Culture and Customs of Cameroon
Culture and Customs of Cameroon

Author: John Mukum Mbaku Esq.

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2005-06-30

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 0313027366

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Cameroon, in Central Africa, has been called Africa in miniature. It is characterized by exceptional social and ethnic diversity, with more than 250 ethnicities now forming five major regional-culture groupings. This volume is the first to encapsulate Cameroon's rich indigenous and modern customs and traditions in depth. The narrative emphasizes those aspects that define its modern nation, its peoples, the unique societies, their institutions, and various lifestyles. The origins of Cameroon's diverse culture are traced back to the various ethnic groups and languages as well as the influence of European colonialism, Christianity, Islam, and other external factors, including globalization. In each topical chapter, examples from ethnic groups are presented to give some sense of the variety of experiences. Cameroon has had a turbulent and eventful modern history with German, English, and French incursions, and students and general readers will be able to understand the current struggle for democracy post independence. The history colors the substantial coverage of the many topics examined, from education, to marriage and women's roles, sports, and holidays, daily life, the arts, and much more. This volume will stand as the definitive, accessible introduction to Cameroon and will be essential for building a well-rounded Africa collection.

Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon
Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon

Author: Mark Dike DeLancey

Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Published: 2010-05-03

Total Pages: 532

ISBN-13: 0810873990

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Cameroon is a country endowed with a variety of climates and agricultural environments, numerous minerals, substantial forests, and a dynamic population. It is a country that should be a leader of Africa. Instead, we find a country almost paralyzed by corruption and poor management, a country with a low life expectancy and serious health problems, and a country from which the most talented and highly educated members of the population are emigrating in large numbers. Although Cameroon has made economic progress since independence, it has not been able to change the dependent nature of its economy. The economic situation combined with the dismal record of its political history, indicate that prospects for political stability, justice, and prosperity are dimmer than they have been for most of the country's independent existence. The fourth edition of the Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon has been updated to reflect advances in the study of Cameroon's history as well as to provide coverage of the years since the last edition. It relates the turbulent history of Cameroon through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and over 600 cross-referenced dictionary entries on significant persons, events, places, organizations, and other aspects of Cameroon history from the earliest times to the present.

Doing Business in Cameroon
Doing Business in Cameroon

Author: José María Muñoz (Anthropologist)

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-09-27

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 1108428991

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A vivid ethnographic study of cattle traders, truckers, public contractors and NGO actors' everyday encounters with state bureaucracies in Ngaoundéré, Cameroon.

Introduction to Cameroon
Introduction to Cameroon

Author: Gilad James, PhD

Publisher: Gilad James Mystery School

Published:

Total Pages: 76

ISBN-13: 0990591077

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Cameroon is a country in central Africa that is bordered by Nigeria to the west, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, Equatorial Guinea to the south, and Gabon to the southwest. It has a diverse geography, including coastal plains, rainforests, savannas, and the volcanic peaks of Mount Cameroon in the west. Cameroon is home to over 250 different ethnic groups, each with its own language and cultural traditions. French and English are both official languages in the country, reflecting its colonial history as a protectorate of Germany, then a League of Nations mandate administered by France and Britain before it gained independence in 1960. Cameroon is one of the most developed countries in the region, with a relatively stable political system and a growing economy based on natural resources such as oil, cocoa, and timber. However, it faces many social and economic challenges, including high levels of poverty, inequality, and corruption. Despite this, Cameroon has a vibrant arts and music scene, and has produced famous cultural figures such as author Mongo Beti and musician Manu Dibango. Its national football team, known as the Indomitable Lions, has also achieved international success, winning the Africa Cup of Nations five times.

State-Building and Multilingual Education in Africa
State-Building and Multilingual Education in Africa

Author: Ericka A. Albaugh

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-04-24

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1139916777

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How do governments in Africa make decisions about language? What does language have to do with state-building, and what impact might it have on democracy? This manuscript provides a longue durée explanation for policies toward language in Africa, taking the reader through colonial, independence, and contemporary periods. It explains the growing trend toward the use of multiple languages in education as a result of new opportunities and incentives. The opportunities incorporate ideational relationships with former colonizers as well as the work of language NGOs on the ground. The incentives relate to the current requirements of democratic institutions, and the strategies leaders devise to win elections within these constraints. By contrasting the environment faced by African leaders with that faced by European state-builders, it explains the weakness of education and limited spread of standard languages on the continent. The work combines constructivist understanding about changing preferences with realist insights about the strategies leaders employ to maintain power.

Southern West Cameroon Revisited (1950-1972) Volume One
Southern West Cameroon Revisited (1950-1972) Volume One

Author: Ndi, Anthony

Publisher: Langaa RPCIG

Published: 2014-03-16

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13: 995679144X

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This book contributes to discussions on the topical issue of "Fifty Years after the independence of the Southern Cameroons", by taking a critical look at the process that lead up to Southern Cameroons' 'reunification' with la République du Cameroun. This was the period spanning from 1951 to 1961, and possibly up to 1972. This immediately conjures two overriding factors; first, the British colonial policy in Southern Cameroons, which dominated political life in the period leading up to: the Plebiscite, the Buea Tripartite Conference, the Bamenda All Party Conference, the Foumban Constitutional Conference and the Yaounde Tripartite Conference during the phase, 1959-1961. This constituted one huge hoax, whilst that from 1961-1972 and, beyond was dominated by the enigmatic figure of President Ahrnadou Ahidjo. At the heart of the first, are the declassified British secret papers which have uncovered the ugly undercurrents that characterised British colonial policy, while on the other hand, is President Ahmadou Ahidjo, who practically personalized the administration of the Federal Republic of Cameroon. His domination of the entire existence of the Federal Republic of Cameroon, (1961-1972) was overshadowed by the fact that he could not brood sharing power with any individual or institution. Simply put, he was allergic to democratic principles-or any form of opposition to his authority. As well, he was a matchless dictator especially in his ambivalent dealings with Southern West Cameroon. Apparently, it was the "destiny" of Southern Cameroons 'that up to 1961, it was harnessed to the tenterhooks of Great Britain and from 1961-1972, transferred to those of the Ahidjo Regime; neither of which wished its people well.

The Anglophone Cameroon Predicament
The Anglophone Cameroon Predicament

Author: Mufor Atanga

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9956717118

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This study explores the predicament of Anglophone Cameroon - from the experiment in federation from 1961 to the political liberalisation struggles of the 1990s - to challenge claims of a successful post-independence Cameroonian integration process. Focusing on the perceptions and actions of people in the Anglophone region, Atanga argues that what has come to be called the 'Anglophone Problem' constitutes one of the severest threats to the post-colonial nation-state project in Cameroon. As a linguistic and cultural minority, Anglophone Cameroonians realised that the Francophone-led state and government were keener in assimilation than in implementing the federal and bilingual nation agreed upon at reunification in 1960. Calls for national integration became simply a subterfuge for the assimilation of Anglophones by Francophones who dominated the state and government. The book details the various measures undertaken to exploit the Anglophone regionís economy and marginalise its people. Principally the economic structures meant to facilitate self-reliant development were undermined and destroyed. Institutionalised discrimination took the form of the exclusion of Anglophones from positions of real authority, and depriving the region of any meaningful development. With the advent of multi-party politics, most Anglophone Cameroonians increasingly have made vocal demands for a return to a federation, in order to adequately guarantee their rights and recognition for them as a political and cultural minority. Actively encouraged by France, the Francophone-led regime in Cameroon has refused to yield to such demands, despite the grave danger of violent conflict and possible secession.

Gender, Separatist Politics, and Embodied Nationalism in Cameroon
Gender, Separatist Politics, and Embodied Nationalism in Cameroon

Author: Jacqueline-Bethel Tchouta Mougoué

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2019-10-14

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 0472054139

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Gender, Separatist Politics, and Embodied Nationalism in Cameroon illuminates how issues of ideal womanhood shaped the Anglophone Cameroonian nationalist movement in the first decade of independence in Cameroon, a west-central African country. Drawing upon history, political science, gender studies, and feminist epistemologies, the book examines how formally educated women sought to protect the cultural values and the self-determination of the Anglophone Cameroonian state as Francophone Cameroon prepared to dismantle the federal republic. The book defines and uses the concept of embodied nationalism to illustrate the political importance of women’s everyday behavior—the clothes they wore, the foods they cooked, whether they gossiped, and their deference to their husbands. The result, in this fascinating approach, reveals that West Cameroon, which included English-speaking areas, was a progressive and autonomous nation. The author’s sources include oral interviews and archival records such as women’s newspaper advice columns, Cameroon’s first cooking book, and the first novel published by an Anglophone Cameroonian woman.

The Acquisition of Africa (1870-1914)
The Acquisition of Africa (1870-1914)

Author: Mieke van der Linden

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2016-10-05

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 9004321195

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Over recent decades, the responsibility for the past actions of the European colonial powers in relation to their former colonies has been subject to a lively debate. In this book, the question of the responsibility under international law of former colonial States is addressed. Such a legal responsibility would presuppose the violation of the international law that was applicable at the time of colonization. In the ‘Scramble for Africa’ during the Age of New Imperialism (1870-1914), European States and non-State actors mainly used cession and protectorate treaties to acquire territorial sovereignty (imperium) and property rights over land (dominium). The question is raised whether Europeans did or did not on a systematic scale breach these treaties in the context of the acquisition of territory and the expansion of empire, mainly through extending sovereignty rights and, subsequently, intervening in the internal affairs of African political entities.

Socrates in Cameroon
Socrates in Cameroon

Author: Nalova Lyonga

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 9956578088

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Bernard Nsokika Fonlon, 1924-1986, rose from humble origins to become one of Cameroon s most famous sons. He was a scholar, a poet, a politician, a philosopher, a man of action and a man of courage. He was never too busy to see someone who was troubled, never too tired to take up the case of the oppressed or the downtrodden. He was a man who could communicate, with style, In half a dozen world languages but who could also use Pidgin English if it meant putting his listeners at ease. He was a man who moved in opulent circles but who collected for himself not money but the hearts of those who got to know him. it is easy to use superlatives of someone like Bernard Fonlon, easy to make him sound like a sage or a sa∫ it is less easy to describe the humour And The courtesy And The gentleness that irradiated all that he said and did. This book describes briefly the life and times of a man whose story incorporates the history of a young nation and whose autobiography, The Pathfinder, has all the excitement of an adventure novel. We could use a lot of words and still not get To The heart of the matter because ordinary words are for ordinary men and Bernard Fonlon was unique. To those who knew him, no introduction is necessary; to those who did not know him, no short introduction is enough. Bernard Fonlon did not leave a worldly legacy to his family and friends and country. He left much more. He left ideas that can never be buried and ideals that will challenge new generations.