UNKNOWN AFRICA. MYTH 4: Africa is all about conflicts and political instability

Writer, journalist, Ph.D., professor at the University of Cambridge, author of the bestselling book How Asia works

UNKNOWN AFRICA. MYTH 4: Africa is all about conflicts and political instability

Art design: huxley.media via Photoshop

The concept of a «stereotype» was introduced back in 1922 by American sociologist Walter Lippmann. Since then, humanity has repeatedly realized how difficult it is to step beyond the «picture in one’s head». Joe Studwell is one of the few who has managed to overcome the inertia of thought and build a bridge of understanding between cultures.

For more than 20 years, he served as the editor of China Economic Quarterly. His years of research resulted in the bestselling book The Asian Management Model (How Asia Works). Today, Studwell takes on an equally ambitious challenge: helping us understand how Africa works.

In an exclusive interview for Huxley, he debunks nine myths about Africa that persist in Western cultural consciousness. Let’s embark on an engaging and stereotype-free journey across the African continent with him.

frica is often criticized as an unstable region plagued by conflict. In 2000, The Economist labeled it «the hopeless continent», placing an armed man at the center of the African map on its cover. A report from war-torn Sierra Leone cited «violence, despotism, and corruption» as outcomes of «causes rooted in [African] cultures».

Since the dawn of the independence era in the 1950s and 1960s, African nations have struggled to forge national identities amid deep ethnic fragmentation. They have strived for political progress in balancing traditional aristocracies and attempted to transition from patrimonial governance to more flexible and meritocratic systems.

However, weak national identity has led to numerous conflicts between competing ethnic groups, with perceptions of difference exacerbated during the colonial era. After gaining independence, early efforts were made to establish ethnic harmony, but by the 1960s, one-party rule had begun to dominate.

By 1980, two-thirds of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa had experienced periods of military rule. Ethnic conflicts reached their peak in the 1980s and 1990s. By the mid-1990s, 31 African countries were simultaneously experiencing a lack of peace — due either to civil wars or severe internal strife.

According to data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, between 1960 and 2010, African nations witnessed 43 civil conflicts, each claiming over a thousand lives, with a total death toll of 6.6 million. This number of casualties was not unusual, considering Africa’s extreme ethnic fragmentation and the resulting potential for conflict amid population growth. Comparisons can also be drawn to the bloodshed that accompanied state formation in Europe. Nevertheless, this pattern reflected chronic political instability.

In 1969, Kenyan Africanist Ali Mazrui wrote about post-colonial governance: «The new states in Africa… are no longer tribal, but not yet truly national». A case in point of chronic dysfunction was Zaire — now the Democratic Republic of the Congo — under Mobutu Sese Seko.

Mobutu ruled with brutality and entrenched corruption, becoming infamous for chartering supersonic Concorde jets to Paris. Political life in Zaire was deeply shaped by ethnic conflict. In the 1990s, two wars in Zaire involving neighboring states claimed around five million lives — mostly due to disease and starvation.

Today, the eastern region of the DRC remains engulfed in uprisings, messianic movements, and ethnic warfare, often manipulated by neighboring countries, especially Rwanda. In constant 2010 dollars, the DRC’s GDP per capita has fallen from $1,000 in 1960 to $400 today.

Another example of the many charismatic yet brutal leaders who emerged amid Africa’s political instability was Pierre Nkurunziza. Until 2020, Nkurunziza served as the president of Burundi. He referred to himself as the Supreme Leader and the Great Guide to Patriotism, and spent much of his presidency touring with his football team, Hallelujah F.C. — a team that opponents often let win to avoid arrest and persecution.

Nkurunziza banned jogging in the streets, fearing it could be used as a cover for political gatherings. When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, he expelled WHO experts and declared that God would protect Burundi. His death in 2020 was most likely caused by Covid-19. After 15 years of corruption and incompetent governance, Nkurunziza left behind a Burundi that had once had a GDP per capita similar to neighboring Rwanda in the 1990s, but by 2023 had become five times poorer, with a poverty rate of 83%.

Corruption remains one of Africa’s most serious challenges. A recent African Union report estimated that the continent loses $50 billion annually through illicit financial flows — funds that end up in offshore financial centers and wealthy countries.

The total amount siphoned off over the past five decades is roughly equivalent to the volume of aid sent to Africa. In 2023, 10 of the 20 worst-performing countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index were African.

Most of the stolen money came from oil-exporting countries. Since 1970, Nigeria is estimated to have lost nearly $500 billion, while Angola has lost over $100 billion. Among non-oil-producing countries with significant capital flight were Côte d’Ivoire and South Africa.

In the case of the latter, corruption and criminal networks infiltrated the core of one of Africa’s wealthiest nations during the presidency of Jacob Zuma (2009–2018). Yet despite deep ethnic fragmentation, some postcolonial African states have made significant strides in building national unity.

Tanzania is one of the most ethnically diverse countries on the continent. After gaining independence in 1961, Julius Nyerere made Swahili the language of government, set an example of personal modesty, and established the Ministry of National Culture and Youth to promote a unified Tanzanian identity.

Historian John Iliffe noted, «The national language of Swahili and half a century of political stability have united what is possibly the most ethnically diverse population on the continent». However, Tanzania’s agricultural nationalization and collectivization program in the 1970s failed to bring economic benefits.

The most successful postcolonial African states have been those that developed under coalition governments. Botswana and Mauritius established interethnic coalitions of national unity, which helped accelerate economic development. More recently, Ethiopia and Rwanda launched development programs under formally inclusive interethnic coalitions, though in practice, these were dominated by a single ethnic group. Nevertheless, the genuine commitment to national unity has produced promising results.

Another major political issue for Europe is the perception of Africa as a primary source of irregular immigration. Africa is often blamed for the growing influx of economic migrants and asylum seekers — fleeing, for example, poverty and insurgencies in northern Nigeria, civil war in South Sudan, or lifelong military conscription in Eritrea.

Over one million Africans applied for asylum in Europe during the 2010s, and their numbers continue to rise. However, African immigrants make up less than one-tenth of all refugees in Europe, and the vast majority of African migration actually occurs within the continent, not beyond it.