The Odyssey of the Cameroonian Nation: Historical Trajectory of "Living Together" and its Political Exploitation Margins

Abstract

Whether considered as an abstract concept, that is to say “a soul, a spiritual principle”[1] and then as “a more or less institutional historical community occupying a given territory, or his homeland and sharing a language and a distinct culture”[2], The nation is a permanent construction. According to Lavroff, “nationbuilding has two aspects: the establishment of political institutions and the creation of a mentality of belonging and participation in the political system”[3]. But these jacobinists forms of nationbuilding neglect the multicultural characteristics of plural societies and their cosmopolitan components as it is the case in Cameroon. Here, “Cameroon’s conception of the nation”[4] does not imply a systematic repudiation of particularities. This duality is reinforced by homological conception that equates “nation”, “people” and “culture”[5].