“What would happen now? The great imperial system had been completed, Black unity had been achieved among numerous language groups on one of the widest scales in history, from Zambia down to South Africa. cities of stone dotted the land, the Zimbabwe cities north and south were the deathless symbols of a people’s greatness….

….The Emperor Matope also left the country with a great organized religion with a powerful and formally organized priesthood, something unusual in Africa outside of ancient Egypt, Ethiopia, and Abyssinia….

But would there be unity now that the last of the two great personalities around whom unity revolved had silently stolen away in the shadows of the Great Zimbabwe, gone forever? The question arises whenever a great leader passes; political psychology and mass psychology are crucially combined….

There were unifying factors which Matope left behind in his great empire. one was that same organized religion led by a highly advanced and literate priesthood…. The other important factor that should have made unity imperative was the greater prosperity that would flow from economic interdependence and close commercial relations between the constituent states and provinces. The great system of roads and highways, instead of being recaptured by the bush and forests after serving their initial military purpose, could have been converted into permanent national highways, crisscrossing the Empire, and thus serving as the indispensable communication links for administration, trade, travels by the people and, in short, unification. Other factors that should have been a solid foundation for black unity were the similarity of their social institutions and the absolute sameness of their constitutional system.

Yet, with Matope’s death the Empire began to break up. Why? Notwithstanding all the forces mentioned above that should have made for unity and stability, the actual fact is that the traditional African political system was fundamentally and structurally anti-empire. The very circumstances of the endless process of segmentation, of forever splintering off to form little independent mini-states, developed a built-in disunity, reinforced by the attending growth of different languages. But self-gevernment or chiefdom was a way of life, not a theory. Chiefs and Elders, as we have seen, were leaders, advisors and representatives of the people, and not their rulers. The same operating principle prevailed when a group of states united to form a kingdom and kingdoms united to form an empire, but with a disturbing difference: Centralization tended to erode local authority, transferring chiefs from the control of their people to the control of the central government. In the case of conquered territories this change was abrupt and painful. And it was one of the principal resons for later rebellions and the break-up of kingdoms and empires. Therefore, let us say it again, to say that Arabs and Europeans were solely or even mainly responsible for the destruction of all great African states would be glossing over or attempting to ignore the principal internal factor: disunity. What the whites did, Asians and Europeans, was to appraise this continent-wide disunity and “cash in” on it to the fullest extent possible. They did not have to divide and conquer even, for the Blacks were already divided, just as though they were waiting for the foreign conquerors to come.”

Chancellor Williams, The Destruction of Black Civilization: “Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D., Third World Press, 1987

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From what I’ve noticed so far, such a situation can be related to today’s Africa and how it is constituted.

Considering that sub-Saharan Africa’s traditional political outlook has always been “every chiefdom for himself”, I wonder if that’s one of the major reasons for why human rights are not regarded by most regimes down there. I mean, first off, these countries were former European colonies who were then given their “independence”, but did you ever notice that, except for Eritrea, Namibia and Sudan, there has never been a country in Africa that gained independence from a neighboring African nation?

Eastern Nigeria, a.k.a. Biafra, is an oil-rich area, with so much petroleum-based potential that the region, by itself, should have the same standard of living as Singapore. However, when this area, which is predominately Igbo, decided to secede from Nigeria in reaction to the pogroms against other Igbos who were living in other cities throughout Nigeria by members of the Hausa ethnicity, which resides mostly in northern Nigeria, which is known for being a stronghold of Muslim fundamentalists who have installed sharia law in most of the northern states’ governments, they were, after three years (1967-1970), forced back into the Nigerian fold, at the cost of well over a million lives, and billions of US dollars in property damage.

Also, when copper-rich Katanga province decided to secede from the recently-made-“independent” DRC within the first 5 years of independence (1960-65), that region also was forced back into line by both Congolese and UN troops, after one of the absolute worst examples of general UN incompetency in Third World conflicts.

When Eritrea made a bid for independence in the 1960’s, it took them over 30 long, torturous, bloody years before that bid was granted by the government in Addis Ababa (in 1993). When Namibia made a similar bid for independence from apartheid-era South Africa, not only did it take decades for that bid to finally be recognized (in 1990), but that bid was also tied inextricably with the civil war in neighboring Angola, a civil war that involved the intrigues of the Cold War in the strangest manners (the USSR sending aid to the Angolans and, by turn, the SWAPO independence fighters in Namibia; Cuba sending its own troops to help fight UNITA and the South African Army in the Angolan hinterland; South Africa helping UNITA in Angola while fighting SWAPO in Namibia; and it goes on).

Sudan and its southern rebels have finally signed a peace deal with each other, ending, hopefully and thankfully, 21 years of conflict. The South had sought secession from Sudan because of the domineering ways of the autocrats in Khartoum, and the long-sought-after deal has made a particular provision that may give ultimate credence to the bid (The South has the right to secede from Sudan if conditions do not improve within the next 6 years between the government and the region).

So, why is it that it takes the loss of human life to keep these nations together? Why is it that these nations, on a general scale, have not exercised a deep respect for human rights (despite the constant berations by the heads of state of these nations upon the West for colonization and slavery), and have violated such rights NUMEROUS times in order to keep their national institutions or personalities intact from infracture by the masses? And why is it that secessionist movements have never been allowed to develop in sub-Saharan Africa, even though the act of secession would actually be better for that region?

Is it because of the transplanted European mentality that empires are meant to last as long as they can be preserved (combined with “the end justifies the means”)? Is it because the regions where secession is beginning to be seen as a good idea are economically viable (even potential-wise), and thus would be enough to fight for, on the central government’s part?

And if that is the case, then are such mentalities as the aforementioned the kinds of things that the traditional African political outlook was actually AIMING TO AVOID?

I mean, if the chiefs were tending toward so-called “balkanization”, then consider that it wasn’t necessarily for the sake of the chief, but rather for the people themselves (and then I begin to see the light). If a nation has to preserve its institutions or borders or personalities with the sacrifice of human life, rights, or property, then such things are erroneous and worthless. National unity is bullshit if ordinary citizens who seek for some form of self-determination are jailed, tortured, or murdered. National unity is hogwash if private interests are put up at the forefront of priority rather than public need. Empires are not worth the preservation if humanity and human need is actively spurned by the government.

So basically, the African people are basically anti-empire, quite the oppposite of their European counterparts. To the traditional approach, unity is needed in time of common distress, interest, or cause, but otherwise, tiny sovereignties in Africa would actually do better by themselves, if allowed to go their own ways. So, really, the European approach toward things like politics isn’t necessarily the greatest thing after all.

And the more that such is realized, the better off that Africa will be with itself and, hopefully, the world.