How hard would it be to redefine a nation's borders?

[Narz]

Plarq's assertions in this thread (about the unnatural borders in Africa created by Europeans decades and centuries ago) got me thinking. What's to stop these nations from spliting (or merging with parts of other nations)? Is this a complicated process? If a nation did split or merge (for whatever reason) what would it take for the UN and/or mapmakers to accept and document the change?

Thanks.

 

[Verbose]

If two nations with a common border consensually decide to shift it this way or that, draw up and sign the paperwork, then no problem.

In Africa the problem is rather that you have now a centralised authority very far from the borders, and the borders are where all kinds of larger or smaller ethnic groups have been divided up one upon a time.

What are you going todo with the Zande for example? The 19th c. Azande empire (under the Avongara princes) controlled and area the size of France. They and the Maasai were the only political entities in central Africa able to make the Arab slavers skirt their territory.

Being that militarily capable of course they got broken up between the Belgians (Kongo), French (Congo Brazzaville, French Congo) and the British (Sudan as an Anglo-Egyptian protectorate).
Neither of these modern states have any interest in erecting a Zande state even if that once would have been what was politcally feasible and reasonable.

The time to do this different would have been the 19th c., but then the Europeans would have had to let king Kabarega of Bunyoro and his 1500 troops with European rifles (Snyders and Jocelyns) fight it out with his neighbours to settle what would be a viable African state.
Or concluded that when the king of Dahomey in the 1890's equipped his army with machineguns, then perhaps he should have been left alone, as he hoped through that move. But France didn't so now the point is moot.

So much has happened since then to make it impossible for Africa to pick up where the Europeans interrupted them.

Attempts to change borders in todays Africa are all civil wars. Katanga tried to break out of Congo in the 1950's and got jumped by the UN in fact. (Gen. Sec. Dag Hammarskjöld really went to war good and proper on that one, and died in it.) And in the 1960's Biafra tried to break out of Nigeria, and got slapped down, hard.

 

[PrinceOfLeigh]

If there is agreement I don't think it's very hard at all. Being recognised as a nation state may be more complicated though. IIRC some parts of the Balkans weren't / aren't recognised by the US and others.

I also believe that the Oceanic and Carribean Nations are often merging and de-merging (if that's even a word). I don't really have the time to research this in depth but I believe it to be correct.

 

[Elta]

My hunch is that if the U.S. and the U.N. aprove it then everyone else would. I am hoping that with the african union going ahead they can all share currency and a trade policy while spliting up into tribal * groups (which would for example = about 250 groups in Nigeria a country of 131 million. This way it would be easyer to spot corruption and since people would be amoung their own kind they would be less likely too be corrupt.


*(Depending on what sociology teacher you ask they may or my not say anything over 150 people is not a tribe but .... You get what I mean ethinic group, culture group etc etc ....Belive me I know every place in africa is diff. and I would never try to blanket statement everyone into one group, I am half latino I know what it's like.

Quick fun fact:
Morocco was the first country to recognize the U.S.

 

[The Yankee]

Plarq's assertions in this thread (about the unnatural borders in Africa created by Europeans decades and centuries ago) got me thinking. What's to stop these nations from spliting (or merging with parts of other nations)? Is this a complicated process? If a nation did split or merge (for whatever reason) what would it take for the UN and/or mapmakers to accept and document the change?

Thanks.

Resources and lots and lots of resources. That and a good number of rulers that look to gain whatever they can.

 

[Gladi]

Bright day
AFAIK there were several changes when colonies were being made independent, weren't they?

 

[Sh3kel]

Question How hard would it be to redefine a nation's borders?

Ask Israel.

 

[plarq]

Ask Israel.

Very good answer. Don't mention diamond/gold in Africa.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

I believe that with the general apathy about Africa that the UN has, those changes would be made without a second thought.

I have found that borders are very generally redrawn without much complaint, unless it's a situation like the Japanese and Germans during WW2. But even then I believe that the map would have been redrawn had they stopped invading their neighbors and made peace.

Also, look at how the maps have been redrawn since the fall of the Soviet Union. All those countries that broke away from Russia after the Soviets, for all intents and purposes, abdicated.

 

[Narz]

Thanks. I almost completely forgot about this thread.

 

[plarq]

There's a big difference between African case and Germany, Japan aqnd Soviet Union cases. In the latter cases, big powers are invovled in the redrawing of nation border. In Africa, it's completely ignored to reach an international agreements.

 

[AL_DA_GREAT]

The problem is that all the groups are mixed. You can't say that tribe has that land and they will have that land. It would also mean that some people will lose power wich they never would accept. A treaty like the one you are suggesting would need so many people to sign that it would be veryhard to make them all agree. Although at some time they will be forced to do so.

 

[BaneBlade]

Plarq's assertions in this thread (about the unnatural borders in Africa created by Europeans decades and centuries ago) got me thinking. What's to stop these nations from spliting (or merging with parts of other nations)? Is this a complicated process? If a nation did split or merge (for whatever reason) what would it take for the UN and/or mapmakers to accept and document the change?

Thanks.

Look at Israel, instead of a compromise they slaughter themselves for decades, both sides are to paranoid/prideful for a solution.