My country Cameroon, as well put on https://www.everyculture.com/Bo-Co/Cameroon.html, has diverse cultural, religious, and political traditions as well as ethnic variety. English and French are her official languages, a heritage of her colonial past as both a colony of the United Kingdom and France from 1916 to 1960. This means two of the most popular languages in the world are used in Cameroon. The above factors and many more, together with her location usually described as “The Armpit of Africa”, sparked a popular stereotype mainly by tourist literature, her being considered “Africa in miniature”. Asserting that she offers all the diversity of Africa, in climate, culture, and geography, within its borders. Some might question this, but based on my experiences and research, I think it might be safe to agree so. Well, let us find out.
In the context of language, not only do her
inhabitants speak both English and French, regarded as some of the most popular
languages in the world but more intriguing that she is equally home to 230
languages, including Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo,
Fulfulde(Adamawa-Ubangui and Benue-Congo) languages, as Cited on
https://newuh.blog/2012/12/13/cameroon-africa-in-miniature-in-what-sense/.
Sounds kind of African right? Also, in terms of
religion and culture, she has an extremely heterogeneous population, consisting
of approximately 200 ethnic groups and a variety of religious beliefs. Its
population divided into Christian, Muslim and “traditional” religions.
Christian missions contributed informally to colonialism. I think this too can
be seen in parts of Africa.
Equally, in terms of Agriculture, it is
undoubtedly an extremely important sector of Cameroonian and African economy
and boosting countries’ GDP in the past years. It will be our driving engine
out of poverty. As if it were not enough, you have the unique opportunity to
visit the whole of Africa just by planning a trip to Cameroon. With over
millions of tourists in the past years, she has become a destination of choice
within CEMAC. She has great cultural, ethnic and geographic diversity. Also, as
can be read on https://cameroontourismlink.wordpress.com/cameroon-africa-in-minature/,
and as I have experienced, beautiful tropical, palm-fringed beaches, high
mountains and volcanoes, game parks, Sahel landscape and deserts, big lakes and
impenetrable tropical forests full of wild animals like chimpanzee, gorilla,
elephant, and buffalo amongst many others, which can be found in parts of
Africa.
Enough with the positive side. Despite
everything, one cannot neglect social ills inclusive of, tribalism, public
protests, drug addiction, poverty and corruption, sexual abuse, unemployment
even female genital mutilation which at some point, have or are still taking
place in Cameroon and parts of Africa.
To wrap up, a stereotype, according to Oxford
Learner’s Dictionary, is a fixed idea or image that many people have of a
particular type of person or thing, but which is often false in reality. They
might limit our knowledge about something, and we can’t just accept them
without proper learning and research. Thus, I believe the above words speak
for themselves, and indeed Cameroon can be considered “Africa in miniature”, a
pocket-sized version of the continent. Literally.
Author: Mbun Ryan T
Wow that was impressing!
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