Azawad: The latest African border dilemma - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
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Azawad: The latest African border dilemma
Last Modified: 18 Apr 2012 12:41
Mali has long had an uneasy relationship with its Tuareg population, given a history of ’governance by southern agriculturalists’ who marginalised the nomadic pastoral group [EPA]
On April 6, Tuareg rebels in the West African city of Timbuktu unilaterally declared their independence from Mali and announced the birth of a new nation called Azawad. The declaration was widely ignored or condemned by neighbouring African states and the international community.
However, considering the arbitrary nature of many national borders in Africa which date to the colonial era, and the likelihood of protracted strife in a hunger prone area if rebel claims are simply dismissed, the international community ought to think carefully about how best to engage with this potential new African country known as Azawad.
The history of contemporary African borders is problematic to say the least. The European colonial powers carved up Africa, and capriciously set territorial borders, at the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 at which no Africans were present. These borders, which largely continued to exist long after independence, often split tribes, lumped incompatible ethnic groups together, or created countries which struggled economically because they were too big, too small, or landlocked. Given the problematic way in which African borders were originally set, it is not surprising that we see struggles to redefine national boundaries in the contemporary era.