Ethno-Regional Cleavages and Socio-Politically Motivated Animosities in Cameroon: Elements for Understanding Incipient Xenophobic Tendencies

Cameroon is a complex mosaic of ethnic categories that fashion identities but are also the source of tensions, frictions and conflicts. These are in the main what in some older literature was labelled tribal but which are in fact ethno-linguistic groupings (with more than 250 micro identities), the socio-linguistic (with a major division structured around the two official languages of European origins), and the religious that are further segmented into multiple denominations and fraternities. Over time, administrative divisions inherited from colonial demarcations with a prolongation into the postcolonial period have generated a new sense of belonging and identification. This has developed into ethno-regionalism that obviously runs counter to the affirmed project of nation-building or unifying statecraft. Competition in access to public space, offices and public goods often degenerates into mutual distrust that has often implied a growing tendency towards xenophobia or xenophobic tendencies in some areas of Cameroon. This paper traces the development of the ethno-regional imaginary and its xenophobic corollary over the relatively short political history of the country. The argument is that this imaginary has taken on itself the character of a mobilizing force in politics and exists as the unique state ideology without a corresponding reality necessitating its deconstruction. The latter will entail a revision of the basis of the state as a colonial construct, revisiting the basis of identification and its recognition between state and civil society, ridding identities other than the national of political contents and introducing a new politics of plurality that combines multiculturalism, recognition and a cosmopolitan outlook. Such a politics re-direct attention towards the territorial development components (regions) as realities in their own right as opposed to their transformation into ethno-political entities with the capacity to drift into objects of exclusion.