A new expression in the lexicon of African politics is raising hopes and capturing imaginations across the continent. Although Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni referred to it as a "decade of awakening", South African Deputy President Thabo Mbeki's catch-phrase "an African Renaissance" has won more headlines. These are words that forecast new leadership, resurgent African economies, more democracy, and a significant new role for Africa on the world political stage.
"Winds of change" are apparent. Economic liberalisation and home-spun African initiatives are seeing phenomenal growth rates in many states (i.e. more than half of Africa's countries are growing at a rate of 5 percent or better a year). A new wave of foreign investment is injecting hundreds of millions of dollars into African service and manufacturing industries. There have been some 25 elections since 1990; dictatorships that once characterised African governments are now shunned, isolated, and vulnerable (e.g. the fall of Mobutu). Finally, Africa has increased its international presence with an Olympic bid, an African Secretary-General of the United Nations, and diplomacy (e.g. efforts to obtain a seat on the UN Security Council).
Still, there is one issue vital to this "rebirth" that has not yet received adequate attention: the colonial inheritance of some 80 000 kilometres of boundaries designed last century for European markets and "divide and rule" politics. This inheritance has contributed to endless wars, ethnic violence, failed states, and Africa's reputation as the number one site of coups, refugees and genocide. Figure One (see map) illustrates some of the enclaves, exclaves, perforations, prorupt territories (including corridors and "strips"), transstate tribes and intrastate ethnic divisions that provide a structural basis for conflict.
Territorial units that are economically, culturally and politically problematic could undermine an African renaissance. There are two main theories on how to meet this challenge: (1) redesign African boundaries; and (2) de-signify the boundaries through regional integration. The merits and demerits of each will be examined after a brief discussion on the meaning of boundaries themselves.
A boundary is the interface that humans perceive or create between two phenomena in order to organise our activity in the world. Boundaries may be created through mental categories (e.g. yours and mine), delimitation (e.g. using a map to separate two areas), or demarcation (e.g. drawing a line down the middle of the road). Such processes begin soon after birth because we must distinguish between ourselves, others, and our environment for self-preservation and advancement. Figure Two indicates just a few of the countless ways that boundaries help us to order and make sense of our world.
Since boundaries are tied to human perceptions, it is easy to attach notions of good and bad to the "lines" we see around us. This can produce opposing attitudes that lead to conflict (Figure Three) or even hostility toward needed boundary adjustments. Hostility toward boundary change can be life-threatening, since adjustments are integral to our biological functioning and security on all scales (e.g. responding to national water shortages by cooperative development of cross-boundary water basins).
Unfortunately, the active association between boundaries and human survival has escaped our notice to a dangerous degree. Many see boundaries as dead, immobile lines in the dirt that separate administrative areas. It is easy to see the inaccuracy of this view. Firstly, as boundary experts know, the international boundaries that separate states are actually permeable and invisible planes that extend from the earth below ground (i.e. mineral rights) to the airspace overhead.
Secondly, few boundaries are static. Most undergo constant change (e.g. the coastlines), overlap (e.g. the reservoirs of oil between Kuwait and Iraq accessible from either side of the boundary), and become perforated by the mobility of life (e.g. human economic activity).
The failure to perceive boundaries as a living process of creating order and responding to change causes unending human suffering. We usually only monitor, manage and adjust inappropriate boundaries after they cause severe problems (e.g. collisions at a traffic intersection or the outbreak of war). We could save ourselves much time, money, and trouble by making boundary maintenance an independent object of study, teaching, and research rather than an afterthought.
The boundaries perceived and designed by Europeans at the 1884 Berlin Conference have been perpetuated by African leaders since independence. From its founding in 1963, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) has steadfastly refused to host any discussion of modifying the colonial boundaries. It is still widely perceived that a scramble for wealth and power would follow, leading to instability.
Thus, the first argument of those in favour of boundary adjustments is to point out that maintaining Africa's rigid international boundaries has created as much instability as stability. Collapsed states (e.g. Liberia, Somalia), rampant genocide and some 100 coups since 1950 point to a weak system of boundary monitoring and management. No continent on earth has suffered more bloodshed arising from territorial disputes than Africa.
"Nation building" is not really achievable in most African countries because nearly every state has deep intrastate ethnic divisions. Rather than face the impossible task of assimilation, the biggest or strongest ethnic group attempts to control the others. Most international boundaries are also crossed by transstate ethnic groups.
This mismatch between cultures and boundaries is the single biggest factor contributing to instability, civil war and acts of genocide in Africa. As one example among many, 50 000 Tuareg people fled to Burkina Faso in 1994 because of massacres in neighbouring Mali aimed at ridding itself of an ethnic group that cannot (or will not) assimilate.
Poorly designed boundaries also limit access to resources vital for development. Through the whim of the European pen, some states are vastly wealthy in terms of land and resources (e.g. Democratic Republic of Congo), while others are just too small to be independently viable (e.g. the seven mini-states: Gambia, Burundi, Rwanda, Swaziland, Lesotho, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea). Fifteen landlocked states are disadvantaged in trade because the tariffs and red-tape required to access sea-transport reduces the value of exports (Figure One).
The economic costs of Africa's boundary problems are beyond measure, but certainly exceed expenditures on development. Money spent on purchasing arms is the equivalent of foreign aid - some $15 billion per year in sub-Saharan Africa. Expensive border patrols and refugees place an additional strain on state economies. In South Africa three-six million "illegal aliens" are draining the economy of billions of rands (through, for instance, competition for resources, deportations, border patrols and electric fencing).
This political, cultural and economic mayhem related to Africa's political geography led Nigeria's political scholar and Nobel Prize-winner Wole Soyinka to state flatly: "We should sit down with square-rule and compass and redesign the boundaries of African nations." Newly designed states could provide better access to resources (including land to relieve population pressures), offer more sensible divisions between ethnic groups and speed up development (e.g. Walvis Bay became the focal point of Namibian development after South Africa's 1994 cession).
The need for boundary adjustments may be less questionable than whether it can be done - given entrenched political interests, the official policy of the OAU and the explosive issue of redistributing resources and power. Certainly a paced and sensitive response is required. This is why "regionalisation" is often suggested as the real companion of an African renaissance - soften the boundaries between states rather than change them.
Cross-boundary cooperation does seem to offer an appealing escape from the frightening and tedious task of horse-trading territories between states. Theoretically, the creation of regional trading communities pools political and economic resources, making boundary changes less important. The bigger market would attract large capital flows and build a cooperative basis for industrial development. A spin-off of industrialisation would be less dependence on the "First World" and the construction of the middle class vital to building sustainable democracies.
Can regional integration provide the basis for an African Renaissance? With a coordinated plan for sharing resources across boundaries, Africa has the energy, resources, and work-force to become an economic giant. However, the major stumbling blocks encountered in the process of regionalisation in Africa make it critical to reconsider boundaries.
Some 200 institutions for regional cooperation are in place, yet only one has achieved common currency (i.e. the West African Economic Community). Regional communities have either failed altogether (e.g. the 1977 collapse of the East African Community comprising Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya) or achieved very little. The result is fragmented markets that capture only about five percent of the global movement of capital.
Regionalisation is impeded by both economic and political factors. The colonial-induced trap of exchanging raw materials for First World manufactures has left most African states too much in debt and too hungry for foreign currencies to kick-start regional economies. Ironically, breaking out of the trap requires development aid (and debt relief) from the countries that benefit from Africa's cheap raw materials.
Two other handicaps relate to political boundaries. Some African leaders, stuck on the notion of states as bounded containers of wealth and authority, fear the loss of sovereignty that accompanies the development of regional institutions. More importantly, the mixed sizes of African states mean that one big state usually dominates the economic community. For instance, South Africa derives as much as 67 times the trade benefit as some of its smaller partners in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) - understandably causing regional tension.
The most basic theory of regionalisation insists on relative equality between states before integration takes place. Otherwise the disadvantaged states suffer from negative flows of capital and people while the larger states must contend with an uncontrollable influx of migrants.
Fortunately, finding solutions to boundary problems is not a zero-sum game: either redraw boundaries or pool resources across boundaries to even out development. What is required is active boundary monitoring and assessment informed by a long-term vision for Africa. Appropriate spatial planning is not drawing immobile lines in the dirt. A variety of bounded spaces may emerge over time, ranging from city-states to confederations based on the pragmatic needs of the historical moment.
At present it is vital that African leaders free themselves of the limited perceptions of the past, embark on a programme of boundary management and enhance cross-boundary cooperation. A step forward would be the establishment of a permanent advisory group composed of regional specialists and geographers who could do the monitoring and assessments required to find a better fit between bounded spaces, African peoples and environments.
A boundary management team could also help prioritise boundary problems and design timetables for new demarcations. Two candidates for immediate attention are Rwanda and Burundi. These landlocked, postage stamp-sized states are conditioned to ethnic competition for resources and land. Those states might want to consider a confederation with Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or even with Eastern Congo.
It is also important to monitor and assess the make-up of existing African regions to work out appropriate states for regional blocs according to geographic, cultural, economic, social and political criteria. The 200 different organisations for regional cooperation must be rationalised to less than ten building blocks on a pan-African plan that eliminates negative forms of competition and duplication of effort.
This should be accomplished with scientific input based upon a group that centralises information on boundary theory and problems.
Boundary management also requires a political mandate. Thus, the OAU should call a conference to reconsider Africa's political geography. The result of a second "Berlin Congress" (the first formal consideration of boundaries in Africa!) would not be a blue-print for immediate application but a management plan for the future. Changes could then be addressed over time, taking into account key strategic issues.
The overall agenda of such a congress is less important at this juncture than the resolve to address without delay what has always been the Achilles' heel of African development - its boundaries. African dreams of a renaissance may be condemned to dashed hopes until and unless this issue is comprehensively addressed.