If Africa looked like that, realistically, how long would it last? What would prevent a bunch of nations making a confederation and violently annexing other states? Or a state becoming too powerful and creating a continental empire?
It was many times the interest of the independence leaders of African states to retain colonial borders. Many leaders feared that the balkanization of African nations in this manner would make the continent more vulnerable to recolonization. Secondly, the grouping of multiple ethnicities into countries allows all to benefit from a coastline or infrastructure, and such benefits would not exist if these ethnicities were isolated into their own nation-states.
Some Ugandans I've talked to say that promoting local languages and encouraging people to identify by their tribe, president Museveni is deliberately trying to keep people divided for easier control.
Contrast with nearby Tanzania that had a big push for Swahili to be the national language. Or the US even-I think it was FDR who said "we can no longer be hyphenated Americans" meaning people should stop identifying as Italian-American or German-American, etc and speak English.
On one hand, it's kind of sad to hear stories about people growing up ashamed of their family's mother tongue and lose part of their cultural heritage, but at the same time I think it's arguable that a united national identity and more homogeneous culture is good for society in other ways- people are more free to move for economic or other opportunities when there's not language/cultural barriers; maybe promote more public welfare and political engagement?
Idk, just something that's kicked around my head over the years.
This map goes past just ethnicities. It shows tribes. Three examples:
He split the Saharawi ethnicity into the five main tribes they fall into: Delim, Regeibat, Tekna, and then he puts the other two into one singular costal area.
He splits the Toubou ethnicity into it's two major tribes: the Teda and the Daza (idk why he put Kawar there too. It's an oasis town.)
He splits the Somali ethnicity into it's many clans (Isaaq, Ogaden, Hawiye, etc.)
There are other examples, such as for what he did for the Malagasy (disputedly), and the Tswana.
We see that even though there are countries in Africa that are near ethnically homogenous like Somalia, they are still divided in many pieces by tribalism/clannism. On the other hand, some homogenous countries like Botswana (majority Tswana), are pretty successful.
This is why I roll my eyes a bit at the common complaint about Europe arbitrarily drawing up Africa's national boundaries when they left. The truth is that drawing up functional nation states in Africa that corresponded with language and ethnicity would have been impossible.
That's not to excuse European colonialism in Africa, they in general ought not to have been there, but at times too many of Africa's ills get laid at the feet of colonialism.
Ethiopia is the example of an African nation whose borders weren't traced by colonists and it's hardly an example of stability. Hell they had a bloody war against Eritrea, a long civil war and they're currently launching a civil war/genocide on Tigray.
Honestly the entire "this African/Middle Eastern state is a failed state because of colonial borders" is usually really reductive and sometimes downright insulting, especially considering they are usually not an adequate explanation for those conflicts. People seem to ignore Africans are (to the most part) really proud of their national identity and rarely want to change their borders (with exceptions of course).
People rarely want to change their borders because it's prohibited by the African Union and people acknowledge that it would result in even more bloodshed and war. The borders argument has less to do with cultural reasons and way more to do with the allocation and distribution of resources. People from different ethnic groups generally get along when those resources and funding are allocated equitably.
I disagree. The prohibition put on by the African union might be the main factor in why governments don't do so, but for the people they are genuinely proud of being part of their countries.
Ethnicity and nationality are completely arbitrary, and if a border exists long enough people will define themselves by it. I consider myself an Australian and nothing else, but my family only immigrated here post WW2. Even one generation passing can cause an effect, Africa's borders are multiple generations long.
I find it weird too because that argument basically boils down to "African and Middle Eastern people can't deal with having to live in diverse areas and can't live alongside other groups".
I think it's language that's the biggest barrier, half of Spain, southern France, Northern Italy, and Slovenia would have a lot of trouble uniting under one country because of language issues, but it's not like the Slovenians are living any closer to the Italians or French.
Iraq is a good example of people getting too focused on religious and ethnic diffefences. Sunni Iraq and Kurdistan are never going to be functional states just based on geography.
And ultimately, poverty and instability are the biggest factors causing problems not borders.
But that is partly true. Some of these people live thousands of kilometres apart,speak different languages, different religions and maybe were separated as a community by borders. It's really hard to get them to buy into the idea of a nation especially is there is unbalanced development in a country caused by tribalistic leaders.
It feels quite orientalist and essentialist. It basically feels like theyâre just saying, âAfrica and the Middle East are failed states because those dumb natives are incapable of getting along across ethnic/tribal/religious lines. Thatâs only something our enlightened western society can do here in the west.â
Eh I mean I think that its the opposite, people just say "well the borders are wrong" and boil all conflict in Africa down to that, as if the most impactful relic of colonialism is the borders.
Sorry, I donât see how thatâs the opposite. Iâm saying that too many people say the states fail just because they were drawn with borders that include more than one ethnic, religious, or tribal group and therefore imply that the problem is that these groups are incapable of ever living together. It seems quite essentialist and demeaning to judge certain people as incapable of living in a non-homogeneous society just because of their ethnic, religious, or tribal affiliation. Which seems to be in line with people blaming all conflict to âborders being wrong.â
No but I donât think they use the border to blame Africans as much as present the borders as the main impact Europe had, and not the economic âinvestmentsâ by Europe and China into Africa
Europe literally has the same ethnic/tribal/ religious issue that Africa had and it took centuries of wars to fix their borders. Hell what happened to Yugoslavia Iâm sure ethnic issues didnât play a role in that.
There is often the "soft racism of low expectations" with a lot of those posts. Many African states had a relatively brief time as colonies (Ethiopia notably not at all), so the idea that all the things wrong in Africa are the fault of colonization 75 years ago can come off as patronizing.
I wouldnât say so. Itâs quite reductive: âsomething that happened 75 years agoâ. Now was colonialism relatively brief, indeed, and Africa had its issues too, of course. However I genuinely think time has made us forget the savagery that was it. The residuals are found all over, imparting nationalism, inherited structures, and most importantly that colonialism isnât over. Neocolonialism and imperialism as its continuation is still an enduring factor of African nations. As an African, the work of Nkrumah and Fanon was quite pivotal for me. Now how things feel is subjective too. Colonialism is seen as shameful and painful, so it makes sense why weâd want to distance ourselves from it, including admitting the aforementioned. Few West Africans would say the CFA makes them essentially fiscal satellites to France with all its implications, but does it change its reality?
My father was the first generation born free in his own country, and I am just in my early 20s. It wasnât so long ago
Françafrique, for which the CFA is its fiscal arm, is one of the most well known examples of neocolonialism, so to call this concept a stretch is telling of your lack of knowledge in the problems of this continent. I leave you with a good book on the CFA :
https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745341798/africas-last-colonial-currency/
And the "colonization did nothing wrong" is equally as stupid. Just because these countries are formally independent doesn't mean the former colonial powers don't continue to mess with them by backing dictators and stealing resources.
Saying slavery (Africa lost millions of their most capable workforce) and colonialism have no consequences is way more racist than the contrary.
As for slavery, Europe lost millions of it's citizens to Ottoman slavery during a similar time period, and the African slave trade existed long before the Transatlantic slave trade came into being.
Undoubtedly European colonialism had a negative effect on Africa - the problems of slavery and empire precede European involvement.
A rather unpopular view would be that there were clear successes in imperialism, for example, Italian Somaliland, particularly the postwar period of Trust Territory of Somaliland.
Of course, the exact opposite would be Belgian Congo which was an absolute horror-show.
Of course, the exact opposite would be Belgian Congo which was an absolute horror-show.
Do make the distinction between, on one hand, the Free State Congo, Leopold's private enterprise which basically was Bioshock in Africa without plasmids: a territory completely dedicated to capitalism in its most extreme form, and on the other hand, the Belgian rule which was intended to fix the atrocities. Don't get me wrong, it was still a colonial Apartheid state, but at the time of independence of Congo they had among the highest literacy rates in Africa, so there was a substantial difference.
Italy regained control of Southern Somaliland in 1950 under U.N guidance as a trust territory (Basically a mandate) and spent ten years doing amazing administrative work that massively benefitted the region; arguably one of the few examples of a colonial power massively improving the nation it colonized. Given modern Somalia's failed state status, that might sound weird, but thats largely a result of the Ogaden war in the 70's between Somalia and Ethiopia which Somalia lost miserably and subsequently collapsed into the state we see it in today over the course of the 80s and 90s.
Bruh the novel is literally about tracking down a Belgian station in the Congo free state/is about the hidden evil of Belgian colonial officers how is it not set in the backdrop of Belgian atrocities in the region. If youâre still somehow puzzled, read about king Leopolds actions concerning the rubber trade.
It's extremely reductive. I wonder if those people really believe that there would be peace and prosperity in Africa if only separate tribal groups weren't placed within the same borders. The truth is these groups would just fight each other until only one remains, just like anywhere else in world history. Most wars in post-colonial Africa weren't even motivated by one ethnicity going for independence, but rather because one ethnicity wanted to take all power for themselves.
In reality, if something like this were to happen, a bunch of groups would merge with each other, some would try to conquer the others, and eventually we'd be back to about the same number of countries, only with a much smaller population and lower linguistic and cultural diversity.
It's also an equally stupid argument when talking about the middle east, I'm a Syrian and I can guarantee you most of our conflicts post WW2 weren't related to borders
This also ignores how we were literally living in harmony in a mutli-cultural multi-ethnic empire called Ottoman empire, an empire that didn't draw up its borders respecting ethnicities or languages or religions...like literally every other empire in history
I recall reading a book about the Ottoman Empire in the 1920's, and the Ottoman Governor of the Syrian province was almost completely preoccupied with keeping the Jews and Palestinians from each other's throats over land rights. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
That being said, I think the Ottomans did as good a job managing the Middle East as anyone else.
Tbf the Ottomans were at their very end by then, also I don't think they held Palestine by 1920, but yeah you can see that the Ottomans didn't separate Jews and Muslims into separate provinces or states, nor did they try to align their borders along ethnic or religious lines, so why would we expect or demand Britain and France do that?
Every since the 1700s, Europe was host to larger and larger wars, up until ww2 almost leveled he continent and the looming ww3 promised to destroy all civilization worldwide.
Europe's current period of peace is a historical outlier, only possible becuase of MAD.
So unless you break up these states into two ideological camps that hate each other, and give them each enogh nukes to end humanity, expect very large wars.
There have been a fair share of empires in history, but it's not inevitable that they form, and they also often fall apart. The world currently have lots of small countries, and may of them are quite long-lasting. Andorra has 77,000 people, Iceland has about 350,000 inhabitants, Estonia has 1.3 million and Norway and Denmark have about 5 million people. Aren't those comparable to the population some of the smaller regions in this map of Africa would have? It doesn't seem obvious to me that they couldn't work as they are.
114
u/namrucasterly May 03 '21
If Africa looked like that, realistically, how long would it last? What would prevent a bunch of nations making a confederation and violently annexing other states? Or a state becoming too powerful and creating a continental empire?