Description
For at least a decade Cameroon, like many african countries, has been facing a succession of events not far away from civil war and which therefore constitute a threat to its unity. In the east, since the 2000’s Cameroon is facing, the extension of the civil war in Central african republic with influx of thousand of refugees. In the north of the country, the islamic terrorist group, Boko Haram is a major source of insecurity and therefore a serious threat to the national sovereignnity. Kidnapping and kamikaze attacks have been going on since 2013 even though Cameroon has deployed at least 1,000 troops to its northern border with Nigeria and Chad. In the west of the country, the anglophone part of the country, a wave of protestation against the francophone domination emerged in 2016 and quickly turned to a separatist and military group fighting for inependance of the anglophone region under a new state called Ambazonia.
How can this situation be analysed and understood ?
Some may rightly see here a classic manifestation and movment of a « failled state », where ethnic, linguistic and religious divisions and illegitimate institutions and figures of the states are rejected. However, this point of wiew does not tell enough about the agenda of this conflictual dynamics. For so long, these factors are not entirely new yet Cameroon was reputed as a very stable country.
The main argument of this paper is that Cameroon, like other african states, is facing the new era of digitalization of the world where, thanks to digital technology, illegitimated states are subvertized from the infra-state level on ethnic and/or religious lines and from the supra-level by extra-states actors like Daesh or Boko Haram.
Key words : Cameroon, digitalization of the world, anglophone, francophone, nationwood, illegitimate states
infra-state level and supra-state level
