It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that having a country divided between the Sahel and the tropics (and the accompanying cultures and livelihoods) has worked out very poorly for every single country without exception with this divide. Nobody is arguing that Africa would become a magic peaceful fairly land. But mitigating some of the more balls-stupid things the colonial powers did would be a pretty big help.
I would speculate that without colonialism, ethnic identity would not be as big of a deal as it is now. It wouldn’t disappear, of course, but it would be more like ethnic identity in Asia or Europe- an interesting aside, but relatively rarely the cause of deadly violence.
Are you sure you don’t want to expand on this a little bit? Because I can cite lots of times in living memory where ethnic violence has been deadly on both those continents (culminating in the Holocaust, of course).
That would not be the best example. The stereotype back then was that Jews were a bunch of Communists. Remember, the first victims of the Holocaust (and a large part of its total victims) were ideological, with nothing ethnic about it.
Consider the way independent African nations have been treated by world’s great powers, continuing to the present day, and then consider that might be much more damaging than colonization (and its aftermath) was.
No, the stereotype was that Communists were a bunch of Jews.
and the Roma? Were they all Social Democrats?
Nope. You just have to look at Nazi propagandato see that it was ethnic hatred, not anything ideological. Ideological differences don’t lead to anti-miscegenation laws.
Ethnicity is certainly not the only factor is determining the borders of nations, but it’s a big one and since people have been on that continent the longest and they have the largest variety of ethnicities I’d say it would look a lot like THIS
But if you drew a map of Europe by ethnicity, it wouldn’t look exactly like the current map of Europe. Especially depending on if you’re a lumper or splitter–I mean, are Danish and Norwegian and Swedish separate ethnicities or one ethnicity?
Plus the ethnic populations of Europe have had several brutal rounds of ethnic cleansing and forced assimilation over the last few centuries by various states who wanted ethnic, religious, and/or linguistic unification. Then people move or the borders move, and they have to start all over again. Nation states and empires reinforce ethnic identification with the dominant ethnicity. Even without a deliberate policy of assimilation, people see the advantages of learning the language and folkways of the dominant power.
They’re an ethnic group/related group of ethnic groups that live in South Africa and Namibia. I think Mr. Dibble is of part Khokhoi ancestry, or am I wrong there?
It is still a very strange and not factual thing to say. You forget it seems even the recent history in Europe as in the Balkans or let us even say Asia with its communal violences in India, in Myanmar even right now, etc.
I do not think even that it is correct to say broadly that in Europe ethnicity is not the primary identification or political organisation. The statement was wrong.
Otherwise, that map was very strange and made no sense I think.
In Europe, there is a gradual convergence between ethnic and national identity, to the point where national identity is often the primary ethnic identity. That varies wildly from region to region, from the Basque separatists who are emphatically NOT their national identity, to the French of let’s say the western Champagne whose ethnicity and national identity are one. It’s easier for the non-stigmatized majority groups, of course.
This happens with every nation-state. It creates a unit of identity which people add to their quiver of identities. Over time, it can grow stronger. I imagine there are plenty of people in Africa whose primary ethnic identity is the nation-state rather than the group, and equally that this will be a lot stronger in the older and more stable states than in the more fractious ones.
There’s a lot of factors that weaken ethnic identity: mixed ethnic identity (particularly once there are three or more heritage identities), emigration, change of language, stigmatization. I can’t imagine that Africa would be immune to any of these. In my limited experience, Botswana has a strong national identity alongside the ethnic identities.
Again, I think you’re a bit too easy with the “most people” there - I mean, are you including India there, where ethnic identity is a big thing? Spain? The Balkans? Palestine? Even China - relatively homogeneous and yet every week I’m reading of some mass stabbing relating to ethnic separatists.
The “stab in the back” story that emerged after WWI, promoted by many elements including the Nazis, said that Leftists, particularly Communists, didn’t support the troops, and brought defeat to Germany. Because of the aforementioned stereotype, this smear gained particular traction, and Jews were judged to be prone to Communism as an innate ethnic trait. From there, it was a small step to extend the blame to criminal Roma and degenerate homosexuals and all the rest.
The political, ideological origins of this episode are often overlooked, but go a long way towards explaining its depth and breadth. It wasn’t just ethnic hatred.
