Cameroon: State and Church share the combat against hate speech

Cameroonian authorities aim to strengthen their fight against propagators of hate speech. "Anybody found guilty of any hate speech, same as any media that will use its platform to promote xenophobia, will be severely punished according to the laws of the Republic," declared Paul Atangaji, Minister of Territorial Administration, about ten days ago. "The same applies to those who will use  social media to propagate hate, violence and tribalism."

A few days before this statement, another minister -- Emmanuel Sadi, Minister of Communication -- had already expressed his commitment to combating such speech. He stated during a May 17 press conference in Yaoundé that this fight should be seen as an "absolute priority towards safeguarding democracy and the rule of law, and preserving the values of peace, unity and living together." "In our country, the most common manifestation of hate speech today includes ethnic and social discrimination, stigmatization, which is expressed through media channels, in both conventional media (press, radio, television) and online media especially in social media," he said.

Reading St. James

In their fight against this type of discourse, Cameroonian authorities can count on the support of the Catholic Church. "If you read the Bible, St. James will tell you that you can control the biggest machine, you can control the biggest ship, you can control even the most sophisticated weapon, but there is one thing that is very small but very difficult to control, and it is the tongue," emphasizes Father Humphrey Tatah Mbuy, Communications Secretary of the Episcopal Conference of Cameroon. "The tongue can cause any amount of trouble, and the tongue has caused several wars."

The country itself experiences this situation directly, with the crisis in the Anglophone region, partially fueled by hate speech. "Cameroon has seen an uptake in hateful and inflammatory rhetoric in the context of an intensifying crisis between Anglophone and Francophone communities and political elites," says Peace Tech Lab, an American nonprofit organization. Several thousand people have lost their lives in clashes resulting from this crisis in recent years.

The Golden Rule

Father Mbuy also believes that hate speech may have worsened the conflict in the two Anglophone regions. "For instance, people call government officials working in the two regions ‘colonial masters’ and the government refers to separatists as ‘terrorists, bandits’ etc. These words breathe more anger," he said. He also notes that pejorative expressions are used, such as “invaders” or “anglofou”. "The term is a contraction of the French word Anglophone (somebody who speaks English) and “fou” which is an adjective meaning “mad” or “foolish” implying Anglophones are fools, behave stupidly and always act the opposite," he said.

Father Mbuy proposed the following solutions to combat hate speech. "The golden rule is, do not do unto others what you would not want them to do to you, so don’t say anything to somebody when you don’t want that same thing said to you." And as fellow Cameroonians, he urges, "we are all citizens of the same fatherland, and if that is the case, no person should think that he or she owns the fatherland any more than another person."