The Problem With Africa's Borders

Much of Africa's modern history has been defined by conflict. How much of this is because of the arbitrary borders left over by European colonialism? Why are these borders so bad to begin with? Are there any better borders that could be adopted? Today I hope to answer these questions and more!

*Madagascar has an entirely separate geography, history, and overall identity from mainland Africa. It's for this reason that I left it out of the discussion.

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Some links to check out to learn more:

[jamessorason]

Europe: So anyway I started drawin'

[alphalijahsworld]

I love how he emphasized on Nigeria. today in nigeria there is a distinct division of the country into three sub nations: Odudwa land (yoruba), Arewa (hausa) and Biafra (igbo). The colonizers really caused a problem because all they saw were black people rather than their different tribes and languages.

[CSGhostAnimation]

Oh wow this is really good. Usually geography is just an analysis of what's going on in the world, but seeing someone make recommendations and weighing the pros and cons of the recommendations goes beyond what I know as conventional geography.

[HCG]

“Imagine cutting Spain in half”

Catalonia: Hold my sangria

[lyamainu]

I learned more about Africa in the last fifteen minutes than I did in all of my schooling.

[rusangiza]

As an African, I have not seen a more accurate summary of our predicament.

I should add the peculiar case of my country, Rwanda, which is one of the most homogeneous in the world: same language, culture and centuries of harmonious cohabitation. Also we're like 90% Christian.

Luckily the colonialists didn't cram us into our larger neighbours.

However, because the kingdom of Rwanda was much bigger than the current country and stretched to parts of present-day Uganda and DRC, a huge Rwandan ethnic minority was formed in those countries, which inevitably led to conflicts that still rage on today.

Not to mention the ethno-linguistic uniformity did nothing to stop us from killing each other over ethnic subdivisions, so called Hutus, Tutsis and Twa.

Oh well.

[parijat]

Africans: we want of own nations.
European: give me a ruler and a pencil.

[amazingtunisia]

"The continent still has its brightest years ahead of it"
I like the sound of this.

[DesmondKarani]

I am from Kenya and, in my opinion, issues in Africa are due to a multitude of factors rather than ethnic divide within countries. Just like several other regions, tribal and ethnic conflicts are not unique to Africa. For instance, look at India, China, and even Belgium (the Flanders vs the Wallonia), these regions also suffer similar incompatibilities. Nonetheless, one thing that stands out from the rest is corruption, mainly due to poor policies.

[unlockwithjsr]

As an African I think If Africa could be redesigned with borders, possibly redesigning in terms of language groups would make sense. Despite the fact that there are numerous tribes, all tribes can be distinctly grouped into either the Bantu, Cushites, Nilotes, Semites, and Khoisan. Each of the language groups has tribes that share the same culture with slight variations and their dialects are very similar, plus each of the language groups identifies itself with a common origin e.g The Bantu say they came from the Congo Basin, the Nilotes say they came from Misri in Egypt. The language groups share a lot in common among them and would be a solid foundation to build African unity

[misterlime.]

That line you drew at the cape of southern Africa (afrikaans speakers) looks remarkably like the line drawn by the cape exit (secession movement) remarkably accurate.

[libertyadams]

Bob the builder: CAN WE FIX THIS!?

*sees Africas borders*

Bob: 😬

[eliandro]

I LOVE YOUR CHANNEL! THE SUBJECTS ARE ALWAYS INTERESTING ✌🏽

[abdulaleem]

The worst thing about social sciences in school is that they don't teach anything about Africa.

[sankalp]

The thing is ethnic-states don't always bring peace, since ethnic minorities are often expelled to establish ethnic states. Another point I would like to make is that modern nation states are a relatively new phenomenon in Europe as well. Before the French Revolution, less than 10% of the population spoke "proper French". Many spoke regional Romance dialects with similarities to French, often unintelligible with each other. Same with the Italian unification. Only 2.5 % spoke Italian back then. They spoke regional Romance dialects/languages. These languages were in dialect continuum with each other. For example, a Lombard speaker shared more similarities with an Occitan speaker and even with a French speaker from across the border than with a dialect speaker in other ends of the country. Unfortunately, regional dialects have now gone out of use. Also, ethnicities in Europe are a result of continuous assimilation. Netherlands speaks Dutch, a Germanic language, but most of their ancestry doesn't come from Germanic tribes.

[Bruh-jrep]

Madagaskar during the whole video:

"Am I joke to you?"

[Aaaamed]

The effort put into research and editing of this video is just unbelievable, keep up the good work!!

[noajpetrowski-anchick]

8:42, damn, he droppin' them beats.

[waitselljones]

"South Sudan successfully separated itself" How many takes did that take?

[dnastev]

I feel like one could also point out that in a lot of African nations, European languages of their former colonizers, like English, French and Portuguese are being used as lingua francas and thus the “language problem” is kinda circumvent. Great video! Really like how many different examples you always show.