Communal Liberalism and the Shadow of Mein Kampf

Biya’s Communal Liberalism fit perfectly into this framework. It subordinated freedom to unity, branded federalism as tribalism, and exalted the leader as the embodiment of the nation. It was the local expression of a broader authoritarian vision — an Africanised Mein Kampf, combined with de Gaulle’s presidential monarchy.

By MC Chryton, The Independentist Political Desk

When Paul Biya published Communal Liberalism in 1987, the book was presented as Cameroon’s guiding philosophy. It claimed to reconcile African communal values with liberal democracy. But in practice, it became the ideological mask for dictatorship, a doctrine borrowed from France’s post-war struggle to preserve power, and one that carried the shadow of Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

France’s Weakness and the Vichy Experience

France has rarely triumphed in modern wars. From its humiliation in 1870 against Prussia, to its near-collapse in the First World War, to the swift defeat of 1940, the French state revealed a recurring weakness. Its incapacity extended beyond the battlefield: it lacked creativity in governing itself and in ruling others.

That weakness reached its lowest point under Marshal Philippe Pétain. The Vichy regime collaborated openly with Nazi Germany, internalising authoritarian methods of surveillance, propaganda, and the cult of the leader. Mein Kampf was not a distant text for France — it was a lived experience.

De Gaulle’s Presidential Monarchy

General Charles de Gaulle absorbed these lessons in his own way. During his exile in England, he admired the stability of the British monarchy. After the war, he fused that admiration with the authoritarian mechanics France had experienced under Vichy. The result was the French Fifth Republic — a presidential monarchy that concentrated power in the hands of one man, while retaining the appearance of republicanism.

This system gave de Gaulle what he always craved: absolute authority dressed in constitutional form. It also provided Paris with a model for controlling Africa after independence.

From Paris to Yaoundé

When African nations formally gained independence, France repackaged its empire into Françafrique. Through the CFA franc, military treaties without expiry, and presidents-for-life, Paris maintained dominance.

Biya’s Communal Liberalism fit perfectly into this framework. It subordinated freedom to unity, branded federalism as tribalism, and exalted the leader as the embodiment of the nation. It was the local expression of a broader authoritarian vision — an Africanised Mein Kampf, combined with de Gaulle’s presidential monarchy.

Ambazonia: The Sacrifice

For Southern Cameroons — today Ambazonia — the consequences were catastrophic. Federal guarantees were stripped away. English-speaking identity was delegitimised. Calls for autonomy or self-determination were answered with violence.

Ambazonia became the chief casualty of Communal Liberalism — a philosophy that turned diversity into a crime and resistance into treason.

Collapse of a Doctrine

Doctrines built on lies do not last. Within two decades, Communal Liberalism was unmasked by corruption, repression, and misrule. Rather than elevating Biya’s legacy, it tarnished it beyond repair.

Today, almost no one remembers what this philosophy was supposed to mean. It survives only as a failed slogan, another French creation that collapsed under its own contradictions.

With elections now less than three weeks away, the ruling CPDM party has not even produced a manifesto. The reason is obvious: Communal Liberalism is politically dead. Its ideals are stale, its failures undeniable, its disgrace complete.

Conclusion

Hitler promised a Thousand-Year Reich; it fell in 12 years. France tried to engineer its own version through de Gaulle’s presidential monarchy, Françafrique, and Biya’s Communal Liberalism. But that project, too, is collapsing in mere decades.

Ambazonia, once sacrificed to this failed ideology, now stands at the frontlines of resistance. Our struggle proves that no empire is eternal, and no imposed philosophy can erase a people’s right to freedom.

MC Chryton, The Independentist Political Desk