Political Philosophies and Nation-Building in Cameroon
ISBN: 9789956764617
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / African Books Collective
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: Political sociology; National liberation movements; Nationalism;

This is a comprehensive text on the function of thought in the history and political sociology of Cameroon. The book brings out how the �hidden hand of history� fashions a political thought which, in turn, creates its own history. Instead of Cameroonians making history, history makes Cameroonians. The book shows how political ideas are fashioned in a post-colonial context in which Europeans impose a superordinate arrangement on a people together with its philosophers. �Thinking the nation� in Cameroon on behalf of Europeans, especially after the leaders of the national liberation struggle were all eliminated, European philosophers put in place a �repressive machine� under which Cameroonians were subjected between 1958 and 1990. Repression gave way to a refined form of enslavement � a modernised version of slavery. Cameroonians joined the bandwagon and have been producing and reproducing Western industrial economies while day-dreaming of what they will never become. The whole idea of nation-building in post-colonial Africa is put in question. This book offers students of political studies, sociology, anthropology and history compelling evidence to grapple with questions as to whether Cameroon is a state or a nation and questions of sovereignty and citizenship.


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