By Edwin Ajimsimbom
Introduction
For close to 6 years now, Cameroon’s two English speaking regions have been plagued by an ongoing sociopolitical Crisis that has resulted in several acts of violence The course of this crisis has prompted a wide range of activism and advocacy in Cameroon. Both activists and advocates leverage social media to carry out their campaign. A common social media phenomenon that has speeded up and been used by opinion promoters particularly in the context of the Anglophone crisis is the use of hash tags.
Definition of Key Terms
In the social media context, a hash tag on social media is a word or phrase preceded by a Hash symbol (#) in a post with the hope of drawing attention and encouraging interaction among people who are interested in a similar topic. Hash tags originated with Tweeter and have gained familiarity particularly with Facebook and Instagram. Although Hash tags are not a thing of today, its use has speeded up rapidly in Cameroon within the context of the Anglophone crisis.
Public policies
Understood here as set of ideas or a plan of what to do in particular situations that has been agreed upon by a group of people, an organization, or a government. In almost all situations, public policy and decision making is often driven by public opinion of the concerned in a given situation.
Stakeholders
A stakeholder is either an individual, group or organization that has an interest and/ or power of influence in a given situation. In the context of Cameroon, and the anglophone crises in particular, stakeholders include state authorities, non state(anglophone separatist leaders, ) NGOs and Civil society organizations that influence policies or daily happenings.
As the crisis drag on and affect almost everybody, “the strong” tend to implore violence while “The weak” resort to social media activism and advocacy to protest and make their voices heard.
Hash tags therefore are a social media manifestation of public opinion about their needs. In the case of the Anglophone crisis, some of these hash tags have been a direct attack in response to some utterances made by key policy makers and key officials both from the state and non state parties.
As already mentioned, hash tags are used to draw attention and prompt interactions between people of similar interest in the same topic.The success level of such campaigns can be measured by the impact they have on public policies and response from policy and action stakeholders. A good number of policies and decisions in Cameroon have been effected as a result of hashtags that erupted in campaign for or against a given situation
#NoToHatespeech.
The #NoToHatespeech picked up steam on Facebook and Tweeter in Cameroon in 2019. This hash tag was prompted by the increase in the rate of public derogatory utterances made by some top government officials and policy makers/ influencers in Cameroon. The no to Hatespeech Hashtag is been used alternatively as #hateFreeCameroon, #stophatespeech, and most recently; #stopBadMop.
Till date, this remains one of the most used and most engaging Hash tag on social media platforms, with reference to the Anglophone crisis.
Data from Brandmentions, a site used for tracking the virality or mention of trends or phrases on the media shows that the #NoToHatespeech hash tags has an estimate of 305 mentions every 2 days, and a total of 2376 mentions on Facebook and Twitter with top influencing handles being, civil society organisations (#defyhatenow, Truth be told campaign etc, Civic watch, etc.), News and media organs, personal posts from peace advocates/ activists as well as individuals. (https://app.brandmentions.com/
Most Recently , the #stophatespeech has grown to become not just a social media campaign but an active area of interest for organisations and institutions. Local NGOs and CSOs are investing a lot in projects aimed to mitigate hate speech, so too are government institutions. In October 2022, Cameroon’s outstanding lawyer, and former BAR president, Tumfor Barrister Nico Halle under the banner of the commission for the promotion of bilingualism and multiculturalism in Cameroon made a tour to the northwest region amongst other things, to crusade against Hatespeech and xenophobia in Cameroon. (Watch full video of Prime hour, containing exclusive interview granted by Ntumfor Bar Nico Halle Here. This moves and many others by key policy influencers are no doubt a manifestation of social media in actual daily life.
The #Endphonetax.
In 0ctober 2020, the government of Cameroon announced a strange phone tax as part of 2019 finance law. The new tax stated that Clarence fees of 33% of the total cost must be paid for any phone or tablet shipped into the country. Read Miss Gina’s report containing the article
The law was peculiar in two interesting ways; first that it allowed the dealer to pass the Import duty to the person who buys the phone. Secondly, in order to collect the clearance fee, your mobile network provider was allowed to make deductions from your account. The new regulation also stated that a fee of 200 frs should be deducted for any application downloaded from the internet.. On the 15 of October 2020 when the phone tax went into law, Cameroonians took to twitter, Facebook and other media platform with the #EndPhoneTax tag to show their displeasure.
Cameroon artist, Beza released a freestyle condemning the phone tax, and other social ills. The video went viral on social media handles. Watch video here as reported by Mimi Mefo Barely days gone into the social media( #tag) protest, the country’s president Paul Biya told PM Dion Ngute to suspend the tax and look into alternative ways of increasing customs revenue https://youtu.be/hqDF-clHdRE
The #Backtoschool
Another game changing #tag in Cameroon has been the #backtoschool, #safeschools and other related #tags. For the past 6 years, the back to school and safeschool campaign has been one of the most recurrent campaigns within the Anglophone crisis. Each time, yealding significant results
Prior to school school resumption in October 5 2020, media organs first reported the call for school
boycotts by Ambazonian Activists, backed my a communique signed by the Ambazonian secretary of state, department of self defense, dated 25 September 2020
Click here to read Mimi Mefo’s report
The reports as usual were met with intense social media protest and #BackToSchool campaigns. Few days later, on oct 25th, as a result of the campaigns, other reports containing tweets by diiferent Ambazonian leaders surfaced the internet. This time, indicating a call for school resumption
The surden twist of openion by Ambazonian leaders who had earlier called for school boycott but were now pushing for school resumption was no doubt, the impact of the back to school campaign through various # tags related to the promotion of education, and of course, a clear indication that social media represents a strong platform for expression of openion and the push for better policies and decisions by policy makers.
There are a host of other hashtags on social media in relation to the Anglophone crisis among which are, #EndAnglophoneCrisis, #Nationaldialogue , #WeNeedPeace, and many others.
Conclusion and recommendations
Social Media campaigns through hashtags in most cases has proven to be a more effective voice in the call for change as compared to violence and other extreme actions that only beget More violence and chaotic societies. Hashtags are safe and can be used by everyone in Cameroon especially given the fact that even policy makers, state officials and other actors also maintain I high social media presence/influence. Tweets by the head of state, civil cabinet and other state officials’ account always carry “#Cameroon” or related tags as a way of prompting a civic sense in the reader. Since the internet creates a safe space for the virtual community, Social Media can be leveraged not just by activists, or advocates, but also by the state agents to promote peace since they are the key stakeholders.
The advantage of using social media in the peace struggle is that there are no geographical limits,. While it may not be very feasible for everyone to take on-site action, The internet and social media in particular if used responsibly, provides a safe space for everyone big or small to contribute to the call for better policies and in effect, a peaceful nation.
