29/10/2025
It hurts.
When Empathy Depends on Language
I have never been more shocked than when I saw the Cameroon Army protecting francophone protesters, speaking to them calmly, preaching peace, and urging restraint. It was a striking image of national empathy.
But for many of us from the anglophone regions, that same army evokes very different memories. We remember the brutality of December 8, 2016, in Bamenda, when peaceful protesters carrying only green leaves were met with bullets, arrests, and violence. We remember homes looted, elders beaten, and families torn apart.
The contrast is painful. How can the same force show compassion in one region and cruelty in another? How can unity be preached after years of unequal treatment and silence in the face of suffering?
If the same empathy shown today had been extended to anglophones back then, perhaps we would not be where we are, in a conflict that has claimed countless lives and left communities divided and broken.
It is hypocrisy to preach “living together” and “national unity” when justice and compassion are not equally shared.
Real unity begins when every Cameroonian, regardless of language or region, is treated with dignity and fairness.
Most anglophone children knows army as something you and run faster than you can. Not as something that protect them.
May we one day see a Cameroon where peace is not selective and where empathy does not depend on which side of the Mungo you come from.
