Africa's Colonial Borders: In the Process of Costly Change

Guest Blog by Richard Chowning 

While some people are still under the erroneous impression that Africa is a country, the vast majority are unaware that the borders that delineate the fifty-four current African countries in no way represents the ancient ethnic kingdoms and tribal territories. In fact, the colonialists drew up the boundaries to suit their own ends and have left the peoples of Africa some real problems. 

Look at a map of Africa. Those lines that divide the countries are a mixture of rivers and rulers. Without a doubt, the rivers are natural demarcations that have separated African peoples since ancient times. But the many straight lines are the work of visitors to the continent, namely the colonial powers of Great Britain, France, and Portugal. 

The Europeans partitioned Africa into realms that they believed they could easily influence. They setup government sponsored trading companies to acquire the minerals and produce within the nations and brought in troops to protect their investments. Those unnatural borders were drawn up in in European capitals during the early years of their settlements in Africa. These colonialists had scant knowledge or appreciation for overall geographic and ethnic makeup of the continent. Without a doubt the impact of the colonizers on Africa was at best mixed. There is ample research in African history[1] that the major impact Europeans had on Africa was not the terrible exploitation of Africans, but the drawing of unnatural and improper borders that have remained long after they achieved independence.

A recent study by Michalopoulos and Papaioannou, “The Long-Run Effects of the Scramble for Africa” has added some hard facts to what others have theorized. In analyzing the location, duration, and total casualties data from all civil wars in Africa in the post-independence period (1970 − 2005), they concluded, “Our most conservative estimates suggest that civil conflict intensity, as reflected in casualties and duration, is higher by approximately by 25% in areas where partitioned ethnicities reside as compared to the homelands of ethnic groups that have not been separated by the national borders.” They also found that ethnic groups that were not partitioned, but were adjacent to partitioned ethnic groups experienced higher than normal incidents of unrest.

The colonial borders have remained in place since independence – more than 60 years in most cases. With the birth of the nation of Eritrea, a few years back, and the creation of South Sudan this past year, Africa may very well be witnessing the beginning of the redrawing of national boundaries. They new borders will more properly reflect the natural, ethnic make-up of nations.

Terrorist activities in Africa are at their root struggles of minority ethnic groups to gain control of their homelands. The al-Qaeda linked, al-Shabaab terrorist in Somalia have plunged that country into a civil war that has left the country without an effective and viable government and will most likely result in that nation being divided into three countries within the next two years. Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria are carrying out bloody attacks because they feel that the ethnic groups of the north, who are predominantly Muslim are being marginalized by the more Christian ethnic groups of the south. Many analysts believe that the current attacks by Boko Haram will plunge the country into civil war and ultimately will divide Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, into two countries. 

The impoverished African continent will redraw many of its borders, but not without the cost of much bloodshed. 

Richard Chowning is editor of Terrorism in Africa and owns and writes for more than a half dozen Africa oriented websites.

References

[1] Asiwaju, A. (1985): “The Conceptual Framework,” in Partitioned Africans, pp. 1—18. St.
Martin Press, New York. And, Wesseling, H. L. (1996): Divide and Rule: The Partition of Africa, 1880-1914. Praeger Publishers, Westport, Conn.