The ethnic complexity of Cameroon

Cameroon is a country crossroads and Africa in miniature, the junction point in Africa geographical regions Northern, Western and Central Africa, but also the crossroads of three major cultural regions classified by anthropologists: Coast of Guinea, SudanWestern and Congo. A useful classification to begin to describe the complexities of ethno-cultural country. This taxonomy classification generally follows the most common group of languages. The three groups are also well identified by the names of Atlantic, Bantoid and Chad.
 
Recent linguistic research has listed some two hundred ethnic groups identified in the Republic of Cameroon and cultural maps available confirms the exceptional complexity of the ethnic configuration. From the early work of Victor T. LeVine in 1970, the group most numerically important is the semi-Bantu Bamileke, mostly living in the area in the highlands of the western region, but which many citizens have migrated all over the country. Directly related to this people are the various ethnic groups in the region of Bamenda, most of which are original Tikar. This set grassfields (3) is today together since the beginning of the democratic demands which they were the vanguard, in the popular joke of Anglo-BAMIS
 
To the south, in the equatorial region where the dominant Bantu, the largest ethnic group is a community language widely distributed, the beast Pahouin which include tribes inhabiting the area of ​​Yaounde. This is the second country Bete most populated area of ​​Cameroon. This is a group composed mainly of Bantu-speaking Ewondo, Bulu and Fang. Similarly, with the wind of popular demands, in which they have generally been more faithful to the status quo, these peoples are grouped under the concept of caricature Beti
 
The Bantu of South, the most numerous are the Bassa and Bakoko occupying generally the area south of the Sanaga River Valley. This group is important not only by its numerical strength, but also because it was the first southern group to participate in the struggle for independence started in the 1950s.
 
Another group, the populations of the coastal region and Sawa, is also of great political and economic importance. They mainly occupy the region of Douala and the areas around the estuary of the Wouri.
 
In northern Cameroon, the ethnonym Kirdi is used to designate the so-called pagan populations concentrated in the mountainous region of the Mandara mountains. The Fulbe Muslims are the second largest ethnic group in northern Cameroon and are scattered around the towns which formed the Emirate of Adamawa, Garoua, Ngaoundere. Two other northern groups complete the account: This is Black Islamized Kotoko and Arab-Choa, around Lake Chad.
 
Given the ethnic diversity of Cameroon, the country appears to be very prone to ethnic rivalries. In this sense, the President of Cameroon has himself admitted that Cameroon is revealed as a land of the multiplicity and division socio-historical place of appointment of a variety of centrifugal forces and unsuspectedantagonist (), camping face to face in a sort of permanent vigil, where the sense of particularism is too striking (4). Thus, in the democratic opening that crossover will be unleashed ethnic rivalries through burning, and the anti-Bamileke old recriminations particularly resurrected.