Understanding confusion: A historical and critical essay on the constitution of Cameroon

This thesis which is largely research about (and not just in) Cameroon law critically examines confusion and its impact on human rights. Respect for human rights, the thesis emphasizes, cannot and should not be restricted to any one place. Confusion, the unmistakable harbinger of human rights abuse, is shown throughout the thesis to have no area or sphere to which it is restricted in Cameroon. The thesis is largely a head-on confrontation with, and exposure of, some of the paradoxes concerning the topical and related issues of democracy, federalism/decentralization, intellectualism, constitutionalism, and multiculturalism and their impact on national unity in Cameroon. All of these issues are seen reflected particularly in equality of citizens, legal dualism and bilingualism or plurilingualism. There is the urgent need for diagnosis of the unsettling and precarious human rights situation in Cameroon. I realize that meaningful suggestions or proposals of what needs to be improved in Cameroon regarding the issues cannot be forthcoming until one can sufficiently grasp the actual nature of the situation (past and present). History in particular and other social sciences thus become inevitable in comprehending the political and constitutional confusion that reigns in Cameroon.;Seemingly deriving a lot of backing from some countries of the so-called First World, the authorities in Cameroon have been using the deliberately engendered worrisome communal tensions as justification for their gross human rights abuses which they camouflage as ‘national unity’. This thesis elaborately examines (and dismiss) most of the flimsy excuses—particularly those hinging on religion, ethnicity and national unity—that the administration has been drawing backing from both Cameroon's “intellectuals in politics” (whatever that means) and some Western sources and using to justify its gross human rights abuses. The thesis as well re-inverts the inverted definition of federalism that is being employed to frighten Cameroonians away from democracy. The unifying thesis of Understanding Confusion is simple and clear. Cameroon's impressive diversity per se, at the present time of its history, poses no major threat to its integrity. The only problems in Cameroon are those in leadership non-charisma and/or non-challenge of historic trivia. That is what aggravated confusion has been generated to hide.