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Africa’s dominant State: the Dilemma of Democratization and Disintegration

Salih O. Nur - 12/28/2011

After more than five decades of violent conflict and millions of deaths, Sudan’s southern region has voted for secession in a referendum on self-determination early this year. Sudan, once Africa’s largest state, broke-up into two entities giving birth to an ethnically and religiously distinct state constituting one-third of its territory.

The event was a culmination of an irreconcilable antagonism in Sudan’s post-independence politics, largely centred in an intractable conflict between a dominant, mostly Arab-Islamic North pursuing centralization and Arabization policies and a black-African, mostly Christian-animist South resisting political marginalization and cultural domination.

In a wider context, the partition of Sudan clearly reveals a deep dilemma of national unity versus national autonomy afflicting African state system for decades. It’s a political conundrum involving a contradiction between the imperative of state-power centralization and demands for democratic decentralism, played in a backdrop of enormous religious, ethnic and national diversity. The impasse stems from the infamous Berlin conference (1884-85) that endorsed the scramble of Africa among European colonial powers. It unleashed a whole reckless process of grand territorial acquisitions and spheres of influence, leaving behind arbitrary geometric lines bereft of any cultural, historic or economic logic. In effect, the African state became a shaky conglomeration of diverse ethnic groups, tribes and nationalities harboring mutual mistrust, rivalry and even secession.

Throughout the post-independence period, many of these boundaries were violently contested between the dominant state seeking their preservation and ethnic/regional dissent forces seeking alteration. Soon after decolonization, revisionist demands proliferated across the continent but were crashed or contained by a combination of a newly established legal order, diplomatic regimes and military power. Legitimate demands for autonomy or independence were seen as threats to unity and territorial integrity.

However, despite a continental consensus to preserve the status quo and consistent repression of such demands, the dilemma of national unity vs. autonomy—and the ensuing danger of disintegration—occupied the center-stage of African politics. This conflict of fundamental principles was further compounded by popular demands for democratic rule and increasing external intervention as Africa entered the post-cold war period. The secession of South Sudan, a symptom and outcome of this dilemma, begs some critical questions in as much as it highlights the nature of the political predicament. Does Africa still remain prone to balkanization? Is African post-colonial legal order now in disorder and ripe to major revision? Is Africa’s dominant/hegemonic state bound to disintegration notwithstanding rising ethno-nationalism that tore apart the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia?

Domination and resistance
In much of post-colonial Africa, pervasive and persistent conflicts over contested territories or
nationalist/secessionist challenges to territorial integrity became almost the norm. The conflict between state domination and national resistance, in particular, quickly took the centre stage of African politics no later than the state emerged itself. It is a conflict of two mutually antagonistic principles; that is the principle of territorial integrity and people’s right to self-determination:
The nexus of many of these conflicts resides in a status quo which gives primacy to territorial integrity over the right of peoples to self-determination…[this]legitimated the violation of

both regionally and internationally sanctioned rules enshrined in the organization of African
Unity (O.A.U.) and the United Nations (U.N.).1

The post-war international legal order at large was founded on an inherent contradiction of these principles.2 Yet the contradiction is no where more acute in the former colonial world than in Africa. The OAU enshrined the right to self-determination as a vehicle to decolonization but it was quickly subordinated to principles of unity and territorial integrity of the new states. The charter, on the one hand, pledges that “all peoples have the inalienable right to control their own destiny”, and, on the other hand, strongly cautions “to safeguard and consolidate the hard-won independence as well as sovereignty and territorial integrity of our states”.3 This contradiction lied at the heart of Africa’s numerous conflicts.

Yet, with the founding of the OAU in 1963, a strong customary legal order was erected adopting similar UN doctrines refined to suit the African state reality. In a far more rigorous endorsement of the principle at the 1964 Cairo summit, all member states “pledged themselves to respect the borders exiting on the achievement of national independence”, a resolution voted with acclamation except Somalia and Morocco.4 This erected a regional order hinged on the cardinal principles of national unity, territorial integrity and non-intervention in the internal affairs of each other. In spite of their arbitrariness and illegitimacy, colonial boundaries were declared sacrosanct and inviolable. Within a short time frame, territorial integrity took primacy over self- determination as a standard African international legal norm. The consequent violations of the rights of minorities or the forcible inclusion of contested territories were justified in the name of protecting the territorial integrity of sovereign states.

In effect, the right of self-determination was narrowly redefined to refer solely to those African peoples waging liberation struggles against European colonialism or white rule.
‘..resistance movements that deviated from this consensus by demanding the right of self- determination up to and including secession from existing states, were regarded as threats to the status quo, and with the active assistance of the majority of African regimes were deprived of legitimacy and significant support.’5

Legitimate demands for self-determination were blackmailed, discredited and proscribed as parochial, anti-national and secessionist. Official talk about them was viewed as apocalyptic as a Pandora’s Box which, if opened, would inevitably lead to the balkanization of Africa.

The first major challenge to this regional order was the 1967 secession of Biafra, a northeastern province of Nigeria homeland to the Igbo tribe. Apart from Biafra, ethnic or regional forces invoking self-determination littered Africa’s political landscape: Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Chad, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, Libya, Mauritania, Angola and Zaire just to mention some. But such demands were put down or contained by force of arms and the regional order secured unity of a frail state system. An exception to this is the Horn of Africa where challenges to regional order remained pervasive and persistent throughout the post- independence period.

Opening the Pandora’s Box
Nevertheless, the norm began to face its major challenge at the close and aftermath of the Cold
War. Like elsewhere, the continent faced a resurgence of ethnicity long overshadowed by cold war’s ideological and class conflicts. Ethno-national, and regional, demands for autonomy or outright secession resurfaced amid domestic and external pressure for democratic reforms. This trend was particularly powerful in the Horn of Africa, a turbulent theater-ground of such conflicts where anti-centrist forces have fiercely contested the status quo and successfully challenged the

hegemonic states since decolonization. States of this region has been particularly hegemonic and nearly all fought against unrelenting national resistance movements that remained as strong as ever, albeit major national and regional political changes since decolonization.
Concurrent with the end of the cold war, at a juncture when the state lost vital military and political patronage of the superpowers, long-raging conflicts had exhausted many of the states in this region. The weakening of state power, coupled by the resurgence of ethno-nationalism, added momentum to nationalist cause. Not surprisingly, the first cracks in the status quo appeared when the 1990s saw the emergence of two new states, Eritrea and Somaliland, in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea became a de facto independent state in 1991 after a 30-year armed resistance against the central government of Ethiopia. Former British Somaliland also declared itself independent in 1991 after a ten-year fratricidal war against Siad Barre’s regime. In spite of building a viable political system and a broad acceptance of its existence, international recognition has yet to come.

The secession of Eritrea and Somaliland opened the Pandora’s Box against which pan- Africanists had seriously warned before. Yet, the effects were less seriously damaging to the status quo, as both states, particularly Eritrea, claimed independence within colonial borders. Eritrea's independence struggle was one waged within the accepted framework of decolonization in Africa, albeit one denied to decolonize peacefully.6 As a distinct political entity, Eritrea was given territorial definition by Italian colonialism, and a national identity was forged during the colonial period. Similarly, the basis of Somaliland's popular demand for independence is
colonial, based on the boundaries of the former British colony. Like Eritrea, it too had a colonial origin separate from that of Italian Somaliland.7 Before union with Italian Somaliland at independence in 1960, it experienced a very brief period of separate political existence and argued, like Eritrea, it was relegated to a colonial status after the terms of union were unilaterally violated by the dominant state.

The most serious blow to the regional order, however, was dealt by the recent secession of South
Sudan. It has far-reaching continental repercussions. Though nationalist demands in other parts of Africa are not as rife during the cold war, the status quo is no more defensible. But why does the secession of South Sudan pose a serious threat to the dominant status quo doctrine? Compared to Eritrea, the secession of South Sudan hammered a fateful nail into the coffin of the doctrine of territorial integrity. Nationalist demands for self-determination in Eritrea, contrary to the claims of Great Ethiopia-nists or fears of Pan-Africanists, were in line with the principle of defending inherited colonial borders. South Sudan, in contrast, lacks an entirely separate colonial history—of course notwithstanding separate British colonial policies— or a period of separate political existence that contribute to a separate national identity, and its secession is rather an outright violation of colonial boundaries. It is in contravention of established principles of regional legal order. British policy of separate south Sudan is not something unique but a
colonial strategy of divide and rule applied elsewhere. Just as in Sudan, the British instituted separate policies in north and south Nigeria, and so did the French in some of their colonies.

Recent developments can revive nationalist aspirations of some Africans that still remain unmet by many of the initially artificial colonial creations. This has already been much pronounced in the Horn of Africa, where the principle of self-determination is as nearly resilient and vigorous as in the era of decolonization. The process of state-formation and disintegration in this region remains an unfinished business as various ethno-national groups continue to challenge legitimacy of the state. As a manifestation of this potent force, the continent’s new states, South Sudan preceded by Eritrea and Somaliland, were born in this turbulent sub-region. Many other nationalities, like the Oromos, Ogadenis and Afars, are all in continuous violent struggle to form nation-states of their own, of course not least emboldened by the former.

Challenges to colonial borders, of course, stem from their own arbitrariness. They chopped various tribes, ethnicities and national groups among several states. In the Horn of Africa, however, arbitrary boundaries are not the sole source of anti-centrist sentiments. Ironically, some of such sentiments obtained life and meaning due to plans conceived by colonial powers. In most cases, the roots of distinct identity, visions of separate nationhood or irredentism were hatched in imperial conspiracies to redefine borders and spheres of influence long after the initial scramble. The various Horn entities were forged in the late nineteenth century as temporary footholds for greater imperial territorial acquisitions. As a result, their territorial status remained prone to change well into the mid-20th century. Britain, France and Italy sought several times to redefine initial borders and make territorial trade-offs. The most enduring, however, was a unilateral British plan developed in mid-1943. It proposed unification of all Somali-inhabited territories
and the ceding of highland Eritrea to Ethiopia in exchange for Ethiopia relinquishing all Somali territories in the east and Nilotic areas in the west. The motive was to forge a grand-British east African empire of Greater Somalia and enlarged Sudan incorporating western lowlands of Eritrea and the Gambella province of Ethiopia.

Undoubtedly, “ideas, plans and proposals,” Rubenson states, “once expressed publicly or institutionalized in government departments and agencies, seem to hold on to some kind of life of their own, more or less dynamic, sometimes hibernating as it were for a longer or shorter period
of time.”8 These are plans and proposal to determine the fault lines of impending conflicts. The roots of nationalist uprisings in Ethiopia in the 1960s and 70s, for instance, can be traced back to the various imperial proposals to partition the empire. Subsequent political developments in the Sudan and Somalia—Somalia’s drive for unification of all Somali territories and the course of eventual secession of South Sudan—too find their origins in same imperial policies. While pursuing a policy of ‘separate development’ for southern Sudan, the British were also considering plans to annex it to one of their east African colonies or to allow it to emerge as an independent state. These proposals could not have endured, but what imbued them with lasting implication was the fact that they virtually recognize the rights of these ethno-nationalities to
self-determination.9

Given the deficient legitimacy and alien nature of the African state, fragmentation of the dominant state and emergence of new micro-states, particularly in the Horn sub-region, remains imminent and apparently inevitable. Ethiopia and a divided Sudan itself can be the major candidates in this would-be domino-effect scenario. The possibility of another united, viable state of Somalia within its post-independence boundaries appears low. The conflict in Somalia will not only hinder the reconstitution of a united state but also can spill over across the borders to engulf the entire Somali nation. This can have a destabilizing, and eventually balkanizing, political
effect to adjacent countries housing parts of the nation. The successful secession of South Sudan not only casts a die against Africa’s dominant state but also emboldens ‘oppressed’ nationalities invoking a right to autonomy or separate statehood. National cleavages in the Horn region are geographically delineated, culturally defined, and ideologically reinforced.

Elsewhere in the wider continent, the echoes of popular resistance and ethno-regionalism can reverberate. Fragile, ethnically heterogeneous, and territorially expansive states like the DRC and Nigeria are the main candidates. Not many of Africa’s anti-centrist sentiments have been claims for separate statehood. Nevertheless, prolonged repression and marginalization, as in South Sudan, can easily transform domestic political grievances to major national questions. In both of these countries, the entire political equation is erected on salient national divisions. In Nigeria,
the major line of division splits the country into a predominantly Christian south and a relatively poor Muslim north. The danger to Nigeria’s unity will emanate from this national divide.

The point is that ethnic nationalism is not the sole precursor of separatist demands. Ironically, most of the political movements that invoked self-determination outside the Horn have revolved not around ethnic agitation but politically defined administrative grievances. Katanga and recently south Sudan, for instance, clearly illustrate this. None of these regions is ethnically homogeneous nor claimed independence on ethnic grounds. Even the secession of Igbo Biafra in
1967 was triggered by fraudulent elections and marginalization in as much as by the use of ethnicity for political ends. The ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), with a rotating presidency between North and South Nigeria, currently pursues a power-sharing strategy that reinforces the national divide. This strategy, coupled by PDP’s electoral manipulation and corruption since 1999, can easily play to the motives of secessionist sentiments. A self-declared youth Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) emerged in late 1999 in the Igbo region campaigning for dissolution of Nigeria.10 Political violence preceding recent elections and its aftermath too fits in the north-south divide. After the defeat of the northern candidate, Mohamed Buhari, at the hands of the southerner Jonathan, violence engulfed most northern states as a sign of disapproval of ‘perceived political marginalization and deepening poverty.’11 Disagreements also rose within the PDP as its northern elites resented the accession of another southerner to power. Nigeria’s dormant political fissures are at work and secession is becoming a plausible idea to many northern politicians.

Therefore, claims to separation are not solely ethnic but administrative as well. The failure of most African states to secure economic growth and national equality can easily provide grounds for this. Prolonged and deepening crisis can turn socio-economic grievances to potential separatist sentiments. The 1970s and 80s witnessed state foundations crumbling as a result of economic decline and shrinking government legitimacy. Unlike in the 1960s, when the state crushed or contained any uprisings, it was unable in the 1980s and 90s to project military power to quell challenges to its authority. As such, the state was exposed to the challenge of armed groups like in Uganda, Chad, former Zaire and Liberia or complete break-up as in Ethiopia and Somalia.

One can draw an instructive analogy between the current situation and the political developments of the 1980s and 90s. The ‘liberal’ state of the 1990s has achieved little of the much-needed economic development or political freedom during the last two decades. Similar grievances of
the eighties are erupting or gaining momentum; opening the way for another cycle of political violence against the state or perhaps struggles for self-determination. The drama has already started in Sudan; and the spectre of failed Somalia, a divided Ethiopia or a civil war-torn Liberia of the nineties can be replicated again, if not shortly at least in the coming few decades.

The Way Forward
The appearance of two new states in the last decade of the twentieth century has shaken African
state system. Eritrea and Somaliland, in line with Africa’s legal order, were both defined by European colonial boundaries, separate colonial development, and by their resistance to dominant and centrist states.12 Now even more callously, the secession of South Sudan underlines the need for African legal order to reconcile the issues of territorial integrity and the right of self-determination. Although the underlying principles of unity and territorial integrity still remain the pillars of continental order, the dilemma of democratization or disintegration has yet to be addressed.

At this juncture, when fundamental political changes took place since the end of the cold war and popular aspirations for freedom are on the rise, it’s quite timely to revisit relations between national unity and democracy. Dominant African states are faced with two stark choices: either remain intransigent to peaceful change and eventually face a danger of violent disintegration like

Sudan or pragmatically embrace political pluralism, national inclusion and equality in order to build durable political systems sealing internal cleavages. Such a measure has to be first introduced by the African Union. The dominant state has to either democratize itself or is bound to disintegrate amid violence. Its survival seems to depend on its ability to reconcile, not to suppress, popular aspirations for freedom with imperatives of national unity. Attempts to preserve unity by force of arms will only breed further resistance and are bound to fail.

Hegemonic states like Ethiopia and Morocco, in particular, are not only required to democratize the domestic political arena but also to decolonize the various nationalities aspiring for self-rule. Unfortunately, in such few cases democratization may lead to break-up of the state as the only acceptable solution to many of the ‘oppressed’ nationalities seeking to exercise their democratic rights fully. However awful the result may be, the status quo in favor of hegemonic states is no more tenable. The tide of rising ethno-nationalism, globalization and political openness is blowing against the status quo. Exhausted by decades-long conflict, the state is gradually losing its hegemonic power at the centre. In all three cases in the Horn, independence became possible when the repressive capacity of the state reached its limit. Whether mere decentralization, dramatic reconfiguration of power equation or even total disintegration of the state would ultimately result from decades-long armed conflict is imminent.

Therefore, there is an urgent need for a new order with new principles, political norms, values and institutions to avoid descent to civil war, chaos, and statelessness. A resolution within the present framework of African state system is possible, but it is doubtful in some cases. Lasting solutions, particularly in the Horn region, may entail redefinition and re-delimitation of existing borders. How far unacceptable such a departure may be, revision through acceptance of self- determination seems not just indispensable but inevitable. Apart from dominant statist legal norms, nationalist aspirations and democratic rights must also form the basis for a new regional law. Failure to read past lessons and to grasp the opportunity for settlement at this juncture means prolongation of death and devastation. South Sudan illustrates that neither assimilationist policies nor military power guarantee national unity in the face of deteriorating state capacity. Both in Sudan and Ethiopia, any solution that can end the inexorable cycle of death and destruction has
to be acceptable to the people. And decades of repression and marginalization, in some cases, has rendered any formula short of separate statehood unworkable.



Endnote
1 Iyob, p. 257.
2 The UN Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples adopted in 1960, for instance, highlights this profound contradiction. Article 2 of the declaration asserts that “All peoples have the right to self-determination”. But “Any attempt aimed at the partial or whole disruption of the national unity and territorial integrity of a country is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,” cautions Article 6 of the same declaration. From its first enunciation, the principle of self-determination has been subordinated to the dominant norms of national unity and territorial integrity.
3 Nur, p. 14
4 Young, p. 45
5 Iyob, Op cit, p. 257
6 Gilkes, p.1
7 Ibid, p.8
8 quoted in Leenco Lata
9 see Leenco Lata

10 Okonto, “Nigeria, Slouching Toward Nationhood.” July 2011. Accessible at

11 Op cit
12 Gilkes, p.16


Reference

Gilkes, Patrick. 2003. “National and Historical Mythology in Eritrea and Somaliland.” Northeast

African Studies, 10,3.



Iyob, Ruth. 1993. “Regional Hegemony: Domination and Resistance in the Horn of Africa.” The

Journal of Modern African Studies, 31, 2.



Lata, Leenco. 2004. The Horn of Africa as a Common Homeland: the state and self- determination in the era of heightened globalization. Waterloo: Wilfried Laurier University press.


Nur, Salih O. 2003. Eritrean Referendum: A Means to Exercise the Right of Self-determination or a Mechanism to Sanction National Sovereignty, (Asmara: University of Asmara).


Project Syndicate. 2011. Nigeria, Slouching Toward Nationhood. Accessible at




Young, M. Crowford. 1991. “Self-determination Revisited: Has Decolonization Closed the Question?” In Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges (ed). Conflict in The Horn of Africa, (Atlanta: Africa Studies Association Press).