| | In February l994, 'The Coming Anarchy' , a now notorious article by Robert Kaplan, was published in the liberal American literary magazine, the Atlantic Monthly. Reflecting on the predicament of a number of contemporary West African states, including Guinea and Sierra Leone, Kaplan saw two possible scenario's for future world development: one which could be called a Hobbesian vision, and a second based upon Francis Fukuyama's Hegelian, and now much derided, The End of History and the Last Man. Kaplan predicted a Hobbesian future for most of the globe. He suggested that in West Africa, and elsewhere, central governments would be slowly or rapidly undermined. Nation-states would collapse as mass migration grew as a consequence of environmental crises and social and political disasters. Internal wars would be fought more frequently over religious, resource and ethnic issues, and 'armed bands of stateless marauders [would] clash with the private security forces of the elites' (Kaplan, 1994). Kaplan was not the only one to be alarmed. Victoria Brittain also talked of the threat of 'a future in which Conrad's Heart of Darkness will be read as a straightforward description' (Brittain, 1994). |
