Since late 2016, the Anglophone regions of North-West and South-West Cameroon have been engaged in a crisis born of linguistic, educational, and political grievances. Lawyers, teachers, students, and activists protested what they saw as a grotesque marginalization of the state’s English-speaking population, furious with their minimal political representation and severely impacted institutional systems. The protests were largely peaceful and stemmed from post-colonial frustrations; until 1961, both Britain and France had significant stakes in separate parts of Cameroon. With eight of Cameroon’s ten administrative regions functioning under French civil law – including the nation’s capital Yaoundé – education, media, and public affairs are dominated by the Francophone central government, leaving the remaining two Anglophone regions underdeveloped and disparaged.
In a shocking escalation, Cameroon’s military responded to the 2016 peaceful protests with excessive and violent force, killing several civilians and arresting hundreds of protesters, many of whom still remain unlawfully detained. Their use of tear gas on non-protesting individuals was also a particularly troubling detail and one of many human rights violations committed by the Cameroonian government during these events. Ilaria Allegrozzi, an Amnesty International researcher, condemned the government’s actions and explained that “responding to incidents of violence during protests with unnecessary or excessive force threatens to further enflame an already tense situation and could put more lives at risk.”
The separatist conflict has only further intensified with the growth of movements calling for an independent state – the “Federal Republic of Ambazonia,” comprising North-West and South-West Cameroon. The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium (CACSC) launched a revival of Operation Ghost Town in 2017, urging communities across the two Anglophone regions to close their shops, stay home, and block traffic in protest of the government’s actions. However, the Cameroonian government countered by deploying elite security units, imposing internet black-outs, and outlawing the CACSC entirely, detaining its leadership under anti-terrorism laws. Since then, there have been countless clashes between government forces, militias, and separatist “Amba” fighters across Anglophone regions. The government and pro-state groups have committed retaliatory raids, summary killings, sexual violence, forced displacement, and scorched-earth tactics; however, both sides are guilty of unjust atrocities. Separatist factions have abducted, tortured, and executed villagers, including women and children, for being perceived as “outsiders” or as government collaborators.
Long before the physical conflict erupted, however, education had been one of the most obvious markers of the divide between Anglophone and Francophone Cameroon. Although the country is officially bilingual, the two education systems are shaped by different colonial legacies and operate almost entirely independently. In practice, the Francophone system has received a far larger state investment, more administrative autonomy, and greater overall political backing, while the Anglophone system has been chronically underfunded, understaffed, and structurally ignored. This disparity is not simply bureaucratic; it directly affects students’ futures. Anglophone students face fewer educational resources, fewer higher-education opportunities tailored to their system, and a disproportionate number of barriers when applying to national institutions that overwhelmingly operate in French.
Recent research shows just how steep these educational disparities have become. A 2022 report by the International Crisis Group found that the crisis in Anglophone regions has disrupted education for over 700,000 children. The same report noted that in 2017 and 2018, the regions saw widespread school boycotts and closures of institutions tied to emerging separatist movements, deepening the education gap. Furthermore, students in the Francophone education system scored significantly higher in Grade 5 mathematics than Anglophone students, a gap that can be attributed to better classroom equipment and teaching methods in Francophone schools.
By consistently elevating Francophone institutions and undermining the Anglophone education system, the state of Cameroon has turned schooling into a symbol of cultural and linguistic marginalization. These dynamics set a foundation for an identity-based political struggle that now massively defines the crisis in the country. Understanding this struggle requires stepping back to consider how identity itself is constructed and why it becomes such a powerful political force.
The question of identity is a broad one. First, we must define what it constitutes.
At its core, identity encompasses language, culture, institutions, and the shared sense of belonging that a community holds. In the case of Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis, the educational disparities and administrative neglect has eroded not only material opportunity but also the deeper feeling among English-speaking Cameroonians that their community is recognized and valued by the state. The Anglophone minority has long perceived itself as marginalized, a significant 20% of the population yet consistently excluded from decision-making, cultural visibility, and critical policy.
This sense of exclusion gives rise to a unique type of identity politics – collective action rooted in a shared, communal experience of injustice, rather than in purely individual grievances. In Cameroon, protests against education, language, and judicial policies became, almost inevitably, expressions of a conjunct power seeking recognition and redress. When schools failed, languages were subordinated, and legal institutions became skewed towards Francophone systems, the Anglophone community saw this as a denial of its cultural and institutional worth. Their demands shifted from a reform of the status quo to a full-on assertion of their identity, elevating ideas of autonomy, federalism, and even separation as a path to preserve and protect that identity.
Under the idealized vision of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, identity has become both a political aspiration and a cultural foundation. For many Anglophones, Ambazonia represents a space where British-derived institutions, common-law practices, and community schools can finally operate without interference from a Francophone-dominated state. Unlike some separatist conflicts, this dream is not merely territorial; it is a locus of institutional integrity, where classrooms, courthouses, and local administrations reflect the linguistic and cultural realities of the people that they serve. The movement has gained emotional backing precisely because daily life in the two Anglophone regions of Cameroon has long been shaped by unequal schooling, restrictive state infrastructure, and diminished control over local educational curricula. In this environment, language itself becomes a dividing factor. The inability of many Francophone administrators, teachers, and officials to communicate fluently in English (and vice versa) heightens misunderstandings and fuels polarization between the two groups. Communities withdraw inwards, reinforcing their own narratives and suspicions as cross-linguistic dialogue becomes virtually impossible. The more the central government imposes centralized Francophone systems, the more Anglophones will gravitate towards a shared political identity that has its roots in resistance. The support behind Ambazonia reflects this shift: a collective belief that preserving community, culture, and the success of future generations requires reclaiming control over the very institutions, especially schools, that shape identity.
It is unfortunate that this conflict, founded in frustration and disparity, has snowballed into serious violence. In Cameroon, we see the tragic phenomenon of a positive feedback loop. As mistrust deepens and communication collapses, each side retreats further into its own linguistic and cultural identity, fueling the kind of extreme group polarization that turns political grievances into violent conflicts. Every new clash reinforces the divide between the factions, making reconciliation feel increasingly out of reach. Educational inequalities and language barriers only harden this wall and will ensure that these fractures are inherited by new generations.
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