The purpose of this essay is to cause those who assume the divine provenance of the nation-state in Africa to begin to entertain doubts about it. Christians, for example, need not baptize the history of (colonial) plunder that is foundational to the creation of the nation-state in Africa. It is only when Christians refuse to baptize such colonial plunder and point out the theological illegitimacy of the nation-state that we may begin to theologically decolonize the African nation-state and imagine other ways of living together not only in Africa but also around the world.
It is a truism that the nation-state in Africa is a colonial project. From its inception, however, some theologians and politicians baptized this colonial project, and today the nation-state is often portrayed as an instrument of God that participates in the salvific process.[1] Christian colonizers who created many of these states saw what they were doing as providential. Some anti-colonialists saw their anti-colonial work that created these states as having divine sanction. The postcolonial nation-state continues to see itself as somehow doing the work of God. This is especially seen in many African contexts where politicians are naming their countries as Christian nations (Zambia) and building cathedrals (Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana) in apparent attempts to honor God.
Thus, Christian theological legitimations of the state that draw from biblical texts to suggest that the state is in some way the servant of God. Texts such as Mark 12:17 and Matthew 22:21 are often used to suggest that the state is playing a role assigned to it by God. In these texts, Jesus is reported to have said that what belongs to Caesar should be given to Caesar and what belongs to God should be given to God. In this sense, the state is often seen as the domain of Caesar, a domain that has apparently been assigned by God – but hardly independent of God. This view of the role of the state perhaps goes as far back as Pope Gelasius in the fifth century who saw the church and the state as agents that participate in the salvific process.
Even more, some Christians often draw from Romans 13, that (in)famous text which suggests that the governing authority has somehow been ordained by God to serve godly purposes. Even critiques of the use of Romans 13, as found in the Kairos Document, for example, do not address the question of the divine provenance of the nation-state. All of this has led to the theological assumption that the nation-state somehow has a godly mandate. This assumption has inhibited a critical engagement of the theological foundation of the nation-state in Africa. But a critical examination of the theological foundation of the nation-state in Africa and around the world is what is needed if we are to get a better handle on some of the pressing social and political issues Christians face, including issues of wars, migration, borders, identity, nationalism, xenophobia, ecological vandalism, racism, among others. These are issues that can hardly be critically engaged without a sustained and critical examination of the theological grounds for the nation-state, especially the nation-state in Africa. I will focus on the history of Cameroon to show how the African nation-state was created and to raise questions about the doctrine of providence in relation to the nation-state in Africa.
How Cameroon Came to Be
The history of Cameroon, like the history of many African countries, is a history that began without those who would eventually be called Cameroonians. The name itself does not name the people of the country, but rather the natural resources found there. The name, it is believed, began with the Portuguese who visited the coast of what became Cameroon and named it after a tributary where they caught prawns. Rio Dos Cameroes, they called it – River of Prawns. In the hands of the Spaniards, the name became Camerones. For the Germans, it became Kamerun. For the French, Cameroun, and for the British, Cameroon.
But the history of contemporary Cameroon was written by the British, the Germans, and the French beginning in the nineteenth century. What became Cameroon began as a patch of land on the coast of the country which would change hands from the British to the Germans and then back to the British and the French. Finally, it became the property of the Cameroonian ruling elite and their international collaborators.
The map of what eventually become Cameroon came into being under German colonialism. Germany officially colonized Cameroon when the German Gustav Nachtigal hoisted the German flag in the country on July 14, 1884.[2] Before 1884 it was a German Protectorate, from 1884 to 1891 it was called German West Africa, from 1891-1901 it was called German North-west Africa, and it was officially named Kamerun in 1901. During this time, some corporations were set up in the homelands of indigenous peoples, carting these peoples off into reservations. German colonization of Cameroon would however not last for long even though it left indelible marks on the country. Germany’s ownership of Cameroon came to an end during what is described as the First World War, when Britain and France seized the territory from Germany and divided it between themselves.
When the British and French partitioned the territory, the French took the bulk of the country (East Cameroon). The British took a tiny western slice called West Cameroon, which was divided into Northern Cameroons and Southern Cameroons. East Cameroon became La Republique du Cameroun at independence in 1960. British Cameroons would not be granted independence as a country because it was said to be too small to sustain itself as an independent country. Its destiny rested on becoming independent by joining Nigeria or by joining La Republique du Cameroun. A plebiscite was held in 1961 to determine its destiny. In the plebiscite, Northern Cameroons voted to become independent by joining Nigeria and Southern Cameroons voted to become independent by joining La Republique du Cameroon.
The union with La Republique du Cameroun was called reunification because of the German background of British and French Cameroon. Two significant changes took place after 1961. In 1972, a referendum was held through which the name of the country was changed from the Federal Republic of Cameroon to the United Republic of Cameroon. In 1984, the name of the country was changed again from the United Republic of Cameroon to La Republique du Cameroun or the Republic of Cameroon. However, the geography of the country continues to be contested.
As is now well known, there is a faction in Anglophone Cameroon called Ambazonia currently fighting to create a new country called Ambazonia out of the ashes of what is now Anglophone Cameroon. If that happens, the map of Cameroon will change once again. The war has led to the brutal murder of thousands of people and millions more displaced within the country or made refugees in foreign climes.
A majority of Cameroonians continue to experience the country as, at best, one that has abandoned them and, at worst, one of murderous rapacity. They do not feel attached to it, and they conduct their daily lives as if the country does not and should not exist. In fact, the state neither knows nor cares for them. It marks neither their birth nor their death and they may spend their whole lives without a birth certificate or a state identification document. The dissolution of the country may come as a reprieve to them because they have only a necropolitical experience of it. They do not sing the praises of the country and they do not pray that God should bless it. If they mention it in their prayers at all, they only place a curse on it. To them, what exists is their village and life in their local communities. They are not disappointed with the country because they have never nursed any hope for it. Because the state largely does not exist for them, or exists only as a necropolitical reality, they hardly ask questions about its provenance. If they did, they might conclude that it came from an evil source.
Yet, some, notably the religious and political elite, often tend to see this state as divinely ordained. But is it? How does one read, providentially, such a murderous and malleable phenomenon as the nation-state in Africa?
The Question of Providence
The doctrine of providence is often based on what might be described as theological theory, rooted in abstract thinking about how God is involved in the world. Sometimes, it is argued that God causes or allows certain events in the world. Other times, it is argued that God participates in the world through persuasion, for God is not a micro-manager. However, these theological theories of providence would not work when we consider the history of the nation-state in Africa. To read the history of the nation-state in Africa theologically, we need to come down to specifics, focusing on specific events that created the colonial nation-state in the continent.
We need to ask questions about the brutality involved in this process and the death it brings in its wake. How is God involved in all this? Was God involved in the German concession companies that came to Cameroon to begin the process that would lead to the creation of the country? Was God working through the German Chancellor Bismark to colonize the territory that later became Cameroon, putting its people into reservations in the process? Was God involved when the British and the French wrested the territory from the Germans, partitioned it, and later created the hodgepodge that is now Cameroon? How can God be thought to have caused or allowed such travesty? How is God working through persuasion here?
If God is working through all this towards a broader end, as some may believe, what end is it? How does the dehumanization of Cameroonians fit in this process? Is it not more plausible to believe, following the evidence, that the creation of Cameroon is against the will of God? If this is the case, what should Christians think of the country and the postcolonial nation-state it represents? How does seeing the nation-state as antihuman and ungodly shape how Christians should relate to it?
Recently, we have learned from scholars such as Adom Getachew and Frederick Cooper that the nation-state in Africa, as is currently constituted, was not the goal of some anticolonialists. What these anticolonialists were after was to create a domination-free international order, to use Getachew’s expression. What eventually came into being, through western machinations, was the postcolonial nation-state. Christians believe that there are events that happen in the world that are against the will of God. Does the murderous history of the post-colonial nation-state not suggest that it could be one of those events that are against the will of God?
[1] For background, see John Parratt, Reinventing Christianity: African Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), 137-162,
[2] See Mieke van der Linden, The Acquisition of Africa (1870-1914): The Nature of International Law (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 174-214, see p. 180.
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