Before the decolonization, the societies were wanderers in Africa. No one handled to brought these societies in one order. But the colonists achieved to combined them in one state and formed their identities. But the colonists didn’t manage to create a cohesive society in all Africa countries. This paper will examine the crisis of national integration in Africa and tribes.
What is the national integration means?
Briefly, the national integration is a political idea and an ideal, it implies a national state where citizens have the full right without any form of segregation. In another word, it is the bringing of people of different racial or ethnic groups into an unrestricted and equal association, as in society or an organization.[1]
After the French Revolution, the modern state was born on the basis of nationalism in Europe, then nationalism movements spread all over the world promptly, and it ended the era of the multi-ethnic Empire. However, the idea of a nation-state is associated with the rise of the modern system of states, usually dated to the Treaty of Westphalia (1648).[2] The balance of power, which characterizes that system, depends for its effectiveness on clearly defined, centrally controlled, independent powers, irrespective of being empires or nation-states.”[3] In Africa the nation state was born in conjunction with the emancipation movements in the mid-20th century.
In concise, we can define the nation as a group of people living in a particular territory develop a political form with a sense of unity and determine their political future’’.
WHEN WE CONSIDER THE AFRICAN COUNTRIES, IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT A NATION IN AFRICA IS EQUAL TO THE TRIBE OF THE AFRICAN PEOPLE. THERE ARE NO UPPER IDENTITIES SUCH AS SUDANISM OR SOMALISM WHICH CAN CONSOLIDATE THE NATIONS.
We can easily confirm that the tribe rule over the certain territory in African communities, and the chieftain is the leader of this territory. The tribe’s members have absolute loyalty to the chieftains. As we mentioned before, the tribe is a main political unit, and in some countries, it is pressure groups and they played significant roles in the election period and the political process. Besides that, man or woman gains the citizenship by the membership of one tribe in most African countries. Ultimately we can say that there is no concept of state citizenship in most of the African countries in the western understanding. Therefore, these countries are suffering from the problems in national identity and it became the main reason of continuity of internal wars in African countries such as South Sudan. There is no nation state, there is a tribal state we can talk about in Africa.