The journalist Jean Claude Mbede, currently based in Italy, has shared a profound reflection on the underlying nature of tribalism within Cameroon.
In a recent commentary, Jean Claude Mbede explores how ethnic prejudice is often a facade used by the elite to maintain their status. He illustrates this point through a personal encounter with an acquaintance from the northern region of Cameroon. This individual, a graduate of the prestigious ESSTIC and IRIC institutions, is the daughter of a high-ranking customs official—a position of significant influence in the country. Despite her academic path being paved by her father’s status rather than pure merit, she maintained that the nation’s difficulties are solely the fault of the Beti people, whom she claimed control everything.
During their exchange, she dismissed Mbede’s twenty years of exile as a product of “pride,” suggesting that he simply needed to “ask for forgiveness” from his Beti peers to find success at home. Mbede countered this by asking what transgression he had actually committed. He used the tragic murder of Martinez Zogo, a Beti man, to prove his point: Zogo’s executioners came from various backgrounds, demonstrating that corruption and violence in Cameroon serve interests that have no specific tribe.
Mbede emphasizes that the woman’s privileged upbringing allowed her to benefit from the very system she criticized, a system that most young people from all regions, including the Beti heartlands, can never access. For him, this interaction highlighted a dangerous form of tribalism practiced by those who already hold power.
The two true “ethnicities” of Cameroon
According to Jean Claude Mbede, the real fracture in Cameroonian society is not based on geography or linguistics, but on social class. He argues that there are effectively only two groups in the country:
- The Elite: Those who hold the keys to power and can effortlessly place their children into top-tier institutions like IRIC, ESSTIC, ENAM, or EMIA through high-level connections.
- The Common People: The children of hardworking mothers and farmers who must struggle daily, often selling goods on the streets just to survive.
Mbede concludes that citizens should not be misled by the rhetoric of those who benefit from the current system while simultaneously complaining of marginalization. The true divide in Cameroon is a social one, where the privilege of the few outweighs the needs of the many.
