ADEKEYE ADEBAJO: Africa should nullify the cartographic perfidy of Berlin Conference

As the world commemorates the fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago that ended the Cold War, the implications for Africa of this event — as well as an infamous conference in the German capital 135 years ago, captured in my 2010 book The Curse of Berlin: Africa After The Cold War — have largely gone unnoticed.

In November 1884 German chancellor Otto von Bismarck opened the Berlin Conference, at which 14 largely European states set the rules for the partition of Africa. Bismarck was the sorcerer who used his geostrategic magic wand to cast a spell on Africa, employing the wizardry of the Industrial Revolution. The “Iron Chancellor” united Germany, and divided Africa. Within 25 years, almost all of the continent was under European colonial rule. The effects of this conference were devastating: imported political systems; fragmented and weak economies; artificial, insecure borders; and 16 landlocked countries.

As 17 African states gained their independence in 1960, Africa’s ancestors cast their own spell on Europe a year later with the construction of the Berlin Wall, symbolising the division of Germany and Europe. The fall of the wall in 1989 lifted this curse of Africa’s ancestors on Europe. However, the earlier Bismarckian curse remained, as Africa continued to suffer the effects of unconsolidated states; poorly integrated, largely mono-crop economies; and fragile borders.

Where Africa had feared external intervention during the Cold War, marginalisation was now the greater concern as aid and investment flowed to rebuild Central and Eastern Europe. The continent was abandoned to improvise its own fragile Pax Africana after devastating conflicts in Somalia, Liberia, Angola and Rwanda, often fuelled by former Cold War proxies.

Many East Germans feel the wiedervereinigung (reunification) in 1990 was more a take-over by the West than a willing integration

My association with Berlin began during a year spent at the Friedrich Schiller University in the East German city of Jena two years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. As I was studying with students from SA, Yemen, Nicaragua and Britain, the university town had a cosmopolitan vibe. I enjoyed visits to the historic city of Weimar and representing the university in high-jump competitions in Leipzig and Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz). 

My fondest memory was watching a superb performance by the indomitable Gisela May of German playwright Bertolt Brecht’s antiwar play Mother Courage and Her Children, in his baroque East Berlin theatre the Berliner Ensemble am Schiffbauerdamm. More recently, I visited Brecht’s home in Berlin, which is now a museum replete with an exhibition room, photos and biographies. Next to the house, Brecht and his actress wife Helene Weigel lie buried in the Dorotheenstädtischer cemetery, also bearing the remains of Friedrich Hegel.

During recent sojourns in Berlin I visited two museums on life in the former East Germany. While one museum presented a balanced picture of the former communist republic, the other portrayed a largely negative image of a repressive police state in which life was grey and uniform. Many East Germans feel the wiedervereinigung (reunification) in 1990 was more a take-over by the west than a willing integration. This has resulted in the success of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, which won 23% of seats in October state elections in Thuringia.

Lingering curse

Despite the German government having transferred about $2.2-trillion (R32.4-trillion) to the east since 1990, and in spite of former East German cities such as Leipzig, Dresden and Potsdam enjoying economic booms, unemployment in the east is 6.1%, compared with 4.6% in the west, while wages in the east are 85% of western ones. Only 7% of Germany’s 500 most-valued companies are headquartered in the east.

What should we in Africa thus do to reverse the lingering Bismarckian curse? Africans must now organise a new Berlin Conference in Addis Ababa, the seat of African diplomacy, to reverse the scandalous act of cartographic perfidy inflicted on the continent by European statesmen in Berlin 135 years ago.

This new conference on African soil should negotiate viable political federations, more practical colonial boundaries, and new trade blocs to promote effective regional integration and development and prevent future conflicts.

The continent’s ancestors must be invited to this grand diplomatic banquet, so the curse of Berlin over Africa can finally be lifted.

• Adebajo is director of the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation at the University of Johannesburg.