Joseph Pascal Mbarga
email: mbargajoseph@gmail.com

Joseph Pascal

Mbarga From Theon

Ochema To

Kamerun 2024 Hal-04407938

Nti Mbarga

Mendana From

Theon Ochema To Kamerun

Mbarga Joseph Pascal

FROM THEON OCHEMA TO KAMERUN

ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

INTRODUCTION

Names are of great importance in various aspects of human life and society. It plays an essential role in personal identity, culture, communication and the construction of meaning. This construction takes place at both personal and collective levels (community, state, continent, etc.).

At an individual level, our name is often the first thing that identifies us as individuals. It is intimately linked to how we perceive ourselves and how we are perceived by others. It may reflect our family heritage, our culture, our nationality or our spirituality, among other things. It helps to shape our identity.

On a collective level, the name can reflect a sense of belonging and a shared history. The epics, the original myths of a people, the founding texts or stories of a spirituality or religion, are just some of the elements that give the people in question their unique character; a unique character from which derives their own identity, different from that of other peoples, as well as their own geographical area of expression. All of these elements contribute to the unique identification of a group of individuals, and therefore to its qualification by name.

Generally speaking, through a name, the present being and the future being forge a path, project themselves. So a name is not simply a name, an identification. At least not among the First Peoples and in advanced African societies. In Africa, names have a symbolic and/or metaphorical meaning that transcends their mere linguistic aspect. They can evoke qualities, characteristics, aspirations and/or values. Sometimes names are deliberately chosen to evoke specific emotions, associations or destinies. In South Korea, a name is said to be "the shortest fate". A name is therefore an action, a movement, an impulse that gives meaning to existence and through which an individual or a group can acquire the suffrage of time in a negative or positive way. This is why we are going to question the distant origins of the territory known today as Kamerun1 , as well as the circumstances that have built the current narrative concerning the origin of the name Cameroon2 . We intend to row against the tide of this narrative and provide factual elements that will lead to the emergence of a new narrative that is much more coherent and that gives a better account of the facts and less of the ideological fiction of the colonisers.

HISTORICAL REMINDER OF THE BEGINNING OF THE INVASIONS IN AFRICA

European invasions of Africa began at the end of the 15th century with the era of the great maritime discoveries. These voyages also led to encounters with African peoples and kingdoms. Not all of these encounters were happy ones.

In the 16th century, European powers such as Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, France and England embarked on expeditions to Africa. They sought to appropriate the continent's riches, in particular gold, spices and human beings who would be used as slaves in Asia Minor 3 and on the North and South American continents. This raid on black men and women had devastating consequences for African populations, causing social, economic, cultural, spiritual and demographic genocides throughout the continent.

It should be noted that these European invasions of Africa continued throughout the following centuries, culminating in the period of colonisation in the 19th century, when most of the African continent fell under the direct or indirect control of the European powers. This had terrible consequences for the peoples and societies of Africa, who had to face exploitation, barbarism, dispossession of land and the loss of their political, economic and cultural autonomy -in short, the disintegration of the very essence of their society. As a result, many African peoples and their territories have been given names that are even more grotesque than the others. Names sometimes given simply on the basis of anecdotes, without any source or historical foundation. In the case of some territories, the process often consisted of simply naming the country or settlement area according to its usefulness in the colonisation project, either to qualify the type of resources present, or to more or less locate the resource to be exploited. For others, it was simply a matter of giving a name to the area they had supposedly "discovered".

THEON OCHEMA, THE DISTANT ORIGINS OF KAMERUN

As we have argued above, the ravages of slavery and Western Christian and Roman colonisation have helped to obscure Kamerun from its historical roots. Nevertheless, a number of contemporaries from antiquity, with a different vision, namely that of research and the sharing of knowledge, without any ideological colouring, have bequeathed to us their writings and testimonies and/or those of their contemporaries. Thanks to these testimonies, we are now in a position to discover the world as they lived it in their time and to witness what they observed.

THEON OCHEMA, PEOPLE AND TERRITORY

a. THÉON OCHÉMA, THE PEOPLE Alain Manesson Mallet was a French military engineer, geographer and cartographer. He was born in Paris in 1630 and died there in 1706. In one of his publications, entitled "Inner Ethiopia", on page 220, he lists the main peoples living in Inner Ethiopia.

Names of the peoples of inner Ethiopia

Among the main peoples of Inner Ethiopia 4 mentioned in this list, we can easily identify "Theon Ochema". In other words, Theon Ochema is the name of a people clearly defined by ancient Westerners. On the website that serves as our source for this item, we are offered a detailed description of the above reference.

Descrip3on map of Inner Ethiopia

In the detailed description, it is specified, among other things, that the Hesperic Gulf is the Gulf of Guinea. Why this precision and why this information is important, precisely because the Theon Ochema people mentioned above live on the edge of the Gulf of Guinea, as can be seen on the map below.

6

Map of Inner Ethiopia

On the map above5 , taken from the same book on page 221, we can clearly identify Theon Ochema and right next to it we can read Gulf of Hesperia, which today corresponds to Gulf of Guinea.

b. THEON OCHEMA, THE TERRITORY It should be noted that Ethiopia is one of the names that Africa has borne. Inland Ethiopia therefore corresponded to the area known today as sub-Saharan Africa. Below is a map dating from 1850, showing the world as known by the "Ancients 8 ".

Map of the Gulf of Hesperiens

6 Central Africa.

7 Hannon and his crew are the Greeks mentioned in Pliny's encyclopaedia.

8 The ancient Greeks.

What do we see when we look at this map? On the side, in Latin, we have the following text in Greek: "Hamos Theon Ochema", which means "Jointure Theon ochema". And just below it we have the Latin translation: "Deorum Currus", which in French means "Char des Dieux". We also note that we are located on the Hesperian Gulf, also noted here in Latin.

We can already note that the location of what was known in ancient times as the "Hesperian Gulf" has never changed. It is always in the same place, which leaves little room for illusory interpretations or reinterpretations.

There are other references to this area. Geographers also mentioned Theon ochema on maps.

They were Marinus the Tyrian and Claudius Ptolemy in the first century BC, just over two thousand years ago.

Map of the Gulf of Guinea

We have two maps above, on the left the map by Marinus the Tyrian and on the right the map by Claudius Ptolemy. From this layout, it is clear that in the Gulf of Guinea, also known as the "Great Bay" or the Hesperian Gulf, we can clearly identify Theon Ochema, which is translated by name as "Mount Kamerun". On Claudius Ptolemy's map, we can see that the Esperic Gulf and Theon Ochema are located precisely above the equator.

Further mentions of Kamerun, formerly Theon Ochema, can be found in volume 2 of the Greek and Roman Dictionary of Geography, on page 294.

Greek and Roman Dictionary of Geography

Nti Mbarga Mendana

From Theon Ochema to Kamerun 10

THE ORIGINS OF THE NAME KAMERUN c. RIO DOS CAMAROES?

Kamerun, under the German occupation, then Cameroon and Cameroun under the British and French protectorates, that's how we officially identify this area of 475,442 km2 today. From the historical data we have been able to gather, it appears that the name derives from the Portuguese word camaroes.

The few resources found tell us that it was around 1472 that a Portuguese explorer named Fernando Pô, faced with the abundance of prawns in the Wouri, exclaimed "Rio Dos Camaroe" to name the Wouri estuary. Subsequently, the Germans used this name to describe the entire territory. This is how we went from Camaroes to Kamerun in German, then to Cameroon in English and Cameroun in French.

This narrative is found in all the references we have been able to identify. With the exception of a few words, this narrative is the same, whatever the source. Which leads us to believe that there is, in fact, one and only one source. The only problem is that the origin of this source is unknown to us. In the current state of scientific research, no historical source is able to corroborate the origin of this story. Is it Fernando Pô's memoirs, or his logbook? Is it the writings of one of his contemporaries? Or was it written by one of his companions on the voyage to the Wouri estuary? In the final analysis, this account, which is now popularised by all and sundry, derives its authority from nothing.

To date, we have no answers to these simple questions. What's more, we know nothing more about the explorer himself.

d. WHO WAS FERNANDO PO?

What we know about this character is very insignificant. We know his name, we know that he was of Portuguese origin and that he was the first European to "discover" an island in the Gulf of Guinea 9 and the Wouri estuary around 1472. This is all the information we have been able to find, whatever the source.

Where and when was he born? Where and when did he die? We don't know. Who were his travelling companions? Where are his memoirs, his logbook? None of these questions have been answered, or even the beginnings of answers. One might imagine that a seasoned explorer like Fernando Pô, travelling great distances around the world, would keep a logbook to record his exploits and discoveries. Especially as the vast majority of these navigators were financed by nobles and sovereigns of kingdoms, we can easily deduce that their refinancing depended on their spoils and discoveries -potential sources of enrichment for them. It was therefore generally in the logbooks that these discoveries, spoils and other curiosities were recorded, which would attract interest in financing another expedition.

In the same way, the memory of explorers responsible for glorious deeds was preserved through the accounts and memoirs of their contemporaries and/or fellow travellers. Not so in the case of Fernando Pô.

When we do the same exercise with other explorers of identical renown, the result is completely different. Whether we're talking about Magellan (1480-1521), Henry the Navigator (1394-1460), Vasco da Gama (1469-1524) or Pedro Alvares Cabral (1467-1520), to name but a few, we find their personal details, sometimes their parentage, and for a number of them, we even find their academic backgrounds. At first glance, this leaves very little doubt about their feats of arms, but more importantly, it leaves no doubt about the veracity of their existence.

In the case of Fernando Pô, however, this is not the case. All the evidence suggests that he never existed. So what credence can we give to the various accounts attributed to him? Can we seriously base so-called historical information on such fragile elements? Our answer is categorical: no, we cannot.

With these questions and doubts in mind, we concluded that further research was needed into the origin of the name Kamerun.

KAMERUN AN ENDOGENOUS NAME

Following the disputes raised earlier, we turned to other avenues of reflection, in particular the endogenous origin of this name. It was on this basis that we obtained public documents from the Kamerunese territorial administration on the toponymy of villages in Kamerun. After consulting these documents, we realised that the name "Kamerun" is known throughout the territory.

Indeed, many villages in the country bear this name. In the southern region, in the Sangmelima district, in the Afamba-Libi area, there is a village called "Kamelon 10 ". We discovered this by studying volume IV of the report on the third population census of Cameroon carried out in 2005, in its section entitled "Updated directory of villages in Cameroon".

10 Dialectal variation reflects the dynamism of the language. It is a phonological process that is commonplace in linguistics. The same word will be pronounced differently depending on whether you belong to a particular geographical area or speak a particular variant of a language unit. On a regional level, this is called a regiolect.

In the eastern region, we also find other occurrences of this name. These include :

Kamelone : in the Messamena district, Léhé-Mpouo canton. Kamelone 1 or Kabiloun 1: in the Messamena district, Badjouoé-Nord canton. Kamelone 2 or Kabiloun 2: also in the Messamena district, Canton Badjouoé-Nord. Kameloun or Kamelon: in the arrondissement of Lomié, Canton Dzimou du Sud.

Dictionary of Upper Nyong villages RGPH 2005-ZIME district

It should be noted that these villages with names similar to Kamerun, or even identical to a few phonemes, are located in the interior of the country. And in these areas, there is no question of rivers abounding in prawns. These names therefore have a local imprint and a local experience. These places are so named because of their history, their culture, their traditions and their own vision of the world. This is an important point. As Gouvard, 1998: 62 puts it: "If, in general, (de)naming or the act of naming is both an act of categorisation and referencing of some portion of the universe, it has to be said that in Cameroon in particular, it is far from being perceived as an entity 'devoid of meaning', that is to say, a mere semantically and symbolically gratuitous 'act of baptism', the result of a linguistic coquetry or an act of linguistic elegance".

CONCLUSION

We had two objectives when we began this research project. The first objective was to restore the territory now known as Kamerun and its people to their historical roots. We were able to do this thanks to the testimonies left to posterity by explorers from the first centuries BC and AD, through historical resources such as encyclopaedias, logbooks and maps. As a result, it was under the name "Theon Ochema" that the territory of present-day Kamerun and the people who occupy it were known to the ancients. From the Greek, Theon Ochema, which in French means "chariot of the gods" and which we know today as "Mount Kamerun".

The second objective was to question the origin of the name Kamerun. We found it extremely difficult to find factual evidence that would fit in with the current narrative, commonly presented and accepted, which is that the name Kamerun comes from the Portuguese "Camaroes". This name was given to the territory by the explorer Fernando Po. Given the current state of scientific research, we can state without a shadow of a doubt that the facts relating to the discovery of the Wouri estuary by the explorer Fernando Po are the stuff of fables. The same applies to the famous explorer, whose existence is impossible to say, given the lack of proof of his existence. On the basis of these facts, and given the paucity of historical evidence at our disposal, we can conclude with Christopher Hitchens 2007, as follows: "what can be asserted without proof can also be rejected without proof".

On the other hand, we have had no difficulty in finding endogenous evidence of the existence of the name "Kamerun" and therefore in asserting that this name is of local origin. On the strength of this concrete evidence, it now seems obvious to us that we should delve deeper, not into the estuary of the Wouri or some obscure explorer, but rather into the country itselflanguage, geography, tradition, spirituality -to find the true origins of the name Kamerun.

  He was a Roman writer and naturalist of the I er century Roman writer and naturalist. He was the author of a monumental encyclopaedia entitled Natural History (Naturalis Historia), published around 77. Comprising thirty-seven volumes, it is the only surviving work by Pliny the Elder. For a long time, this document was the reference in science and technology. It is precisely in Book VI, paragraph 18 of Natural History that Pliny situates the Theon Ochema territory. Here's what he says about the area where he locates what corresponds to present-day Kamerun: "Ethiopia is oriented from the east to the west in winter; the part that lies to the south 6 has vast forests where ebony dominates; in its centre, a high mountain, leaning over the sea, burns with eternal fires; the Greeks 7 called it Theon ochema (Chariot of the gods)".

  Thanks to the historical resources of ancient Europeans, we have been able to identify a people called 'Theon Ochema'. They located this place in Central Africa, on the edge of what they called the Hesperian Gulf. We shall see later exactly where this Hesperian Gulf is located. For the moment, let's focus on the accounts of those who were able to identify and locate the area we know today as Kamerun.Pliny the Elder, whose Latin name was Caius Plinius Secundus, was born in 23 AD in Novum Comum (now Como) in northern Italy (in Transpadan Gaul) and died in 79 AD in Stabies, near Pompeii, during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

We will use the General Alphabet of Kameroonians Languages (GAKL) for the spelling of local names.

English spelling.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Description_de_l%27univers_%281683%29_%2

Villages in the Sangmelima district


Alternative scenario for the energy transition

Jean-Marc Salotti IMS laboratory, UMR CNRS 5218, Inria, Bordeaux University jean-marc.salotti@ensc.fr First of all, we must recognize both the magnitude of the issues at stake -carbon neutrality by 2050, the gradual abandonment of fossil fuels, energy sovereignty -and the great complexity of the variables involved, whether in terms of the diversity and constraints of energy sources and exploitation, or at the organizational, societal, environmental and political levels [START_REF] Ademe | Document technique, L'exercice de prospective de l'ADEME[END_REF], ADEME 2021a, Affaire du siècle 2021, GIEC 2021, Ministère 2022, Wiki EC 2022).

The ADEME study on the French energy transition is a comprehensive, precise and instructive source on which we must rely in order to define the strategy to follow towards 2050 (ADEME 2021a, ADEME 2021b). Each of the 4 ADEME scenarios contains interesting proposals, but it is scenario 4 that seems to us the most realistic and acceptable for the population as it is not based like the others on a drastic reduction of energy needs.

The major difficulty is to find the energy sources that will replace fossil fuels without imposing unpopular laws for the reduction of the needs (Finon 2015). The energy mix we propose is slightly different from that of ADEME Scenario 4, which suffers from several drawbacks. We recommend priority investment in the photovoltaic / STEP (Station de Transfert d'Energie par Pompage) coupling, especially in cities and isolated villages located on hills or mountains, taking care to preserve our forests and our landscapes as much as possible, with a target to be specified, which could be around 200 TWh per year (ADEME proposes 180 TWh). This idea, which has been neglected for complex political reasons (Ministère 2006), has been successfully implemented in several places, such as Corsica. As STEP and photovoltaic systems are relative low-tech, affordable and with good recycling rates [START_REF] Cancel | document pédagogique de l'Université d'Aix-Marseille, BTS Electrotechnique[END_REF], CRE 2019, De Wild-Scholten 2013, Prix-Elec 2022), they can easily be developed at large scales, and the subsidiarity principle can be implemented for the decision process and the control of the systems. Importantly, the water basins of the STEP can easily be located underground to avoid occupying agricultural or urban surfaces. The size of the systems can also be easily adapted to the needs, for example with relatively small basins and small solar panels surfaces in order to supply energy to small villages, which is more difficult with huge wind turbines. Solar energy is also more regular than wind energy: It never falls below 10% of the maximum capacity during the day, while it can drop to zero for the wind.

Concerning nuclear energy, we propose to increase its capacity as the ADEME foresees, but this will not be easy and, above all, it will take time, because many power plants are at the end of their life, and the potential sites for large-scale power plants are not numerous (ADEME 2021a, ADEME2021b).

As the energy agency clearly explains, a massive development of biomass is expected, in particular through the valorization of waste of all kinds as well as through the production of biogas and biofuels. However, as the production of energy from waste is not profitable, it can only be implemented by taking the French energy sector out of the globalization of trade. For the biomass production, we propose to go even further by developing, in a reasonable way, the bioethanol sector as a fuel for some categories of cars. Compared to ADEME scenario 4, an additional 60 TWh of biomass could be produced. An important issue is to develop biofuels taking all agricultural surfaces into account, especially the ones dedicated to food production as well as forests, water management (Bisch 2018), natural reserves and local ecosystems. This problem is tightly linked to the ecological footprint of the French people upon the French territory (Wiki EE 2022), and poses the question of demographic limits. Overall, the objective is to minimize the loss of living standards, with a control of the energy needs. It can be noted that in the 3 other ADEME scenarios, an important decrease in energy consumption is expected, even though the trend is stationary and the population is slowly growing, mainly because of a positive migration balance. ADEME did not integrate in its model demographic parameters, but it is clearly a key variable of the problem. According to our calculation, if there is a stagnation of energy needs per person, energy needs would increase up to 7% from now to 2050 if there is no change in the migration balance.

Onshore wind, offshore wind, tidal turbines, and other energy sources should also be considered, without being prioritized with respect to their costs, high-tech requirements, maintenance complexity, low recycling rates, and by ensuring their acceptability by the population. Compared to ADEME scenario 4, this could lead to 10 or 20 TWh less, but this would be compensated by photovoltaics (+20 TWh, see previous paragraph).

Reducing the immigration rate is a sensible political question with economic and social impacts that are out of the scope of this paper. However, for the energy transition problem, its role should not be neglected. For instance, if some efforts are made to stabilize the French population such that the immigration rate is divided by a factor of 3 (+100 000 instead of +300 000), cumulative benefits would be expected:

-In comparison with ADEME estimates, there would be a reduction of energy needs on the order of 7%. -As agricultural needs would be lower to feed the population, a larger part of agricultural surfaces could be dedicated to biofuel production, on the order of 60 TWh equivalent. -In ADEME scenarios, an unsolved problem is the reduction of fossil fuel needs for planes and boats. A significant increase of the biofuel production could therefore help a lot in achieving a full energy transition by 2050.

These efforts have to be made in conjunction with a strong CCS (carbon capture and storage) strategy at large scales, as suggested in ADEME scenario 4 (2021a).

Finally, it is important to remember that we must be cautious and that this scenario should not be considered as a definitive and non-negotiable objective. On the contrary, it is necessary to consider an ongoing study involving the actors in each field, to study all the issues in order to adapt and possibly modify the choices in the most relevant way, in order to ultimately reach the objectives that have been set, in particular carbon neutrality as soon as possible for the French (Salotti 2022).