Hopes Ablaze: Reimagining the Revolutionary Alternative in the Ambazonian War of Independence

Abstract

Abstract This essay examines the prefigurative politics that birthed and has sustained the Ambazonian revolutionary movement and its war of independence in Cameroon. It uses Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to question the extent to which foundational value based Ambazonian discourses have lived up to the objectives of the movement’s founding. An analysis of speeches, official documents, and video content from Ambazonian leaders reveals that (1) the Ambazonian objective to secede from the state of Cameroon was initially discursively premised on prefigurative ideals, (2) the surge of radical discourses and the imprisonment of pioneer leaders of the movement prompted a deviation from the movement’s foundational goals, and (3) there is a need to reimagine the revolutionary alternative in the promised liberation of English-speaking Cameroonians.