Abstract
This paper demonstrates the extent to which the media and belonging in Africa are torn between competing and often conflicting claims of bounded and flexible ideas of culture and identity. It draws on studies of xenophobia in Cameroon and South Africa, inspired by the resilience of the politicization of culture and identity, to discuss the hierarchies and inequalities that underpin political, economic and social citizenship in Africa and the world over, and the role of the media in the production, enforcement and contestation of these hierarchies and inequalities. In any country with liberal democratic aspirations or pretensions, the media are expected to promote national citizenship and its emphasis on large-scale, assimilationist and territorially bounded belonging, while turning a blind eye to those who fall through the cracks as a result of racism and/or ethnicity. Little wonder that such an exclusionary articulation of citizenship is facing formidable challenges from its inherent contradictions and closures, and from an upsurge in the politics of recognition and representation by small-scale communities claiming autochthony at a historical juncture where the rhetoric espouses flexible mobility, postmodern flux and discontinuity.
This paper attempts an answer to the question: What keeps Cameroon together despite widespread instability in Africa, despite the turbulence of the subregional environment in which it finds itself, and despite its own internal contradictions? The main argument is that the politics of regional and ethnic balance, the chronic lack of vision as a country, the lack of real commitment to democracy, the propensity to vacillate on most issues of collective interest, together with an infinite ability to develop survival strategies, have acted to counter all meaningful attempts to pursue common interests and aspirations.
Yaoundé, capitale du Cameroun, le 14 février 1998. Non loin de la gare, un wagon-citerne de pétrole se couche accidentellement et déverse son contenu sur la voie publique. Devant cette aubaine, les passants et les habitants des alentours se précipitent, qui avec des bidons, qui avec de simples bouteilles. Mais une cigarette provoque une terrible explosion qui fait plusieurs dizaines de victimes. Le même jour, la rumeur court que ces dernières étaient toutes « autochtones » : les « locaux » avaient chassé les « allogènes » du lieu sous le prétexte que le pétrole était « leur » puisque Yaoundé était « leur ville ». 
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