Tribe-Level Nationalism as a Disincentive for Economic Development
Some months ago, this blog argued that a distinct lack of optimism among Africans is a root cause for governments not putting in the effort to develop their respective countries. However, in the process, that post never clearly defined exactly what is the root cause of that lack of optimism, aside from making vague statements about historical circumstances that both the African peoples and leaders not emotionally tied to their particular countries, thereby precluding any conscious efforts for development in the long-term. This post seeks to make clear what that "historical circumstance" really is.
To put in the simplest manner, that "historical circumstance" is the development of nationalism or lack thereof. That previous blog posts gave an example of Japanese migrants to Brazil funding Japan's economic modernization program through remittances. But it never specifically said that many Japanese were willing to make the sacrifice because they love their country. It was an explicitly physical manifestation of nationalism that drove the Japanese migrants to their particular actions. They made sacrifices not exclusively for personal gain, but also because they loved their homelands.
While the issue of nationalism (or lack thereof) is a universal one, history has ensured that Africa in particular gets the short end of the stick on this particular issue. Unlike Japan, where centuries of centralized rule has forged a common ethnic and cultural identity among the citizenry, countries of Africa never had that opportunity. As any student of African history would know, modern-day African nation-states follow the borders of European colonial divisions, which are not created based on tribal or ethnic affiliations. Nations are made up of a hodgepodge of different peoples who happened to be ruled by the same colonial master.
The mismatch between political and cultural boundaries help explain why there is an above-average occurrences of interethnic and inter-tribal conflicts within African states. African states include homelands of different tribes and pre-colonization indigenous kingdoms. Individuals, including the most powerful of politicians, tend to pledge their allegiances much more to their tribes rather than the unified political entity. Hence, when politicians are put into positions of power, they are motivated to prioritize the interests of their own particular tribes rather than that of the country as a whole.
When one politician sets the precedent for bias toward his/her own tribe, all other politicians follow suit. All tribes, not wanting to be deprioritized in allocation of the state's limited resources, would do whatever they can to put someone of their tribe into positions of power. And unless conflicts of political ideologies, conflicts of tribal affiliations is often a zero-sum game. A person cannot switch tribal affiliations, and cannot belong in more than one tribe. And given the insatiable appetite for resources of any tribe that knows it would lose the position of power sooner or later, it is impossible to allocate fairly to more than one tribe.
Of course, African countries are not the only ones with interethnic conflicts, but in nowhere else is the balance of power among different ethnicities so precarious. In multiethnic immigrant societies like the US, no ethnicity can establish regional bases based on concept of "homelands." And in multiethnic "empires" like China and Russia, one ethnicity is so politically, economically, and demographically dominant, that minorities, even with clearly defined regional homelands, have to acquiesce with their secondary status. But in many African countries, the tribes are so similar in population that there is potential to be equally competitive.
The result is the dominance of tribal-nationalism that supersede that of state-level nationalism. When the interest of the nation and that of the tribe comes into conflict, people willingly choose the latter at the expense of the former. Such decision-making is most glaring in times of tribal conflicts, when the country's interest in ensuring peace and stability, in order to create a conducive environment for economic development, suffers as each tribe seek to maximize gains from the conflict. As tribes fight for resources, potential investors are driven away.
And because conflicts among equally populated tribes are never one-off, winner-takes-all affairs, each tribe is bound to lose later even when it wins now. The temporary nature of tribal victories incentivize the winning tribe to take all the resources it can in the shortest period possible, lest it loses access to the resources in the future. Such short-term thinking discourages any tribal leader to invest in long-term projects or set long-term policies necessary to create steady development over the next decades. For them, the nationalism of their tribes takes great precedence over whatever happens at the country level.
To put in the simplest manner, that "historical circumstance" is the development of nationalism or lack thereof. That previous blog posts gave an example of Japanese migrants to Brazil funding Japan's economic modernization program through remittances. But it never specifically said that many Japanese were willing to make the sacrifice because they love their country. It was an explicitly physical manifestation of nationalism that drove the Japanese migrants to their particular actions. They made sacrifices not exclusively for personal gain, but also because they loved their homelands.
While the issue of nationalism (or lack thereof) is a universal one, history has ensured that Africa in particular gets the short end of the stick on this particular issue. Unlike Japan, where centuries of centralized rule has forged a common ethnic and cultural identity among the citizenry, countries of Africa never had that opportunity. As any student of African history would know, modern-day African nation-states follow the borders of European colonial divisions, which are not created based on tribal or ethnic affiliations. Nations are made up of a hodgepodge of different peoples who happened to be ruled by the same colonial master.
The mismatch between political and cultural boundaries help explain why there is an above-average occurrences of interethnic and inter-tribal conflicts within African states. African states include homelands of different tribes and pre-colonization indigenous kingdoms. Individuals, including the most powerful of politicians, tend to pledge their allegiances much more to their tribes rather than the unified political entity. Hence, when politicians are put into positions of power, they are motivated to prioritize the interests of their own particular tribes rather than that of the country as a whole.
When one politician sets the precedent for bias toward his/her own tribe, all other politicians follow suit. All tribes, not wanting to be deprioritized in allocation of the state's limited resources, would do whatever they can to put someone of their tribe into positions of power. And unless conflicts of political ideologies, conflicts of tribal affiliations is often a zero-sum game. A person cannot switch tribal affiliations, and cannot belong in more than one tribe. And given the insatiable appetite for resources of any tribe that knows it would lose the position of power sooner or later, it is impossible to allocate fairly to more than one tribe.
Of course, African countries are not the only ones with interethnic conflicts, but in nowhere else is the balance of power among different ethnicities so precarious. In multiethnic immigrant societies like the US, no ethnicity can establish regional bases based on concept of "homelands." And in multiethnic "empires" like China and Russia, one ethnicity is so politically, economically, and demographically dominant, that minorities, even with clearly defined regional homelands, have to acquiesce with their secondary status. But in many African countries, the tribes are so similar in population that there is potential to be equally competitive.
The result is the dominance of tribal-nationalism that supersede that of state-level nationalism. When the interest of the nation and that of the tribe comes into conflict, people willingly choose the latter at the expense of the former. Such decision-making is most glaring in times of tribal conflicts, when the country's interest in ensuring peace and stability, in order to create a conducive environment for economic development, suffers as each tribe seek to maximize gains from the conflict. As tribes fight for resources, potential investors are driven away.
And because conflicts among equally populated tribes are never one-off, winner-takes-all affairs, each tribe is bound to lose later even when it wins now. The temporary nature of tribal victories incentivize the winning tribe to take all the resources it can in the shortest period possible, lest it loses access to the resources in the future. Such short-term thinking discourages any tribal leader to invest in long-term projects or set long-term policies necessary to create steady development over the next decades. For them, the nationalism of their tribes takes great precedence over whatever happens at the country level.
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