Chapter 1 Objectives and Tools of World Regional Geography

HO.Local Cultures, European Imperialism, and Regional Struggles

102. Southern Africa: Resource-Rich, Finally Free

HP.Environment and Resources: Water, Natural Regions, and Agriculture

HQ.Mining and Manufacturing

HR.Ethnicity, Colonialism, and Strife

HS.Zimbabwe’s Struggles

103. The Indian Ocean Islands: Former Edens

Sub-Saharan Africa contains seven sub-regions: the Sahel, West Africa, West Central Africa, East Africa, the Horn of Africa, Southern Africa, and the Indian Ocean Islands.

The Sahel region contains several countries straddling the division between the Sahara Desert to the north and tropical steppes and savannas to the south. The Sahel has experienced human-induced desertification after a series of droughts hit the area, though recent sustainable development techniques have restored parts of the Sahel to pre-drought conditions. Lake Chad’s surface area has declined by 95 percent since 1963, mostly from intensive irrigation diverting river water away from the lake. Oil production has begun in southern Chad, but other mining and manufacturing play little role in this region; subsistence agriculture is the economic mainstay. Several nations in this region have ethnic tensions between northern Arabs and southern blacks.

Ethnically complex West Africa includes countries along the Atlantic coast from Guinea Bissau to Nigeria. Most countries rely upon subsistence agriculture and some agricultural exports. Sierra Leone has valuable diamond mines, and Nigeria is a major oil producer, which has led to ethnic and economic conflicts between tribes in the oil-producing areas and the Nigerian government. West Africa is mostly rural but urbanization is increasing rapidly. Most countries in the region are dominated by primate cities. Nigeria is home to two-thirds of the population of West Africa, and the city of Lagos is home to 11 million people. Nigeria’s population contains many disparate ethnic groups artificially contained within British-imposed boundaries, which has led to conflict between the largely Christian tribes of the south and the Muslim tribes of the north. Violence has also plagued Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, and Liberia (Africa’s first republic) in recent years.

West Central Africa extends from the Great Rift Valley in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. Eastern portions of the region are mountainous and volcanic, and the heart of the region is home to most of Africa’s tropical rainforests, which are rapidly being cut down. The transportation network is poor, urbanized areas are few and most settlements tend to be isolated from each other. Subsistence agriculture and cash cropping make up the bulk of economic activity in West Central Africa, though oil production off the coast is gaining importance. Minerals are also important to the region, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The DRC was politically mismanaged since independence, and civil war broke out in 1997. This war soon broadened to include many other African countries that supplied aid and arms to one side of the DRC’s conflict or the other depending on their national, economic, or ethnic interests. This was dubbed “Africa’s First World War.” A peace treaty was reached in 2003, but some fighting continued on afterward.

East Africa contains some of the continent’s most well known natural areas, such as Mount Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti Plain. The tropical savanna conditions across most of this region make non-irrigated agriculture difficult, and drought is common. Nevertheless, subsistence agriculture and cash cropping are the main livelihoods for people in East Africa. All of the countries in the region have had turbulent histories since independence. Rwanda and Burundi were hardest hit with violence, when an estimated 800,000 Tutsis were massacred by Hutus in the 1994 genocide.

The Horn of Africa is mainly arid, and elevations in the Ethiopian Highlands often exceed 10,000 feet. The region contains some mineral wealth, but the resources remain largely undeveloped. Drought is persistent in the Horn, and an estimated 1 million Ethiopians died during a drought-induced famine in the 1980s. Ethiopia has had internal strife for decades, including a 1993 war that led to the independence of Eritrea, a former Ethiopian region. Somalia has been without a central government since 1991, and lies in ruins as a result of clan warfare that erupted after the government’s overthrow. Djibouti has become an important U.S. staging ground in the war on terror.

Southern Africa contains some of the wealthiest and most prosperous countries on the continent by African standards, including South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia. Tropical savanna or desert conditions prevail over most of the region, though South Africa has a greater variety of climates. Southern Africa has great mineral wealth, including large deposits of gold, copper, diamonds, and oil. South Africa has a diversified industrial economy. South Africa is a racially diverse country that was characterized by segregation laws for centuries, which were systematized in 1948 as apartheid. These laws were repealed in 1994 when South Africa’s first all-race election installed Nelson Mandela as president; a process of racial reconciliation began. Oil-rich Angola was under near-constant civil war from its independence until 2002. Zimbabwe has been in an economic crisis since 1997, with agricultural and industrial output sharply declining after white-owned farmland was seized and redistributed to blacks who were generally not farmers.

Madagascar is the largest island in the Indian Ocean, and the country faces ecological pressures, deep economic troubles and political unrest. The other Indian Ocean nations are small, and generally reliant upon tourism and agricultural products such as sugar for revenue.

Key Terms and Concepts

184. 
     The seven regions of Africa south of the Sahara are the Sahel, including Senegal and Mali; West Africa, including Nigeria and Ghana; West Central Africa, including Gabon and the Democratic Republic of Congo; East Africa, including Tanzania and Kenya; the Horn, including Ethiopia; Southern Africa, including South Africa and Namibia; and the Indian Ocean Islands, including Madagascar. [p. 485]
     

185. 
     The Sahel is a physical boundary in western Africa as it is a transition zone between the hot, dry Sahara Desert to the north and the humid, tropical conditions along the Gulf of Guinea and Atlantic Ocean to the south. The Sahel also marks a cultural boundary in Africa by being a transition between the mainly black peoples to the south and the Arabs and their influences to the north. [pp. 486-489]
     

186. 
     Nigeria is by far the most important nation of West Africa demographically, economically and politically. Nigeria is a country with borders designed by the British containing many disparate ethnic groups that have little sense of identification with the nation. Ethnic tensions have flared in the past, and revolts by one ethnic group could potentially inspire other groups to rebel and tear the country apart. The ethnic Ibos tried to establish a breakaway nation in the late 1960s, and in the 1990s a dispute over oil revenue allocation led to calls for self-determination for the Ogoni tribe. The government and the Ogoni clashed for several years, with the Ogonis being joined by the Ibo, Ijaw, and Yoruba, until a revenue allocation agreement was reached in 2004. Nigeria is also subject to religious clashes, with a mainly Muslim north (with most northern Nigerian states practicing shari’a law) and a mainly Christian south. Muslim Hausas and Christian Yorubas have formed militias to fight against one another. [pp. 485-488]
     

187. 
     The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a very mineral-rich nation, having large reserves of copper, cobalt, coltan, and diamonds. These, plus many more mineral riches, agricultural products, wildlife, and timber, should have allowed the DRC to become an economic success, but the country has been mismanaged both before and after independence. After being plundered of many of its natural and human resources during its time as a Belgian colony, the country – an amalgam of over 250 ethnolinguistic groups – came under the autocratic rule of Mobutu Sese Seko. Mobutu’s forces tried to remove a force of indigenous Tutsis in eastern Zaire in 1997, but the Tutsis fought back against the government with aid from surrounding countries. Zaire was quickly overcome with war, leading to the ouster of Mobutu and the installation of another autocrat, Laurent Kabila. The fighting did not cease, and many surrounding African nations got involved on either the side of the DRC’s government or the rebels in order to protect their economic or ethnic interests in the country. The DRC’s misery has been economically beneficial for the warring factions and foreign companies, so the country’s fortunes may not improve anytime soon. Current president, Joseph Kabila, son of slain Laurent Kabila, won national elections in 2006 and his administration is aided by a United Nations peace-keeping mission. [pp. 497-498]
     

188. 
     Idi Amin’s regime was responsible for murders, torture, rapes, and looting in Uganda in the 1970s, but it brought economic ruin to Uganda by abruptly expelling most of the 80,000 ethnic Indians and Pakistanis in 1972. They were so important to the national economy that their disappearance nearly destroyed the country. In Kenya, Daniel Arap Moi’s refusal to implement democratic reforms and crack down on corruption and human rights abuses led to a cutoff of international aid. The aid did not resume until after Moi stepped down and an opposition leader won Kenya’s 2002 presidential election. Mwai Kibaki, Moi’s successor, has not been successful with his campaign slogan of “zero tolerance” of corruption. [p. 501]
     

189. 
     There is no ethnic or linguistic difference between Hutus and Tutsis; instead, the difference between the groups is a socio-economic one. Tutsis historically were a ruling class; the power of a Tutsi was based largely by the number of cattle owned. It was possible for Tutsis to lose influence and become a Hutu, and for a Hutu to gain cattle and stature and become a Tutsi. European colonists in the area later designated anyone with ten head of cattle or more a Tutsi and everyone else a Hutu. Hutus in positions of power were replaced by Tutsis. Hutus bore the brunt of hard labor, and education and other privileges were reserved for Tutsis. Violence flared up between the two groups on occasion, and all-out war broke out in 1994 in Rwanda after the death of Rwanda’s Hutu president. Hutus massacred about 800,000 Tutsis in vengeance for decades of domination by Tutsis. After the genocide many Hutus fled into the DRC, where they continued to attack Tutsis in Rwanda until 2002. [pp. 501-502]
     

190. 
     Ethiopia’s highlands have long served as a refuge for unique or ancient religious groups, such as Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity and the Ethiopian Jews (Falashas). These religions, long isolated in Ethiopia, gave rise to the term “Galapagos Islands of religion.” [p. 504]
     

191. 
     Somalia’s instability can be traced to clan divisions within the country, and like so many other places in the world that have an “us versus them” mentality, it has turned violent. After the 1991 rebellion, the U.S. Operation Restore Hope, which initially attempted to assist aid workers, quickly disintegrated, culminating in the so-called Blackhawk Down incident. More recently, the U.S. and Somalia’s neighbor Ethiopia intervened militarily in late 2006 in an effort to reduce the influence of Eritrean-backed Islamist forces, but this resulted only in restoring some semblance of political and economic stability to the southernmost area around Mogadishu. What existed prior to 1991 can now be best described as three de facto states: Somalia, Puntland, and Somaliland. Somalia, now only the southern third of the former country, with its old capital of Mogadishu, is the only political entity accorded international recognition. [pp. 505-506]
     

192. 
     South Africa’s population is about 79 percent black, and many peoples make up this majority. The Zulu and Xhosa are the most populous of the nine officially recognized tribal groups. The white population of South Africa is split between people of British ancestry and the Afrikaners (Boers), descendants of Dutch, German, and French Huguenot settlers. Asians and “coloreds” (people of mixed racial origin) comprise the remainder of South Africa’s population. Black South Africans were originally servants and slaves to the Boers, and later on provided most of the unskilled labor needed to operate white-owned mines, factories, farms, and other businesses. Asians were brought to South Africa as slaves or indentured laborers, and today are employed in industrial, commercial, and service occupations. Coloreds work as domestic servants, factory and farm workers, and at other semi-skilled jobs. Since the end of apartheid, blacks have become dominant politically, but whites still control much of South Africa’s economy and are generally far wealthier than the black population. Coloreds historically had higher social status than blacks but less status than whites. Today there is a small but growing colored professional and white-collar class. [pp. 512-514]
     

193. 
     Increasing British immigration to South Africa in the 1800s led to conflict between British settlers and the Boers already living in the area. When the British outlawed slavery, many slave-owning Boers moved northward in the “Great Trek” to develop interior farming areas and establish Boer political units independent of British authority. The discovery of gold in new Boer lands set off rushes by fortune hunters, many of them British. Renewed clashes between the British and the Boers led to war in 1899, which the British won decisively in 1902. [pp. 512-513]
     

194. 
     By the 1990s, the small white population of Zimbabwe controlled about 70 percent of the nation’s productive farmland, while millions of rural blacks were crowded onto agriculturally inferior lands. Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe announced in 1997 that the government would seize half of the country’s white-owned farms without compensation, and distribute that land to black peasants. By 2007, virtually all of the 4,500 white farmers had been uprooted. Government land seizures continue today. The result was devastating to Zimbabwe’s economy. 350,000 black farmers that had worked on the white-owned farms had lost their jobs. Unemployment reached 80 percent. Few of the new black tenants on formerly white-owned farmland had farming abilities or materials, and agricultural output plummeted. The U.N. estimated that two-thirds of the country’s population was hungry and malnourished. [pp. 514-515]
     

195. 
     Diego Garcia is a British-owned island in the Indian Ocean, which was leased to the U.S. military in 1965. It proved to be a very important island for U.S. forces, being used during the war in Afghanistan in late 2001 and the Iraq war of 2003. The other Indian Ocean islands – principally Madagascar, Comoros, Réunion, Mauritius, and the Seychelles – share the experience of European possessions, past or present. They are also ethnically diverse. Madagascar’s population, clearly the largest of the Indian Ocean islands, is predominantly rural and agricultural, with rice, coffee, vanilla, cloves, and sugar being the main exports. The other island groups have livelihoods that include subsistence farming, fishing, and participation in plantation agriculture. Tourism is important, especially for places such as the Seychelles. [pp. 515-518]
     

This chapter should enable your students to…

• 
  Understand what caused sub-Saharan Africa to become and remain the world’s poorest region
  
• 
  Know how the region came to have the highest HIV/AIDS infection rates in the world and how the epidemic could be reversed there
  
• 
  Appreciate the pressures on African wildlife and the unique approaches taken to protect the animals
  
• 
  Know what is uniquely African about African cultures
  
• 
  Recognize why, after more than a decade at the sidelines, sub- Saharan Africa is considered important again in geopolitical affairs
  

104. 
     
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