So I was just looking at a map of Africa, and the borders are an atrocious state of affairs, an atrocious state of affairs I fear. The borders of Egypt and Mauritania, as an example, are so rectangular I have to assume that they must violate the will of God in some way. While on the other hand, Zambia is shaped like a butterfly for some reason. A butterfly? By Jove! Why can’t it be shaped like an animal that has a bit more fight in it, such as a rhino!
I hate to say it, and I don’t mean to be uncouth or rude, but, people from Africa, they’re just not like us you see. They’re so different, I didn’t say worse!, I said different, from us, that they lack the capacity to draw maps to any reasonable standard, which explains the ugly and extremely frightful mess that is the borders of African countries.
Wait, what’s that? Most of these borders were drawn by white Europeans? Oh, well, now that I look closer, I see that the borders of Egypt and Mauritania have a quite serene elegance to them, they are the most beautiful borders I have ever seen in fact! And Zambia is such a beautiful butterfly with such lovely wings! Let us all hail the beauty and elegance and extreme intellectualism of Africa’s borders!
So yes, Africa’s borders are, very odd to put it bluntly. And part of this was something I have noticed for years, but the reasons why didn’t occur to me. I had noticed the extreme rectangularity (new word!), of countries such as Egypt, or Mauritania, or Libya. But these are in northern Africa, so I misunderstood the reasons. I thought it was entirely due to the fact that these countries are in the Sahara desert, so when borders were being created, there would be no need to “go around” geographical features such as forests, rivers or lakes. I’m not saying that’s not part of the reason why these countries are so rectangular, but it’s not the only reason.
The main reason many African countries look so odd, the reason they look like they were created by some egomanical white Europeans who were drunk on their own power, is because, they were created by some egomanical white Europeans who were drunk on their own power. The borders of Africa look like this, because of a terrible and shameful event in world history, called the Scramble For Africa.
So, What Was The Scramble For Africa?
The Scramble For Africa was a term I had heard before, and I was certainly aware of the fact that the European powers took over many of the countries in Africa. But there were two things I wasn’t aware of until more recently.
Firstly, that European colonization of Africa took place over decades, not centuries. I was under the impression that over the last few centuries, European countries would take over an African country occasionally, until it led to the early twentieth century situation where Europe controlled most of Africa. In fact, the European take over of Africa took place in a time period shorter than a human lifetime.
But, surely Europe, and the United States, must have had some level of control of Africa before that, if they were able to commit the horror of the African Slave Trade?
Yes, up to a point it’s true that the Western powers had control of Africa during the African Slave Trade, but it was a bit different, because, by and large, having direct control of the day to day running of African countries didn’t interest them. With the Scramble For Africa, you were talking about, for the first time, European countries having direct control over Africa.
The second thing I didn’t understand is that, I had always assumed that Europe took over already existing African countries. That Britain took over some African countries, France took some other African countries, and so on and so forth. That’s not really what happened. I had some idea about the borders of countries being changed over time for various reasons, but what I didn’t realize is that, when the European countries took over Africa, they deformed and erased the borders of already existing African countries, creating completely new borders that suited their own ends.
The Berlin Conference
The Berlin Conference wasn’t the birth of the Scramble For Africa, the “scramble”, was already happening, hence why the conference was called. In 1884, Otto Von Bismark, chancellor of Germany, hosted the Berlin conference, where representatives from the major powers of Europe met to discuss the future of the African continent. No African leaders were invited to the conference. In fact, the Sultan Of Zanzibaar requested to attend the conference, but was not invited:
The purpose of the Berlin Conference was to settle disputes over European land acquisition in Africa. For example, what if Britain and France wanted the same part of Africa? So part of the purpose of The Berlin Conference, was to ensure that Africa was shared out “fairly” between the European powers.
This, boggles, my mind. Imagine three thieves, having a meeting to discuss how they divide up the items they stole, fairly and equally, between each other, without it ever occurring to them that stealing is wrong in the first place. “Oh, it’s not fair, Britain got more territory than me, WAAAAAHHHHHH!” Well Germany, if you think it’s unfair that Britain fucked you over with regard to the Zambezi river (more on that later), how do you think Africans feel about their lands and their resources, and their freedom, being taken from you by force? Germany, I must say you’re behaving very immaturely, I just hope over the next few decades you’ll see a bit of sense and grow up!
For me, the Berlin Conference was fundamentally based on the idea that African people, are not people at all. It was considered necessary, and vital, to have a big meeting to discuss sharing out the African landmass in a fair and just manner between the European powers. If France, or Germany, or Portugal, was treated unfairly, that mattered, but the fact that they were committing land theft on a massive scale didn’t matter at all.
Some Examples Of The Strange Borders That Came About
Have a look at Angola and Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia).
https://www.britannica.com/topic/imperialism
Some very rectangular borders there aren’t there? And that can’t be partly explained, like it can with the Saharan countries, of there being no need to go around geographical features. No, you’ll see a lot of rectangles in Africa, not just in the North. The rectangular nature of this border, would presumably have more to do with the fact that Angola was controlled by Portugal, and Northern Rhodesia was controlled by Britain, and this rectangular border was probably as a result of wanting to divide the land fairly between Portugal and Britain.
And on the subject of Zambia, why DOES it have that butterfly shape? Well, it’s because the negotiations had to be fair to Belgium of course? Wouldn’t it be deeply unfair if Belgium didn’t get the resources it wanted?
King Leopold II wanted his territory, the Congo, to push into Zambia, because that part of Zambia had plenty of fish and game. Imagine Zambia ending up looking how it does, because some Belgian guy wanted to kill a bunch of animals! And his lust for killing animals has made life much harder for Zambians to this day. It is not possible to go from north east to north west Zambia in a straight line, it is necessary to go around the bit of the Congo that is cutting through Zambia. All because King Leopold II was a fucking prick.
On that note, I can’t mention King Leopold II without mentioning what an absolute monster he was. Under his rule, the Congolese people were forced to collect rubber, and failure to collect the amount that Leopold demanded of them resulted in their limbs being amputated:
King Leopold’s cruelty is often remembered as one of the darkest incidents in the horror of European rule in Africa.
So, transitioning from that to, a lighter note, is going to be hard, but here goes. Because there is an event amid the horror, the cruelty, and the absolute chaos of the scramble for Africa that I think is a bit funny. And I think it’s this.
I suspect in the negotiations that Britain deliberately screwed over Germany.
Have a look at a map of Namibia.
https://www.worldatlas.com/maps/namibia
It’s a bit odd looking isn’t it? It’s mostly that surreal rectangularity that we’ve come to expect from white boys who shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a map being allowed near a map, but, what’s going on with the bit in the north east? What’s with that long strip of land that stretches into the north east away from the rest of Namibia? Was much alcohol or illicit substances consumed at the Berlin Conference?
Possibly, I don’t know, it would certainly explain a lot about African borders if they were all high on something at the Berlin Conference, but the main reason for that odd, thin strip of land, called the Caprivi Strip, is this.
Namibia was controlled by Germany, and Germany wanted access to the Zambezi river. Britain agreed to give them a thin strip of land sticking into British territory, but only if they gave up any claims to Zanzibar. Germany agreed to this, and the deal was struck:
So, where’s the part of this that gives me a bit of a chuckle? Well, in Ireland, maybe in other countries as well, we have a phrase, “saw them coming”. So for example, if you went to a shop and bought a shoddy item that was really expensive, someone might say the shop owner, “Saw you coming”. And I believe, that Britain absolutely, saw Germany coming.
Because Germany now having access to the Zambezi river was useless to them. Because of the Victoria Falls:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Falls
Unless Germany had some state of the art ships that could survive diving off of a 100 metre tall waterfall, then the fact that they gave up Zanzibar for the Zambezi river was possibly one of the dumbest deals ever made.
So that whole incident was amusing. But it’s probably the only funny thing that happened in this very sad chapter in human history.
Nations And Communities Torn Apart
I remember going to Berlin in 2007, and learning about the absolute horror of the Berlin wall. Overnight a people were torn apart, families and friends living on opposite sides of the wall, never getting to see each other again unless they lived to see the destruction of that horrific wall.
A very similar thing happened in Africa, many, many times. For example, the Maasai, one people before the scramble for Africa, became a people split in two, half of them now living in German territory, the other half now living in British territory. A people cut off from each other, much like with the Berlin wall:
Sometimes a people weren’t split in half, but rather, quartered. Yoruba was split between Britain, France, Germany, and another separate British territory. The Hausa people, much like the Massai, were also split in half, one half of their land occupied by the French, the other by the British.
So why do these bizarre borders still exist? It came down to the fact that, when African countries gained their independence, it was feared that after all the destabilization caused by the countries being carved up by Europe, “putting them back the way they were” would cause even further destabilization.
The Western Interference In Africa Continues
In Europe, we are often guilty of having a very one dimensional view of Africa. For example, isn’t it a bit odd that I’m talking about “Africa” right now? We understand that it’s pretty meaningless to talk about “Europe”, in many contexts, does Iceland have anything in common with Spain, does Russia have anything in common with Ireland? Likewise with Asia, we understand intuitively that Japan doesn’t have much in common with India, which doesn’t have much in common with Uzbekistan.
Africa has over 2000 languages.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1280625/number-of-living-languages-in-africa-by-country/
But the fact that Africa is home to 1.5 billion people, with many different hopes, dreams, and ways of living, didn’t factor into Bismarck’s thinking when he called the conference all those decades ago, and it doesn’t factor into the thinking of the U.S and the United Arab Emirates now. I’ve wrote earlier about the horrific genocide that is happening in Sudan:
And I wonder has much changed since the days of the Scramble For Africa. Then, and now, all that matters to the most powerful countries on Earth, is that Africa has resources that they want.
I think it’s about time that this continent, where 1 eighth of the human population live, is allowed to be just left alone. Is that so much to ask?
Ponderings Of An Autist 
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