A Blast from the Past

Robert Kaplan’s piece, The Coming Anarchy was a hit when it was published in 1994. Of course, it was a classic exercise in imaginative geographies but it was and still is the kind of stuff the West loves to read about Africa. So, the piece found immense purchase in Western circles – from the civil society to diplomats and strategic planners. It has since been over-critiqued in Departments of International Relations, Geography, Politics, History, Cultural Studies and Intervention is not returning to that here but abstracting this quotation in that text. It is a quotation which can be interpreted in a million ways but worth thinking about.

“Ali A. Mazrui, the director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at the State University of New York at Binghamton, predicts that West Africa—indeed, the whole continent—is on the verge of large-scale border upheaval. Mazrui writes, “In the 21st century France will be withdrawing from West Africa as she gets increasingly involved in the affairs (of Europe). France’s West African sphere of influence will be filled by Nigeria—a more natural hegemonic power. . . . It will be under those circumstances that Nigeria’s own boundaries are likely to expand to incorporate the Republic of Niger (the Hausa link), the Republic of Benin (the Yoruba link) and conceivably Cameroon.”