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    Professional translator, freelance writer and a regular contributor to THE POST newspaper. Lives in Douala, Cameroon
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Friday, March 14, 2025

Cameroon: Living Together and Otherness (WE and THEM)

By Kanute Tangwa aka K(c)anute Tangwa

You are first and foremost from an ethnocultural or ethnolinguistic sphere before being a Cameroonian/
 
A colonial construct, which you can't wish away, Anglophone or Francophone before being a Cameroonian/
You are invariably TWO in one/
 
• A culturo-political duality: ONE country, TWO persons in ONE.
 
You are a Cameroonian because you are a true son or daughter of an ethnoculturo-linguistic sphere/
 
While appreciating and tolerating the Otherness of other Cameroonians/
 
You exhibit where you come from by espousing the culture, mores, tradition of your sphere/
 
Not the repugnant aspects of your culture/
 
Such as/
• Exclusion
• Discriminatory stigmatas like WE and THEM,OTHERS
 
While appreciating and tolerating the culture, tradition and mores of the Other/
 
Now that you are fully conscious of your micro identities (ethnoculturo-linguistic spheres and Anglo-Francophoness /
 
You can live and think Cameroonian through official bilingualism/
 
Through mastery of our histories and OUR HISTORY/
 
• Drawing from our histories and OUR HISTORY common collective republican values of living together.
 
Through intermarriage/
 
Through the institution of a national lingua franca/
 
For language can build, innovate, break barriers, build bridges and elevate/
 
For language can destroy, blow up bridges, build barriers/
Kamer Baba
For language is the vehicle of thought processes, social cohesion and motor of development.
 

Posted at 07:35 AM |

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