Cameroon: A country united by ethnic ambition and difference

This paper attempts an answer to the question: What keeps Cameroon together despite widespread instability in Africa, despite the turbulence of the subregional environment in which it finds itself, and despite its own internal contradictions! The main argument is that the politics of regional and ethnic balance, the chronic lack of vision as a country, the lack of real commitment to democracy, the propensity to vacillate on most issues of collective interest, together with an infinite ability to develop survival strategies, have acted to counter all meaningful attempts to pursue common interests and aspirations. All that appears to unite Cameroonians is a common ethnic or regional ambition to preserve their differences under the delusion of maximizing opportunities. However, as the 'national cake' diminishes with the worsening economic crisis, corruption, mass misery and ethnicity, making it more illusive for the bulk of small people to claim the same benefits from their connections with the big-or the not so big-men and women of power, one can legitimately wonder just how much longer the system can continue to deflate the disaffected.