Searching and Picking the Rotten Grain from Within: Conflicts as Barriers of Africa’s Development

Abstract

Language has remained the basic tool for human communication and social interaction expressed through various forms such as music (songs) and drum language. Ethnicity, defined as group identity based on linguistic differential, is a logical product of language, hence the claim that language is the basis for ethnicity. With the multiplicity of languages in Africa, most of which are unintelligible to speakers of other languages, there is the tendency to “distance” and exclude others and regard them as people who do not “belong”. To capture this heterogeneity, we build on the theory of “ethnic distance”. The theory is based on the assumption that for as long as Africa remains ethnically heterogeneous, a poorly managed situation such as bad governance is likely to marginalize others thus resulting in chaos. The purpose of this paper, which is based on a random sampling of conflict zones in Africa, is to examine how language and ethnicity have influenced social, political and economic activities in Africa and how they have affected the overall development of the continent. It also seeks to take the position that African countries, over fifty years after independence, should rather look within the continent and accept the fact, albeit painful, that Africans can largely be held accountable for the economic deprivation and retardation of the continent.