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By Dr Richard A Griggs, Head of Research
[Originally published as "Boundaries for
a New Africa," in Track Two Vol 3 No 4 pp 9-12, December 1994. Various
revised versions published in Boundaries and Security Bulletin and Afrikaforum--see
"African Boundaries Reconsidered," Internationales Afrikaforum, Vol 31
(1): 56-63, January 1995 and "The Boundaries of a New Africa," Volume
2, Number 4, pp 30-32, January-February 1994. This version is different
again and includes additions and changes. All the original computer records
for the other versions were lost although I still have reprints of all
published versions as of 08 June 1995]
Contrary to common assumptions, rigid
international boundaries may create as much instability as stability.
No continent on earth has suffered more from bloodshed, war, and misery
arising from territorial disputes than Africa yet on this large continent
boundaries have changed relatively little since 1918. Figure 1 shows that
out of 110 different boundaries, there have been about ten changes affecting
a very small portion of some 80 000 kilometers of border. Of these, six
involved a notable transference of territory: the British award of the
British award of Jubaland from Kenya to Italian Somaliland and the compensatory
westward expansion of Kenya into Uganda (1924), Angola's gain of the Diolo
Boot from the Belgian Congo in 1927, the combination of British and Italian
Somaliland in 1960 to form Somalia, the 1962 division of Ruanda-Urundi
into Rwanda and Burundi, the 1964 union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar to
create Tanzania, and Namibia's independence to include Walvis Bay in 1994.
Of lesser extent, were three boundary adjustments: one settling a boundary
dispute between Algeria and Morocco (1960), another involving he border
between Mauritania and Mali (1963) and between Senegal and Gambia (1975).
Eritrea's independence in 1993 was a return to the 1918 map after some
thirty years of Ethiopian occupation (Ethiopia annexed Eritrea in 1963
after a failed attempt at federation).
The Instability of Africa's Resilient
Boundaries
The persistence of African colonial boundaries
can be attributed in large measure to both European and African
perceptions
of boundaries. The European influence dates to the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia
when an anarchical state system was established in which each state was
seen as supremely sovereign within its delimited boundaries: immobile
lines in the dirt that act as containers of authority. Since the French
Revolution of 1789 the ideology of establishing a world of nation-states
complemented this conception of boundaries: "nation-states" attempt to
build "national" identities that correspond to boundaries rather than
building boundaries to correspond with identities (e.g. Sudan, Nigeria,
and Ethiopia each embrace more than 100 old nations or tribes). Such ideas
remained in evidence with the founding of the Organisation of African
Unity in 1963. It was widely perceived that boundary modifications would
lead to instability and conflict and therefore the OAU resisted any discussion
of modifying the colonial boundaries that had been Africa's source of
misery for some 100 years.
Consider the conflicts that have been
associated with Africa's "stable" boundaries. Fifteen billion dollars
a year are spent on military armaments by African states--not to defend
their borders in state to state conflict, but to maintain internal security
as old nations and new states clash over resources, culture, and development
plans. Power struggles between ethnic groups for either state control
(e.g., Hutu VS Tutsi in Rwanda) or for territorial secession (e.g., Katanga
VS Zaire) have produced some of the world's longest and bloodiest wars
(e.g. the secessionist struggle in Sudan has been ongoing since 1955).
Other boundary-based wars in recent years (some still ongoing) include
strife in Chad, Sudan, the Western Sahara, Nigeria, Angola, Somalia, Zaire,
and Mozambique. Furthermore, conflicts that stem directly or indirectly
from ill-designed boundaries have created instability such that: half
of Africa's states are dictatorships; genocides have occurred frequently
(e.g., Nigeria's 1967-70 genocide of the Ibos); half the world's refugees
are concentrated on this continent (e.g. ten percent of Malawi's population
are refugees); famines have occurred with regularity (hardest hit are
those affected by these wars such as Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Uganda,
Angola, and Mozambique) and poverty has been accentuated (e.g., in recent
years Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda have cut back on social
welfare benefits while increasing spending on arms).
If Africa has the most rigid boundary
maintenance regime on the planet and is yet riven with wars, coups, dictatorships,
and various forms of conflicts, then fossilized boundaries do not necessarily
lead stability. Rigid boundaries may even produce conflicts. Forces build
for major boundary adjustments and then changes are rapid, violent, and
less controlled. Consider Ethiopia. The Amhara-dominated regime refused
to devolve a negotiated level of authority to ethnically based provinces
resulting in one of the longest and bloodiest wars in African history,
the collapse of the government, and the secession of Eritrea. Now, in
the aftermath of millions killed by starvation and bullets, a federal
system based on ethnic autonomy has finally been constructed. Would a
negotiated boundary adjustment not have been better than thirty years
of war? One might also ask if Nigerians benefited from a genocide that
killed a million Ibos to stop Biafra from seceding? Nigeria's multi-ethnic
make-up has left it in a constant state of explosive conflict and a legacy
of coups (the latest coup is explained by a Yoruba being elected president)
and dictatorships. Has Zaire benefited from its constant effort to stop
Katanga from seceding? At this very hour it remains in danger of slipping
into anarchy.
Other Geopolitical Pressures Affecting
African Boundaries
Most of the violent conflict over
boundaries has resulted from ethnic-driven secessionist movements but
the "New World Order" based on the end of the Cold War, communications
innovations, and a new global distribution of power is also a geopolitical
force that is affecting boundaries. Just like feudalism gave way to the
state system, many fine academics argue that state boundaries are slated
to disappear within the context of larger regional organisations and trading
blocs. It is commonly argued that the modern state (formulated in 1648)
is now too small to cope with big problems (e.g. global pollution of the
seas) and too large to satisfy the aspirations of local cultures and communities
(e.g. the worldwide movement for self-determination). This is affecting
Africa in the form of hundreds of emergent supra-state organisations such
as the SADC or the Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS). Regional
organisations like the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are
becoming highly influential in the realm of development, debt, trade,
human rights and defense (South Africa joined at the end of August).
Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian Nobel-prize-winning
political analyst recently called on the OAU to "sit down with square
rule and compass and redesign the boundaries of African nations." Soyinka's
metaphor suggests new encapsulated and competing states to replace the
old ones. This misses the point that the era of autarchic cookie-cutter
states has long passed. The spirit of the statement is better and suggests
we need to get a fix on reality: it is highly unlikely that boundary problems
will disappear by casting them in concrete because boundaries are the
spatial response to a constant redistribution of power that will end only
if time and history do. The refusal to acknowledge that boundaries change
with time and circumstances leads to rigidity and violence. We could also
refire our imaginations and consider the ways in which the new regional
organisations and the modern movement for self-determination can be be
bounded in ways that bring Africans together.
Perceiving Boundaries
Boundaries define spaces of authority
and therefore reflect an existing set of power relations. A boundary line
is that outer limit of authority that defines the bounded space of sovereignty
within it. Borders and frontiers have a different meaning, A border is
the area or zone of confrontation or transit between two bounded spaces.
A frontier is a zone of expansion (e.g. Brazil's development of the Amazon).
Boundaries can be distinguished by hundreds of types (e.g. service boundaries,
legal boundaries, cultural boundaries) and are found at every scale of
social organisation from the family (e.g. separate rooms in the home)
to the United Nations. The variety and scale of boundaries tell us that
they are indispensable to a well-ordered and peaceful world. Any notion
of eradicating boundaries is a false and romantic one. There are either
good boundaries or bad boundaries but there is not such thing as a world
without boundaries because all order would be lost. This does not mean
that boundaries cannot affect human populations adversely (e.g. the Apartheid
State) but this is a problem of poorly chosen boundaries and not boundaries
per se.
We usually devise boundaries in the same
manner that we perceive them. One of the more common perceptions is that
boundaries are like lines on a map: rigid and unyielding. This can be
a recipe for conflict. Consider the personal scale. If we draw a line
in the dirt and dare everyone to cross it, we are setting up the conditions
for violent conflict. At the state level of authority we may very well
be inviting the same kinds of troubles. Rigid perceptions of boundaries
lead us into conflicts because it blinds us to the constant need to monitor,
analyse, negotiate, and adjust them. Boundaries in reality are not the
same as what we see on a map: they change, overlap, and are perforated
by such factors as refugee flows, the movement of drugs, global capital,
supra-state organisations (e.g. the International Monetary Fund), communications
networks, pollutants, electricity grids, resources (e.g., wildlife) and
human cultures (e.g., The Ewe nation overlaps the state boundaries between
Togo and Ghana). Boundaries also shift in symbolic meaning over time such
that the same bounded space might even be renamed (e.g., Rhodesia becomes
Zimbabwe) or for another example, we now speak of a "New" South Africa.
The development of new federal and provincial systems (e.g., Ethiopia,
South Africa) further illustrate that boundaries are hardly static entities.
Boundaries have always been on the move (just thumb through the pages
of a good historical atlas) because they are the spatial manifestation
of ever-changing power relations.
Fresh Geographic Imaginings
Resolving Africa's boundary problems
means addressing our perception of boundaries. Briefly, societies construct
boundaries according to the possibilities perceived. At present there
are some very rigid conception of boundaries in Africa that differs from
the new philosophies regarding boundaries that are developing elsewhere
in the world.
Resolving conflict over boundaries in
Africa may very well begin by perceiving them as soft, flexible, and mobile
rather than immobile lines in the dirt: more like membranes across which
resources and people move rather than as rigid containers. African boundaries
can be friendly, supportive, and flexible: not just obstacles to our movements.
Simply becoming "unstuck" from limited perceptions of what boundaries
can be opens the way for conflict resolution. For instance, it is quite
possible to imagine concentric circles of sovereignty within Africa that
give freer play to both local, regional, and global scales of human organisation.
Another step in imaginative boundary-making is to involve all geopolitical
actors in the negotiating process. Boundaries that simply work for administrators
and other elites may not work on the ground (e.g. Nigeria has seen its
centrally-planned three-state federation expand to thirty states over
the last thirty years). In this regard, the "new" Ethiopia shows promise:
new provinces with a high level of autonomy (including the constitutional
right to secession) that correspond to the country's main ethnic groups.
Africa can also learn many lessons from
around the world. For example, in negotiation with the Nicaraguan Government,
the Miskito Indians along the Eastern Seaboard have been awarded a Miskito
Coast Protected Area in which they manage marine and forest resources.
The result is a scheme that protects the coast, allows cultural autonomy,
and mitigates a long-standing and a previously violent armed struggle
between the indigenous population and the state over development policy.
German-speaking South Tirol in Northern Italy is another example of an
autonomous boundary arrangement that works. This was a poverty-stricken
and troublesome area of terrorist activity until it achieved autonomy
in 1972. It then became one of the most peaceful and prosperous areas
of Italy. In regard to a different situation, the European Union recently
devised a set of concentric rings as boundaries to resolve disagreements
among membership countries regarding the depth of integration. This left
an inner circle of countries that sought very close union, an outer circle
of states seeking involvement but a lesser level of integration, and finally
an affiliation with Eastern European states which require economic development
before they are ready for greater levels of integration. Another European
boundary innovation is the principle of subsidiarity in which higher levels
of authority only assume those tasks that cannot be handled by the most
local form of government. This creates a set of overlapping boundaries
that are determined by criteria under consideration rather than just turf.
Also Needed: Research Facilities
Changing perceptions and mediating
boundary conflicts requires research and information. There does not exist
within Africa a research unit devoted to the study of African boundaries.
Since ill-designed boundaries have contributed greatly to Africa's wars,
famines, coups, and genocides, it is sensible to fund research and provide
information about how future boundary issues should be handled to avoid
such crises. This means centralising scientific information on African
boundaries, providing facilities for monitoring and researching boundaries,
building educational opportunities for a better understanding of boundaries,
and bringing geographers and peace researchers together for cooperative
peace-based research. At the University of Cape Town we are seeking to
affiliate an African Boundaries Research Unit with the Centre for Conflict
Resolution and the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science.
The New South Africa provides one of fifty
examples of African states with major boundary considerations at all scales
yet there is a paucity of research into this critical transformation.
At a global scale it has integrated into the Commonwealth and at the regional
scale it is integrating into the SADC (South Africa joined in August).
There are three regional organisations in Southern Africa including the
SADC, the Preferential Trade Area (PTA), and the South African Customs
Union. Eventually these organisations must be rationalised in a way that
supports cooperation and reduces conflict between Southern African states.
South Africa has just delimited nine new provincial boundaries that were
hastily decided upon mainly for political purposes and with little regard
for environmental, economic, and cultural considerations. This has already
resulted in conflict over boundaries such that 14 specific areas are identified
as contentious with a high likelihood that there will be future boundary
modifications. Every metropolitan area in South Africa is undergoing a
major debate on reorganising its internal political boundaries after a
contentious debate on its external boundaries that may be renewed following
the transitional period. It is hoped that by redefining the outer and
inner boundaries of metropolitan areas that conflicts generated by great
disparities in income between townships, informal settlements and wealthy
suburbs can be resolved. By twinning poorer areas with richer ones, there
is hope that the new boundaries will help redistribute wealth. These new
lines on the face of South Africa are highly experimental and require
monitoring yet there are only a handful of scientists seriously engaged
in this research.
Conclusion
Boundaries are one of the most
significant fields of research for resolving conflict in Africa. The starting
point for this undertaking is to rethink the manner in which we commonly
perceive bounded space. If we have a Metternich-like conception of boundaries,
rigid and unyielding, we may invite conflict rather than resolve it. Africa
has the most rigid boundary maintenance regimes on the planet yet it is
riven with wars, coups, dictatorships, and various forms of conflict.
Responsiveness to existing power relations and changing circumstances
along with an exercise of the imagination is vital to avoiding and overcoming
violent conflicts over territory, resources, and development plans. It
is also important to focus attention and resources on education and research
into the manner that space is bounded. Just as good fences can make good
neighbours, appropriate and imaginative boundaries can prevent and resolve
conflicts. Poor fences, of their own, seldom improve over time. A reconsideration
of African boundaries in light of this understanding is long overdue.
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