Ethnocracy: The lesson from Africa

The general election in Zimbabwe has now taken place. Lord Soames has accomplished his very delicate mission with great courage and considerable skill. Mrs Thatcher's government has succeeded in finding a solution to a problem that has defied many previous governments. It is undoubtedly a political triumph but will it bring to power a stable government and a lasting peace? The answer is almost certainly no. It is not because of any ideological differences between the various political groupings in Zimbabwe. It is because Zimbabwe is not a nation, but at least two nations:

• Mashonaland in the North East, which was settled in antiquity by a Bantu speaking people known as the Shonas, and
• Matabeleland, which was settled by the Ndebele, an offshoot of the Zulus who fled there from the armies of the great conqueror, King Chaka.

The two nations were independent until we occupied Matabeleland in 1888 having obtained a concession from its king, Lobengula, to exploit the country's mineral potential.

Already at that time, the Ndebele and the Shona were bitter enemies, indeed it was on the pretext of protecting the Shona from constant Ndebele raids that, in 1890 we first occupied Mashonaland. These two nations are still very different from each other, as different as France is from Germany and it is difficult to see how they can be merged with impunity, into a centralised nation state on the western model.

That these tribal groups have remained separate is clear from the nature of the movements that have sprung up to combat white domination and though we like to explain the rivalry between these movements in purely political and ideological terms, it is, in reality, based on ethnic differences.

The Zimbabwe Peoples Union (ZAPU) being largely composed of Shona tribesmen while the membership of the Zimbabwe National Union (ZANU) is largely Ndebele. These two nations moreover are divided into distinct sub-groups, which also have their political arms. Thus Mr Chickerema's Zimbabwe Democratic Party is based on the Zezura tribe, while Bishop Muzorewa's UANC is largely based on the Manyika tribe - both of which are sections of the Shona.

Originally, the two main tribes tried to join forces in their opposition to the colonial regime. Both were represented in the National Democratic Party (NDP) founded in 1960 with Joshua Nkomo as president but it only lasted two years and efforts to get the two tribal groups to form a joint political movement have since all failed.

Joshua Nkomo, though undoubtedly a very powerful figure and father of nationalism in Zimbabwe Rhodesia, was unlikely to win the election because he is a Karanga, i.e. a member of the tribe that originally inhabited Mashonaland before the Ndebele invasion. They are now inter-married with the Ndebele, (in fact, Joshua Nkomo's wife is a member of the Ndebele royal family) and have become closely associated with this tribe. Together the Ndebele and Karanga make up only 19 percent of the population of Zimbabwe. It must follow that if Zimbabwe is considered to be a single political unit then in the long run, in any case it can only be governed by the Shona people who make up 77 percent of the population.

Successive Shona prime ministers are likely to assure everybody, that in the democratic state of Zimbabwe everybody is equal, regardless of race, culture or creed. But in reality things will be different. The Ndebele, together with their Karanga allies, will be reduced to the status of a subject people. Rather than having freed themselves of colonial domination they will simply have acquired new masters, masters too, that are likely to be tougher in dealing with their new subjects - their old enemies the Ndebele - than were their European predecessors.

Nor will it be long before the Ndebele try to break away to form their own nation, just as did the Ibos in Nigeria and the South Sudanese in the Sudan but they will do so in the face of world public opinion. Everywhere politicians will vie with each other in providing the 'legitimate' government with money and arms to fight the 'rebels' or 'terrorists' as the Ndebele will undoubtedly be referred to. The latter will, thereby, be forced to seek aid from Cuba, Russia and the other enemies of the West, in this way internationalising the conflict as, in similar situations, has invariably happened in the past.

African tribalism is rarely discussed in European circles; almost never in political circles. Since it is unquestionably the determinant factor in African politics, it seems reasonable to ask why it is ignored in this way. One reason is that it is seen as a relic of barbarity. To suggest that tribal groupings still exist is to brand a country as backward and under-developed. It is often regarded as insulting to question an African politician on tribal matters.

And there are other reasons. One is that it is difficult for us to have political and economic dealings with tribal societies who tend to live outside the orbit of the industrial system - who have neither formal or economic or political institutions. If such societies are to take part in the political and economic life of the world community, then they must be organised like us, into nation states with politicians, bureaucrats, large cities and a formal economy.

We are not the only ones to turn a blind eye to tribal realities. The African elite is even more hostile to it - for it is composed of people who have little status within traditional tribal hierarchies. Most of them are not chiefs but commoners and if they are in power it is because they were educated in our western universities and have thereby become capable of competing successfully in the totally new conditions created in Africa as a result of western type development.

It is therefore in their interest to perpetuate these conditions, indeed to accelerate the process of development and social transformation, for the faster it occurs, the faster must be the transfer of power from the heads of the traditional social groupings, to those of the new economic and bureaucratic structures which they control. The colonial regimes, as Nigerian Ecologist Jimoh Omo Fadaka notes, were,

"on the whole hostile to tribalism, if only for the very good reason that it represented a potentially rival structure of power to their own."

This is truer still of the new political regimes in Africa to whose precarious authority the tribes present a very much greater threat. Almost every politician's undivided following is still derived from the membership of the tribe to which he belongs and whose identity he has not yet succeeded in destroying.

South West Africa-Namibia

In the meantime, Lord Carrington, intoxicated with success, now seeks other worlds to conquer. If he can solve the apparently insoluble problems of Zimbabwe Rhodesia, then surely he will be able to do likewise with those of South West Africa-Namibia. But his efforts are likely to be equally fruitless, for if Zimbabwe Rhodesia is an artificial creation, South West Africa Namibia is even more so.

This vast territory is inhabited by many different nations who only have in common with each other a long tradition of mutual hostility. Among these is that of the Ovambos who make up 44 percent of the population. They live in the Northern area (Ovamboland) and are separated from their brothers in South Angola by a purely arbitrary frontier that once marked the border between Portuguese and South African influence.

The next most populous nation is that of the Hereros, a Bantu people who migrated to that part of the world some 500 years ago. The third is that of the Namas, a branch of the Hottentot, who are the Hereros' traditional enemies. A fourth nation is that of the Berg Damaras, who for centuries were the slaves of the Nama, while other small ethnic groups include the almost self-governing Rehebothers who are of mixed Boer and Nama blood and the Bushmen of the Kalahari.

The gulf that separates these nations, is reflected in the tribal basis of the political movements set up to oppose the colonial regime. Thus the South West Africa Peoples' Organisation (SWAPO), traces its origin to the Ovamboland Peoples Organisation and needless to say was set up by Ovambos.

The South West Africa National Union (SWANU) was set up by the Hereros. These are the two main political groups, the only ones we tend to hear about in the Western press: but there are others. Indeed the Nama have also set up their political movement: the South West Africa United National Independent Organisation (SWANIO). The Berg Damaras have set up theirs: the South West Africa Democratic Union (SWADU), so have the Coloured who call theirs the South West Africa Coloured Organisation (SWACO), and the Rehebothers - which is known as the Rehoboth Burgers Association.

Just as in Zimbabwe Rhodesia, all attempts to unite these groups into a single anti-colonialist movement have failed. Thus in 1963, an attempt was made to merge SWAPO and SWANU into a single organisation to be called the South West African National Liberation Front (SWANLIF). It came to nothing, nor were Kerina's National Unity Democratic Organisation (NUDO) and the South West Africa National United Front (SWANUF) any more successful.

As in Zimbabwe Rhodesia, political leaders in South West Africa-Namibia refuse to admit that their 'parties' are tribally based. They are unanimous in regarding tribalism as an evil that must be stamped out at all costs. Attempts to accommodate tribal differences in South West Africa-Namibia are seen by Kerina and other Ovambo politicians as part of a South African backed conspiracy to 'balkanise' this 'country', so as to weaken it and prevent it from developing into a modern industrial state.

The reason for this is, partly at least, that 'separate development' has been official policy for a long time in South West Africa and since December 1978 the country has been partly run by a National Assembly that is organised on a federal basis and in which the different ethnic groups are represented. But the land allocated to the African groups is totally insufficient, most of it, and in particular that which is most suitable for agriculture, has been reserved for the European settlers, mainly Boers and Germans, even though they only make up 10 percent of the population.

As a result, rural whites have 40 times more land per head than rural blacks and far better land at that. Quite obviously this is not a satisfactory basis for a stable federation and, at the same time, it has helped to discredit the essential principles of ethnic autonomy and federalism, as well as strengthened the hand of politicians who wish to establish in South West Africa-Namibia, a monolithic state on the western model.

Also, as in Zimbabwe Rhodesia, the rivalry between the different groups has been exploited by international powers, seeking to expand their respective zones of influence. Thus SWAPO is being backed by Moscow, while SWANU has strong Chinese leanings.

In these conditions it is not difficult to imagine what would be the consequences of Lord Carrington's suggested intervention.

A general election in South West Africa-Namibia would simply be a formality; a ritual for legitimising the power of the most populous of the many nations that make up this arbitrarily defined area; a licence for the setting up of an Ovambo empire. In such conditions it would be but a question of time before the various subject peoples rose against their new colonial masters, who, represented, as they would be by the legitimate government of the land, would obtain the support of Western Democratic countries to maintain the status quo.

If this can be predicted with such confidence, it is that it has already happened so many times before, always with the same tragic consequences. If we take for instance the four most murderous wars that have rent Africa in the last 20 years - those that occurred in Nigeria, the Sudan, Ethiopia and Angola - it can be shown that each could have been avoided if the political boundaries inherited from the departing European colonial powers had corresponded more faithfully with those that separate the nations that inhabit these territories. Let us see why this was so.

Nigeria

Nigeria, as Omo Fadaka points out, was once heralded as "the bastion of Parliamentary democracy in Africa" and "Africa's showpiece". This was sheer wishful thinking. Nigeria is as artificial a country as Zimbabwe Rhodesia and South West Africa-Namibia.

The northern area is lived in by the Moslem Hausa Fulani people, who are organised into a large number of small feudal states and by tribal peoples such as the Tivs, the Igalas and the Idomas, who practice their own tribal religions. The Eastern region is largely inhabited by the Christian Ibos who are organised into semi-autonomous village groups. In the west are the Yorubas who are also Christians, and in the Mid West live the Edo speaking people; the Ishawas, the Agos and the Binis, the latter being organised into a highly centralised kingdom run by the semi-divine Oba of Benin.

These different peoples have little in common with each other. Indeed as Chief Awalowo put it, Nigeria, is but

"a mere geographical expression, at best an agglomeration of tribal nations. There is as much difference between them as there is between Germans, Russians and Turks."

Some of these nations are very populous. There are at least 20 million Hausa Fulani, 8 million Ibos, 10 million Yorubas; more than there are Swedes, Danes, Norwegians or Finns. As elsewhere in Africa, ethnic differences in Nigeria are reflected in the political parties that were set up to combat the colonial powers. The Northern Peoples Congress, for instance, was predominantly Hausa Fulani while the National Council of Nigerian Citizens was largely Ibo. Under these conditions the course of events after independence was fairly predictable.

As Jimoh Omo Fadaka points out, parliamentary government is only possible if the party that looses an election is willing to accept the result and thereby accept the legitimacy of the government that has been returned to power. This it will only do, if it regards the survival of the State as being more important than the achievement of its own political goals; a condition that is unlikely to be satisfied when the political parties represent little more than rival tribal groupings - as was the case in Nigeria. Thus, after the elections, the northerners, as Omo Fadaka writes,

"were willing to abide by the laws of the parliamentary system so long as it appeared that they would win the election, but when they found their position threatened, they resorted to intimidation and denied their opponents the right to hold meetings".

The result was an Ibo military coup followed by a counter coup that brought General Gowan to power and led to the massacre of about 30,000 Ibos in the North.

This was the prelude to a particularly murderous war which caused the death of well over a million people and which was rapidly internationalised; the Russians, British and Egyptians providing arms to the government forces and the French, Czechs and Chinese equipping the Ibos.

Up to a point, the Nigerians seem belatedly to have learned their lesson. The territory has now been divided into 19 states corresponding reasonably well to the main ethnic divisions. They all have equal representation in the Senate regardless of their size. It remains to be seen whether this arrangement is sufficient to accommodate the vast cultural differences that separate the different nations that make up the Nigerian Nation state.

The Sudan

In 1953, the Egyptian government, in conjunction with North Sudanese political parties and the British Government, set up a new independent country to be called The Sudan. Like the other artificial countries we have already considered, its chances of success were, from the start, negligible. It is divided up into two very different regions, the North and the South.

The North is largely desert, the South, until recently, was largely forests and marshes. The North is inhabited by light brown skinned Hamito-Semitic peoples, who regard themselves as Arabs; the South by various black skinned tribal peoples; Nilotics, such as the Dinka, the Shilluk and the Anuak, Nilo-Hamitics, such as the Murle, the Didinga and the Boya and Sudanic people such as the Azande, the Kreish and the Bongo.

In addition, the North has been in contact with the Mediterranean for thousands of years and is Mediterranean in culture and aspirations; whereas the South has had, until recently, but few contacts with the outside world and is African through and through. What is more, all these differences are compounded by the fact that the Northerners have embraced the Moslem faith while the Southern tribes either practice their own tribal religions or have been converted to Christianity.

In other words, climatically, ecologically, historically, racially, culturally and religiously, North and South are poles apart. In such conditions it was totally irresponsible to create a centralised Sudanese state. Once it was created, events were fairly predictable. In the Parliament set up in 1953, the Southerners obtained but a quarter of the seats. They were, thereby, condemned to be governed by the Northern Arabs who had been made their legitimate masters.

Of course the Government did everything it could to mask inconvenient ethnic realities. Major Sahal Salim, the famous "dancing major", an Egyptian Government Minster at the time, assured the world that, whatever their racial and religious differences, the peoples of the Sudan were one - which of course, was, and is, arrant nonsense.

Britain had in effect helped to create precisely those conditions that most favoured oppression, revolution and war. Nor has it taken long for this war to break out. In 1955 there were riots at Nwara, leading to the death of about twenty people. In 1963, war broke out in earnest.

It was mainly a guerrilla war but it was a particularly nasty one. Like the war in Nigeria and elsewhere it was quickly internationalised with the Russians arming the North Sudanese and providing them with an estimated 700 military advisers, while other countries, Israel in particular, armed the South. Peace appears to have returned once more to this area, but only the most starry-eyed optimist can suppose that it can be maintained for long.

Eritrea and Ethiopia

The present war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which has now gone on for ten years, provides a further illustration of the same thesis. Eritrea is an artificial country created by the Italians in 1890. The territory is a small one, a little smaller than England. Ecologically it is made up of two distinct areas, the central mountainous area containing the capital, Asmara, and the lowland area bordering the Red Sea.

The former was once part of the Christian kingdom of the Tigre, and its inhabitants are ethnically Tigreans and, like their brothers, who have been incorporated into the Ethiopian empire, they have embraced Christianity. The latter area is inhabited largely by Sudanese and Danakils and also by some Tigreans. They have been governed successively by Turks, Egyptians and the Sudanese followers of the Mahdi. They speak Arabic and have embraced Islam. So once again we are faced with a totally artificial political unit that can only be maintained by force.

After the war, a Four Power Commission, consisting of the Soviet Union, Britain, France and the USA, decided to federate it with Ethiopia. They could not have taken a more irresponsible decision: firstly, because an artificial country such as Eritrea could never be a sound building block for a satisfactory federation; secondly, because Ethiopia is an artificial creation, being, in effect, the empire of the Amharas, over the Gallas in the South, the Somalis in the East, the Tigreans in the North, the Danakils along the Red Sea plains; and a host of small tribes that fall into none of these different categories. In addition, one cannot advantageously federate so small a political unit as Eritrea with so massive a state as Ethiopia.

Predictably, the federation was of short duration. Ethiopia took over more and more power and by 1955, the federation existed in name only. A revolt was inevitable. It started among the Moslems of Western Eritrea, who set up the Eritrean Liberation Movement (ELF). This quickly split up into two rival factions, which, though we are never told it, represent the two separate nations that inhabit that territory.

The war is likely to drag on for a long time. If the Eritreans are ever subdued, it can be predicted with confidence, that they will rise again when the opportunity presents itself. Were they eventually to obtain their independence their problems would still not be over. The two nations that inhabit the Eritrean territory would soon be in conflict and this conflict would not be resolved until the territory were split up into its natural ecological and ethnic regions.

Angola

Angola is of course another completely artificial creation, though a very old one since the Portuguese set it up as a colony as far back as the 16th century. The largest of the many nations that inhabit this territory is that of the Ovimbundu, with a population of 1.5 million people. They live in the central highlands and have been Christians for a very long time. The second largest is that of the Kimbundu with a population of about 1.2 million centred around Luanda, the capital. The third biggest is that of the Bakongo, the heirs of the ancient kingdom of the Congo, that was broken up in the 18th century. Their territory has been carved up by the colonial powers, so that some of the Bakongo people are now citizens of Angola, others of Zaire and still others of Congo Brazzaville.

Another important nation inhabiting the Angolan territory is that of the Chokwe-Lunda, whose ancestors created the Lunda Empire. They live in North East Angola, astride the border with Katanga. The Southern part of the territory is inhabited by the Cuanhama tribes, which are part of the Ovambo nation that, as we have seen, spreads across the border of South West Africa-Namibia.

Ever since the colony of Angola was first set up, these various nations have constantly revolted against their colonial masters. War was a natural state of things in Angola from the very start. The current war, however, began in 1961. It was started by the Movimento Popular de Libertacao de Angola (MPLA) in the Luanda area and the Uniao das Populacoes de Angola (UPA) in the North. The former, which has now come to power, traces its descent to the Partido da Luta dos Africanos de Angola (PLUA), which in turn grew out of the Partido Communista de Angola (PCA).

The MPLA, as opposed to most of the political movements we have considered so far, is not a tribal grouping but an urban movement, consisting of European separatists, Mestico intellectuals and a few urbanised and westernised Africans, and it is for this reason that it has always failed, and always will fail, to obtain the support of the tribes which make up the vast majority of the inhabitants of Angola.

The other political movements in Angola are, on the other hand, purely tribal. The Frente Nacional de Libertacao de Angola (FNLA) for instance, traces its descent to the Uniao das Populacoes do Norte de Angola (UPNA), which was originally set up with the goal of restoring the old kingdom of the Congo, and which was later transformed into a theoretically multi-tribal movement, the Uniao das Populacoes de Angola by Holden Roberto, and merged with the Partido Democractico Angolan (PDA), which was based on the Zombo tribe of the Bakongo.

The FNLA's multi tribal facade was always very thin. The movement was from the first, hostile to the settlers and to the urbanised blacks and was often accused by the Portuguese and the MPLA of planning genocide against the Mulattos. The leadership of the FNLA government in exile, the Governo Revolutionario de Angola no Exilio (GRAE), was indeed multi-tribal but the bulk of the membership was always Bakongo.

In any case, the membership did not remain multi-tribal for long. The foreign minister, Jonas Savimbi, who was an Ovimbundu, accused Roberto of tribalism, resigned and set up his own political movement, UNITA, which of course is just as tribal as the FNLA or GRAE but happens to be based on the Ovimbundu and the Ovambo tribes rather than on the Bakongo.

It is because of its association with the Ovambos that UNITA is being helped by SWAPO across the border in South West Africa-Namibia, much to the chagrin of their Russian backers who, as everybody knows, have financed and armed the MPLA in Luanda and have thereby come to control the 'legitimate' government of this artificial state.

It is important to realise that the countries we have considered are in no way exceptional. What I have said about them could also be said of the newly independent countries of Africa and of Asia for that matter. This means that both these continents are condemned to be ravaged by increasingly murderous wars, until such time as we accept the essential principle that tribes or nations should be allowed to govern themselves, rather than be subjected to the arbitrary rule of the larger tribes or nations that dominate the artificial states that we have helped set up, to satisfy what are nothing more than short term political and economic requirements.

That we should not have accepted this essential principle is all the more surprising in view of the recent European experience, which is much more similar to the African one than we would like to admit.

Europe

Indeed, practically all the European states of today are artificial creations, made up of nations whose separate identity is largely ignored. For a long time, European people, preoccupied as they have been with purely economic considerations, have been willing to see their ethnic identity submerged in a vast anonymous mass society and to be little more than 'faces in the crowd'. Increasingly, today they want to be part of a real society in whose cultural life and in whose government they can actively participate. Not surprisingly, autonomist movements are gaining strength in almost every European State.

In Spain, Catalan nationalists have been active for decades and today the Basques are even more so. Their action has recently forced the central government to provide the nations that inhabit the Spanish territory, with a measure of self-government that is undoubtedly a prelude to still greater political decentralisation.

In France, autonomist movements are increasingly active among the Corsicans and the Bretons and in Britain, we are witnessing the development of powerful nationalist movements in Scotland and Wales and even in Cornwall.

In Northern Ireland, the hostility between two different ethnic groups, the indigenous Irish on the one hand and the descendants of the 17th century Scots immigrants on the other, has already led to the deaths of thousands of people. The ethnic basis of this crisis is never even mentioned. Instead it is passed off as a purely religious dispute between Catholics and Protestants. Indeed, the reason is that in the present ideological climate, it is not politically expedient that these differences be accommodated, so instead they are ignored and it is on the altar of this political expediency that young English soldiers and innocent Irish civilians are sacrificed almost daily.

National unity, we persuade ourselves, must everywhere be preserved at all costs. Breaking up countries into smaller areas we regard as totally impractical. To begin with, these areas would not be able to defend themselves against an external aggressor. This, of course, is not necessarily true. They could associate themselves to form a confederation as did the Swiss communes who thereby succeeded in preserving their independence for centuries, far more successfully than did many of their larger neighbours.

Today, if Pakistan is to defend itself against the new Russian threat from Afghanistan, its most sensible course is to grant the Baluchis, whose territory the Russians quite clearly covet, since it borders the Indian Ocean, that measure of autonomy that they demand. If they do not, then the Baluchis might well cooperate with the Russians against their Punjabi overlords. If they do, then the Baluchis would undoubtedly fight to preserve their newly acquired autonomy, for as Mr. Gladstone said, "there is no barrier like the breasts of freemen".

Another argument for preserving the present frontiers of Europe is that the natural regions of Europe would not constitute viable economic units. This argument is totally without foundation. There is no reason to suppose that the inhabitants of China, America or the Soviet Union are better off than those of Iceland, Switzerland, Denmark or Luxembourg. Indeed the opposite seems to be true, and the argument for breaking Europe down into its natural regions as Leopold Kohr pointed out so convincingly in his classic The Breakdown of Nations, are overwhelming.

Significantly enough, Federal Germany was divided up by the allies into eleven Lander each with a high degree of local autonomy, with the avowed intention of weakening her. Needless to say, this measure had the opposite effect, indeed, as Denis de Rougemont, the eminent Swiss writer and advocate of Federalism points out,

"this federal and regional form of government goes a long way towards explaining the political, economic and social recovery of Germany."

This is even truer of Switzerland, which, again as Denis de Rougemont notes, has

"for six or seven centuries provided the image of an exemplary federation of historic regions which find in their union - strictly limited to certain public functions - the guarantee of their autonomy."

Switzerland is indeed socially and politically the most successful country in Europe. It is a loose association of communes or Gemeinde, that during the Middle Ages joined together voluntarily in order to better protect themselves against feudal domination.

These communes have much in common with African tribal groups. Like them, they are governed by an open assembly of the menfolk; the communal land is held in common by its members; the communes are social not just administrative units, a man remains a member of his Burgergemeinde, regardless of where he decides to settle; and it is to his Burgergemeinde and not to any State bureaucracy that he must turn when in need.

What is more, to become a Swiss citizen he must first be accepted as a citizen of a commune and of a canton, which means that the Swiss state is not composed of any anonymous mass of isolated individuals, as are most industrial countries today, but of semi-autonomous cantons, themselves made up of semi-autonomous communes, themselves composed of families and individuals.

One cannot stress too strongly the fact that these communes and cantons joined together voluntarily to form the Swiss Confederation. They participate actively in this federation on an equal footing. They are not dominated by any one group and if, in certain instances, they feel that they are, then they can break away and form their own canton, just as the French speaking people of the Jura recently did, so as to avoid being dominated by the German speaking people of the canton of Berne.

It is only in these conditions that larger, stable political units can be built up. As Omo Fadaka writes,

"No one national group cherishes the idea of being ruled by the other. What they desire most is to find a formula for living together in a poly-ethnic society. The only way to do this is for the different national groups to be allowed to develop separately without fear of political domination of one section by the other. There is no way of removing this fear other than by granting them complete political autonomy. Once this fear is removed, full economic, social and cultural co-operation could well lead to that unity which has eluded the country so far."

In Europe, people are now slowly beginning to see the light. In Belgium, for instance, a new project is being studied to divide the country into four regions, one Walloon, one Flemish, one German and one composed of the ethnically mixed population of Brussels. What is more, much of the power would be delegated to sub-regions made up of associated communes.

The Council of Europe too, is beginning to show greater interest in the concept of federalism. Recently, a meeting was held under its auspices to study the natural regions that cut across present state boundaries. A typical one is the Regio Basiliensis which includes Alsace, Baden and the Swiss Canton of Basle.

The inhabitants of these areas are ethnically related, being descended from the Germanic tribe of the Allemani, and speak a similar German dialect. They have recently been made aware of their common identity by the threat to their biological survival posed by the nuclear industry, that proposes to put up no fewer than 16 nuclear power stations in their midst; 6 in the French section of this region, 5 in the Swiss and 5 in the German - a nation is indeed made by its enemies rather than by its friends.

Another such region, at present being studied by the Institut Universitaire d'Etudes Europeenes in Geneva, is the Lemano-Alpine region, made up of much of French speaking Switzerland, the Franche Comte, Savoy, the Val d'Aosta and parts of the French departments of the Isere and of the Ain. Another is the Triestine region made up of the Friuli, Carinthia and Slovenia. In all, 15 such regions have been identified and it is hoped that they will slowly be allowed to become effective units for certain social and economic purposes at least.

It is only by encouraging such developments, and by generally decentralising power from the governments running the artificial countries of Europe, to those of the real nations that compose them, that stability and peace can be assured. In the meantime, it is very irresponsible to set up political structures in Africa and elsewhere in what was once our Colonial Empire, that do not reflect social realities, and whose eventual dismemberment into their natural regions is inevitable and, what is more, at the cost of a great deal of unnecessary human misery.

In Africa, some people are beginning to see the light. In Zimbabwe Rhodesia Chief Kaisa Ndiweni has founded the United National Federal Party which did unexpectedly well in the May 1979 elections. Chief Ndiweni has emphasised the totally artificial nature of the newly independent African countries and he fully realises that Rhodesia is no exception to the rule. His party is committed to dividing Rhodesia into two semi-autonomous regions, one for the Shona and the other for the Ndebele. The regions would be but loosely associated to form a federation, the federal government being responsible for defence and other functions that are best fulfilled at that level.

Chief Ndiweni has obtained considerable support for this scheme from among the Ndebele people, but predictably, the majority of the Shona are against it. However, it is only if Chief Ndiweni's ideas are rapidly accepted by the majority of the people of Zimbabwe that it will be possible to prevent the chaos and bloodshed that otherwise lie in store.