West Africa

West Africa, which occupies the bulge on the west side of the African continent, includes 15 countries (Figure 7.33). West Africa is physically framed on the north by the Sahara, on the west and south by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the east by Lake Chad and the mountains of Cameroon.

FIGURE 7.33 The West Africa subregion.

Horizontal Zones of Physical and Cultural Difference

West Africa can be thought of as a series of horizontal physical zones, grading from dry in the north to moist in the south. The north-south division also applies to economic activities keyed to the environment—herding in the north, farming in the south—and, to some extent, to religions and cultures—Muslim in the north, Christian in the south. Most of these cultural and physical features do not have distinct boundaries, but rather zones of transition and exchange.

Stretching across West Africa from west to east are horizontal vegetation zones that reflect the horizontal climate zones shown in Figure 7.5. Small remnants of tropical rain forests still exist along the Atlantic coasts of Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria, although most of this once-great coastal forest has fallen victim to logging, intensifying settlement, and agriculture. To the north, this moist environment grades into drier woodland mixed with savanna. Farther north still, as the environment becomes drier, the trees thin out and the savanna dominates. Only where annual cycles create wetlands, as in the Niger River basin, is moisture sufficient to foster fishing and cultivation as well as grazing. To the north, the savanna blends into the yet drier Sahel (Arabic for “shore” of the desert) region of arid grasslands. In the northern parts of Mali, Niger, and Mauritania, the arid land becomes actual desert, part of the Sahara.

Along the coast, and stretching inland, abundant rainfall supports crops such as coffee, cacao, yams, palm oil, corn, bananas, sugarcane, and cassava. Farther north and inland, millet, peanuts, cotton, and sesame grow in the drier savanna environments. Cattle are also tended in the savanna and north into the Sahel; farther south, however, the threat of sleeping sickness spread by tsetse flies limits cattle raising. In the Sahel and Sahara, cultivation is possible only at oases and along the Niger River during the summer rains (see page 368). Food, other than that provided by animals and the fields along the riverbanks, must come from trade with the coastal zones and with the global market.

West African environments have dried out as more and more people clear the forests and woodlands for cultivation, grazing, and fuelwood. When the forest cover is gone, the land is more vulnerable to erosion, and sunlight evaporates moisture. Desiccating desert winds now blow south all the way to the coast, and this drying out of the land is exacerbated by the recurrence of natural cycles of drought. The ribbons of differing vegetation running west to east are not as distinct as they once were, and even coastal zones occasionally experience dry, dusty conditions reminiscent of the Sahel.

To some extent, the geographies of religion and culture in West Africa reflect the north-south gradation of physical patterns. Generally, the north is Muslim, with Arab and North African influences that are apparent (see Figures 7.29, 7.30, and 7.31). Southern West Africa is populated by people who practice a mix of Christian and traditional (animist) religions, and whose background and culture are Central African. Some large ethnic groups once occupied distinct zones, but as a result of migration linked to colonial and postcolonial influences, members of specific groups are distributed across many different areas and in a number of West African countries. There are hundreds of smaller ethnic groups, each with its own language; the Figure 7.31 map that depicts major language groups in Africa shows the cultural complexity of the entire West Africa subregion. The example of Nigeria, discussed earlier in the chapter (see Figure 7.20), illustrates the potential difficulties faced by a nation attempting to unite a multitude of ethnic groups while dealing with contentions over a lucrative but ill-apportioned oil industry whose profits benefit only a very few.

Regional Conflict in Coastal West Africa

Civil conflict in Nigeria and problems caused by insensitive resource extraction were discussed. The 1990s and early 2000s saw continuing bloody conflict in the far West African countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Côte d’Ivoire. The wars in these four countries were intertwined, but each conflict was fed by local disputes that ultimately could be traced back to poverty and horrendously bad leadership. In the 1980s, Liberia was a country with a reasonably bright future.

Child Soldiers, Child Slaves

In 1989, Liberian Charles Taylor—an American-educated, Libyan-trained-and-armed, would-be revolutionary—staged a coup d’état. He failed, but then joined with a Sierra Leone rebel who had forced children to form an army. At least 200,000 people were murdered in Sierra Leone and Liberia as the child army captured diamond mines, which, along with the region’s tropical timber, became the source of funding for further aggression. Taylor returned to Liberia with his AK-47-armed child soldiers, and in 1997, terrorized Liberians elected him president. He then invaded Guinea under the pretext that Liberian dissidents were ensconced there. With American military aid, Guinea pushed Taylor back, but only after many more deaths.

In 2002, the conflict spilled into Côte d’Ivoire, formerly one of the most stable West African countries, but one nonetheless troubled by regional disparities. Abidjan, the former capital on the southern coast, has fine roads, skyscrapers, French restaurants, and a modern seaport, but the northern part of the country is much poorer. In the north of Côte d’Ivoire (still in the tropical wet zone) are cacao plantations that employ immigrant agricultural workers at very low wages and, in some cases, use enslaved children from nearby Burkina Faso and southern Mali as workers. Investigators say that child slavery and abusive wages resulted when unscrupulous Côte d’Ivoire cacao planters started looking for a way to cut costs in the midst of a depressed world cacao market run by European traders (see Chapter 4), but the basis of the civil conflict in Côte d’Ivoire is more geographically complex. The extreme poverty of the north and the large immigrant labor population led to a rebellion against the south, with support coming from Burkina Faso, the home of many temporary workers in Côte d’Ivoire. Support for the southern faction came from Liberia, already a scene of conflict. Again, child soldiers were armed and told to support themselves by looting, which in relatively wealthy Côte d’Ivoire was a tempting proposition for poor, illiterate, hungry boys and young men. In 2003, UN peacekeepers were belatedly sent to Liberia and Charles Taylor was turned over to be tried by the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands (see the vignette).