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‘GOD OF INDEPENDENCE, GOD OF PEACE’: VILLAGE POLITICS AND NATIONALISM IN THE MAQUIS OF CAMEROON, 1957–71

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2005

MEREDITH TERRETTA
MEREDITH TERRETTA
Affiliation:
Le Moyne College
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Abstract

The story of freedom fighter Jean Djonteu provides a new approach to the history of Union des populations du Cameroun (UPC) nationalism in the Grassfields and Mungo regions of Cameroon. Within the context of Baham, his village of origin, Djonteu's actions and tracts reveal his politico-spiritual reasons for joining the UPC militia in its revolutionary fight against Franco-Cameroonian state administration. UPC nationalism and village political culture formed a hybrid of political ideologies, or a ‘village nationalism’ articulating UPC anti-colonialism with Grassfields political concepts of nation and sovereignty that pre-dated European occupation. As this articulation disintegrated, Grassfields populations disengaged from state politics and turned inwards towards village political culture and spirituality rekindled by popular involvement in the UPC nationalist movement.

Keywords

Cameroonnationalismpolitical culture
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , March 2005 , pp. 75 - 101
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

A grant from Fulbright IIE and the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship provided support for research in Cameroon and in France. Joseph Kiegaing assisted me with interviews in Ghomala' and locating sources in Baham. I thank Professor Forchingong and Professor Chia of the University of Buea in Cameroon for academic support and Jean-Bernard Pogo and Pierre Taguietseu for their invaluable assistance in Baham and in Nkongsamba. I am grateful to André Gabiapsi for translating and transcribing village songs dating to the 1950s, collected by Kiegaing and me. I thank Thomas Spear, Florence Bernault, H. Larry Ingle, Michael Schatzberg, Mary Louise Graham, Robert E. Barnes and anonymous readers for their constructive comments on earlier drafts of this paper.