"Resources and Conflict": A Post Related to My Final Paper

When I was looking for videos on African environmnetalism and development on the internet, I inevitably came across features on the venerable Wangari Maathai, with whom all of us should be quite familiar at this point. Many of the videos with Maathai are over ten minutes long, but some were nice and short. One such "quickie" can be watched at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA0qGlnc-30&feature=fvw. Its topic inspired this post, and many of Maathai's remarks in the video gave me points to address herein.

I believe it was Stewart Brand who told us that mega-wars engendering grave depopulation will be the result when there are too many people to be supported given the prevailing methods of food production and general harnessing of environmental resources. With the unprecedented population growth in Africa in recent decades, for which states as a rule have been unprepared, wars over resources which bring about the death of scores and scores may, then, prove hard to avoid. Wars over resources (which are typically within existing states) are already alarmingly common in Africa, however, only more as a function of political instability than overpopulation. Of the three books on which I will be writing my final paper, The Challenge for Africa by Wangari Maathai-- who of all the authors tries the hardest to discuss all African problems-- is the only one that touches on resource wars, Crisis and Opportunity overlooking violent seizure in its examination of economical resource management and Africa's Ecology, as for the science of land surfaces and the science of human aggression and appeasement, only concerning itself with the former. Her writing on the northern Sudan-Darfur-Chad imbroglio is what stands out to me the most on the matter.

To talk, now, of goings-on in our class, Professor Deese asked me if I was aware of the incredible mineral richness of Congo-Kinshasa. I am, and I am also aware of the atrocities to the end of material enrichment that have been going on there since its conquest by the much, much smaller Belgium and conversion into a personal fiefdom of King Leopold II (who, as it disgustingly turns out, never actually visited the place). After independence from Belgium, whose rule was so murderously demanding of rubber and other commodities that, I remember reading in King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild, in certain places the vultures had been able to consume so much carrion that they, having become grossly overweight, could no longer fly, Jospeh Mobutu in short order built a reputation as one of Africa's (and the world's) most blackhearted dictators, monopolizing for himself and his stooges the country's superabundant resources through perpetual conflict. Mobutu, in his raping of his own country, helps us understand the social science tenet known as the Weingast paradox (named after Barry Weingast, reading "any institution with the power to protect property also has the power to take it away"), as he chose time and time again to "take away" rather than "protect," which the United States Government, excepting forfeiture through criminal conduct or nonpayment and the occasional case of "eminent domain," always does. To get back to my plan of border adjustment for Africa, Congo-Kinshasa should definitely be partitioned, both because it is humongous at present and its resources being split up, as evenly as possible, among several new states should make the government of each state more likely to choose to "protect"-- because there would be less to "take away," if for no other reason.

To connect "resources and conflict" to the concept of changing Africa's state setup on which I gave a speech, I of course think that altering Africa's borders in a way informed by ethnic distinctions and environmental disparities would serve to decrease fighting for resources both between states and inside of them, and I wish to express that such feuding would be even more regular if only some states were not so miserable, so downtrodden. Niger is, from a human standpoint, the last country in the world in which one should want to live, according to the UN Human Development Index, and the appalling underdevelopment there is largely attributable to the horrific environmental situation. It is resource-poor, and it is the country I had most firmly in mind when I spoke of some states being straitjacketed into being both desertified (the expansion of the Sahara, I am guessing, impacts Niger more negatively than any other country) and landlocked. The government of Niger, I am sure, is too cash-strapped and disorganized to launch a strike against a neighboring state with the aim of bettering its resource situation; the "conflict" over "resources" relevant to Niger comes when natives of the country, having recognized that Niger is effectively unlivable as is, are persecuted by those in the polities (which include Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire) to which they have fled who feel they are taking up too much space, et cetera. Before independence, Niger was governed by France as just one section of the huge French West Africa, meaning it was politically tied to much naturally wealthier parts of the continent and, ultimately, a worldwide empire stretching from St. Pierre and Miquelon to the Marquesas. It was never meant to be self-sufficient under formal imperialism, and it is not, by any stretch, self-sufficient when left to its own devices-- so Niger needs to cease to exist as a self-contained state, for the good of its people!

Equatorial Guinea is a different case entirely, as it is one of the higher-functioning sub-Saharan African states and conflict for its oil and gas stores could be on the horizon. An irony here is that Equatorial Guinea, the only part of Africa south of the Sahara granted to Spain at the infamous Berlin Conference of 1884, went to the Spanish, by the end of the nineteenth century mostly a nonfactor in power politics, because it was a sliver of territory thought to have few prospects. Now its small size and economic attractiveness mean it could be fodder sooner or later for the adjacent countries of Gabon (which is also a respectable oil producer, in fact an associate member of OPEC) and Congo-Brazzaville (which is less potent than Gabon but still potent enough to be a threat); the relative homogeneity of the population and the mere fact that there has not been historical precedent indicates to me that serious internal resource conflict is unlikely. The decent prosperity of Equatorial Guinea (whose most famous animal export, the first and only of its kind known to science, the mascot of Barcelona even after its death, can be seen at: http://www.virginmedia.com/science-nature/wildlife/albino-animals.php, on a big-time aside) should be spread around maximally, so as not to precipitate conflict, and the refiguring of Equatorial Guinea, if its people would assent to as much, could certainly be of assistance in that beneficent evening-out process! But I will finish by confessing that invasion by Gabon or Congo-Brazzaville is not all that likely and Equatorial Guinea and Botswana, on the basis of their solid development and social cohesion, are the sub-Saharan African nations least in need of participation in a program like the one I am proposing, at least for strictly their own benefit.