The Impact of Nationalism Cameroon

The Anglophone crisis in Cameroon was not immediate when the unitary system was established in 1972 in order to unite the two distinct cultures after the result of the Southern Cameroonians nationalism established a federal system to protect these two cultures. Cameroonians found themselves with a leader who used the French culture to dominate the Anglophone culture in the decision making of Cameroon. The Anglophones felt marginalized by the Francophones in the Unitary Republic. Cameroon in the 1980s saw a new regime that changed the country's name from the United Republic to the Republic of Cameroon. The Anglophones saw these major political changes in Cameroon as internal colonialism. The new political regime of the1980s introduced the multiparty system in the 1990s. Cameroon became a democratic nation with freedom of speech, which was not the case during the Unitary Republic. It was during this period that the Anglophone crisis started. The crisis was full of nationalist sentiments with the intentions of separating from Francophones or returning to the federal system that existed after the Southern Cameroonians nationalism. The Anglophone crisis continued after the 1980s to 2016 with the Anglophone nationalists claiming for the Anglophone culture in Cameroon that has been fading to be effective. The Anglophone crisis in 2017 became a violent conflict between the Anglophone activist and the Cameroon government that has caused humanitarian crisis and political instability in Cameroon and the Anglophone regions in particular. Scholars have explained that multicultural states form from ethnic nationalism might come to face future political instability. The Sothern Cameroonians nationalism is an ethnic nationalism, and the political conflict about identity and culture in Cameroon describes the impact of ethnic nationalism.