Development Strategies and the Evolution of Violence in Africa

Abstract

For many people outside of Africa, the continent conjures up images of perpetual violence seemingly revolving around ethnic or religious identity. Atrocities in Darfur, genocide in Rwanda, clan warfare in Somalia, and long history of the Tuareg rebellions in Mali support habitual understandings of Africa as the “dark continent.” Two decades ago, African officials criticized the Western media for their “unbalanced” accounts “motivated only by the pursuit of the sensational—coups, corruption, chaotic economics, crocodile attacks, and quaint tribal rites” (Ebo 1992, 17). This representation of Africa has hardly changed: well-screened reports of telegenic Nigerian rebels pointing their AK-47s at the adventurous CNN anchor, gangs of soldier-thugs rampaging through the Congo, and Somali’s children with stomachs bloated from hunger. These images, reinforced by those of investors at the Haradhere stock exchange trading shares in upcoming Somali pirate attacks, continue to emphasize “the Four Horsemen of Africa’s Apocalypse: Poverty, Famine, War and Corruption.” ¹ Popular images of that kind, exaggerated for general audience by political war thrillers, like Die Another Day (2002) and Blood Diamond (2006), have surprisingly extensive backing in academic literature. To some of the analysts looking from afar, African violence is seen as the sad legacy of colonialism; to others as manifestations of corruption, greed, ancient tribal hatreds, or simply the feasibility of engaging in insurrection. For North Africa, the stereotype is uncompromising religious conflict, among Muslim groups or between Muslims and secularists.