A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF REUNIFICATION DISCOURSES IN SELECTED CAMEROONIAN HISTORY TEXTBOOKS BY NKWENTI RAYMOND FRU Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU-NATAL School of Education History Education SUPERVISOR: PROFESSOR JOHAN WASSERMANN 2017 DECLARATION I, Nkwenti Fru declare that: a. The research reported in this thesis, except where otherwise indicated, is my original work. b. This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or examination at any other university. c. This thesis does not contain other persons’ data, pictures, graphs or other information unless specifically acknowledged as being sourced from other persons. d. This thesis does not contain other persons’ writing, unless specifically acknowledged as being sourced from other researchers. Where other written sources have been quoted, then: i. their words have been re-written but the general information attributed to them has been referenced; ii. Where their exact words have been used, their writing has been placed inside quotation marks and referenced. e. Where I have reproduced a publication of which I am author, co-author or editor, I have indicated in detail which part of the publication was actually written by myself alone and have fully referenced such publications. f. This thesis does not contain text, graphics or tables copied and pasted from the internet, unless specifically acknowledged, and the source being detailed in the thesis and in the Reference section. Signature: _____________________________ Date: _________________________________ As the student’s supervisor, I, Johan Wassermann, hereby approve the submission of the thesis for examination. Signature: _____________________________ Date: _________________________________ i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Above all, I praise God, the Almighty for providing me this opportunity and granting me the capability, energy and health to proceed successfully. This thesis appears in its current form due to the assistance and guidance of several people. I would therefore like to offer my sincere thanks and appreciation to all of them. My supervisor, Prof Johan Wassermann for expertly nurturing me through my post graduate education. His personal and professional generosity helped make my stay at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) a functional and enjoyable experience. I owe the success of this thesis and everything I have achieved academically to him. The management of Georg-Eckert Institute (GEI) for International Textbooks Research, Braunsweig, Germany for providing me a fellowship grant that allowed me spend three weeks in 2014, exploring the rich textbooks literature at their library. The Social Science Education Cluster of the School of Education, UKZN for funding my participation and presentation of part of this thesis at the South African Educational Research Association (SAERA) Conference, 2015 at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa. My wife, Forlum Immaculate Ngwa Fru who is my champion. You blessed me with a life of joy. It was you who held the foundation of our family during moments when the pressure of studies took its toll on me. I understand it was difficult for you. I can only say thanks for everything and may our God give you all the best in return. Our sons, Richmond, Emory, and Rhema for the immeasurable joy and inspiration they brought to our lives To my family whose value for me grows with time. Over and above, my sister Ms Delphine Nchang Nkwenti for providing me a rare opportunity to explore the limits of my academic potential. My father – Mr Nkwenti Joseph Kheka and my siblings Nche Lovet Nkwenti and Che Elvis Nkwenti for their continuous love and support. My grandfather – His Royal Majesty King Fobuzie Martin Buzie Asanji and my aunt – Mrs Eunice Bih Azie Fobuzie for material and moral support during those trial moments of my development that gave me the tenacity to carry on. A very special gratitude goes to my grand mother – Mama Monica Nanga Fobuzie for her immeasurable love, support and tenacity against innumerable odds. Words can never be enough to describe my love and indebtedness to you, Mama. My colleagues and friends at the National University of Lesotho and UKZN. Dr. Eric Hofstee and the “Exactica Thesis and Dissertation Solutions” for the valuable research support through the organised workshop at UKZN – Edgewood in 2013. ii For patiently and expertly reading and editing my work, I am indebted to the services of Mrs Angela Bryan The facilitators and students from the PhD cohort of the University of KwaZulu-Natal for their critical reflection as the study developed. And to everyone else who contributed in some way to making this study possible, I say – Thank You! Finally, the success of this PhD journer to me symbolises the triumph of the human spirit against forces of advertsity. iii DEDICATION I dedicate this PhD thesis to the memories of my departed mother – Mrs Justine Ngum Nkwenti (1957-1992) and elder brother – Awah Evrade Nkwenti (1976-2007). May your gentle souls continue to rest peacefully in the bosom of our Lord. iv ABSTRACT More than five decades after the (re)unification on October 1st 1961 of the former UNO trusteeship territories of French and British Southern Cameroons, to form a single nation-state, the phenomenon remains a hotly contentious and controversial discourse in both public and academic space of the Cameroonian society. Most often than not, the tensions around discourses on reunification have resulted in activities that have threatened the fabric of peaceful coexistence and social harmony between the Anglophone and Francophone communities of reunified Cameroon. Remnants of Anglo-French colonial heritage in the form of language, legal and educational systems, curricula and textbooks amongst others have most often been at the heart of the contention. In an era where textbooks in general and history textbooks in particular have been recognised to go beyond their core pedagogic purposes to also serve ideological and political functions, the need for their content to be constantly analysed with regard to their depiction of contentious phenomenon such as reunification has become a matter of absolute necessity. Against this backdrop, this study adopted a qualitative research approach and an interpretive paradigm to analyse six school history textbooks purposively selected from the Anglophone and Francophone sub-systems of education in Cameroon – three each from each of the sub systems. Making use of a bricolage of tenets of the qualitative content analyses methodology, nuanced with the discursive postcolonial theoretical framework, the analysis of the historical genre and historical knowledge types of the texts revealed certain dominant and supporting consistent and conflicting discourses on the nature of representation of reunification in Cameroonian history textbooks. These discourses include: an uncritical nature of school history and textbooks as it relates to reunification; an adoption of old styled school history characterised by substantive rather than procedural form of historical genre and knowledge; Cameroon as an imagined state; presence of single and master symbols/narratives; identity and nationalism discourse; big men historiography, male chauvinism; and exclusion. In explaining the reasons for the presence of these discourses, the analysis revealed the following notions: the nature of school history and textbooks as a colonial legacy performing the same ideological function in Cameroon as during the different periods of German, British and French colonisation; the complex nature of reunification as a phenomenon with a similar context of the reunification controversy in Germany; the ideological nature of history textbooks at the disposal of government authorities with examples such as the presence of v master symbols in apartheid and post-apartheid South African school textbooks and the ideological use of history textbooks in the defunct German Democratic Republic (GDR) of post-WWII Germany. The postcolonial theoretical explanations of the discourse were linked to the notions of the postcolonial voiceless subaltern; the challenges of textbooks and author hybridity; and internal colonisation. The study recommends a harmonisation of the textbooks’ content, a more robust system of checks and balances in selection of history textbooks for use in schools, a review of the history syllabus and curriculum to be more inclusive of the contributions of women and ordinary Cameroonians in significant historical developments of Cameroon, to ensure a more critical curriculum that incorporates critical enquiry skills and multiperspectivity from learners and discards rote learning of history, and finally that both trainee and in-service history teachers be workshopped on these curricula improvements for history education in Cameroon schools. KEY TERMS Anglophone; Cameroon; Francophone; History education; History textbooks; Reunification; Content analysis vi LIST OF ACRONYMS ACRONYM FULL MEANING AAC1 All Anglophone Conference 1 AAC2 All Anglophone Conference 2 BC Before Christ CDA Critical Discourse Analysis CPNC Cameroon People’s national Congress CFA Communauté Financière Africaine CNU Cameroon National Union CCC Cameroons Commoners Congress CIP Cameroons Ideological Party CFU Cameroon Federal Union CNF Cameroon national Federation FRG Federal Republic of Germany GDR German Democratic Republic GEI George Eckert Institute GCE General Certificate of Education JEUCAFRA