However, one of the biggest failures of European line drawing lies in the center of the continent, the giant black hole known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo—the DRC. Here is the land in which Joseph Conrad set his novella Heart of Darkness and it remains a place shrouded in the darkness of war. It is a prime example of how the imposition of artificial borders can lead to a weak and divided state, ravaged by internal conflict, and whose mineral wealth condemns it to being exploited by outsiders.
