Alden Young at Noema Magazine:
The great surprise of the first quarter of the 21st century has been the endurance of Africa’s colonial borders. The durability of Africa’s multiethnic states, most of which project power unevenly over vast territories and possess relatively small militaries, has everything to do with their tradition of multilateralism, a tradition born out of the social networks of anticolonial struggle and the Pan-African Congresses of the first half of the 20th century. Rather than a continent where “war made the state and the state made war,” one might say conferences made the state and the state held conferences.
This is not to say that 20th-century African history was peaceful. Mazrui reminds us that by 1993, nearly 2 million Africans had lost their lives defending the borders inherited from colonial regimes. Since then, millions more have died. Yet the borders have held.
Even when contemporary African borders have been modified, as in the case of Eritrea’s separation from Ethiopia or South Sudan’s independence from Sudan, much of the contestation has revolved around the accurate demarcation of colonial borders rather than primordial claims about ethnic or communal homelands.
more here.
Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.