Tradition
Society & Culture
Part III: Things Only a Cameroonian Will Understand
The writer catalogs seventeen Cameroonian phrases and behavioral codes that reveal a society structured on navigational intelligence, relational networks, and pragmatic acceptance rather than formal rules or individual achievement. Each phrase is glossed as evidence of how Cameroonians move through contradiction, manage social hierarchy, and survive by knowing when to speak, when to bend, and when to defer.
Bilingualism as Mirror: A Reflection on National Character
The writer challenges Cameroonians' tendency to blame bilingualism for social discord, arguing instead that resistance to language learning reveals personal laziness and entitlement rather than any inherent flaw in the policy itself. Bilingualism, the piece contends, is not a burden imposed but an opportunity for individual and collective growth that remains largely squandered.
For Better or Worse: On Marriage, Vows, and the Limits of Unconditional Commitment
The writer reflects on the marriage vow—particularly the phrase 'for better or worse'—and argues that while couples should weather life's circumstances together, they should not be bound to tolerate a partner's deteriorating character or toxic behavior. The piece challenges the assumption that marriage vows create an unconditional obligation to endure harm.
On Genuinety in Human Relations
The writer explores whether truly genuine human relationships—free from pretense, hypocrisy, and ulterior motive—are possible in a world where all action is driven by personal interest. Drawing on psychology and lived experience, the piece argues that while pure genuinety may be illusory, awareness of human motivation is essential to navigating relationships wisely.
Culture and Tradition: On What It Means to Be Cameroonian
The writer examines the false opposition between cultural preservation and artistic innovation in Cameroon, arguing that culture is a living force shaped by its moment, not a fixed monument to the past. Through examples in music, language, and tradition, the piece challenges the gatekeeping that insists Cameroonian artists must perform Cameroonianness in prescribed ways to be considered authentic.
The Weight of Sacred Cloth: On Cultural Guardianship in a Flattened World
A reflection on a moment when musician Wax Dey challenged the appropriation of a Ndop blanket—a textile carrying deep ceremonial and hierarchical significance in Cameroonian tradition—by a foreign man. The piece moves from the backlash Wax faced to a meditation on cultural erosion, collective amnesia, and why defending such symbols matters.
The Stories We Tell: Why Cameroon Needs Its Own Heroes
The writer argues that identity and aspiration are shaped not by events themselves but by the narratives we construct around them. Cameroon's youth, lacking locally rooted stories of excellence—teachers, doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs, and public servants—default to distant Western role models or absorb narratives of corruption and failure.
The Tyranny of Conformity: On What It Means to Be Cameroonian
The writer examines how narrow, prescriptive ideas of 'Cameroonian authenticity'—rooted in language, musical style, and cultural markers—suppress artistic expression and individuality. Drawing on personal experience and observations of local music scenes, the piece argues that Cameroon's culture of conformity pressures artists to perform identity rather than explore it.
On Authenticity and the Unbending Measure of Cameroonian Identity
The writer examines a pervasive social habit in Cameroon: the policing of artistic and personal expression against an unspoken standard of "Cameroonian-ness." Drawing on experiences in music and popular culture, the piece argues that this gatekeeping—rooted in anxiety about cultural preservation—actually stifles growth and mirrors the country's deeper failure to compete globally.
Colonialism, Identity, and the Question of How We Move Forward
The writer examines how colonialism fractured Cameroon's precolonial structures and forced a dependence that persists today, leaving Africans caught between romanticizing the past and grappling with present reality. Rather than seeking to reverse history, the piece argues for forward-looking unity—whether through a federal Cameroon or a broader African federation—as the only pragmatic path to collective power.
Wax Dey and the Ndop: On Cultural Literacy in a Global Age
The writer reflects on a social media dispute over a non-Cameroonian's misuse of sacred Ndop cloth, arguing that dismissals of the offense reveal a deeper cultural amnesia among Cameroonians themselves. The piece traces how colonial erasure and commercial democratization have severed many from the knowledge of their own textile traditions and their hierarchical, ceremonial significance.
Is Lamnso Going to Create the Next Big Cameroonian Music Wave?
The writer surveys five emerging genres of Lamnso-language music—Afropop, Traditional, Hip-Hop, Afro-Folk, and Afro-Alternative—and argues that the musicality and tonality of Lamnso, combined with growing public reception, suggests the North-West region may be on the verge of a significant cultural moment in Cameroonian music.
Chili Wawaye: A Nso Heritage to Be Celebrated
A reflection on the musician Chili Wawaye and her role as a custodian of Nso cultural heritage through music deeply rooted in Lamnso language and traditional Grassfields instrumentation. The writer celebrates her artistry while lamenting the marginalization of traditional ethnic musicians in favor of pop and urban genres.
Okep: The Manyu Herb That Sustains and Sanctifies
This essay explores okep, a traditional enema practice central to Manyu and Bayangi culture in Cameroon, administered across the lifespan from newborns to adults for health, fertility, and spiritual cleansing. Through personal family narrative, the writer examines how these herbal remedies—passed orally across generations without formal medical training—serve simultaneously as medicine, ritual, and economic resource.
Virginity and the Hymen: Separating Fact from Cameroon's Cultural Mythology
This essay dismantles the widespread Cameroonian belief that bleeding during first intercourse proves virginity, drawing on anatomical fact to show that the hymen's state reveals nothing reliable about sexual history. The writer argues that subjecting women to virginity tests based on this misconception is both medically unfounded and ethically indefensible.
Blaise B and the Case of the Dress Code
A writer observes the Saving Mbango film premiere—a carefully produced event with a stated dress code of 'native chic'—and critiques musician Blaise B for arriving in casual sportswear while other guests honored the request. The piece uses this moment to reflect on a broader pattern of rule-disregard in Cameroonian culture.
Authenticity and the Stories We Tell: Why Cameroon's Cultural Signposts Matter
A reflection on a low-budget hotel advertisement in Yaoundé that, despite its technical shortcomings, succeeds by rooting itself in recognisable Cameroonian social archetypes—the bushfaller, the neighbourhood thug, and the young woman. The writer argues that this authenticity is precisely what makes it memorable and culturally generative.
The Toghu as Worldview: Reading the Grassfield Garment Beyond Decoration
The writer examines the Toghu, a traditional garment from Cameroon's Grassfields, not as mere decorated cloth but as a visual language encoding values and cosmology. Through analysis of three motifs—the spiderweb, the lizard, and the gong—the piece reveals how each symbol carries ethical and social meaning rooted in Grassfield philosophy and social order.
On Virginity Testing in Cameroon: Why Bleeding Is Not Proof
This post examines the cultural belief that bleeding during first intercourse proves virginity, establishing through medical fact that the hymen's condition has no reliable connection to sexual history. The writer argues that virginity testing—whether cultural or clinical—is both scientifically baseless and ethically harmful.
Chili Wawaye: A Nso Heritage to Be Celebrated and Treasured
A meditation on Chili Wawaye, a Nso musician who sings almost exclusively in Lamnso and preserves traditional grassfield music through contemporary composition. The writer laments that such custodians of cultural heritage receive far less attention and airplay than urban musicians, despite their essential role in bridging ancestral and modern worlds.
Pardon My French: Language, Identity, and Cameroon's Linguistic Divide
The writer reflects on what it means to speak French as an Anglophone Cameroonian, prompted by a controversy around musician Daphne's acceptance speech at the Canal d'Or Awards. Rather than seeing French fluency as erasing Anglophone identity, the writer argues that speaking French—learned late and deliberately—is itself an expression of that identity, a conscious act of navigating a Francophone-dominated society.
We Have No Cameroonian Identity
A Cameroonian writer reflects on her experience of linguistic and ethnic divisiveness in daily life and contemporary politics, arguing that Cameroonians have failed to build a shared national identity beyond ethnic and language-based allegiances. She contends that only by transcending tribal and colonial-linguistic boundaries can the nation address its deeper problems of governance and collective wellbeing.
The Curious Case of Mr. Leo's Dressing
A reflection on public criticism of a prominent Cameroonian musician's fashion choices, prompted by a media personality's remarks and an inflammatory PR response. The piece uses this incident to examine three broader cultural issues: the equation of success with money, the inability to receive constructive criticism, and the proliferation of unqualified professionals in creative industries.
After Colonization: The Question of Unity Over Return
A reflection on colonialism's lasting structural effects in Cameroon and Africa, questioning whether nostalgic appeals to precolonial identity serve contemporary political interests. The writer argues that forward-looking continental unity is more strategically sound than fragmentation into ethnic or regional micro-states.
The Small Tyrant Within: Power, Pettiness, and Cameroon's Neo-Feudal Culture
A Cameroonian reflects on two encounters with petty officials—a petrol station attendant and a university secretary—to argue that the nation's dysfunction runs deeper than leadership, rooted in how ordinary citizens weaponize small doses of authority. The piece names a cultural pattern: those granted the slightest power often become arbitrary, mood-driven overlords.
Proverbs and Idioms in Fufulde: A Griot's Wisdom
This piece presents a curated selection of proverbs and idioms from Fufulde, the language of the Fulani people of West and Central Africa, organized with their English translations. Drawing on the griot tradition—where historians and storytellers preserve cultural knowledge through language and performance—the collection illustrates how Fufulde speakers encode practical and philosophical wisdom into memorable linguistic forms.
The Backfire Effect and the Anglophone Question in Cameroon
This analytical essay diagnoses the reluctance of francophone Cameroonians to acknowledge systemic discrimination against anglophones through the lens of cognitive neuroscience, specifically the 'backfire effect'—the psychological tendency to cling more tightly to core beliefs when presented with contradictory evidence.
Miss Coconut Heads: On Beauty Pageants and the Absence of Substance
The writer articulates a sustained critique of beauty pageants in Cameroon, arguing they celebrate appearance over achievement and reduce women to ornament. The post calls out the gap between pageant rhetoric about 'empowerment' and the lack of intellectual rigor or originality demanded of contestants.
Our Generation is Killing Eboa Lotin's Heritage
A reflection on Cameroonian music's loss of cultural identity as a new generation gravitates toward Nigerian and pan-African influences at the expense of the country's distinct musical DNA. The writer argues that while some contemporary artists have successfully blended tradition with modernity, the trend is unsustainable and risks erasing a legacy built by giants like Manu Dibango, Richard Bona, and Eboa Lotin.
The Stories Fathers Never Tell
A reflection on the hierarchical, high-context nature of parent-child relationships in Cameroon, where emotional distance and one-way communication prevent children from learning through their parents' lived experience. The writer argues that fathers who withhold their failures and vulnerabilities rob their children of the stories that actually stick—and offers forty-one questions to bridge that gap.
The Logic of Uncertainty: Inheritance, Kinship, and the Absence of Proof
A writer from Wum in Cameroon's North West Region examines a matrilineal inheritance practice—where a man's property passes to his sister's son rather than his own—and traces its logic to a pre-scientific world where paternity could not be verified. The piece questions whether the tradition survives in a modern era of law, choice, and DNA testing.