Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
1. 2. 3. 4. What were the main factors of decolonization after the WWII in Africa? What was the Belgian approach to decolonization in Africa? What was the Portugal approach to decolonization in Africa? Why had been Namibia decolonized not before 1990? DECOLONIZATION Events inside and outside Africa interacted to produce the surge towards independence after 1945. The Second World War itself provided the immediate context. The war greatly weakened the colonial powers, and brought to the fore the USA, which opposed European colonial control of Africa. African troops were enrolled to fight in Asia and the Mediterranean, returning with a deep resentment at post-war conditions and the continuing colonial subordination. The victory over fascism and the enunciation of the Atlantic Charter also encouraged thoughts of liberation within the continent. Economic change intensified as both the war and its aftermath stimulated demand, and there was a surge of African migration to the towns. Economic and social grievances multiplied, especially in relation to the inadequacy of urban facilities and lack of educational opportunities. Among peasant farmers, prices, marketing arrangements and new levels of bureaucratic interference aroused intense resentment. Owing to labour migration, links between town and country were close and provided opportunities for newly militant nationalist parties in the more developed colonies, such as the Gold Coast and Côte d’Ivoire, to put pressure on the colonial authorities. For the democratic European powers the increasing African discontent raised both the moral and material costs of maintaining colonial rule. In any case, with the exception of Portugal, political control was no longer regarded as essential to the safeguarding of economic interests, particularly as capitalism was becoming increasingly internationalized and the concept of possessing colonies was beginning to appear outmoded. In French Africa the Second World War helped directly to set in train events that were ultimately to lead to independence. Following the German defeat of France in 1940, AEF repudiated the Vichy Government and declared its support for the ‘Free French’ under Gen. Charles de Gaulle. The Brazzaville Conference convened by de Gaulle in 1944 spoke in general terms of a new deal for Africans, while the new French Constitution adopted in 1946 provided for direct African elections to the French Assemblée nationale. Political parties established themselves throughout francophone Africa, although their demands were for fuller rights of citizenship within the French state rather than for independence. Attempts by the French Government to thwart African political progress altogether were unsuccessful. The 1956 loi cadre (enabling law) introduced universal adult suffrage, but, to the dismay of many nationalist politicians, the franchise was applied individually to the separate states of the two federations, so that the structures of AOF and AEF were allowed to wither away. In 1958 de Gaulle, still attempting to salvage something of the greater France concept, organized a referendum in which only Guinea voted for full independence. By 1960, however, the remaining AOF and AEF territories, as well as Madagascar, had insisted upon receiving de jure independence, even if, despite outward appearances, they remained tied economically and militarily to France. The events that ended the French empire in sub-Saharan Africa were hastened by concurrent developments in neighbouring British colonies, especially the Gold Coast. With no settler communities to placate, decolonization in British West Africa proceeded relatively smoothly, although much more rapidly than had been contemplated. Popular grievances gave a new edge to the political demands of the now sizeable educated middle classes, and the United Kingdom’s cautious post-war moves towards granting internal self-government were soon perceived as inadequate even by the British themselves. When police fired on an ex-serviceman’s peaceful demonstration in Accra (Gold Coast) in 1948, the resulting unrest, strikes and rural agitation led to major policy changes. Sensing the new mood, the militant nationalist Kwame Nkrumah formed the Convention People’s Party (CPP) in 1949 with the slogan 'self-government now’. Its populist appeal enabled it, in 1951, to overcome the more moderate United Gold Coast Convention party (of which Nkrumah had earlier been General Secretary) in an election based on a new and more democratic Constitution. Although in jail for sedition, Nkrumah was released and invited to become head of an independent Government. This dramatic development, followed by the granting of independence in 1957 as Ghana (whose boundaries also took in the former mandated territory of British Togoland), had repercussions throughout black Africa. (In fact, the Sudan had achieved independence in the previous year, when the Anglo-Egyptian condominium was brought to an end, but this had attracted little outside attention.) Nkrumah sought, with some success, to intensify African revolutionary sentiment still further by organizing an African Peoples’ Conference in Accra in 1958. Nigeria's progress towards independence, meanwhile, was complicated by its enormous size and colonially imposed regional structure. Rival regional and ethnic nationalisms competed, and no one party could achieve the degree of overall dominance enjoyed by the CPP in the Gold Coast. None the less, a federal Nigeria became independent in 1960, followed by Sierra Leone (1961) and The Gambia (1965). Belgium initially remained aloof from the movement towards decolonization. It appeared to believe that its relatively advanced provision for social welfare and the rapid postwar economic growth in the Belgian Congo would enable it to avoid making political concessions and to maintain the authoritarian style of government that had characterized its administration of the territory since it took over from the Belgian King. The Belgian Congo, however, could not be insulated — any more than any other part of Africa — from the anti-colonial influences at work throughout the continent. From 1955 onwards nationalist feeling spread rapidly, despite the difficulties in building effective national parties in such a huge country. Urban riots in 1959 led to a precipitate reversal in Belgian policy: at the Brussels Round Table Conference in January 1960 it was abruptly decided that independence was to follow in only six months. Not surprisingly, the disintegration of political unity and order in the country speedily followed the termination of Belgian administration. Belgian rule in the mandated territory of Ruanda-Urundi ended in 1962, and was followed by its division into the separate countries of Rwanda and Burundi. Meanwhile, in eastern and southern Africa, the United Kingdom was also encountering difficulties in implementing decolonization. In Uganda, where its authority rested to a large extent on an alliance with the kingdom of Buganda, British policies had tended to stratify existing ethnic divisions. The deeply ingrained internal problems that preceded independence in 1962 continued to beset Uganda for the next 25 years. In contrast, however, the nationalist movement led by Julius Nyerere in Tanganyika was exceptionally united, and there was little friction prior to independence in 1961. Three years later Tanganyika united with Zanzibar (which obtained independence in 1963) as Tanzania. In Kenya, as in other colonies with significant settler minorities, the process of decolonization was troubled. In the post-war period the settlers of Kenya sought political domination and worked to suppress emergent African nationalism. African frustrations, particularly about access to land among the Kikuyu, and growing unrest among the urban poor, led in 1952 to the declaration of a state of emergency and the violent revolt the British knew as ‘Mau Mau'. This was fiercely suppressed, but only with the help of troops from the United Kingdom, a factor that helped finally to destroy the settlers' political credibility. Kenya eventually achieved independence in 1963 under the leadership of the veteran nationalist Jomo Kenyatta. Vilified by the settlers in the 1950s as a personification of evil, Kenyatta, firstly as Prime Minister and subsequently as President, in fact strove to protect the economic role of the settler population and to maintain good relations with the United Kingdom. Settler interests were more obstructive further to the south. The whites of Southern Rhodesia had obtained internal selfgovernment as early as 1923, but in 1953 the colony was allowed by the United Kingdom to become the dominant partner in a federation with Northern Rhodesia and Nyasa-land. Conflict followed with African nationalists in the two northern territories, and the federation eventually collapsed in 1963, when the United Kingdom had to concede that its policy of decolonization could only effectively apply to the two northern territories whose Governments it still controlled. In 1964 Nyasaland became independent as Malawi and Northern Rhodesia as Zambia. When the United Kingdom then refused white-minority rule independence to Southern Rhodesia, its settler-dominated Government, led by Ian Smith, unilaterally declared independence (1965). This was resisted by the United Kingdom and condemned by the UN, but an ineffectual campaign of economic sanctions was defeated by support for the Smith regime from neighbouring South Africa and Portugal. African nationalists eventually succeeded in organizing the guerrilla war that, in the 1970s, paved the way for a negotiated settlement. With Robert Mugabe as its leader, the country became independent as Zimbabwe (1980), a development that owed much to the collapse of Portuguese rule in Africa after 1974. During the lengthy dictatorship of Dr Antonio de Oliveira Salazar Portugal regarded its African colonial possessions as inalienable, and in 1951 they were declared to be overseas provinces. However, intense political repression failed to prevent the emergence of armed resistance movements in Angola (1961), Guinea-Bissau (1963) and Mozambique (1964). Most successfully in Guinea-Bissau, under the leadership of Amilcar Cabral, these guerrilla movements succeeded in mobilizing rural support. Eventually, in 1974, following the military overthrow of the Portuguese regime, progress towards internal democratization was accompanied by a determination to implement an accelerated policy of decolonization. In Angola, where the divided nationalist movement provided opportunities for external intervention on opposite sides by South African and Cuban forces, independence proved difficult to consolidate. Mozambique also suffered greatly from South Africa’s policy of destabilizing its newly independent neighbours. During this period South Africa was itself conducting a colonial war in Namibia, which it continued to occupy in defiance of the UN after it had terminated the mandate in 1966. The war against the South West African People’s Organisation of Namibia continued until a negotiated settlement finally led to independence in 1990, effectively concluding the colonial era in Africa. DATES OF INDEPENDENCE OF AFRICAN COUNTRIES In Chronological Order of Independence Ethiopia Liberia Egypt Libya Sudan Morocco Tunisia Ghana Guinea Cameroon Togo Mali Senegal Madagascar The Democratic Republic of the Congo (as the Congo) Somalia Benin (as Dahomey) Niger Burkina Faso (as Upper Volta) Cote d’Ivoire Chad The Central African Republic The Republic of the Congo (CongoBrazaville) Gabon Nigeria Mauritania Sierra Leone AD 100 (Aksum) 26 July 1847 28 Feb. 1922 24 Dec. 1951 1 Jan. 1956 2 March 1956 20 March 1956 6 March 1957 2 Oct. 1958 1 Jan. 1960 27 April 1960 20 June 1960 20 June 1960 26 June 1960 Tanzania (as Tanganyika) Rwanda Burundi Algeria Uganda Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania) Kenya Malawi Zambia The Gambia Botswana Lesotho Mauritius Swaziland 9 Dec. 1961 1 July 1962 1 July 1962 3 July 1962 9 Oct. 1962 10 Dec. 1963 12 Dec. 1963 6 July 1964 24 Oct. 1964 18 Feb. 1965 30 Sept. 1966 4 Oct. 1966 12 March 1968 6 Sept. 1968 30 June 1960 Equatorial Guinea 12 Oct. 1968 1 July 1960 1 Aug. 1960 3 Aug. 1960 5 Aug. 1960 7 Aug. 1960 11 Aug. 1960 13 Aug. 1960 Guinea-Bissau Mozambique Cape Verde The Comoros Sáo Tomé and Príncipe Angola Seychelles 10 Sept. 1974 25 June 1975 5 July 1975 6 July 1975s 12 July 1975 11 Nov. 1975 29 June 1976 15 Aug. 1960 Djibouti 27 June 1977 17 Aug. 1960 1 Oct. 1960 28 Nov. 1960 27 April 1961 Zimbabwe Namibia Eritrea South Sudan 18 April 1980 21 March 1990 24 May 1993 9 July 2011