with a very heavy heart that we say we are a long way from achieving basic universal human rights for all citizens in Cameroon. And until we come to see human rights in its globality first like this, through these lenses, we will have a long, long walk ahead of us. And with this current government, we am afraid there is no end in sight.

Happy Pride Month