Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 00:06:44 +0100
Is the Crimea referendum a good model for Africa? - By Richard Dowden
Posted on
<http://africanarguments.org/2014/03/18/is-the-crimean-referendum-a-model-fo
r-africa-by-richard-dowden/> March 18, 2014
".... My Eritrean friends showed they had serious doubts about my sanity.
"Ourselves Alone" had been their slogan and they would never give it
up......"
What would happen if African peoples where given the chance to vote in
referenda to decide which country they wanted to be part of or if they
wanted their own?
The referendum in Crimea is a dangerous precedent reminiscent of the
Austrian Anschluss and the other uprisings in eastern Europe to join Germany
in the 1930s. I used to think that Europe's states had grown naturally,
organically - in contrast to Africa's imposed borders. That I thought was a
major reason for Africa's weak states and small local wars. Then I read up
on the post World War One settlement and discovered that Europe's borders
had been reset by three men: Woodrow Wilson, the American president, and two
Europeans; David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, and Georges
Clemenceau, the Prime Minister of France. As a result of the lines they drew
on the map, the tribes of Europe were reorganised, some freed from foreign
rule, some forced into countries they felt no loyalty to and some displaced
and forced to leave their homes. It was a mess and planted some of the seeds
of World War II.
Africa's arbitrary borders, mostly drawn by people who had never set foot in
the continent, have always been an obvious target for renegotiation. But
Africa's first rulers, who foresaw chaos and disintegration if the nation
states were reconfigured, ruled it out. "Respect for the sovereignty and
territorial integrity of each State" was one of the founding principles of
the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the forerunner of the African
Union. Despite all the wars, internal and external, this principle has been
pretty much adhered to by both presidents and people.
Loyalty to an African state is not always related to the ability of that
state to make the lives of its people better. Patriotism, an emotional
thing, does not take these benefits into account, even in countries where
the majority of citizens are marginalised or oppressed by the government.
Even in the catastrophic recent meltdown of South Sudan after just two years
of independence, no one is advocating return to rule from Khartoum. In the
dying days of Mobutu's Zaire (now the DRC) I was astonished to find that
people felt it to be a great country. I asked why Katanga, the rich south
east province, didn't secede - as it had in 1960. My suggestion was greeted
with shocked surprise.
The reasons for separation may not be to do with regional identity or
ethnicity. In Eritrea after the defeat of Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991 I
suggested to the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) that, with the
dictator gone, it would make more sense to stay as part of Ethiopia and
benefit from all its resources than to go it alone. My suggestion was
treated with shock. But, I pointed out, the Tigrayans who now run Ethiopia
are your allies and are the same ethnicity as you Eritreans - you speak the
same language, are part of the same culture, divided only by a colonial
border. My Eritrean friends showed they had serious doubts about my sanity.
"Ourselves Alone" had been their slogan and they would never give it up.
Some other examples: in 1991 the Somalilanders declared they would never be
part of Somalia again, reversing their 1960 decision to join their fellow
Somalis of the former Italian Somaliland (and after WWII a UN trusteeship)
as one country.
Zanzibar and other islands off the East African coast would be a candidate
to split away from Tanzania. The relationship has never been good since the
British forced the merger on newly-independent Tanzania which led to the
massacres of 1964. Zanzibar, its archipelago of islands and the coastal
Swahili area, have a very strong culture and an unhappy historical
relationship with the interior of Tanzania. They would almost certainly vote
for independence. The growth of Islamic fundamentalism in the region and the
prospect of large profits from newly discovered offshore
<http://africanarguments.org/2014/03/18/is-the-crimean-referendum-a-model-fo
r-africa-by-richard-dowden/>
gashttp://cdncache1-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png fields will
also heighten tensions.
In western Zambia the Barotse people want independence on the grounds that
they were a British protectorate which had an agreement with the British
South Africa Company in the 19th Century, giving it a separate status to the
Rhodesian colony around it. But at independence it was forced to be part of
Zambia. The struggle continues. After all Botswana, Swaziland and Lesotho
had the same status and were able to stay separate from South Africa.
There is also a small group in Uganda that is fighting for independence on
the same basis. A greater threat there is that the Baganda, the largest
ethnic group which occupies the core of the country, might demand more self
governance. Meanwhile their rivals in Bunyoro are sitting on Uganda's oil.
What if the Bunyoro - like the tribe in northern Britain called 'Scottish' -
decide they want all the benefit from the oil under their feet?
Then there is the north west of Cameroon which used to be administered by
Britain while the rest of the former Germany colony was given to France.
Anglophone Cameroonians have always felt marginalised but would they really
want to join their fellow English speakers across the border in Nigeria?
And in Nigeria itself the power struggle between north and south, east and
west is still at the heart of politics. The only part that might want to
leave and manage its own affairs is the Ibo east but they fought a war to do
that and lost. I was surprised that when democracy was restored after 1999
and the Yoruba in Western Nigeria threatened to secede even though the
president, Olusegun Obasanjo, was himself Yoruba. It was explained to me
that he was not giving sufficient resources to the Yoruba lords and
politicians and they needed to remind him where his ultimate loyalty should
lie. They succeeded. The south west did a lot better in his second term and
talk of independence faded.
Could the north of Nigeria secede? Why should it? As long as Nigeria's main
revenue comes from cheques from oil companies, the north - or northern Big
Men - will get some pay-off from oil. Without it northern Nigeria,
resource-wise, has almost nothing. Secession is not an option.
There have only been two official changes to Africa's boundaries since
independence; the establishment of Eritrea and South Sudan. Both were done
with the agreement of the mother country. Somaliland's bid for independence
has not officially succeeded because it had no regional African sponsor to
push it through the African Union. Elsewhere the boundaries have been
accepted, although Morocco seized Western Sahara contrary to international
law and, with French and American protection, has held on to it ever since.
Only Ethiopia - for its own political reasons - gives the right to all its
'nations' to secede if they want to. That clause was created to allow
Eritrea to become independent. No one else has been allowed to use it
although the Ogaden Somalis would probably prefer to be part of Somalia or
at least have their own separate state. But the very thought that there is
an option available helps to guarantee that the Ethiopian government
delivers development to all its nations.
I cannot draw any clear conclusions about loyalty to state, national
coherence and ethnicity except that it is extremely hard to get right and
there are no clear lessons. Remember - there are only two nation states in
Africa with only one dominant ethnic group. One is Africa's most successful
country - Botswana. The other is the continent's biggest disaster - Somalia.
Richard Dowden is Director of the Royal African Society and author of
<http://astore.amazon.co.uk/royaafrisoci-21/detail/184627155X> Africa;
altered states, ordinary miracles. Follow Richard on twitter
<https://twitter.com/Dowdenafrica> _at_DowdenAfrica
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