Ethnicity_Reading Memo

After taking a non-cursory look at the readings on ethnicity and identity politics in Africa, it becomes clear that colonialism effectively set the stage for the explosion of violent identity conflicts in most, if not all post-independent countries. More than just that, colonialism setup huge challenges of national restructuring that would be required to hold most of these country’s multiple identity constituencies together in a single political community. As such, conflict management immediately becomes the stock in trade for most African countries who try to balance out conflictual identity formations and discriminatory practices. This policy of accommodation is a product of the 1963 charter of the Organsiation of African Union, in which the founding signatories to the charter proclaimed the sanctity of territorial borders. The principle of uti possidetis juris was invoked, proclaiming that the inherited colonial territories were inviolable.  The case studies presented in the readings provide an interesting case of i.) Insistence on this principle, in the case of Nigeria and ii.) Implications of going against this principle, in the case of Sudan.

Two areas of interest and points for further discussion I will like to raise for the next class are;

1.      Accommodation in ethnic diversity.

2.      Modernisation and its consequence for political integration in Africa.

Contrary to overly simplistic analyses of the implications of diversity on the continent, diversity is a necessary but not sufficient condition for conflict. In other words, the very fact that a country has different ethnic, communal, religious, and racial groups does not make division and conflicts inevitable. As we have seen from the readings In the case of Nigeria, conflict management can reflect local realities that ensure mutual understandings of political and economic configurations. The Nigerians have been able to come up with various experiments on how to accommodate its incendiary identities. For example, the partial compartmentalization or decentralization of conflicts in separate, multiple, sub-federal arenas (rather than a few large regional centres), thereby reducing the capacity of such conflicts to polarize or destabilize the entire federation. Also, the promotion of some form of distributive justice through the devolution and redistribution of resources to multiple sub-federal jurisdictions as well the representation of diverse sub-federal elites in national government institutions, as concretized in Nigeria’s revenue sharing and “federal character” policies, respectively. Although far from perfect, these policies have gone a long way in maintaining the peace of Africa’s largest population.

This policy of accommodation is loosely rooted first, in the unanimous agreement across tribes to never repeat the calamities of the 1967 civil war which claimed over 1 million lives. Secondly, the policy is administered by constant negotiations in the shape of constitutional reforms, national conference reviews etc. these negotiations ensure that no unit is left out of the discussions and more importantly, no unit gets so powerful to distabilise the union. Incentives for units to constantly engage in these negotiations include political alliances (For example, the current governing party came into power by an alliance between mainly northern and western opposition parties and a southern leader), power sharing formulas (following the victory of this alliance, top positions were allocated based on the amount of support from the aligning regions). This constant give and take approach engenders a very intricate network of forward and backward linkages that tactically creates room for cooperation across regions and states.

Modernisation and technology in particular seems to play an extensive role in this version of accommodation. Technologies such as social computing sites have provided extensive avenues such as virtual communities (WhatsApp groups, Facebook groups and blogs) for voicing political dissent, opposition etc. against government policies. These communities more often than not cut across regional and cultural alliances thus dousing ethnic tensions that hitherto would have resulted in people pouring on the streets in protest. As such we see technology, in this case Social computing sites (SCSs) such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogs etc. transforming and enhancing the overall relations between modernisation and social phenomena thus playing a complementary role in political integration in Nigeria.

In conclusion, this fusion between modernisation and social considerations partially explains Nigeria’s relative success in crafting and reinventing institutions of ethnic conflict management and accommodation, including the African continent’s most longstanding and well-known, yet significantly flawed, federal system. It also raises questions on how this strategy is sustainable in the long run especially in terms of political and economic development. Also, the question should be asked, if countries like Nigeria with so many ethnic identities had the option of breaking up and going their separate ways, would they take it? This could be an interesting area for research.