Changing intercommunity relations and the politics of identity in the Northern Mezam area, Cameroon

Politics of identity, which often fluctuate between ethnicity and tribalism even resulting in armed conflict and genocide in some cases, can be traced to colonial attempts to reorganize peoples who accommodated themselves in the precolonial past. The paper attempts to show how relations based on accommodation in precolonial times have been modified to competing relations in colonial times and how this has affected postcolonial politics in the Northern Mezam area of Cameroon. Hoping to build on pre-existing relations of cooperation the colonial regime sowed the seeds of discord, division and tension that have given birth to divisive politics that does not serve the interest of national integration even at local level.