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Through the prism of a local tragedy: political liberalisation, regionalism and elite struggles for power in Cameroon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Dickson Eyoh
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Extract

A prominent feature of political liberalisation in Cameroon (as elsewhere in Africa) is the increasing resort by elites to idioms of community (regional, religious and ethnic) and neo-traditional institutions like chieftaincy as a means of mobilising political support and reasserting control of local populations. Focusing on the anglophone part of Cameroon this study examines the historical roots of the salience of these phenomena in current struggles for power. It uses the circumstances surrounding the death of a chief in the South West Province to explain the ways in which elite reliance on these phenomena facilitates the linkage of locally specific, culturally encoded political conflict with competition for power at the national level, and provokes local populations into resisting state power, often through the reinvention of traditions of their own. The study concludes that popular scepticism about whether current political struggles will lead to fundamental changes in state–society relations is rooted in the ways in which elite politics are played out in local and regional spaces.

Résumé

Au Cameroun comme dans le reste de l’Afrique, la libéralisation politique est marquée par le fait que les élites ont de plus en recours aux idiomes communautaires (régionaux, religieux et ethniques) at aux institutions néotraditionnelles (comme l’autorité d’un chef) comme moyen de mobilisation du soutien politique et de réaffirmation du contrôile des populations locales. Cette étude examine les racines historiques de 1’importance de ces phénomènes dans les luttes de pouvoir qui s’opèrent actuellement dans la région anglophone du Cameroun. A partir des circonstances qui ont marqué le décès d’un chef de la Province du Sud-Ouest, cette étude tente d’expliquer comment les élites utilisent ces phénomènes pour faciliter le rapprochement entre les conflits politiques locaux enracinés dans la culture et la lutte pour le pouvoir au niveau national, et pour inciter les populations locales à s’opposer au pouvoir d’état, souvent en réinventant leurs traditions. L’étude en conclut que le scepticisme populaire quant à la capacité des conflits politiques actuels à changer fondamentalement les rapports entre l’état et la société est enraciné dans le jeu politique élitaire au niveau local et régional.

Type
The competitive regionalism of elites
Information
Africa , Volume 68 , Issue 3: The Politics of Primary Patriotism , July 1998 , pp. 338 - 359
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1998

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