Introduction Preamble The socio-political and Cultural configuration of Cameroon, a Country in West and Central Africa, is similar to many other West African countries that have known movements, influences and migrations both from within and without. What Anthony Ham asserts about West African Countries is typically true of Cameroon: West Africans know a thing or two about living side by side with people from different cultures. For a start, West Africa as perceived today is the result of centuries of population shifts and mass migrations that have created a patchwork of diverse but largely cohabiting cultures. After the colonial period and independence, most groups found themselves being asked to share a national identity with other cultures that were, in some cases, wholly different from their own. Later, widespread urbanization produced polyglot West African cities that are among the most multicultural on earth. 1 A cultural mosaic indeed in its own right, Cameroon alone has around 280 ethnic groups with distinct cultural identities. 2 Cameroon is the shape of a long tapering triangle on a relatively short base, situated to the east of Nigeria. Its borders divide peoples in a totally artificial way; the Nigeria-Cameroon frontier divides fourteen recognizably distinct cultural groups. Northern Cameroon is mainly savannah, a relatively open hill country where contact is easy, far different from the south where the Peoples of the Forest are isolated and separated by rivers and dense tropical jungle. 3 It s hard to pigeonhole 280 distinct ethno-linguistic groups divided by colonial languages, the urban-rural split and Christianity and Islam, among other factors, into one cut-out identity. The Cameroonian psyche is ultimately any, and anything African. Diversity, especially cultural diversity is the key to understanding Cameroon. One can therefore imagine the dynamics that operate in such a living space where different cultures rub themselves and sometimes elbow each other for recognition, on a daily basis. 1 Ham, 2009, 40. 2 Ham, ibid. 40. 3 Gifford, 1998, 246. 13
1. Aim and Purpose of the Work 1.1 The aim of this work The work, with its Genesis in my Licentiate dissertation, aims at highlighting the Country, Cameroon, as a diverse, multicultural entity and the resulting consequences and dynamics that arise from so many cultures co-existing, operating and intermingling with one another. It seeks to portray its direct impact on the life of the Catholic Church that is in Cameroon and the challenges this poses to its evangelizing mission. Such an assessment is bound to have sociological implications, for culture is lived out in a social milieu and vice versa. Culture influences the way a society operates and society incarnates the culture of a people. 1.2 Purpose The purpose is to portray on the one hand the advantages of cultural diversity to the society and to the Church, and on the other hand, the adverse effects of multiculturalism on the Cameroonian society and consequently on the Church, if it is not properly managed. (Church here refers to the Catholic Church. Other Christian denominations will be referred to as churches). Indeed, this work seeks to portray that what affects the human person in society affects him also in the Church, for he is also a product of society. The final endeavor is to propose pastoral psychological and pastoral-theological insights that could inspire and guide a pastoral agent to understand and function effectively in a multicultural society with its specificities like Cameroon. 2. Method of Approach The work will begin with the definition of some Key terms, already from the introduction, that will anchor and continue to be reference points of the work. In this sense one will be looking at the meaning of terms like; Culture, Language and Evangelization that will run through the whole spectrum of the work. The work is divided into three main Sections, (I, II, III). The first Section will portray the entity called Cameroon as a nation, its historical background and the resulting cultural traits that make it one of the most culturally colored countries in Africa. 14
An effort will be made to expose the main cultural groupings that make up the cultural map of Cameroon. There is no pretence here to portray an exhaustive list of all the cultural groups of the Country taking into consideration the enormous flux of ethnic and cultural groups that exist therein. The aim here is to help the reader better situate and understand the cultural reality and composition of Cameroon, and so be in a better situation to appreciate the cultural diversity, and the challenges it would pose to the Church in her Evangelizing mission. Furthermore, the first Section will seek to present the impact of multiple Cultures as experienced in society and how this ultimately affects the Church positively and adversely. The second Section of the work will be a psycho-pastoral appraisal of the situation. Here an effort will be made to understand the inner psychological motivations that drive people to behave the way they do in the society and in the Church and possible psychological insights that could be helpful in coming to terms with such behavior. The theological appraisal seeks to understand how the Church from her earliest beginnings has lived and functioned in Multicultural societies and how this has shaped her theological self-understanding in the light of the challenges seen in the Cameroonian society and Church. This lays the ground work for application of the different appraisals to the Cameroonian situation. The third Section is focused on the application of the different appraisals to the Cameroonian situation. Here an attempt is made to explore how insights from the different appraisals can be applied in the Cameroonian society and the Church. The effort is multifaceted in the sense that living and functioning in a complex multicultural society cannot have a simple straight forward answer to all forms of interactions that occur at a daily basis. Lastly an attempt will be made at exploring what avenues are available for implementing the psychological methods suggested in tackling the interactional challenges in the Cameroonian society and in the Church so that it can facilitate the Church s mission of Evangelization. 3. Definition of Terms 3.1 Culture By culture we mean the customs, ideas, and social behavior of a particular group or people 4. A. L. Kroeber and C. Kluckhohn à propos find that there are six major types of definitions based on this basic definition. 5 The first emphasizes 4 Soanes et al (ed), 2008. 5 Kroeber & Kluckhohn, 1985, 559. 15
culture as a comprehensive totality and enumerates aspects of culture content. Representative is the formulation of Franz Boas which states: Culture embraces all the manifestations of social habits of a community, the reactions of the individual as affected by the habits of the group in which he lives, and the products of human activities as determined by these habits. 6 This leads to the second group which is built upon the feature of social inheritance. In this regard Ralph Linton maintains that as a general term, culture means the total social heredity of mankind, while as a specific term, a culture means a particular strain of social heredity. 7 The third type emphasizes culture as a rule or way of life, as a design for living. Paul Smears represents this view when he says of culture: The way in which the people in any group do things, make and use tools, get along with one another and with other groups, the words they use and the way they use them to express thoughts, and the thoughts they think. 8 The fourth group is psychological in the sense that processes such as a problem-solving device is stressed. Representative is the definition of Ralph Piddington who states that the culture of a people may be defined as the sum total of the material and intellectual equipment whereby they satisfy their biological and social needs and adapt themselves to their environment. 9 The fifth type makes central the patterning or organization of culture, its systemic quality. An example is provided by John Gillin. He maintains that culture consists of patterned and functionally interrelated customs common to specifiable social groups of categories. 10 The final group focuses on Culture as an accumulated product of group life. Kroeber and Kluckhohn therefore synthesize most of these six types when they say: Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditions, ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other as conditioning elements of further action. 11 In the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, the Church gives a more comprehensive and holistic definition and explanation of culture when she says: 6 Cf. Friedman et al (ed), 1985, 559. 7 Cf. ibid. 559. 8 Ibid. 559. 9 Ibid. 559. 10 Ibid. 559. 11 Ibid. 559. 16
The word culture in its general sense indicates everything whereby man develops and perfects his many bodily and spiritual qualities; he strives by his knowledge and his labor, to bring the world itself under his control. He renders social life more human both in the family and the civic community, through improvement of customs and institutions. Throughout the course of time he expresses, communicates and conserves in his works, great spiritual experiences and desires that they might be of advantage to the progress of many, even of the whole human family. Thence it follows that human culture has necessarily a historical and social aspect and the word culture also often assumes a sociological and ethnological sense. According to this sense we speak of a plurality of cultures. Different styles of life and multiple scales of values arise from the diverse manner of using things, of labouring, of expressing oneself, of practicing religion, of forming customs, of establishing laws and juridic institutions, of cultivating the sciences, the arts and beauty. Thus the customs handed down to it form the patrimony proper to each human community. It is also in this way that there is formed the definite, historical milieu which enfolds the man of every nation and age and from which he draws the values which permit him to promote civilization. 12 This will be the point of reference when it comes to culture. 3.2 Language Based on the definitions seen above, it follows that a culture cannot function without a language as its medium or vehicle of Communication and transmission. Therefore it is essential to look at what is meant by language as far as culture is concerned. Language is the system of vocal and written symbols used by human beings to communicate their thoughts and feelings. A language is a system of units, realizable in some sensory medium, only certain combinations by convention and hence can be used for communication. 13 The primary social function of language is clearly to facilitate communication. Because human beings can communicate with each other through language, they alone among animal species have been able to accumulate knowledge. B. Lee 14 maintains that although interpersonal communication is not the only function of language, it is primary in several respects. 12 Gaudium et Spes, Chapter II, No. 52, par. 2, 3. 13 Cf. Friedman et al (ed), op. cit, Vol. 14, 229. 14 Ibid. 299. 17
First, since a child must learn his native language through interaction with his elders, he must learn to communicate with others before he can use language for his own private thoughts. Second, although the origins of language can never be known, it seems that language started in attempts to communicate rather than in private thinking. Third, thinking can be construed as a special case of communication in which speaker and hearer are the same and the linguistic vehicles being sub-vocal, are not publicly perceivable. Any device that is usable for interpersonal communication must, of course, be perceived by all parties involved. Language is therefore that device that is suitable for interpersonal communication. 3.3 Evangelization The Church understands evangelization as, bringing the Good News into all the strata of humanity, and through its influence transforming humanity from within and making it new: Now I am making the whole of creation new. [46] But there is no new humanity if there are not first of all new persons renewed by Baptism[47] and by lives lived according to the Gospel.[48] The purpose of evangelization is therefore precisely this interior change, and if it had to be expressed in one sentence the best way of stating it would be to say that the Church evangelizes when she seeks to convert,[49] solely through the divine power of the message she proclaims, both the personal and collective consciences of people, the activities in which they engage, and the lives and concrete milieu which are theirs. 15 That encyclical makes sure that the Church s mission of preaching the Gospel, that is, evangelization should not be confused with cultures when it continues: The Gospel, and therefore evangelization, is certainly not identical with culture, and they are independent in regard to all cultures. Nevertheless, the kingdom which the Gospel proclaims is lived by men who are profoundly linked to a culture, and the building up of the kingdom cannot avoid borrowing the elements of human culture or cultures. Though independent of cultures, the Gospel and evangelization are not necessarily incompatible with them; rather they are capable of permeating them all without becoming subject to any one of them. 16 Based on the above teaching of the Church, it will be assumed in this work and demonstrated that culture, language and Evangelization are inter-related because evangelization takes place within culture using a language or languages as medium of interaction by the actors concerned. When the Church carries out Evan- 15 Paul VI: Evangelii Nuntiandi, 1975, No. 18. 16 Paul VI, ibid. No. 20. 18
gelization in a society that is multicultural, then she certainly faces challenges since the cultures and languages within which she operates offer not one straight forward medium or method of interaction. These Challenges must be dealt with if they are not to be hindrances to her mission. The work examines how the reality of diverse cultures in Cameroon impacts on the society, and consequently on the Church and her mission of Evangelization, and so tries to establish instruments that can be at once useful to her mission and the same time proclaim the unity in diversity which should be a characteristic feature of the Church and in a sense its contribution to a pluralistic world. A brief History of Cameroon and its impact on society and the Church shall be the concern of the first Section. 19