Post-coloniality and the Matebeleland

Abstract

The African Union is particularly devoted to ‘preserving the unity’of all its members, because Africa’s borders are particularly arbitrary and irrational. If any of the disparate ethnic groups that are trapped together in country A were allowed to secede, then the demand for similar secessions in countries B to Z would become irresistible [...]. But there is another way of looking at this, and that is to count the cost of all the wars that have been fought in Africa to prevent secessions From the Biafran war in Nigeria in the 1960s down through the various secessionist movements in Congo and Ethiopia and on to the breakaway movements in Sudan’s south and west—Darfur today—at least 10 million Africans have been killed. Keywords: Post-coloniality, Matebeleland, Biafran war