RAMBLE in the JUNGLE
AMBA: The Bind on the Cameroons
By Wanaku Verdzekov · · The Cameroons
Date note: Estimated (~2019–2021): the "AMBA:" style belongs to the author's 2019–2021 posts.
Tags: fcfa, diaspora, financial-policy
AMBA: The bind on the Cameroons that is ALL-ENCOMPASSING is the CURRENCY (the FCFA).
Every Ambazonian in the diaspora who sends money to the Cameroons through the existing financial institutions is watering the FCFA tree, and so strengthening the bind.
Franco-Cameroun itself is in a bind with France. It is something they can probably figure out how to get out of, but the probability seems low. From the get-go (the signing of the "cooperation" agreements with France back in 1959), Franco-Cameroun has had the right to set up its own currency if and when it is ready. Will it?
That's a question Ambazonian citizens cannot answer for them.
When it comes to money changing hands between Ambazonian citizens, in or out of Ambazonia, the picture is murky, because there is no "national financial policy". Creating and implementing one takes some algebra first of all: just to get an idea of the volume of transactions, and of how that volume would grow under autonomy and self-rule, the platforms where such policies could finally be applied.
All of the above is work, which some devoted citizens can give their time to, while keeping to globally acceptable standards, or else be shut out of international institutions that are moving towards more coordinated standards for global transactions.
Daily human life is transactions, from sun up to sun down. That's how important it is. Those who realize its importance try to keep detailed accounts, and use them for all intents and purposes (mostly to make life easier for their own).
TM
— Wanaku Verdzekov
Reading & grammar
Reading level: Gr 10–12
Understand
- What is the "bind" on the Cameroons, according to the author?
- How do diaspora remittances "water the FCFA tree"?
- What does the author say a national financial policy requires?
Grammar focus: extended metaphor: the tree. "Watering the FCFA tree" imagines the currency as a tree that grows when money flows through it. Metaphors make economic ideas easier to picture.
Try it: Explain another economic idea (savings, debt, taxes) through a plant or farming metaphor.
Discuss: Should people living abroad change how they send money home for political reasons? Argue.