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The African Concept of Balkanisation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Benyamin Neuberger
Benyamin Neuberger
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Political Science, Tel-Aviv University
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Extract

In modern African political literature there is a recurrent reference to the dangers of ‘balkanisation’. Already during the 1920s the Gold Coast nationalist Kobina Sekyi compared Africa with the Balkans, and warned not to follow the ways of ‘balkanisation’ Later Kwame Nkrumah, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Sékou Touré, and other anti-colonial leaders continued to employ the term which rapidly became a basic part of the phraseology of modern African nationalism. I shall attempt to analyse the concept, and to show its use, definition, ambivalence, and implications.

Type
Africana
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , September 1976 , pp. 523 - 529
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

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page 523 note 2 Cf. Lemberg, Eugen, Nationalismus – Psychologie und Geschichte (Hamburg, 1964), p. 177Google Scholar; Janowsky, Oscar I., Nationalities and National Minorities (New York, 1945), p. 11Google Scholar; and Deutsch, Karl, Nationalism and its Alteruatives (New York, 1964), p. 50Google Scholar.

page 523 note 3 E.g. Nkrumah, Kwame, I Speak of Freedom: a statement of African ideology (London and New York, 1961), p. 200Google Scholar; and Ghana Today (Accra), 20 June 1962.

page 523 note 4 Deutsch, op. cit. p. 50.

page 524 note 1 Ghana Today, 5 June 1963, p. 3 Nkrumah, Kwame, Class Struggle in Africa (New York, 1970), p. 50Google Scholar; Kaunda, Kenneth, A Humanist in Africa (London, 1969), p. 123Google Scholar; Nyerere, Julius K., Freedom and Unity/Uhuru na Umoja: a selection from writings and speeches, 1952–65 (Dar es Salaam, 1966), pp. 40 and 85–6Google Scholar; and Dia, Mamadou, The African Nations and World Solidarity (New York, 1961), pp. ix, 84, and 140Google Scholar.

page 524 note 2 Nyerere, Julius K., ‘East African Federation’, in Mutiso, Gideon-Cyrus M. and Rohio, S. W. (eds.), Readings in African Political Thought (London, 1975), p. 337Google Scholar; and Kwame Nkrumah, ‘Continental Government for Africa’, ibid. p. 345.

page 524 note 3 I have checked all Obafemi Awolowo's books, and all the speeches of Anthony Enahoro contained in Kirk-Greene, A. H. M., Crisis and Conflict in Nigeria: a documentary source book, 1966–1969, Vols. I and II (London, 1971)Google Scholar.

page 524 note 4 Buthelezi, Gatsha, ‘Message to South Africa from Black South Africa’, Soweto, 14 03 1976Google Scholar.

page 524 note 5 See Foltz, William, From French West Africa to the Mali Federation (New Haven, 1965), p. 117.Google Scholar

page 524 note 6 Cf. Senghor, Léopold Sédar, On African Socialism (New York, 1964)Google Scholar, where the President of Senegal speaks on p. 16 about the fear of balkanisation (implying that it does not yet exist), and on p. 19 about the Africans' responsibility for balkanisation (implying that it does).

page 524 note 7 Legum, Colin, Pan-Africanism: a short political guide (New York, 1965), pp. 321 and 273–4Google Scholar.

page 525 note 1 Cf. Agyeman, Opoku, ‘The Osagyefo, the Mwalimu, and Pan-Africanism: a study in the growth of a dynamic concept’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), XII, 4, 12 1975, pp. 653–75Google Scholar.

page 525 note 2 Somali Republic and African Unity (Nairobi, 1962), pp. 15 and 33, an official publication of the Somali Government.

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page 525 note 4 See, for example, Modibo Keita's reactions to Biafra in Afrique contemporaine (Paris), 36, March/April, 1968, p. 20.

page 525 note 5 Enahoro, in Kirk-Greene, op. cit. Vol. II, pp. 248 and 354.

page 525 note 6 According to Mudola, D., ‘The Search for the Nation–State and African Peace’, in East Africa Journal (Nairobi), VI, 11, 11 1969, pp. 27–22Google Scholar, the creation of Biafra did not encourage other secessions. On the other hand, it is difficult to know what would have happened if Biafra had survived. The Sanwi movement in the Ivory Coast quoted the Biafran ‘precedent’, which had been recognised by the Government of Houphouét-Boigny. President Maclas of Equatorial Guinea said that the Biafran ‘precedent’ encouraged a Secessionist movement in Fernando P. Because both movements were much older than the civil war, the rôole of the ‘precedent’ is questionable.

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page 526 note 2 Ojukwu, Emeka, Biafra, Vol. II, Random Thoughts (New York, 1969), p. 176Google Scholar.

page 526 note 3 See, for example, the opposition to regionalism in Zik: a selection of speeches of Nnamdi Azikiwe (Cambridge, 1961), p. 108. Nkrumah spoke contemptuously of federalism: ‘it does not unite, it balkanizes’, in Ghana Today, 26 April 1964, p. 2; see also his ‘Constitutional Government for Africa’, loc. cit. p. 345.

page 527 note 1 Yakubu Gowon, in Kirk-Greene, op. cit. Vol. II, p. 318.

page 527 note 2 Uganda Argus (Kampala), 3 February 1960. This was said during the Buganda crisis, when secession was threatened.

page 527 note 3 Nkrumah, Kwame, ‘I Speak for Freedom’, in Minogue, Martin and Molloy, Judith (eds.), African Aims and Attitudes (Cambridge, 1974), p. 214Google Scholar.

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page 527 note 7 Nyerere, ‘East African Federation’, loc. cit. p. 337.

page 527 note 8 Legum, op. cit. p. 274.

page 527 note 9 Touré, quoted in ibid. p. 121.

page 527 note 10 Minogue, K. R., Nationalism (London, 1967), pp. 65–6Google Scholar.

page 527 note 11 Nkrumah, , Ghana Today, 26 04 1961, p. 2.Google Scholar

page 528 note 1 Minogue, op. cit. pp. 88–9.

page 528 note 2 Senghor, op. cit. p. 19.

page 528 note 3 Azikiwe, Nnamdi, ‘Pan-Africanism’, in Emerson, Rupert and Kilson, Martin (eds.), The Political Awakening of Africa (Englewood Cliffs, 1965), p. 149Google Scholar.

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page 528 note 6 E.g. Dia, op. cit. p. ix; and Nyerere, op. cit. p. 40.

page 528 note 7 Nkrumah, , I Speak of Freedom, p. 255.Google Scholar

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page 528 note 9 Buthelezi, op. cit.

page 528 note 10 Nkrumah, , I Speak of Freedom, p. 201.Google Scholar

page 529 note 1 Ghana Today, 10 March 1965.

page 529 note 2 Ojukwu, , Biafra, Vol. II, p. 195.Google Scholar

page 529 note 3 Ibid. p. xx.