Debunking the Myth of the Berlin Conference and African Borders
African borders were not drawn at the Berlin Conference in 1885, according to historians including Caroline Roussy, research director at the Institute for International and Strategic Relations (Iris) in Paris, though the enduring misconception has persisted in school curricula and public consciousness as a form of absolute truth.
Challenging the Berlin Myth in New Scholarship
The persistence of the Berlin myth obscures the complex, evolving realities of African territorial boundaries. In her June 2026 essay titled La Mauvaise Réputation. Essai sur les frontières africaines, published by Riveneuve in the “Pépites jaunes” collection directed by Senegalese essayist Souleymane Gassama, known as Elgas, Caroline Roussy challenges the traditional narrative. According to Roussy’s historical analysis, the widespread belief that African borders were drawn during the Berlin Conference is a historical misconception.
Decades of Dissent Among Historians
Efforts to dismantle this narrative are not new within academic circles. Historical research dating back decades has repeatedly shown that African borders were not drawn at Berlin. As early as 1974, historian Henri Brunschwig challenged the popular timeline, a trajectory followed by researcher Simon Katzenellenbogen, who published an article in 1996 titled “It Didn’t Happen at Berlin!” During a 2012 meeting of historians in Lomé, specialist Pierre Boilley remarked to colleagues on the persistence of the misconception, highlighting the deep emotional weight and historical trauma attached to the subject.
The Gap Between Academia and Public Awareness
Despite the academic consensus, the narrative remains deeply entrenched in public education and political discourse. Scholarly books on the subject often struggle to reach a broad audience, and while researchers such as CNRS research director Camille Lefebvre regularly discuss these findings on public platforms like France Culture and RFI, the nuance rarely penetrates everyday public awareness.
Symbolic Violence and the Absence of African Voices
Even though the conference did not directly map out contemporary borders, historians emphasize that the gathering carried profound symbolic violence. As noted by Roussy, the Berlin Conference marked the first international conference dedicated to the African continent, and it proceeded entirely without the presence of Africans. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck framed the proceedings around legal principles such as freedom of navigation in the Congo River basin under the guise of commercial benefits for all—a framework that prefigured modern trickle-down economic justifications while treating indigenous populations as objects of European diplomacy rather than sovereign participants.
Implications for Modern Commerce and Trade
As academic research continues to reshape the understanding of African territorial history, the challenge remains translating these insights from university archives into broader public and commercial literacy. Unraveling historical inaccuracies allows policymakers and global stakeholders to better comprehend contemporary security challenges and cross-border dynamics without relying on oversimplified historical tropes.