The Horn of Africa: States of Crisis

Abstract

In a previous book, Imagining Ethiopia I suggested that televised famines of the 1980s constructed Ethiopia as a quintessential symbol of disaster. Examining this symbol within the context of a discourse that presented the Third World not only as a zone of horrors but as a fundamental threat to the West, I suggested that with the end of the Cold War the Third World would function as the site of new images useful in hegemonic discourse. That prediction was borne out with Robert Kaplan’s article ‘The Coming Anarchy’, written for The Atlantic Monthly (February 1994). Kaplan’s survey of the Third World depicts a grim scenario: environmental catastrophe, overpopulation, poverty, disease, collapse of states, ethnic wars, increasing violence. These are real and urgent concerns. Yet Kaplan presents them as an assault launched by the poor against the privileged, alluding to liberalism and multiculturalism as part of the threat. Not unexpectedly, Africa plays a major role in his scenario but noticeably absent are historical and political-economic explanations of crisis and suggestions that efforts should be taken to alleviate poverty. Rather than subscribing to alarmist scenarios, we would do better to consider a more balanced view of disasters in impoverished areas, examining their history and suggesting possible solutions.