ETHNIC CONFLICTS IN AFRICA. Okwudiba Nnoli,ed.Nottingham: CODESRIA. Distributed by African Books Collective, 1998. pp. 417. paper: $30.00

Images of Albanians and Serbs ravaged by ethnic conflicts have been blasted all over the western news media, but the fratricide occurring on the African continent draws little attention. This is due to, inter alia, what has seemingly become a universal belief: ethnic conflicts in Africa are an everyday occurrence. Undergirding this belief is the idea that Africans are enraged beings who murder one another ebulliently and are, therefore, undeserving of extensive media coverage. Ethnic Conflicts in Africa debunks this mythology through the documentation of multidimensional origins and contingent resolutions of ethnic conflicts in some African countries.

In the first chapter, the editor provides an overview and analysis of the book that seeks to provide answers to the following questions. Why is ethnic identity conducive to severe conflict? If and why ethnic conflict in Africa is more severe than in Europe and North America?What are the goals of ethnic conflicts? What are the causes, dynamics, and consequences of ethnic conflict? Who benefits from ethnic conflicts; and why? Responding to the aforestated questions in ten to thirty pages seems like a nearly insurmountable task. The authors, however, manage to address these questions and how they apply to Nigeria, Burundi, Rwanda, Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Kenya, Tanzania, Zaire, Zimbabwe and Benin. Each author adheres to the structure of tracing the origins of ethnic conflicts from the pre-colonial, colonial to post-independence eras. This provides a reader with a sense of the beginnings of ethnic antagonism, the impact of colonialism on inter-ethnic relations, and how independent nations have handled such conflicts.

As to why ethnic conflict is more severe in Africa than other parts of the world, the authors provide various explanations, including the fact that colonial incursions exploited and compounded inter-ethnic inimicable relations. For example, in countries like Nigeria, Burundi, Rwanda, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Mauritania, Kenya, Tanzania, Zaire, and Zimbabwe, colonial powers utilized the segmentation of ethnic groups to their advantage. The divide-and-rule policies of colonial administrators assured the docility of different ethnic groups and thus shielded them from the menace of insurrection. In other words, it was feasible to divide ethnic groups and pit them against each other so that they could focus their energies on fighting one another rather than overthrowing colonial governments. This was also the strategy utilized by the apartheid regime in South Africa. In the case of Burundi and Rwanda, the authors posit that the promulgation of the hamitic mythology has been the source for recent pogroms in the two countries. However, as Mustapha informs us, the totality of the colonial experience is not reducible to just segmentation. For colonialism contained within it many cross-cutting contradictions, even at the level of identity formation and inter-ethnic relations" (p. 38).

As author after author points out, the corrosive, hierarchical, and divisive nature of capitalism is also responsible for the severity of ethnic conflict in Africa. As people perceive other groups to be more economically secure, they often turn to ethnicity as an anchor, particularly if those who are economically better off belong to a different ethnic group. This is not mere jealousy, but a need for every person to be economically secure, exacerbated by the inability or refusal of those who possess wealth to equally distribute resources. Whether it is the peasants in rural Nigeria, the impoverished "indigenous" people of Liberia, or blacks in Mauritania, they are all pushed into conflict by socio-economic needs.

As to the beneficiaries of such conflicts, the authors concur that prior to independence, the colonialists were the most obvious. In post-colonial Africa as well such conflict does not benefit anyone but elites and those in power. For example, in Liberia, the members of the ruling group and other elites benefitted from the antagonistic relations of African-Liberians and Americo-Liberians. Osaghae's analysis is worth quoting: "Underneath conflicts which are apparently ethnic are personal (and class) ambitions which are desperate, opportunistic and violence prone. This is an indictment of the elite Americo-Liberians and African-Liberians whose rapaciousness is responsible for the deterioration of relations among ethnic groups" (p. 156). In Benin, the Batombous had access to positions from which other groups were barred. Hence, those at the center of the society benefit at the expense of the marginalized, as is the case in many western countries.

The authors in this book argue that ethnic conflicts in Africa are rooted in various socio-economic and political factors rather than Africans' exigency to engage in blood letting. Ethnic groups are often compelled to fratricide by legitimate issues. The authors, however, point out that this documentation of the causes does not make ethnic conflict inevitable and thus ineradicable. As Sithole states, "The problems of social engineering are more like algebra and calculus than simple arithmetic. It is not a matter of taking an equal number from each ethnic group [into leadership positions]. It is who amongst the ethnics are added that achieves the balance. Are they to be perceived to be representative leaders by the particular community? What positions are they given relative to others" (p. 377)?

This book is well researched and written. It will be invaluable to beginning and advanced scholars of political science and history. Students of policy development will also find this book quite useful. I highly recommend it. My main criticism is the editor's postulation that ethnic divisions were not always a source of conflict and were even a conduit for solidarity during colonial rule in Africa. However, with the exception of Zimbabwe, the authors maintain that ethnic divisions were never a positive factor during colonial times. This discrepancy between the editor's introduction and the rest of the book is rather unsettling. Aside from this, the book is a great contribution to our understanding of ethnic conflicts in Africa, providing important lessons for the new democracy of South Africa about the need for socio-economic stability for all people, as well as recognizing the danger of the oppressor within all of us.

Shirley Mthethwa-Sommers
Department of Social Foundations and Leadership
University of Toledo