The ongoing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) is a testament to the divisive and destructive impacts of the artificial borders imposed on Africa by European colonisers. The current borders which were mapped by a syndicate of European colonialists during the Berlin Conference (1884/85) are one of the proverbial knives that were put to the things that hold us together in Africa by the white man.
By balkanising Africa into different states, the European colonisers not only succeeded in breaking us into disunited states (as seen in the lack of cooperation among African states) but also displaced or destabilised our pre-colonial societal organisation and structure. In some places, different ethnic groups who have nothing in common (which ordinarily should have no business being in the same country) find themselves being lumped in hostile unions as co-citizens (Britain, for example, amalgamated northern and southern parts of Nigeria despite knowing that the two regions have peoples with completely different values). In other places, the European colonisers disintegrated some culturally and historically linked communities by breaking them up and sharing them with different states. The latter scenario is true of the Tutsi, the Bantu-speaking ethnic group that is at the centre of the crisis in DR Congo.
Before the arrival of the white colonialists, the Tutsi people lived in some parts of Eastern Africa. They lived closely with other ethnic communities like the Hutu without any conflict. It was not until the arrival of the European colonialists that the Tutsi and the Hutu began to fight themselves in places like Rwanda. The first record of ethnic conflict between the Tutsi and the Hutu happened in 1959, while both communities were under the absolute colonial control of Belgium.
It was also with the arrival of the European colonisers that the Tutsi became fragmented into different states and classified differently as Congolese Tutsi, Burundian Tutsi, Rwandan Tutsi or Ugandan Tutsi. Decrying this confusing carving of Tutsi communities into different states, the President of the Republic of Rwanda, Paul Kagame (a Tutsi), stated as follows:
“The borders that were drawn during colonial times had our countries divided…A big part of Rwanda was left outside, in eastern Congo, in southwestern Uganda and so forth… You have populations in these parts of other countries who have a Rwandese background. But they are not Rwandans, they are citizens of those countries that have absorbed those parts of Rwanda in the colonial times.”
As a direct consequence of the balkanisation of the Tutsi communities by the European colonisers, neither the Tutsi nor any of the other ethnic communities who live among them like the Hutu have known any peace. In both Rwanda and Burundi, there have been genocides against the Tutsi. In Uganda, the Tutsi endure the stigma of being treated as refugees, having migrated to Uganda from Rwanda due to ethnic tensions. In DR Congo, currently, there is a full-blown war between the Congolese central government in Kinshasha and the Tutsi minority who live in parts of Eastern Congo.
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Interestingly, despite all the struggles that the Tutsi face as a result of being scattered in different states, they still haven’t lost their kindred spirit. The various Tutsi communities identify with one another in times of trouble and sometimes even unite to fight for one of their own. For instance, during the Rwandan and Burundian genocides, the Tutsi in Uganda willingly opened their borders to accommodate their fleeing kinsmen from Rwanda and Burundi. It was in Uganda that prominent Rwandan-Tutsi leaders like Paul Kagame regrouped themselves under the aegis of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) through which they were able to stop the genocide against Tutsis in Rwanda.
Presently in DR Congo, we are witnessing a similar show of cross-state solidarity by the Tutsi with Rwandan Tutsis unofficially backing the M23 group in Congo i.e. the minority Tutsi group that has taken up arms against the Congolese central government in Kinshasha. Sultani Makenga who leads the M23 group in Congo is a Tutsi who previously fought for the Tutsi in Rwanda (during the Rwandan genocide) and who was once a member of the Rwandan army. Today, the same man who fought for the Tutsi in Rwanda is fighting for the same people as a citizen of Congo.
Sadly enough, the above story is not unique to the Tutsi in Africa; many other African ethnic communities have also been victims of these confusing colonial borderlines in Africa.
In Western Africa, for example, we have a similar scenario involving the Hausa ethnic group which was bifurcated between Nigeria and the Republic of Niger by the colonialists. Despite this bifurcation, the Hausa communities, like the Tutsi, have continued to prioritise their ethnic solidarity over any state allegiance. For example, when Nigerian President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, (a non-Hausa), threatened to invade Niger with soldiers to force out the military government of Brig. Gen. Abdourahamane Tchiani (Hausa), the majority of the Hausa in Nigeria took sides with their kinsman in Niger despite being citizens of Nigeria.
Amidst all the rising tension in Africa which is majorly due to the failure of coexistence among the various ethnic communities, it is increasingly becoming crucial that current borders in Africa be renegotiated. To escape the curse of the colonial borders, Africa must redraw its map to free its peoples from hostile unions as well as to preserve the cultural and historical bonds of ethnic communities like the Tutsi in East Africa. To save Africa from the spell of colonial borders, we must heed the words of Nigeria’s Nobel-prize-winning writer, Wole Soyinka who once suggested:
“We should sit down with square-rule and compass and redesign the boundaries of African nations. If we thought we could get away without this redefinition of boundaries back when the Organization of African Unity was formed, surely the instance of Rwanda lets us know in a very brutal way that we cannot evade this historical challenge any longer.”
