| Chapter : | Introduction |
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To some, this was an opportunity to understand what was taking place on the African continent as presented in the several petitions submitted by African immigrants seeking status adjustment in the United States and other countries all over the world. Most of the immigrants viewed themselves as minorities in their countries of origin, while others were mothers and daughters who were fearful of female circumcision. Still others were Christians who were fleeing from Sharia legal codes in Islamic-dominated regions. Citizens from ethnic minority groups were fleeing from brutal repressive regimes; members of the political opposition were on the run from tyrants for fear of retribution for challenging the established order, no matter how oppressive the status quo might have been. We viewed the unfolding developments as unprecedented as the western legal community was sounding an alarm of an increasing rate of human rights abuses emanating from the continent of Africa. Although all of these cases cannot be characterized as problems faced by minorities alone, the majority are from people who have perceived themselves as a minority in terms of their numerical strength, ethnicity, religious affiliation, or gender. Overall, the issue of social and cultural globalization and the increasing tendency toward homogeneity among the dominant populations are emblematic of the treatment of minorities in many states.
We approach these issues with a critical perspective that recognizes the diversity of experiences and context and avoids reductionist interpretation of minority experiences or their relationship to the state. This interdisciplinary framework brings together the discourses of scholars, policymakers, and activists in order to better understand the relevance of minorities in state structures, issues of identity, and human rights as broadly conceived concepts in explicating the nature of relationship between groups in contemporary African states.
II
Until European colonization of Africa in the nineteenth century, African societies were not largely demarcated by ethnic boundaries. States