I don’t really want this blog to turn into the Richard & Judy book club. But I must recommend a book I have just finished reading. Half of a Yellow Sun is by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The title refers to the flag of Biafra, and the story is a compelling one. It charts the decline of an academic couple who start off living in the luxury of the social elite of the newly-independent Nigeria, but who find themselves living a life of poverty by the end of the book in a Biafra mired in a civil war from which there proved to be no escape.

It is an immensely well-constructed book. Deftly-plotted, with a perfect sense of pace and pitch, the characterisation is impressive.

The scenes of inter-ethnic violence are certainly harrowing, all the more so because they echo that which we are now seeing in Kenya. It is uncomfortable to read of women carrying children’s amputated heads around in plastic bags. It is far too easy, as some have done, to dismiss such violence as being ‘no more than what you would expect’ from the continent. The developed world cannot be outraged at the fate of Bosnia, but dismissive of the plight of so many in Africa. Kenya joins the list of the many African countries who have succumbed to political instability and violence in the post-independence period. Sometimes the violence is merely about power, sometimes there are religious overtones, sometimes it is ethnic, and othertimes ethnic, religious and power-related. There is no single diagnosis that can allow those of us sitting comfortably in the west to dismiss these hatreds. Kenya inherited Zimbabwe’s mantle as the model post-colonial democracy in Africa. Clearly that is a poisoned chalice.

The after-effects of colonialism have a lot to answer for. I have written at length before about the evils of cartography. In Nigeria, different ethnic and religious groups (Christian and Muslim) were joined together by the British to form an un-natural grouping, which subsequently proved unstable in the face of independence. Similarly in Cote d’Ivoire and Sudan, Christian South and Muslim North have been riven with tensions. The tragedies of Rwanda are perhaps the best known. But it amazes me that Congo is so routinely overlooked in this country. The International Rescue Committee calculated a death toll in Congo attributable to the civil war between 1998 and 2004 at 3.8 million.

Congo’s last census was in 1984. No-one knows how many people there are, let alone how many qualify as voters. Most Congolese think that the current rulers are happy not to proceed with elections so that they can carry on stealing.

Corruption is endemic. No roads, no civil service, no experience of democracy. This is one country which needs more than technical experts on election procedure.

And sadly, more books like this will be written with modern-day experiences too.