Ethics of Superpowers and Civil Wars in Africa

Abstract

Scholars argue that civil wars in Africa thrive with the influence of superpowers on the continent. Yet, Africa, today, is primarily a design of influential and powerful countries. The continent suffered long years of colonial rule until the 1950s, followed by agitations for independence by freedom fighters. These agitations created a spate of independent nations, but also bore the cross of navigating political and social relationships that had created fault lines in the system, leaving a legacy of civil wars across Africa. By establishing colonial powers as superpowers in Africa, this chapter examines the concept of superpowers through three major sources, colonialism, struggle for independence and the post-independence power struggle, and interrogates the ethical relations of superpowers in civil wars in Africa.