You Live on a Map Drawn by a Drunk Victorian: How straight lines on paper created crooked futures on the ground

 

“You Live on a Map Drawn by a Drunk Victorian”

(How straight lines on paper created crooked futures on the ground)

Look at a map of Africa.

Notice anything?

Lines. Straight ones. Long ones.
Some borders cut across ethnic groups, rivers, mountains, and entire ecosystems with no regard for what’s actually there.

That’s not geography.

That’s a drunk Victorian with a ruler.

And it’s still wrecking lives today.

🗺 Where Did These Lines Come From?

In 1884, a bunch of European powers gathered in Berlin.

They weren’t African.
They weren’t invited by Africans.
But they sat around a table and divided up Africa like slices of cake.

This was the Berlin Conference, led by Otto von Bismarck, and it kicked off what we now call the Scramble for Africa.

But it wasn’t a scramble to build societies.
It was a scramble for rubber, gold, ivory, slaves, and control.

✏ The Tools of Empire

European diplomats—many of whom had never been to Africa—pulled out maps, pencils, and occasionally actual straightedges.

They drew borders like:

  • "From this lake to that parallel…"

  • "From this river to that mountain…"

  • "Roughly this far inland from the coast."

No regard for:

  • Tribal territories

  • Linguistic groups

  • Religious regions

  • Trade routes

  • Or literally any human reality on the ground

It was fast. It was sloppy. It was lethal.

🧨 The Result?

They created states with enemies inside and families split across borders.

When independence came decades later, African leaders were stuck with these artificial borders.

Why?

Because redrawing them would mean war with every neighbor.

So they kept them.

And ever since, those fake lines have fueled:

  • Ethnic conflict

  • Civil wars

  • Border disputes

  • Coups

  • Refugee crises

  • And development dead-ends

Not because of African failure—
but because the starting map was already broken.

🌏 It's Not Just Africa

The same logic carved up:

  • The Middle East, after the fall of the Ottoman Empire

  • South Asia, during Partition

  • Southeast Asia, with Cold War-era buffer states

  • And even parts of the Arctic, now contested due to oil and warming seas

These maps weren’t drawn to reflect people.
They were drawn to reflect power.

🧭 The Legacy of the Line

When students study geography, they learn borders as facts.

But many are fictions—surviving because no one dares to erase them.

They weren’t chosen by the people who live there.
They were chosen by people with ink and guns.

So the next time you look at a map and think, ‘That’s just a line’…
remember:
that line might be why a country collapsed.
Or why two neighbors became enemies.
Or why a child had to cross five borders to find water.

Comments

  1. David Tyler Rand-McKayJuly 9, 2025 at 4:45 PM

    JUST ONE MINUTE!
    Look at a map of Africa.

    See all those straight lines?

    That’s not geography.
    That’s a drunk Victorian with a ruler.

    In 1884, European powers met at the Berlin Conference.
    No Africans were invited.
    But they divided the continent anyway.

    With pencils.
    And maps.
    And sometimes, actual straightedges.

    They drew borders across mountains, rivers, tribes, and languages.
    Fast.
    Sloppy.
    Permanent.

    When Africa gained independence, they kept those borders.
    Because changing them?
    Would mean war with every neighbor.

    And ever since?

    Civil wars.
    Ethnic violence.
    Displacement.
    Poverty.
    Why?

    Because the lines were fake.

    And it’s not just Africa.

    Look at the Middle East.
    South Asia.
    Southeast Asia.
    Even parts of the Arctic.

    Borders drawn for empire.
    Not for people.

    So yeah.

    That border you see on a map?
    It might be why two countries hate each other.
    Why a war started.
    Why millions fled.

    Because when you draw a fake line…
    the consequences are all too real.

    ReplyDelete

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