British Southern Cameroons - Nationalism and Conflict in Postcolonial Africa

British Southern Cameroons - Nationalism and Conflict in Postcolonial Africa
Author: Fonkem Achankeng
Publisher:
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2014-02
Genre: Cameroon
ISBN: 9781460230619

Studies on the decolonization of Africa focus mainly on European colonization of African peoples, whereas intra-African colonization, such as British Southern Cameroons' colonial occupation, is ignored. With a colonial situation much more finely nuanced, complex and ambiguous, British Southern Cameroons is still colonially occupied. Sorting out what colonial influences inform British Southern Cameroons' quest to 'restore independence and sovereignty' in postcolonial life becomes increasingly difficult. In British Southern Cameroons: Nationalism & Conflict in Postcolonial Africa, a distinguished group of contributors examine the British Southern Cameroons' nationalism conflict from a variety of perspectives. The volume indicts the colonial occupation of the West African territory, one example where the United Nations, the organization formed to resolve conflicts is viewed as having created one in spite of its own Resolution 1514 of 1960 granting independence to colonial territories and peoples. The volume reveals one striking fact about nationalism struggles - that ordinary people and groups in colonial situations are not passive subjects of those political, historical and other circumstances, which they neither sought nor created, and which they understand and want to change. As such, the spontaneous reactions that the Southern Cameroons Question threatens African integration harbor the danger that those who have such reactions do so in a vacuum and out of context. They probably ignore the fact that there are United Nations and international principles governing the relations between peoples. They may ignore the principles governing issues of territorial acquisition as well as the freedoms and rights that all peoples are entitled to enjoy. They may also simply ignore the existence of international instruments against the crimes that no people may commit against another. It is these principles that govern the context within which all countries and people operate and interact. If these spontaneous reactions are not to become the law, then we must always examine nationalist complaints and conflicts in light of the principles laid down to govern the relations between peoples.

Nationalism and Intra-State Conflicts in the Postcolonial World

Nationalism and Intra-State Conflicts in the Postcolonial World
Author: Fonkem Achankeng
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 570
Release: 2015-09-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1498500269

This book highlights the complexities of nationalism and the struggles of different groups left unaddressed within the nation-states of a postcolonial world. The central question is what happened to the worldly and radical visions of freedom, liberty, and equality that animated intellectual activists and policy makers from Woodrow Wilson in the 1920s? This book analyzes the outcome of lumping disparate groups of people together under one nation-state and holding them together against the knowledge of the incompatibility theory of plural states. In a world of arbitrarily and colonially mapped sovereign states, groups, and nations with distinctive histories and cultures trapped within the borders of sovereign states want the freedom to decide their own destinies. This book challenges, deconstructs, and decolonizes Western epistemologies related to postcolonial state formation and maintenance. In examining the freedom concept that no human group ought to be determining the independence of other human groups, this book constructs an alternative conceptualization of nations and peoples’ rights in the twenty-first century, in which radical hopes and global dreams are recognized as central to internal nationalism struggles.

Post-Colonial Cameroon

Post-Colonial Cameroon
Author: Joseph Takougang
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 473
Release: 2018-06-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 149856464X

In this unique volume, leading scholars examine how Cameroonians organize and experience their lives under Cameroonian leadership and local responses to that leadership. The volume offers essential case studies that allow us to examine the lives of ordinary people in post-colonial Africa through five lenses: politics, society and culture, economy, international relations, and migration. It places the nation’s contemporary challenges within a broader political, economic, and socio-cultural context, and uses that to make recommendations for future directions. The book also celebrates areas in which the country has done well and calls on its citizens to build on those achievements. This volume is forward-looking and as such raises important questions about issues of development, ethnicity, wealth, poverty, and class.

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
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2019-10-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 0472125249

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.

Neoliberal Bandwagonism. Civil society and the politics of belonging in Anglophone Cameroon

Neoliberal Bandwagonism. Civil society and the politics of belonging in Anglophone Cameroon
Author: Piet Konings
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2009
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9956558230

While neoliberals typically view civil society organizations as vital channels for the implementation of economic and political reforms, they are also inclined to blame the politics of belonging for the poor record of these reforms. Piet Konings rejects such notions and argues that the relationship between civil society and the politics of belonging is more complex in Africa than Western donors and scholars are inclined to admit. He argues that ethno-regional associations and movements are more significant constituents of civil society in Africa than the conventional organizations that are often uncritically imposed or endorsed. He shows how the politics of belonging, so pervasive in Cameroon, and indeed much of Africa, during the current neoliberal economic and political reforms, has tended to penetrate the entire range of associational life, and he calls for a critical re-appraisal of prevalent notions and assumptions about civil society in the interest of African reality.

Teaching African History in Schools

Teaching African History in Schools
Author: Denise Bentrovato
Publisher: Anti-Colonial Educational Pers
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2020-11-05
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9789004425408

"Emerging from the pioneering work of the African Association for History Education (AHE-Afrika), Teaching African History in Schools offers an original Africa-centred contribution to international history education research. Edited by AHE-Afrika's founders and directors, the volume thus addresses a notable gap in this field by showcasing otherwise marginalised scholarship from and about Africa. Teaching African History in Schools constitutes a unique collection of nine empirical studies, interrogating curriculum and textbook contents, and teachers' and learners' voices and experiences as they relate to teaching and learning African history across the continent and beyond. Case studies include South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Cameroon and Tanzania, as well as the UK and Canada. Contributors are: Denise Bentrovato, Carol Bertram, Jean-Leonard Buhigiro, Annie Fatsereni Chiponda, Raymond Nkwenti Fru, Marshall Tamuka Maposa, Abdul Mohamud, Sabrina Moisan, Reville Nussey, Nancy Rushohora, Johan Wassermann, and Robin Whitburn"--

The Biafran War and Postcolonial Humanitarianism

The Biafran War and Postcolonial Humanitarianism
Author: Lasse Heerten
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2017-09-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107111803

A global history of 'Biafra', providing a new explanation for the ascendance of humanitarianism in a postcolonial world.

Identity Re-creation in Global African Encounters

Identity Re-creation in Global African Encounters
Author: Adedoyin Aguoru
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2019-08-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1498598145

Identity Re-creation in Global African Encounters explores race, racial politics, and racial transformation in the context of Africa’s encounters with non-African communities through various perspectives including oppression, racialization of ethnic difference, and identity deconstruction. While the contributors recognize that ethnicity has long been a staple analytical category of engagements between African and non-African communities, they present a holistic view of the continent and its diaspora through race outside of both colonial and neocolonial binaries, allowing for a more nuanced study of Africa and its diaspora.

Bondage of Boundaries and Identity Politics in Postcolonial Africa

Bondage of Boundaries and Identity Politics in Postcolonial Africa
Author: Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J.
Publisher: Africa Institute of South Africa
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2013-10-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0798303913

What has confounded African efforts to create cohesive, prosperous and just states in postcolonial Africa? What has been the long-term impact of the Berlin Conference of 1884-5 on African unity and African statehood? Why is postcolonial Africa haunted by various ethno national conflicts? Is secession and irredentism the solution? Can we talk of ethno-futures for Africa? These are the kinds of fundamental questions that this important book addresses. Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Brilliant Mhlanga's book introduces the metaphor of the 'northern problem' to dramatise the fact that there is no major African postcolonial state that does not enclose within its borders a disgruntled minority that is complaining of marginalization, domination and suppression. The irony is that in 1963 at the formation of the OAU, postcolonial African leaders embraced the boundaries arbitrarily drawn by European colonialists and institutionalised the principle of inviolability of 'bondage of boundaries' thereby contributing to the problem of ethno-national conflicts. The successful struggle for independence of the Eritrean people and the secession of South Sudan in 2011 have encouraged other dominated and marginalised groups throughout Africa to view secession as an option. Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Mhlanga successfully assembled competent African scholars to deal exhaustively with various empirical cases of ethno-national conflicts throughout the African continent as well as engaging with such pertinent issues as Pan-Africanism as a panacea to these problems. This important book delves deeper into complex issues of space, languages, conflict, security, nation-building, war on terror, secession, migration, citizenship, militias, liberation, violence and Pan-Africanism.

National Identity and State Formation in Africa

National Identity and State Formation in Africa
Author: Bernard Lategan
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2021-03-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1509546324

This book examines how the interplay between globalization and the assertion of local identities is reshaping the political landscape of Africa. While defending their values against external forces, people simultaneously – and paradoxically – use the interconnectivity of global networks to maximize their particular interests. Focusing on the relation between national identity and state formation, the authors explore the far-reaching consequences of these contradictory dynamics. Although Africa shares many common trends with other parts of the world, it also displays distinctive features. A region characterized by the increased mobility of people, goods and ideas challenges some conventional assumptions of statecraft and also highlights the advantages of federalism – not merely as a constitutional option, but as a pragmatic device for managing diversity and holding fragile states together. The book further explores emerging types of state formation in the same political space, as exemplified by the combination of elements of a kingdom, an independent state and a national power base in the province of KwaZulu-Natal and the careful crafting of an alternative state within a state by the Solidarity Movement in South Africa. Informed by examples and case studies drawn from different parts of Africa, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Africa, politics, sociology, media studies and the social sciences more generally.