Civil Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa: Internally Generated Causes
| Author | Rhoda E. Howard |
| Date | 01 March 1996 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209605100102 |
| Published date | 01 March 1996 |
| Subject Matter | Africa's Prospects |
RHODA
E.
HOWARD
Civil
conflict
in
sub-saharan
Africa:
internally
generated
causes
AFRICA
AS
A
CONTINENT
WITH
HISTORY
William
Pfaff
recently
suggested
that
it
was
time
for
Africa
to
be
recolonized,
under
the
joint
aegis
of former
European
colonial
powers
and
the
more
powerful
and
stable
African
states.
Given
Africa's
current
chaotic
conditions,
only
recolonization
of
this
type
could
restore
order,
Pfaff
argued.
And
because
Europeans
were
primarily
responsible
for
current
African
disorder,
they
should
be responsible for
its
remedy.'
It
is
certainly
true that
the
long-run
causes
of
civil
conflict
in
today's
Africa
have
a
great
deal
to
do
with
European
impe-
rialism
and
colonialism,
which
created
artificial
borders
and
undermined
indigenous
patterns
of
sustenance
and
trade.
In
Professor
of
Sociology
and
Director
of
the
Theme
School
on
International
Justice
and Human
Rights,
McMaster
University,
Hamilton, Canada,
and
member
of
the
editorial
board
of
International
JournaL
Author
of
Human
Rights
in
Commonwealth
Africa
(1986)
and
Human
Rights
and
the Search
for
Community (1995).
Earlier
versions
of
this
paper
were
presented
to
the
ACUNS/ASIL summer
workshop
on
'International
Conflict
and
the
World
Community:
Self-
Determination,
Security
and Human
Rights,' Brown
University,
July
1994;
and
at
McMaster University,
Peace Studies
Lecture
Series,
in
January
1995.
I
am
grateful
to
the
Arts
Research
Board,
McMaster
University,
for
research
funds
and
to
Patrick
Reed
and Bernard Doucet
for
their
research
assistance.
For
comments on earlier
versions
of
this
article,
I
am
grateful
to
Susan
Dicklitch,
Dickson
Eyoh,
David
Hitchcock,
and
Kim
Richard
Nossal.
I
William
Pfaff,
'A
new
colonialism?
Europe
must
go
back
into
Africa,'
Foreign
Affairs
74(January/February
1995),
2-6.
International
Journal
LI
WINTER
1995-96
28
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
the
short
run,
proximate
international
factors
-
the
interna-
tional arms
trade,
United
States
and
Soviet
intervention
during
the
Cold
War,
and
structural adjustment
programmes
imposed
by
international
financial
institutions
-
are
also
important.
But
many
other
proximate
causes
are
internal.
Africa
is
not
a
continent
without
history.
Some
post-inde-
pendence
conflicts
are
a
playing
out
of
the
African,
not
the
Eur-
opean,
imperial past.
Some
are
a
consequence
of
African
slavery
and
African
social
structure
or
of
the
conflicts
between
former
empires
and former
imperial subordinates.
Some
are
the
result
of
internal
post-colonial
social
developments,
such
as
the
politi-
cization
of
ethnicity
by
weak
military
Mlites.
Others
are
caused
by
politicized
religion,
or
by
secessionism,
or
by
irredentism.
Yet
many
Westerners look
upon
the
current
conflicts
in
Africa,
especially
in Rwanda,
as
examples
of
undifferentiated
African 'tribalism.'
Even
otherwise
informed
observers,
conver-
sant
with
the
intricacies
of
politics
in
other
regions
of
the
world,
resort
to
this
explanation
when
confronted
with
what seems
to
be
the
unadulterated
and
inexplicable
brutality
of
Rwandans
killing
each
other
by
hand,
only
their
machetes
separating
them
from
their
victims.
Westerners
are
used
to
more
'civilized'
and
remote
methods
of
genocide,
such
as
round-ups,
trains,
and
gassing.
The
personal, up-front,
one-on-one
genocide
in Rwanda
confirms
Westerners'
deepest
prejudices
about
Africa,
that
it
is
a
primitive,
tribal
continent.
Africans
are
dark,
mysterious, and
dangerous:
they are
ruled
by
passions
untempered
by
reason.
Explanations
for
their
periodic genocides and
mass
slaughters
cannot
be
found.
'Tribalism'
still
seems
the best
explanation
for
irrational
killing
in
Africa,
whereas
the
killing
that
takes
place
in
Europe
can be
attributed
to
economics,
political
factions
or
alliances,
class
structure,
or
religious
disagreements,
as
well
as
to
ethrricity.
In
African
studies,
as
opposed
to
popular
discourse, the
term
'tribalism'
disappeared
long
ago.
Indeed
African
scholars
point out
how
lacking
in
historic
or
social
context
the
term
is
and
how
it
was
used
to
justify
European
rule:
'the
ideology
of
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