Summary / Riassunto "A history of modern Africa: 1800 to the present" - Richard J. Reid, Sintesi del corso di Storia dell'Africa

Scarica Summary / Riassunto "A history of modern Africa: 1800 to the present" - Richard J. Reid e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Storia dell'Africa solo su Docsity! A HISTORY OF MODERN AFRICA: 1800 TO THE PRESENT - RICHARD J. REID - 2020 1.UNDERSTANTING THE CONTOURS OF AFRICA’S PAST The Africa of the XX century cannot be understood in isolation from its XIX century. Africa was underpopulated until mid-XX century. Thus, African ideologies were centered around the celebration of fertility. One of the major challenges for ruling elites across Africa was the construction of systems of governance to control large numbers of people. XIX century was a period of violent political reformation. External influences influenced African cultural, economic and political development. Islam was the most important influence before the XIX century. The coming of Islam also involved the emergence of a long-distance slave trade, linking the Sahara to the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian Ocean. European influence was much less than that of Islam before the XIX century. Europe's greatest impact came through the Atlantic slave trade. Such external influences were not unilateral impositions, rather they involved mutual borrowing and adaptation. For example, the Islam that came to Africa was adapted to local circumstances, and the global faith would be greatly enriched in retum. A brief history of the study of Africa African history as an academic discipline is relatively young. From the 1950s onward, professional historians began to treat African history as a field for serious study. This started when Africa was gaining independence from colonial rule. Analysing Africa's deeper past was necessary for the nation-building process. Before there was no attempt to reconstruct Africa's past because there existed a firm belief that Africa did not have a history. This belief persisted through much of the colonial period: Africans were perceived as primitive, savage, and lacking in political and cultural sophistication. With the Atlantic slave trade came the rise of European racism toward Africa. Africans were seen as meant to be slaves. Over the XVIII century, there emerged in Europe a debate around the slave trade. The apologists defended the slave trade, arguing that Africa was a savage and backward place and that the slave trade was a blessed release, taking Africans from their cursed environments to the Americas. The abolitionists were opposed to the slave trade, arguing that Europe needed to help Africa by introducing Christianity, commerce and civilization; the slave trade caused only violence and suffering. The two groups shared the belief in African backwardness. At the end, the abolitionist position prevailed. Land Africa's natural diversity cannot be separated from the history of its inhabitants: environment and human history are intertwined. Disease and poor soil have obstructed the growth of human settlement in many regions; the history of Africans is in large part the struggle to adapt to hostile environments. Africa has a very regular coastline, with very few deep bays and peninsulas. This has meant that Africans couldn't develop maritime travel. Except for the Mediterranean coast, Africans had intense contact with other continents only in recent times. We can divide the continent’s physical geography into 8 zones: * The northern Mediterranean coast - it is noted for the fertility of its soil. * The Sahara Desert - due to its drought, it's uninhabited outside the cases. Oases and camels facilitated long-distance caravan routes permitting contact between the Maghreb and the sub- Saharan Africa. * The Nile Valley - it contains some of the richest cultivable land in the world. * The Sudanic belt - the name Sudan was given by the Arabs, and it means “land of the blacks”. * The west-central rainforest covers most of the west African coast, with the exception of the Benin gap. * The highlights of Ethiopia are covered largely by volcanic material which breaks down to give a fertile soil. * East-central Africa - it's hot and dry, with some exceptions, such as the cool and fertile Kenyan highlands. * Southem Africa People This diversity of environment facilitated the emergence of distinct languages and cultures. Africa can be divided into four distinct language families. * The Afro-Asiatic, encompassing the northern half of the continent as well as western Asia. It comprises the language of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Berber in North Africa, Hebrew and Arabic. * The Niger-Congo family - it covers the Bantu languages which are spoken across tropical Africa. *. Nilo-Saharan languages * Khoisan is associated with the nomadic groups of southern Africa. Africa's history is that of migrations and integration. For example, in North Africa, the process of Arabization is associated with the migration of Arab nomads, the Bedouin, between the X and XIII centuries. They brought with them Arabic language and culture, as well as Islam, and they gradually absorbed Berber communities. This period saw the transformation of North Africa into part of the Arabic-speaking world. 2. WESTERN TRADITIONS - SLAVE TRADE AND LEGITIMATE COMMERCE IN ATLANTIC AFRICA Africa's experience with trade was not uniform. However, it is possible to make some statements on how international trade had a profound impact in the political and social structures. Most dramatically, with the slave trade from the XV century onwards, millions of western and central Africans were forcibly transported to the Americas and Europe. States and societies during the Atlantic slave trade Atlantic and internal long-distance commercial systems had brought about major changes among African societies. The major political consequence was the creation of mercantilist states, characterized by the fusion of political and economic power; either political elites controlled the commerce or traders acquired political power. Across western and central Africa, militarized states arose as imported firearms made it easier for minorities to dominate large populations. The slave trade resulted in an increased level of violence for the acquisition of slaves, resulting in the systematic devastation of weak communities. The slave trade involved a serious loss to Africa's productive potential. Most of the slaves were young, the most productive members of society. Atlantic Africa experienced no significant economic development during the era of the slave trade. Illegal traffic: the XIX century slave trade In the late XVIII century, European intellectuals and churches were gaining a momentum for the abolition of the slave trade, promoting the universal right to freedom. Slave labor was no longer viewed as profitable: economic growth relies now on industrialized systems making use of waged labor. At first, this was not universally accepted: slave labor would continue in the US until the 1860s; Brazil was the largest illegal importer of slaves. Slavery remained legal in the British empire until the 1830s. This said, the abolition of the slave trade by the major European powers brough significant change. Africa was increasingly regarded as a source of raw materials and a market for manufactured goods, rather than simply a source of slave labor. By the mid-1830s, most European states had outlawed the slave trade, but it was extremely difficult to enforce. The Atlantic slave trade continued through much of the XIX century. The slave trade was so deeply embedded in the political and social configuration of African states that it was impossible to simply stop. The British used military force to compel African rulers to accept their abolitionist demands. Legitimate commerce Legitimate commerce supplanted the export of human beings and involved European demand for raw materials, natural resources, and agricultural produce from western and central Africa. Atlantic states that relied heavily on the export of slaves struggled to make the transition to agricultural exports. While many societies transitioned successfully, others collapsed. Demand for vegetable oils, notably palm oil, increased with industrialization. Groundnuts were cultivated in the Senegal-Gambia area. Some societies cultivated and exported cotton, taking advantage of the disruption of the world's cotton supply caused by the American civil war in the 1860s. The export of rubber was also profitable. Most of the production took place in the coastal area because it was cheaper compared to the deeper hinterland. This imbalance caused the migration of people from the interior to the coast. However, production techniques did not change; the expansion of legitimate commerce simply involved the cultivation of more land, using more labor. Thus, there was a labor shortage. Ironically, the result was an increase in slave labour to meet demand for legitimate produce. As now part of the global economy, Atlantic Africa was vulnerable to shifts in demand and prices beyond its control. African producers started being indebted with the European merchants. From the second half of the XIX century, Europeans began to penetrate into the hinterland in an effort to bypass the African coastal middlemen and get the products directly from the producers. Legitimate commerce did not really stimulate African economy. Africa was never an equal partner in the global trading network. Personal freedom declined as domestic slavery increased. Change and continuity in forest and savannah During the commercial transition, while large empires such as Oyo (current eastern Benin and westem Nigeria) collapsed, new states came to prominence in the coastal forest and savannah zones. The Oyo empire was weakened by internal division and the abolition of the slave trade. The Islamic jihad of 1804 was a significant factor of the destruction of the Oyo empire. The empire's demise left the Yoruba states competing violently with each other, as well as with foreign invaders. By the end of the 1830s, Ibadan (second biggest city in Nigeria) emerged as the single most powerful Yoruba state. Several Yoruba states coalesced in order to prevent a further expansion of Ibadan's power. The British imposed a pax on the warring parties. The violence on Yorubaland (current Nigeria, Togo, Benin) brough about dramatic changes. Many people moved from the savannah southward into the forest. Islam spread into the region. Recurrent conflict led to a military revolution: the use of firearms became common, and a professional army emerged. The violence provided the British with a justification for intervention; missionaries introduced British culture into coastal society. Dahomey was a dynamic and expansionist state, able to escape the subordination to Oyo and to launch incursions into Yoruba territory. Dahomey and Asante were examples of highly militarized and centralized states with expansionist foreign policies driven by commercial interests. Dahomey (current Benin) was a successful slave-owning and slave-exporting military way - was wholly groundless. Rather more seriously, interpretations which have aimed to explain the escalation of warfare in terms of competition for land and commerce are compelling. Mfecane cannot be fully understood without recognition of the role of commerce in ivory and slaves. Shaka's (founder of the Zulu kingdom) contribution was not inconsiderable: he built a state and an identity, where none had existed previously. Cape colonialism: white settlement and the native question The modern history of southern Africa has been characterized by a clash between Africans and Europeans; and the hegemony of the latter in the XX century served to distort understanding of the region's past. The white version of southern African history was that Bantu speaking farmers crossed into modern South Africa in the XVII century, the same time that the first Dutch settlers were beginning to arrive. Thus, according to this theory, Europeans encountered an empty land. Historically inaccurate but politically convenient, the empty land thesis provided the white minority with the justification they needed for claiming authority over southern Africa. In reality, by the time the first European settlers arrived, an array of African states and societies inhabited the region. The Boers (Dutch for farmers) developed a distinctive identity, language and culture. They were tough and independent-minded, they later developed an anti-Britishness and came to regard the area around Cape Town as theirs by right. They soon came into conflict with the African population, over access to land which the Boers occupied according to the principle of right of conquest. The Khoisan (Bantu indigenous people of Southern Africa) responded either by raiding Boer farms or by withdrawing far to the north, where they rebuilt their societies with a degree of independence. Although initially interracial relations in the Dutch Cape Colony were flexible, racial attitudes hardened in time; there was a strong sense of hierarchy and privilege based on color. Slave status was influenced by color: while slaves of mixed parentage were generally skilled labor; the worst positions were filled by Africans. In 1805, Cape Colony came under British control; settlers of Dutch descent were joined by British emigrants. Tensions heighten between two white communities. Important changes were taking place in the relationship between the Boer settlers and the newly arrived British administration. Boer government officials were replaced by British officials, and English was introduced into the education and legal systems. Further tensions mounted over the issue of African labor, toward which British policy was comparatively liberal. The granting of certain basic rights to African workers horrified most Boers. Moreover, the British introduced a system of private land ownership, replacing the previous loan- farm system by which many Boers had occupied land on loan from the government; very few could afford to hold land under the new British law. In 1834, slavery was abolished by the British administration in Cape Colony. This had disastrous consequences for the poor white farmers who could not afford to pay competitive wages to free laborers. The problem of “poor whites” would be a key dynamic in the shaping of South African society. Many Boers were considering expanding northward, of escaping from British oppression. They eventually settled around the middle Vaal. The presence of the Zuluwas an obstacle to the acquisition of the attractive pastureland of the area. Balances of power to around 1870 When the Boers migrated out of Cape Colony, by the mid-1850s, Britain had recognized the political independence of the Boer republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The British boundary had been extended to include a considerable part of Xhosa territory. A certain level of balance had been established between southern Africans and Europeans. The British government was not interested in further extending its territorial reach. The situation changed with the discovery of diamonds and gold in the 1870s. PART Il - AFRICA AND ISLAM: REVIVAL AND REFORM IN THE XIX CENTURY Islam has been of immense importance in Africa's history. It formed the basis of much African resistance to European expansion. North Africa and West Africa have always been more Muslim than Christian. Eastern and southern Africa are predominantly Christian; but Islam was fundamental to the creation of a distinctive coastal civilization in east Africa, namely Swahili culture. African Muslims belonged to a global civilization encompassing the Ottoman empire, Persia and India. African Muslims were part of a global community in which the exchange of information - for example during the pilgrimage to Mecca - generated political consciousness. 5. REVIVAL AND REACTION - NORTH AFRICAN ISLAM Trade and conflict in the Mediterranean world: Ottoman and European frontiers From 1517, Egypt was under the Ottoman empire. It was used as a platform to push south, the Ottoman advance into the Red Sea was partly a response to Portuguese incursions into the Indian Ocean. The Ottomans took control of Massawa on the coast of modern Eritrea with a view to challenging the growing infidel presence. Egypt would come to achieve considerable autonomy within the Ottoman empire. Egypt's modern history began with the invasion in 1798 by a Napoleonic army which was only repelled in 1801 by an alliance of Ottoman and British forces. This marked the beginning of a growing Anglo-French rivalry over Egypt. The Ottomans captured Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers, ensuring that the Maghreb remained within the Islamic world, until the age of European imperial expansion. Yet, Istanbul had little effective control of them. The western Maghreb witnessed the rise of the independent state of Morocco, which halted Ottoman expansion and involved the expulsion of the Portuguese from their Atlantic ports. The XIX century saw a gradual dismantling of the empire, several provinces were lost to European conquest, including Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya. The challenges of the XIX century prompted Ottoman rulers to introduce reforms aimed at the reduction of the role of Islam in public life. The outcome was the gradual emergence of a new academic class which espoused western values. Changing society: the Maghreb Through the early XIX century, the nominally Ottoman states of North Africa were increasingly independent from Istanbul. Morocco was already an independent monarchy. The French conquered Algeria in 1830 which it became a white settlement. The Regency of Tunis requested British protection from the French threat. Britain offered protection against both the French and the Ottomans. Tunisia became one of the more reformist minded regimes of North Africa, abolishing slavery and making moves toward constitutional modernization. European influence was considerable in Tunisia, through a powerful diplomatic presence - both British and French - and through the wealthy European trading community. During the 1860s, with the relative decline of British involvement, France adopted a more aggressive position in Tunisia. The British had also supported the pasha of Tripoli, Yusuf Karamanli, against the Ottoman Empire. After Karamanli's death in 1830, civil war broke out, resolved by the reassertion of Ottoman authority. In the Libya region, it was difficult to suppress the slave trade, brought to an end only by the Italian conquest in 1912. The kingdom of Morocco was the only state of the Maghreb not administered by the Ottomans. Morocco stubbornly resisted European influence and restricted the activities of European merchants. Spain, in possession of the ports of Melilla and Ceuta, was claiming that these were being harassed by hostile locals. Spain dispatched an army which inflicted heavy defeats on the Moroccans, who in 1860 agreed to pay the Spanish a hefty indemnity. This marked the end of Moroccan independence, for in order to pay the indemnity the Moroccans had to raise a loan in Britain, which awarded the British a degree of control over Moroccan commerce. In 1912, Morocco fell under European control, partitioned between Spain and France. Changing society: Egypt The Macedonian Muhammad Ali was an officer in the Ottoman army which had expelled the French and he positioned himself as the most powerful military leader in Cairo by 1805. He was then appointed governor of Egypt by the Ottoman sultan. Muhammad Ali established a military dynasty of his own and achieved de facto independence from Istanbul. Egyptian hegemony was extended down the Red Sea area and the ports of Suakin and Massawa were leased by Istanbul to Cairo. Muhammad Ali imported European technology in attempting to lay the foundations for an industrial revolution. Egypt witnessed the creation of a new modern middle class which would become involved in politics, administration, law and journalism. Muhammad Ali also looked into Sudan. In 1824, the Egyptian capital was established at Khartoum. The Egyptian presence in both Sudan and the Red Sea facilitated an expansion of trade, but also led to conflict with the other expanding state: Ethiopia. When Muhammad Ali sought to expand into the Levant, a Ottoman expedition dispatched to take Syria and Palestine away from Egyptian control. Britain pressured Muhammad Ali to withdraw. He was also forced to reduce the size of his army and to allow Europeans into Egyptian markets. This ended Muhammad Ali’s industrial ambitions; the Egyptian economy became greatly exposed to European influence. Under the modernizing reign of Ismail, the construction of the Suez Canal was completed in 1869. Railways were built, modern communications installed, and cities redesigned. AII this required capital, and it was the enormous loans raised in Europe which made Egypt vulnerable to Europeans. In 1875, Ismail was compelled to sell his shares in the Suez Canal to pay some of his debts. By the end of the decade, the Egyptian government went bankrupt. Ismail was overthrown and European experts stepped in to oversee Egypt's finances. Popular protests were provoked by the growing foreign influence over the government in Cairo. As riots erupted, the British dispatched an army in 1882. In seizing Egypt, Britain excluded the French. 6. JIHAD: REVOLUTIONS IN WESTERN AFRICA Islam in western Africa to the XVIII century Berber merchants carried Islam across the Sahara to the western savannah. Islam brough about a sense of brotherhood and cooperation between traders and facilitated interaction between the Maghreb and the savannah. Rulers and traders who converted adapted Islam to fit existing features of West African religion. Ghana became a Muslim kingdom. The empire of Mali was recognized as a Muslim state, although the broad mass of the population continued to adhere to local beliefs. In some areas Muslims constituted isolated enclaves, but they still enjoyed political importance. This was the case in Asante, where a small Muslim community served as translators, advisors and diplomats, but made no effort to convert the wider population. Islam was primarily an urban religion, little developed beyond the towns; the shariah was not enforced with rigor. But in the XVIII century, there was a series of movements in West Africa which had the objective of purification of Islam and the enforcement of the shariah. The Wandering Fulani By the beginning of the XVII century, much of the West African savannah was at least nominally Muslim. It was not only trade to facilitate the spread of Islam, but also the migration of people due to drought and crop failure and political oppression. One of the most important long-term migrations was that of the Fulani. Originating in the area of the middle Senegal, the pastoral Fulani migrated across the savannah in search of better pasture and had spread across much of the region between Senegal and Niger. By the beginning of the XIX century, they were most numerous in modern northern Nigeria. The Fulani came under pressure from local populations who resented the intruders. This sense of isolation may explain their readiness to embrace Islam, which offered a common sense of protection and purpose. Prophets and warriors Across the West African savannah, Muslim clerics promoted a return to a purified Islam, which was deemed incompatible with local religions. Uthman began preaching in the state of Gobir (current Nigeria). He expressed the need to enforce the shariah. A dedicated community formed around him. Due to official persecution, Uthman had to leave Gobir. Jihad soon followed, erupting in 1804. Most Hausa states were seized by Muslim forces. A new empire across modern northern Nigeria and northern Cameroon had been created out of a revolution against infidelity to God: the Sokoto caliphate was the largest polity in West Africa, surviving into the colonial period. Uthman's brother and son took over the government. The caliphate of Sokoto was organized into emirates. Through Sokoto, Hausaland was fully part of the Islamic world. Sokoto was governed through Islamic administration and its legal system was interpreted by Muslim judges. The creation of Sokoto was a source of inspiration across the savannah, leading to the formation of states based on revitalized Islam. These jihads are not only seen as being genuinely concerned with religious reform, but also as representing deep-rooted tensions between ethnicities or as insurrections against repression. The uprisings of the West African savannah were often against Muslims who were believed not to be adhering to the shariah. It was difficult to verify the legitimacy of such jihad, as it targeted Muslims from other brotherhoods rather than infidels. Consequently, jihads in Africa are interpreted as ethnic conflicts. This was particularly true across Hausaland, where support for Uthman's revolt came from the pastoral Fulani, who felt oppressed at the hands of the Hausa. Many Fulani were not dedicated Muslims; they were motivated by a sense of ethnic solidarity. Jihad was partially motivated by socioeconomic repression with factions competing for control of regional resources. By the end of the XIX century, Islam became much more deeply rooted across West African savannah. As European colonial invasion gathered pace, Islam provided a great sense of unified resistance. Yet the opposition to European imperialism was never fully effective, in large part because it was undermined by sectarian rivalry. Moreover, Europeans tackled the threat of Islam by co-opting Muslim authorities into the colonial system. The British, having militarily subjugated the Sokoto Caliphate, governed through the Fulani and Hausa aristocracy and avoided interference in day-to-day administration. 7. THE EASTERN CRESCENT - THE ISLAMIC FRONTIER IN EASTERN AFRICA Swahili Islam in the XIX century Swahili - the term denotes a civilization, a language, and a culture - was born out of the fusion of African and Arabic elements along the Indian Ocean coast between modern Somalia and Mozambique. The first Muslim migrants from southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf began settling along the East African coast in the XVIII century. They intermarried with the local people, including ruling elites, and their presence facilitated trading relations between the African coast and the Muslim world. From this dynamic interaction, Swahili civilization emerged. The term in Arabic means “people of the coast”. Swahili became a distinctive coastal culture, Islamic in religion, centered around a series of commercial city-states. Muslim immigrants moved further south, creating new settlements mainly located on Islands close to the continent. The larger towns - e.g. Mogadishu, Zanzibar, Mombasa - generated considerable wealth through trade and they were self- governing sultanates. Islam was largely confined to ruling elites; the African majority was not yet. Each coastal settlement had its own local spirituality. However, urban dwellers operated in the context of a much wider world, thus a universal set of beliefs was required. Thus, many townspeople adopted Islam. As in West African savannah, conversion was confined to the commercial class who employed Islam to gain access to overseas trade. At the same time, however, in the Swahili settlements, two sets of belief systems (local spirituality and Islam) coexisted interdependently. Islam along the East African coast was soon challenged by the Portuguese who saw the seizure of the Swahili trade as part of the global mission to destroy Muslim control of the rich commerce with India. Islam in the central east African interior the rootless and the traumatized. A lasting British colony was established, and a dynamic community of ex-slaves developed. Sierra Leone also embodied the notion of “assimilation”, with its Francophone equivalent in Senegal. Assimilation represented the belief that the native, through exposure to British values, could be expected to become British, to become literally assimilated into British culture. Assimilation, better described as the creation of “black Englishmen”, was the ultimate goal of the British civilizing mission - at least for a while. Thomas Buxton, evangelical humanitarian, formed the African Civilisation Society with the support of the British government. Political and humanitarian interests united as the British government agreed to finance an expedition up the Niger River. However, a good part of the contingent died of fever, and the whole affair had to be abandoned. The African Civilisation Society collapsed soon afterwards. An important principle was established: official support for humanitarian endeavour could only be guaranteed once it was clear that British national interests were also being served. The Christian impact on culture, state, and society Africans proved stubbornly resistant to Christian theology. People do not convert to new religions unless they have very good reasons for doing so; and missionaries did not really provide any. In terms of political elites, whose power was rooted in the control of indigenous religion and in their links with the supernatural, Christianity was a real threat to their authority. The fundamental principle of Christianity - monotheism - was alien to polytheistic societies. However, this began to change as the presence of Europeans increased in the XIX century. Africans became more receptive to both Islam and Christianity. They both offered the advantage of literacy, which ruling elites were eager to acquire. For the disadvantaged in society, Christianity offered some degree of protection. Mission compounds were sanctuaries during war and hiding places for slaves who were offered freedom and salvation. Sierra Leone was one of the missionary success stories. Its form of Christianity is the forerunner of the much later Africanization of Christianity. Another area of relative success was southern Africa, were the displaced were drawn to the Christian message. In this region, David Livingstone combined evangelical endeavour with the need to introduce legitimate commerce and with scientific curiosity. Livingstone was the embodiment of Victorian humanitarian conscience, railing against the slave trade and calling for Britain’s youth to commit themselves to missionary work. Livingstone contributed to the creation of the rhetorical for Britain's humanitarian conquest of Africa. The kingdom of Buganda (Uganda was the Swahili rendering of the name) demonstrates the dynamics of the last years of the XIX century. Stanley, the ultimate explorer of the age, made a plea for missionaries to come to Buganda. Missionaries arrived to take on the task of wresting Buganda from the forces of Islam and paganism. Here, a dedicated missionary was Mackay, who was careless to local sensitives and hated Catholicism. Both the Protestants and the Catholics managed to convert the elite of Ganda society. The king Mutesa gave enough encouragement to the missionaries to keep them hopeful, without committing himself to anything. He was smart enough to keep a balance with the White Fathers, the Muslim traders and the local spirit mediums. Both Islam and Christianity attracted more and more followers. When Mutesa died, he was succeeded by his son Mwanga who launched a persecution of both missionaries and Ganda converts. Mission and empire Imperial ambition was dignified within the language of the Christian mission. Even though according to the British government, morally motivated intervention should coincide with genuine strategic and economic interests, missionaries increasingly looked to governments at home for support in changing African society. The area of Lake Nyasa (present-day Malawi) witnessed some of the most intense activity on the part of British missionaries. Missionaries lobbied for governmental intervention in order to crush the slave-traders. When the British government declared a protectorate in 1889, it was motivated by the desire to prevent Portuguese invasion. Missionaries in Uganda lobbied for government intervention more urgently, as the kingdom descended into civil war with the factions divided according to allegiance to Protestantism, Catholicism, or Islam. Christian conscience and commercial potential prompted the government to declare a protectorate over Uganda. 9. TOWARDS THE SCRAMBLE At the end of the 18705, most of the continent was still in African hands; yet within the next 20 years, the entire continent (except for Ethiopia and Liberia) was under European colonial rule. Africa and theories of Imperialism There are different theories that explain the factors behind the European partition of Africa. A very dated and Eurocentric explanation focuses on events outside Africa in the second half of the XIX century. The emergence of a united Germany led to heightened tension within Europe. Shifts in the balance of power led European states to reinforce their international positions through acquisition of territory overseas. The British and the French pursued defensive imperialism in response to rising German power. Germany itself also sought territory in Africa in order to maintain the new European balance of power. According to this reading, imperialism in Africa was merely an instrument to strengthen powers within Europe. As a domino effect, many smaller European nations sought colonies as a prerequisite to national prestige. The partition has also been interpreted in the context of economic developments in Europe. When European merchants found demand in their home markets declining, they turned to overseas markets. Global competition increased sharply, and free trade gave way to protectionism, namely the establishment of colonial territories from which rival European powers could be excluded. Many European merchants were convinced of the existence of infinite resources in the African interior. European states believed in their right to control these resources directly. For several centuries, Europe had taken from Africa what it needed without political intervention; but the process of commercial change led to greater involvement and military pressure to induce Africans to cooperate. The British relied heavily on local collaborators to sustain an informal empire. Once such collaborative regimes collapsed, Britain was compelled to involve itself directly in those societies in order to protect its interests. By the 1870s, it had become clear that economic penetration would not proceed peacefully or smoothly without intervention; the free market could no longer provide what Europe needed, and obstacles had appeared which only imperialism could remove. This was compounded by the rise of racialism in Europe, involving the idea that Africans could not be left alone to create conditions conducive to healthy economic development. There was also the problem of the of the fragmentary nature of African political systems, manifested in the existence of numerous small states. It was necessary to crush the many African rulers in order to make trade run smoothly. Race and culture European invasion was framed within the concept of racialism. European attitudes toward race hardened in the XIX century. African natives were seen as neither committed to improving themselves nor were they grasping the opportunities provided through exposure to European civilization. The Indian uprising of 1857, followed by a rebellion in Jamaica, carried the question of native ingratitude. These rebellions have convinced the white world that it was time to start treating people of color differently. The European Enlightenment produced the notion of the “noble savage” as the model of man untouched by civilization and at peace with himself and the environment. The savage was an innocent naive, but he could also be capable of evil if left without guidance. Discussion of racial differences was part of a broader movement toward the classification of species. From such debate emerged the: - Monogenists: all men were descended from Adam and Eve; therefore, all humans possessed a common origin. Subsequent differences were caused by environmental factors. The lot of degenerate people could be improved if the socio-political and cultural environment could be altered. - Polygenists: all races had evolved separately. There was no common point of origin and crossbreeding would lead to degeneration and genetic weakness. As indigenous peoples took up Christianity, gained access to European education, and adopted European manners, they became a threat to the social and political order. It became difficult to maintain the distance between rulers and ruled, and new interpretations of race thus became necessary. Seen from this perspective, race was a deliberate construct necessitated by socio- political change. Civilizing violence: political and economic justifications There was a growing belief in the need for more forceful intervention in African society. The British annexation of Lagos in 1861 was a rare act of direct military intervention, but it indicated a readiness to intervene in the enforcement of legitimate commerce if necessary. The concept of a civilized order forced through violence was at the heart of the late XIX century thinking about Africa. Imperialism had its critics. In particular, there was a widespread idea that British power lacked moral direction; the means of destruction employed in the extension of the empire undermined the civilizing mission. Nonetheless, what most agreed upon was the desirability of bringing civilization into the world. Some believed it could only be done by force, others believed that force destroyed the chances of progress. They disagreed over the means, but not the end; and neither doubted that there were lower races which needed saving. 10. AFRICANS ADAPTING - CONQUEST AND PARTITION Explaining the conquest There was no single European invasion of Africa, but rather a multitude of uncoordinated invasions. From a military point of view, the Scramble for Africa took place with ease. Conquest was carried out by small military forces, mostly composed of African soldiers, under the command of European officers. African combat skills and local knowledge were deployed. Violent competition between states provided Europeans with the opportunity to exploit local rivalries. The Scramble must be seen as an extension of the African violence of the XIX century. The military technology, especially in the field of firearms, gave Europe an enormous advantage in the closing decades of the XIX century. Modern firearms proved decisive in a number of colonial campaigns, as African armies (on foot or on horseback) could be cut down before they had a chance to fight. Moreover, while Europeans had professional armies, African amies tended to be non-organized militias. Africans had different conceptions of what the European presence meant. Europeans were seen by some as trading partners, or political allies against local adversaries, and by others as enemies. Sometimes Europeans were seen as protectors and liberators, particularly in the context of the abolition of slavery. Stronger resistance was possible in Muslim areas, Islam providing a unity unavailable to non-Muslims. It's not easy to identify the moment at which the Scramble began; a series of events between the mid-1870s and early 1880s accelerated the process by which the continent came under increasing European control. British influence was solidifying in the Gold Coast and Niger Delta, King Leopold of the Belgians was taking an active interest in the Congo basin, and the French were beginning to expand their colony in Senegal. The British and the French started to perceive each other as threats to their commercial position. Meanwhile, events in the nominally Ottoman province of Egypt raised the stakes in this unfolding rivalry. British and French investors were largely in control of Egyptian finances, while it was a French company which controlled the vital Suez Canal; but it was the British government to extend formal political control over the territory, sparking intense competition with the French over the Nile Valley. Unwelcome Italian interest in Tunisia, forced the French into seizing Tunis. As for Germany, Bismarck was unconvinced of the usefulness of African colonies but was even more unwilling to see Britain and France acquire more than their fair share. Bismarck declared protectorates over Togo, Cameroon, and Southwest Africa. The chancellor called for an international conference to discuss what many feared was becoming a dangerous situation in Africa. The main concerns were the threat to free trade and the need to negotiate an international agreement regarding the demarcation of boundaries across the continent. The long- term political implications of this conference were profound. Leopold's authority in the Congo basin was recognized, in return for which European traders were allowed free access to the region; thus was the Congo Free State born, a territory under Leopold's personal domain. The claims of a European government to a particular region would only be recognized if the European power in question was already effectively in control of that region. Bismarck's aim was to undermine the British concept of “spheres of influence”, particularly in the area of present-day Tanzania. Britain had long regarded the Tanzanian hinterland as being within its “spheres of influence”, but when the Germans declared a protectorate over this territory, they had effectively occupied it. Violent resistance Violent resistance to European incursions erupted between 1880 and WWI. Europeans were often able to exploit local rivalries, as the French first discovered when they advanced into the western savannah from Senegal. The main obstacles to French imperialism in the region were the Tukolor and Mandinke empires, neither of which could set aside their competition for hegemony. When the French invaded in 1891, the empires were weakened by internal revolt, but they still managed to keep up a mobile resistance for several years. Islam facilitated a unity of purpose in resistance to European incursion in the West African savannah, witness the French struggle in the area of modern Chad. Compact, centralized states were often the easiest to crush. Although the French proclaimed the colony of Cote d'Ivoire, it took 20 years to subjugate an array of decentralized communities in the forest. British influence over the coast of present-day Nigeria was expanding. Britain declared a protectorate over the Delta. Military campaigns in the area were largely motivated by the desire to remove middlemen who were seen to be impeding commerce. These campaigns were extended deeper into the hinterland, exploiting local rivalries, enabling them to face one opponent at a time. In some areas, there was no physical conquest. Rather, there was the making of treaties which African chiefs regarded as pacts of friendship, but which Europeans regarded as evidence of effective occupation. In this manner, the French claimed territory of the lower Congo, and a French explorer was dispatched to collect more treaties from chiefs who were offered gifts. These chiefs had little understanding of the treaties’ implications. The German administration in Tanzania was quite violent. The Tanzanian Maji Maji revolt erupted in 1905 as pressure mounted from the colonial authorities to grow cotton for export. Farmers were forced to abandon their own cultivation and saw little profit in return for the cotton they produced. Religious ideology represented by priests provided coherence for the revolt, advancing a belief in the supernatural to overcome European weaponry. Spiritual belief brought unprecedented unity and made rebels confident of succeeding. However, the next year Germany superior military technology crushed the revolt. The human cost was horrendous, hence the Germans made sure not to provoke another uprising, committing more resources to development, mission schools and clinics. Farmers took to growing cotton voluntarily, suggesting that the violence was not in protest at the cultivation of cotton in itself, but the coercion involved. The revolt demonstrated the potential of multi-ethnic anti-colonial protest to the next generation of nationalists. For some societies, the European presence was strategically advantageous. When the British government declared a protectorate over Uganda, the Ganda assisted in the subjugation of the surrounding kingdoms. Buganda was regarded as the ideal sub-imperial agency in the region and was rewarded with a favored status within the protectorate. Economic considerations placed southern Africa into a unique scramble for territory. The modern history of southern Africa began with the discovery of huge diamond fields from 1869 in the north of Cape Colony. The local chief owner of the land requested Boer protection, but the British annexed the area anyway. Although initially worked by individual diggers employing African labor, 1920s onward, coercion was largely unnecessary, as willing participation became the norm. Entry into the labour market was necessary in order to pay taxes and feed families. Also matters of public life, e.g. the provision of health care and education, demanded attention. The state remained small in many spheres of African life for many years. Until the 19205, the education of Africans remained in the hands of mission schools which had an uneasy relationship with the colonial authorities. Only between the wars did state school systems begin to develop. One of the most important issues with regard to colonial regimes is the extent to which the state transformed African society. What is clear, however, is that colonialism tied the continent firmly to the international economy. Colonial rule transformed internal economic systems through the exposure of societies to global demand for certain commodities and through the construction of railways and road networks, which made transport cheaper and therefore production for the international market more viable. Yet the state was still insignificant in many aspects of life. After WWI, colonial systems became more stable. Among Africans, there was a recognition of the futility of armed resistance. There were many ways of adapting to the system. For example, new lines of Islamic thought were emerging in the period between the 20s and 40s, seeking to reconcile modern political realities with spiritual rejuvenation. Africans were able to impose themselves on the system and change it in subtle but important ways. It is important to acknowledge African agencies of change and not simply assume that the colonial state possessed a monopoly on transformative capacity. By 1930, indirect-rule chiefs were established across Africa, they often operated as agents of colonial rule, collecting taxes and administering justice. Chiefs had access to mission education and were thus essential in the articulation of the colonial rhetoric of development. Yet mission education also facilitated the emergence of a new educated elite which would challenge the old system. Colonialism seemed to provide security and stability; peace had been imposed on African societies. The ambiguity of colonialism lay in the fact that while it brought with it massive dislocation, new diseases and environmental disasters, it also possessed the technological and organizational power to address these crises. In the 1930s, the socioeconomic hardships caused by the Great Depression cultivated heightened levels of political consciousness. Within colonial administrations, attitudes toward governance and indirect rule began to change. There was growing disillusionment with the philosophy underpinning the colonial order. The mission came under critical scrutiny, or was rejected outright, as in the case of North African movements. An important outcome of this was a move toward greater colonial intervention in African societies and an enlargement of the state itself. This was accompanied by a recognition of the need for greater political inclusiveness and of the fact that Africans might be brough into government and become self-governing. Ultimately, this happened much more quickly than was originally envisaged. Awareness of the hardships brought about by the Depression led to a shift in colonial thinking. The new line of thought suggested that the state should take greater care of its subjects and that Africans must be protected from the fluctuations of the global economy. Colonial rulers were unintentionally paving the way for the incorporation of the new elites they had long excluded. These changes would facilitate the new forms of protest and identity which came forward immediately after WWII. 11. PAX COLONIA? - EMPIRES OF SOIL AND SERVICE Monopolies on violence Africa was policed by African themselves. From the early 19005, the practice of recruitment of Africans into colonial forces became systematic. Africans became disciplined and loyal servants of the new order. While African soldiers were seen as savages in the precolonial era, colonialism brough order and rectitude. Africans who served in European armies were exposed to the civilizing mission. The practice of indigenous recruitment had a long history in Africa. The French had recruited local men into their colonial force in the coastal settlement of Senegal since 1857; Britain had recruited from its settlements in Gambia and Sierra Leone. African militia had been used to protect trading stations and deployed in the low-level conflicts with peoples in the hinterland since at least the early 18008. Without African combat skills and local knowledge, the Scramble of Africa would have been impossible. These forces would become the representatives of European armed power, the upholders of order, and a constant reminder of the conquest itself. During the WWI, conscription increased dramatically, particularly in the French territories. The Tirailleurs Sénégalais would play a significant part in the action of the Western Front. Yet, it was the need to make tax collection more efficient that prompted governments to increase expenditure on police and army. Europeans found it easy to recruit among displaced and rootless peoples: military service provided stability, identity, a salary. Europeans believed that certain indigenous peoples were particularly well-suited to military service. The interpretation of “martial races” involved the idealization of recruits from the savannah area where people were masculine and warlike, and suspicion of the coastal regions. Slaves and labor One of the stated aims of the civilizing mission had been to bring an end to the practice of slavery. Colonial authorities approached the abolition of domestic slavery with caution, conscious of the potential turmoil involved in abruptly emancipating the slave population. The legal basis of slavery was not recognized, but slaves were discouraged from leaving their masters, for example by preventing them from owning land and not assisting them to resettle. In northern Nigeria, the British were reluctant to interfere in domestic arrangements, and slavery was abolished only when slaves purchased their own freedom in 1936. Along the East African coast, slaveowners were compensated if their slaves departed. Slavery continued in the Portuguese territories well into the XX century, and it persisted in Ethiopia until the interwar years. African employers often treated free labor as mere slaves, in their minds their legal distinction was irrelevant. At the same time, freedom is relative. Early colonial states had relied on freed slaves for their armies and police forces. Former slaves became part of the forced labor. Slavery had largely disappeared by the middle of the XX century, even if some of the forms of labor which replaced it were not less exploitative. Cash crops Markets and raw materials were the primary economic needs of European colonialism. Initially, responsibility for opening up the interior was given to private companies, which also represented attempts at administration. This was quickly discovered to be inefficient: many companies went bankrupt as a result of mismanagement and African resistance, and administration was inexpert. Most companies had been superseded by governmental authority by the beginning of the 19205. Moreover, companies pursued private profit, often violently, and were scarcely interested in long- term investment. The Congo Free State witnessed some of the worst abuses: here, the main focus around the early 1900s was wild rupber. Companies employed armies of ex-slaves to collect rubber, terrorizing communities in the process. African resistance and international condemnation (even by the standards of the day events in the Congo were seen as shameful) were to bring about a major shift in the way the territory was governed. In 1908, Leopold was compelled to hand over responsibility to the Belgian government, which managed to bring the worst of the abuses to an end. Across the tropical belt, production was largely left to African peasant producers. In West Africa, farmers were encouraged to produce cash crops for export. In some areas, production quickly reached remarkable levels. In Senegal, production of groundnuts expanded dramatically thanks to the railway that linked the interior with the coast. In Dahomey and Cote d'Ivoire, palm produce output reached remarkable levels. By 1914, the Gold Coast became the largest single producer of cocoa in the world. Production continued to expand until the beginning of the 1970, in the hands of millions of smallholder farmers around the area of Accra. The railway system in the Gold Coast only began to have an impact at the beginning of the 19205, by which time African producers had already brought about the dramatic expansion in production. In Atlantic Africa, there was a certain continuity from the precolonial to the colonial era; the production of cocoa reflected the long experience of the export trade. The colonial state was relatively irrelevant in bringing about socio- economic change. In eastern Africa, however, there was a profound discontinuity and socioeconomic transformation. Commercial agriculture was ill-developed; the only exception was Zanzibar. Soon, the commercial frontier advanced into the interior. Uganda demonstrates the transition very well. Here, profound economic change originated in the kingdom of Buganda, whose highly centralized and hierarchical political system offers a striking contrast with the decentralized and egalitarian Gold Coast. In the second half of the XIX century, Buganda's export economy was based on slaves and ivory, the purchasers of which were Arab traders. During the 1890s, this trade was in terminal decline. Uganda became a major producer of cotton. The colonial state had been very instrumental in bringing out change. The Uganda Railway was crucial, making cash crop production viable in the Lake Victoria area. From 1902, the cotton production was spread by the British Cotton Growing Association. Cotton became the backbone of the colonial economy in French western and equatorial Africa. Cotton was the major crop in Egypt and Sudan as well, where the British financed the building of an extensive irrigation system. White settlement In those territories where production was not in the hands of African farmers, communities of white settlers were positioned at the center of colonial economies. In Kenya, the railway shifted the center of political gravity from the coast to the highlands. The colonial administration sought to regain the investments. In this respect, one issue was Kenya's geography. Much of the territory was arid savannah, the exception was the fertile and rainy southern zone, which was quickly identified as an attractive area for European settlement. Another problem was the stark contrast between Kenya and neighbouring Uganda. Buganda had a centralized monarchical system; Ganda chiefs favoured the development of cash crop farming. The Kenyan interior was sparsely populated by stateless groups; there were no intermediaries with whom business could be done. Early administrators thus encouraged settler farming. By the time of the WWI, a small but significant settler community had emerged. Africans would be marginalized and forced labor was increasingly common. The settlers were given an increasingly powerful voice in the administration of the territory. African land was located in areas characterized by poor soil and far from the main markets. A system of squatters emerged: white settlers often expropriated more land that they could actually farm, and so African squatters were encouraged to settle on white plantations and cultivate their own crops, in return for which they would work for the white landowner for a certain number of days per year. It took many years for the settler economy to become profitable. There was the small-scale family farm, where maize was grown. However, these small-scale units were largely irrelevant to the Kenyan economy, the wealth of which rested on the large-scale plantations, involved in growing coffee and tea for export. Dreams of gold in Southern Rhodesia were disappointed. There was some gold, but nothing on the scale of that found further south. Also here, the territory was flooded with white farmers and Africans were compelled into a wage labor market. White power was gradually consolidated and in 1923 the territory achieved self-governing status. Algeria was second only to South Africa, as a territory of white settlement. The settlers were largely concentrated along the Mediterranean coast and comprised mostly poor peasants from southern France who owned small plots of land and struggled to expand beyond subsistence level. The urban centers, notably Algiers and Oran, attracted settlers; from here the colon community began to exercise political power. They secured direct representation in the Paris Assembly and established a considerable degree of control over the internal affairs of Algeria. Their political identity was expressed in the concept of Algérie Francaise, portraying the territory as a part of France overseas, and consequently asserting racial discriminations over Arabs and Berbers. Industry Across southern Africa, mining economies shaped the political administrations. Northern Rhodesia became one of the largest producers of copper. Southern Rhodesia was a settler economy based on farming and small-scale gold mining. By the WWI, South Africa was producing 40% of the world's gold, while Johannesburg became the largest urban center south of the Sahara. Large-scale diamond and gold mining operations were dominated by huge companies, profiting from a combination of European capital and cheap African labor. Around the second Boer war, African labor proved difficult to recruit. Companies turned to the international labor market and thousands of Chinese workers were brought it but were paid very low wages. The Chinese demanded, and succeeded in having granted, a series of “color bars” which specified that certain jobs could only be filled by whites. In 1907, the Chinese were sent home; and Africans were back into the mines, but the color bars remained in place. At the same time, a major cross-border labor recruitment system developed. Migrant labor served the mining industry. Both work conditions of service and the housing system provided for workers were horrendous. Migrant laborers came without families and were thus paid lower wages as single men; they were subject to a brutal system of rules, a legal structure backing mine owners which aimed at absolute social control. In areas where voluntary recruitment was slow, a system of forced labor was created. In the 1920s mining for copper on a large scale began in Northern Rhodesia. Migrant labor formed the bulk of the workforce, maintained on low wages and short-term contracts. Conditions were a bit better in the copper mines of neighbouring Katanga province (southern Congo) where Africans were offered longer-term contracts, provided with a basic education and trained for more skilled positions. Immense damage was done to rural economies, as migration and urbanization drained communities of some of their most able-bodies members. The powerful white minority in South Africa was able to confine African to designated “reserve” territories, who could only legally travel to areas of white settlement by carrying a pass which indicated tribal origin and employment. Governments started to develop a legislation aimed at racial segregation and the maintenance of white control. Social change and emergent crisis During the 20s and 30s, small-scale African farmers dominated cash crop production across tropical Africa. Africans took advantage of the colonial opportunities. The railway opened up commercial opportunities in rural areas that were previously out of reach of global trade. After the era of military conquest, the 1920s was a period of stability and prosperity. A commercial hierarchy developed, with small groups of powerful and successful African entrepreneurs dominating production. However, even the poorest usually had access to some land, and thus a degree of economic independence. In the Gold Coast, cocoa production was based on the share-cropping system: individuals would come to the cocoa-producing area, and the resident community would permit them to grow cocoa privately on its land in exchange for a share of the produce. This system prevented capitalism to blossom. Europeans were generally hostile to increasingly powerful and wealthy African entrepreneurs. Colonial authorities were wary of the rise of new economic elites which would increasingly get involved in politics. White settler colonies faced different challenges. In Kenya, Africans were squeezed into overcrowded reserves. The colonial administration was increasingly committed to the creation of an African labor force. Global depression brought some relief for Africans: as demand for cash crops fell, many settlers abandoned the land, allowing Africans to cultivate for themselves. By the mid-1940s, international demand was again on the rise, and with it, the arrival of a community of white settlers. This time, the aim was the abolition of the squatter system and the creation of a permanent wage labor force. Many Africans were forced off European land. There was also significant differentiation within Kikuyu society. A minority was able to profit from the domestic economy by selling surpluses, thus gaining a privileged position in the colonial system, an advantage not enjoyed by most Kikuyu. The political implications were far-reaching, as a growing mission school could no longer provide answers to African questions, especially during the hardships of the 19305. Class and tribe: the industrial complex Economic change brought about new patterns of resistance, most dramatically in South Africa, with its oppressive system of passes. Some of the earliest organized protests were confined to the political elite, which became in 1923 the African National Congress, which laid the foundations for wider political action, notably in its cooperation with Indian and coloured (mixed race in segregationist legislation) groups. In 1920, 40.000 mine workers went on strike. Worker consciousness developed slowly. For the early period, there was no collective worker action: there were no trade unions and no leaders capable of mobilizing workers. Yet unions and strikes are not necessary in identifying some form of worker consciousness, as workers themselves often registered protest informally: confronted with a brutal and exploitative system, they developed complex intelligence networks, which sought to understand that system, and thereafter they leamt how to work it: passes were forged, machinery was sabotaged, work rates were slowed. Shared experiences facilitated the growth of communal identity. In the 19305, collective consciousness began to translate into strike action. This was also connected to the emergence of a settled community capable of organized activity, as temporary migration gave way to more permanent residency. The worker population needed to be geographically concentrated. In Southern Rhodesia, mines were scattered over a wide area, making large-scale action problematic. In Northern Rhodesian, mines were closer together, workers were able to cooperate and organize major strikes. Miners understood that the British needed copper, and the concessions they won indicated to them that, when organized, they did indeed have considerable economic muscle. Migrant labor initially hired men on short-term contracts from rural areas. From 19205 onward, longer-term contracts and the settling of workers with their families in the mining areas laid the foundations of an urban working class. Johannesburg, built on gold, is the most notable example. Urban identities were not rooted enough, as early immigrants were temporary residents. With their roots still in their village, they often recreated aspects of rural culture while in towns. Tribalism retained a powerful hold, especially in towns, where the competition for resources was greatest. Nonetheless, towns became cultural melting pots where ethnic groups engaged in intermarriage and the exchange of language, customs, ideas. The 1930s witnessed a collapse in wages across the continent. It was a period of hardship for millions of Africans and the poor whites. The commercialization of farming had seen poor whites moving from their lands to the cities in search for work. Cash crops, rural crises, and peasant protest Commercial agriculture did not necessarily mean rural prosperity. Africans had to balance subsistence farming with export crops, while the import of European manufactured goods undermined Africa's economic development. Peasant farmers had no control over the prices they were paid for their exports and imports. In order to compensate for falling prices, Africans had to use larger areas of land for the cultivation of cash crops, at the expense of subsistence food crops. The result was soil exhaustion and famine. By the end of the 1920s, a handful of European companies had come to dominate the West-African import-export trade. African producers were soon on the defensive, establishing farmers’ associations at a local level to protect their interests. In the Gold Coast, farmers refused to sell their cocoa until the offering price was increased. However, the companies were able to ignore local concerns and simply buy from other sources. The situation in the Gold Coast also revealed the hostility toward the indirect rule system; traditional chiefs were reluctant to support farmers. A Western-educated generation of political activists would come to perceive indirect rule chiefs as obstacles to the achievement of independence. Global depression made peasant farmers more aware of the colonial economy's injustices; self-help associations served to articulate anticolonial grievances at the local level and they reflected a crisis of confidence in the colonial order. The reaction of the colonial state in many territories was government intervention. There was a belief that colonial government should become more closely involved in the marketing of exports, attempting to alleviate the impact of price fluctuations and social distress. There was also a move toward state intervention in production itself. Due to overcultivation, governments intervened by protecting the soil and maximizing the production. Such aggressive interventionism would stroke up bitter rural resentment. 13. BATTLES HOME AND AWAY - AFRICA IN GLOBAL WAR (AGAIN) The war in the continent The WWII saw African colonies drawn into a European conflict, and once again, the continent was a crucial source of men and materials. For Africans, the WWII had in many ways begun in 1935 with the Italian invasion of Ethiopia from colonial Eritrea. With the partial exception of Liberia, Ethiopia was the only independent African state, but it was now the target of Mussolini’s expansionist ambitions. Italian forces invaded Ethiopia and entered Addis Abeba. However, the Italians could never really claim to be in control of Ethiopia in its entirety; guerrilla activity continued for the duration of the Fascist occupation and swathes of the country remained beyond Italian jurisdiction. Abroad, Ethiopia became a notorious case. Within the African-American community and inside Africa itself, Ethiopia became the focus of pan-African protest and nascent nationalism. The ability of Ethiopia to remain independent during the European partition served to underpin its status as Africa's only great power. The Italian invasion was regarded as an outrageous violation. In 1941, both Ethiopia and Eritrea had been liberated by the Allied forces, and Haile Selassie restored to power, although this was compromised by the presence of British military and political advisors. In Eritrea, the British set up an administration which relied heavily on Italian personnel. Many Africans had become politically conscious through their wartime experience, and had developed heightened awareness of the colonial system. Returning war veterans had a much broader view of the world. Once again, they have closely observed the European weakness and failure. The myth of European supremacy was crashed once and for all. Shifts in politics and society In Algeria, nationalists were frustrated by the French government’s continued support for the white settler community. The fate of Libya, freed from the Italians, was to be decided by the victorious powers (Britain, France, US, Soviet Union). Initially, independence was not considered an option. The British had developed a certain interest in the Cyrenaica province. Tripolitania had long been more developed, under the Italians, but it was deeply divided internally. Most of the Italian settlers were based in Tripolitania. In Egypt, nationalists were more organized and vocal. In 1939, the British had converted Egypt into their base for operations in the Middle East. By the 19405, protests became common, but the British were concerned first and foremost to protect their strategic and financial investment in the Suez Canal. In the French sub-Saharan territories, appeasement of nationalist leaders was aimed at the stabilization and retention of the colonies. France, like Britain, could not contemplate surrendering its colonies, and thus the promise of reform was tactical. While there was no talk of political independence, there was talk of the incorporation of Africans into higher administrative positions. By the early 19405, African workers were using strikes and trade unions to considerable effect. The fear of social unrest produced a cautious approach on the part of the colonial authorities. The African voice was increasingly difficult to ignore. African newsletter spread dramatically and reached a wider audience. Africans were becoming politicized to an unprecedented degree and they were also conscious of colonial hypocrisy. The Charter written by Churchill and Roosevelt proclaimed the fundamental right of all peoples to self-determination and protection against aggression and persecution. This caused quite a stir in African educated circles: doesn't this also apply to them? The British prime minister felt compelled to make the point that the peoples of the British Empire were being adequately looked after. But the damage had been done, as African political activists sensed the weakness of the colonial system and the moral bankruptcy of the philosophies which underpinned it. As the war drew to a close, a group of young, educated Africans was emerging. They were the first generation of African nationalists, and would later constitute the first wave of independent leaders. For the remaining principal colonial powers (Britain, France, Portugal, Belgium), their African territories were more important than ever. Interventionist policies were pursued with renewed vigor after 1945. The African contribution to Europe's post-war economic recovery was vital. European governments needed to be more closely involved in managing colonial economies. This amounted to what has been described as a second colonial occupation. PART 5 - THE DISSOLUTION OF THE EMPIRE In the period between 1945 and 1970, the colonial empire gradually collapsed. As the Pan-African Congress demanded an unconditional end to colonial rule, colonial strategists devised ways of securing their territories. For Portugal and Belgium, this meant a refusal to move beyond limited political concessions. Britain and France developed policies aimed at the commercial development of their colonies and the gradual incorporation of Africans into administrative structures to appease nationalists. African nationalists had to develop political parties in order to nurture wider territorial consciousness. The elections organized by colonial authorities provided a platform on which such parties could postulate national agendas. The forms taken by political movements were influenced by the challenges they had to overcome. In the Gold Coast, Senegal, and Tanzania, the national movements combined negotiation and veiled threat to deal with retreating colonial authorities. In Uganda and Nigeria, nationalists disputed with each other about the future of their territories and colonial officials became negotiators. Nationalist victories were in fact negotiated settlements. While colonial authorities may have left behind friendly regimes governed by people educated within the colonial system, they also left behind structures noteworthy only for their inequity and instability, unsustainable over the long term. Subsequently, we witness the resurgence of the precolonial XIX century dynamics, notably the struggle to win access to scarce resources. 14. THE BEACHED WHALE - COLONIAL STRATEGIES IN THE POSTWAR WORLD Post-war Africa and the international climate The world was dramatically different in 1945. Events in Asia had been significant for Africa. The advances achieved by Indian nationalist movements immediately after the war served as an inspiration to African movements. Japan had been seen by many as the model of a successful non- European, anticolonial state. It had humbled the Dutch, the British, and the French. Japanese forces had captured Singapore, the center of British imperialism in Southeast Asia. President Roosevelt's deeply antipathy toward European imperialism had an enormous impact. Roosevelt used his profound influence in British political circles to push for a timetable for decolonization. However, the US under Truman and Eisenhower was less concerned with the dismantling of the European empires. Of prime concern was to protect the so-called Third World from communism. The US was willing to support colonial regimes threatened by communist insurrection. For example, military aid was provided to the Portuguese fascist regime fighting Marxist guerrillas in Angola and Mozambique in the 60s. The USSR was deeply anticolonial and it was prepared to support African movements seeking independence. Economic policies, c.1945-50 In 1945, Europe was economically exha usted and it was marginalized by the power of the US and the USSR. African colonies were more important than ever in economic terms. Portugal, due to its economic weakness, clung to its empire with determination and lasted the longest, until the 70s. By contrast, Britain, which recovered quickly from the war, was the fastest to decolonize. The immediate post-war period witnessed increased colonial interventionism. As demand for African goods in Europe increased, governments became more closely involved. In British colonies, substantial government funds were made available to maximize production. In the French colonies, marketing boards had been established to take advantage of the agricultural boom. Even in the supposedly independent Liberia, an American rubber company invested in huge plantations, an early example of African sovereignty compromised by foreign commercial concerns. The introduction of capital-intensive schemes implied a new kind of colonial economy in which African farmers would be marginalized in favor of the large-scale importation of mechanized equipment and settler experts. It was a large-scale and expensive disaster. In Tanganyika (exploited for groundnut), it was discovered that the soil was too dry and thin for this kind of agriculture, while the machinery proved vulnerable in such a climate. There was growing skepticism concerning the sustainability of such capital-intensive schemes in Africa. There was similar disappointment in the French Sudan, where large-scale investment in dams on the Niger was made for the production of cotton. Instead, local farmers used the land to grow sugar and rice for the domestic market, and cotton production never reached significant levels. African producers were aware that marketing boards (organizations set up by the governments to regulate the trade of commodities in order to increase profit) did not benefit them. Africans were paid a small percentage of the value of their labor, while governments were able to build up surplus, which was then invested for further capital development. In the Portuguese colonies, increasing numbers of white working-class settlers, lacking in skills and capital, were arriving. The colonies were seen as extensions of Portugal itself; the same way the French perceived Algeria. Portugal's fascist system was exported to Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau. The Belgian Congo experienced an economic boom and it was key to Belgium's post-war recovery. For Portugal and Belgium, economic control was necessary for political control. For Britain and France, economic control could be maintained without political control. Political plans, c.1945-50 There were also change in European political thinking about the colonies. Governments became more conscious and sensitive. The socioeconomic traumas of the Great Depression in the 30s had forced a reassessment of the colonial rule. The British government emphasized the need to move away from indirect rule, toward the incorporation of the emergent educated elite. The French, too, began to consider the gradual transfer of power to Africans, although they were planning a qualified degree of autonomy rather than unconditional independence. Political thought was rather different when it came to territories of white settlement. For the British, this meant Kenya and Rhodesia. For the French, it meant Algeria. The British Colonial Office envisaged the creation of special powers for white settlers, guaranteeing for them a privileged position. Portugal and Belgium envisaged nothing more than superficial political reform. Local elites might be further co-opted into legislative bodies, but no significant autonomy was contemplated. Their intransigence would render their territories more violently unstable. Italy, as a defeated power, lost its empire of Libya, Somaliland, Eritrea, and Ethiopia (a very recent acquisition). Italy was granted over the Somalis a ten-year trusteeship. Eritrea was federated with Ethiopia. Libya, under the UN, was granted independence in 1951, although for other two decades it was heavily dependent on British and American economic support. Ultimately, the British and the French envisaged that peaceful, legal, constitutional change would facilitate the rise of moderate African leaders willing to compromise and protect the interests of the outgoing colonial powers. 15. CONCEIVING AND PRODUCING NATIONS The widening horizons of belonging African exposure to Western political concepts would lead to the embracing of these novel political ideas, including nation and nationalism, as weapons with which to combat European hegemony. This involved a process of Africanization, for imported ideas were rendered meaningful to indigenous communities. Thus, we are dealing with the organic growth of an internal African identity. But there was also a process of external invention, manifest in the emergence of the pan- African movement outside Africa itself. African Americans began to seek their ancestral identity. government elevated segregation to the level of state ideology. One of the grand aims of apartheid became the movement of all Africans to self-governing republics on the fringes of white society, racially purifying South Africa. From the 19605, reserves became autonomous homelands, a deceitful kind of decolonization aimed at the solution of the native problem. Apartheid depended on the systematic classification of people into distinct racial categories. The Population Registration Act of 1950 divided the population broadly into white and non-white; the latter was subdivided into Coloured, Indians, and Bantu, or African. The Bantu category was further divided into tribal groupings. The Group Areas Act specified where particular tribes could live, in an attempt to divide the native population: the aim was to undermine a sense of African unity and hinder the growth of nationalist feeling. Further laws provided directives regarding social activity, segregating public spaces, public transport, and education, and outlawing sexual relations between the white and the black races. African trade unions were banned, facilitating the payment of low wages. Africans were placed in designated government schools whose curricula provided education only in basic skills; this facilitated social control. However, a fortunate elite was able to organize popular protest. In the 1950s, African nationalist leaders, faced with a newly aggressive regime, recognized the need for more radical tactics. Public demonstrations erupted across South Africa, while the moderate ANC was rejuvenated under a new generation of young leaders, such as Nelson Mandela. By the mid-50s, the various non-white groups had joined together and were calling for a non-racial South Africa. The alliance was fragile, given the hostility between Africans and Asians. There were also tensions within the ANC leadership, some of whom resented the influence of non-Africans, notably white liberals and communists. 16. COMPROMISING CONFLICT - ROUTES TO INDEPENDENCE Constitutional transfers of power Peaceful transfers of power took place between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s. The perceived threat of the violence witnessed in Algeria was a major influence over metropolitan decision- making south of the Sahara. After 1945, France envisaged that the colonies would remain part of a Greater France. Initially, this concept was supported by a Francophone African elite. Disappointment originated from the realization that French West Africans were not to be accorded full citizenship. Although colonies were permitted to send representatives to the French National Assembly, they were allowed less than 3% of the seats; Africans were underrepresented. Spurred by the violence in Algeria, the French introduced further reforms, leading to internal self- government in 1956; metropolitan government, however, retained control over the military, foreign affairs, and economic planning. As the situation in Algeria worsened, De Gaulle - concerned to remove any potential for conflict - offered the colonies the choice between maintaining the link with France, which promised economic benefits, or complete independence. Most of the African leaders voted for maintaining the metropolitan connection; only Guinea elected for uncompromised sovereignty. De Gaulle sought to demonstrate how dependent the colonies were on France by making an example of Guinea; all economic and administrative assistance was cancelled. Yet, Guinea survived, thanks to assistance from USSR and newly independent Ghana. Soon nationalists across Francophone Africa were following Guinea's example. After ensuring continuing economic ties, De Gaulle complied, and in 1960 the French colonies of western and equatorial Africa became independent. Decolonization had been achieved through compromise and the recognition of mutual interests. Only in Cameroon, communist agitation sparked a leftist insurrection. The uprising was only crushed after years with considerable bloodshed by an army commanded by French officers. In Rwanda, the run-up to independence was dominated by growing tensions between Tutsi and Hutu. A Hutu uprising against the Tutsi monarchy in 1959 was brought under control by the Belgian authorities which now sought to manage the transition to majority Hutu rule. In local elections, Parmehutu, the main Hutu party, took over the power and took Rwanda to independence in 1962. The apparent threat that the Tutsi were aiming to seize power again sparked the horrific massacre of the Tutsi in 1994. In response to escalating challenges in the Gold Coast at the end of the 19405, the British set up a commission of enquiry to discover what had gone wrong in their model colony. The commission advocated more representation for African politicians and further constitutional reform. The administration hoped to integrate the moderate political elite, represented by the leader Danquah. In the 1951 elections, things did not go as the British planned: the Convention People's Party (CPP) under the radical Nkrumah won a sweeping victory. Nkrumah gently forced the pace of decolonization, achieving full independence in 1957. Ghana was the first independent sub-Saharan state. The CPP's tactics played a key role in challenging the colonial order, advocating positive action, but avoiding outright violence. The CPP avoided direct military confrontation but applied considerable political pressure. Nkrumah was a great orator, employing the rhetoric of radicalism in public but tempering this in private dealings with colonial officials. As leader of independent Ghana, Nkrumah retreated from his anti-British stance and joined the Commonwealth, establishing a precedent for future sub-Saharan states. He was a combination of the radical, populist leader and the compromising, pragmatic diplomat. It is important to note how the British strategy of continual constitutional change and willingness to cooperate with Nkrumah made peaceful independence possible and helped Britain to partially keep hold of the initiative. In Tanganyika, Nyerere spent the late 1950s building up the trust of the colonial administration, while establishing the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) as a territory-wide organization with a very effective mobilization effort. The transfer of power was at first characterized by the creation of a multiracial constitution that increased representation for Africans, but which provided a powerful voice for the minority European and Asian communities. Nyerere managed to persuade a number of white settlers’ representatives to support TANU, and the movement won a majority in the assembly elections of 1958. Independence for Tanganyika was granted in 1961. The British held on to Zanzibar until 1963. The next year, Nyerere oversaw the amalgamation of Tanganyika and Zanzibar into the republic of Tanzania. In other territories, decolonization gravitated toward catastrophe. The Uganda People's Congress (northern, Protestant), the Democratic Party (Catholic), and the Kabaka Yekka, or The King Alone, movement (Ganda) competed with one another in the countdown to independence. A short-term alliance between the UPC and Kabaka Yekka took the territory to independence in 1962, under the leadership of the northerner Obote. The special status of Buganda was underlined when the Kabaka was installed as executive president of the new state. Obote considered the Ganda alliance unnecessary and damaging to his plans. The new constitution involved Obote's elevation to the position of executive president, abolishing Buganda's special status. Deep sociological differences were also evident in Nigeria, where the decolonization process was slowed by the inability of the factions to agree on a constitution. Ultimately, the federal system was opted for, and in 1960, Nigeria became independent with the northerner Balewa as prime minister. The north dominated the parliament, while all three regions (north, southeast, southwest) had considerable autonomy. Most of French and British tropical Africa became independent with a minimum of violence. Contrarily, in Kenya, social problems had created a dangerous political climate. The compromise reached in 1947 involved the establishment of multiracial councils that brought together African moderates and white settlers, although the latter were guaranteed majority. It was against this background of limited constitutional reform that the first acts of rural violence occurred. By the early 1950s, such violence had spread, with assassinations of prosperous Kikuyu as well as white settlers. The Mau Mau fighters were mostly Kikuyu. The British declared a state of emergency and brought in the army. Villages were targeted, indiscriminate search-and-arrest tactics resulted in the placement of thousands of Kikuyu in detention camps. The ruthlessness of the British response to the insurrection served to drive many young men into the ranks of Mau Mau. The war was one of the most violent in the British empire. Vastly superior British firepower had played its part in the defeat of Mau Mau, but the uprising also failed because it was unable to establish a broader and popular base. It remained isolated in the Kenyan highlands, hindered by the absence of a coherent ideology. Unlike the FLN in Algeria, Mau Mau made no diplomatic contacts beyond Kenya, and thus, the world saw the revolt only through British eyes. Yet, the Mau Mau brough about a fundamental shift in British attitudes toward the future of the colony. Colonial officials began to question the wisdom of keeping the settler community at the heart of Kenyan politics and economy. The Mau Mau had been regarded as a symptom of social displacement on a massive scale. Military action could not be a solution because the problems at the root of the uprising would eventually re- emerge. Socioeconomic change was needed in order to preserve security. As a result, reconstruction began, involving the consolidation of African landholdings, particularly in terms of the guaranteeing of property rights. However, resentment over European control of the best land in the White Highlands persisted, as did settler domination of the export economy. Eventually, the colonial administration loosened restrictions and allowed Africans into the lucrative export market. As the 1950s closed, a split emerged in the settler community. Many continued to refuse to deal with Africans and sought to maintain their historical privilege, but the New Kenya Group, including business managers and plantation owners, were willing to grant concessions in order to prevent the re-emergence of Mau Mau. Constitutional reforms that moved toward the abolition of white privilege were thus introduced. Events in Kenya led many to question the morality of the imperial mission. Multiracialism was abandoned in favor of African majority rule. With the lifting of the state of emergency, nationalist parties were re-established. Released from prison, Kenyatta took Kenya to independence in 1963. In the final months of colonial rule, the British set up the Land Purchase Scheme, whereby they purchased over a million acres of land from departing European farmers with the aim of redistributing it among Africans. This project was intended to assist the landless poor. However, land could also be acquired by Africans who had the money to do so. The actual beneficiaries of this project were not the landless poor, but those Africans who were already well- established and prosperous landowners. In the process of creating an independent African government, outgoing Britain was also transferring power to a middle class willing to safeguard British interests. This was a new form of indirect rule. Violence Decolonization in the areas previously analysed involved a relatively peaceful compromised transfer of power, even in Kenya. Some territories, however, achieved independence through violence. Algeria experienced a bloody conflict between 1954 and 1962 that resulted in the deaths of several hundred thousand people, settlers as well as Algerians. When de Gaulle finally ordered a withdrawal, the bulk of the settler population departed too. Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau became independent in 1974, following the coup d'état in Portugal itself. Civil war continued in these newly sovereign states for many years after, intertwined with the machinations of the Cold War. In Southern Rhodesia, simply Rhodesia after 1965, a liberation war against white minority rule was waged from 1966, only ending in 1980 with the establishment of African majority rule. In South Africa, a struggle unfolded against the apartheid regime. In Eritrea, guerrillas fought for 30 years against Ethiopian rule. Namibia battled against South African occupation until achieving victory in 1990. The liberation struggle in Angola was shaped by foreign intervention. While Portugal initially received support from the US, the Marxist MPLA (People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola) was reinforced by Soviet assistance. Other movements soon emerged, including UNITA, backed by South Africa; and the FNLA, supported by the US once it was decided that counterinsurgency through a rival movement was more effective than backing the Portuguese. When Angola achieved independence, it was torn by civil war. The MPLA secured partial victory in 1976, but UNITA remained undefeated in southeast Angola. Fearing a total collapse of law and order, and another “Algeria”, the Belgians fled Congo in 1960. Political parties proliferated, many of them were rooted in ethnic regionalism which threatened to destroy Congo before its sovereignty had even begun. Lumumba initially attempted to hold together a national coalition, but the state was collapsing around him, with the copper-rich Katanga province seceding in the south. Foreign interests fuelled civil war. A UN peacekeeping force had brought Katanga under control by 1962, but in the meantime, Lumumba had been murdered. The US-backed Congolese army commander, General Mobutu, took control and secured power in 1965. He established a centralized and extraordinarily violent government. Britain had long felt uneasy about the Central African Federation (Rhodesia + Nyasaland), fearing a repeat of the situation in South Africa and settler entrenchment. The new British policy was to facilitate the transition to African majority rule, but the federal government had no intention of sharing power. In 1963, the federation collapsed. The transfer of power was relatively straightforward. Northern Rhodesia was awarded independence as Zambia and Nyasaland as Malawi. The problem of Southern Rhodesia, with its intransigent white minority, remained. The dominant settler political party in the colony was the Rhodesia Front, which reached beyond businessmen, representing white farmers and the white urban working class. They represented the extreme right wing of the settler community, opposed to compromise and hostile to the British themselves. The Front leader, Smith, became internal prime minister and issued the Unilateral Declaration of Independence. The UN imposed sanctions on Rhodesia in an attempt to bring down the Smith regime. The Rhodesian economy was instead stimulated as Smith successfully sought regional partners, witnessing rising living standards, for whites as well as Africans. In early 19705, ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union) grew as a guerrilla movement. As it became more professional, it was better able to develop motivational ideologies. Following the economic boom, there was now a sharp downfall, as a result of the isolation imposed on Rhodesia: lack of export markets produced widespread unemployment among Africans, who were propelled into the guerrillas’ ranks. White farmers, no longer able to sell their tobacco abroad, forced their way into the internal maize market, pushing Africans further to the fringes of the domestic economy. ZANU was able to cultivate a broader sense of support than previously. South Africa was no longer convinced that Smith could win this war and began to pressure him to enter into negotiations with ZANU. In 1980, with the settlers militarily beaten and the guerrillas in control of most of the country outside the main cities, Smith was forced to accept majority rule. Mugabe, leader of ZANU, was elected leader of the new Zimbabwe. Major internal tensions, around land distribution and ethnicity, still had to be resolved. Mugabe would embark on a disastrous attempt to address the issue of land by evicting white farmers from theirs. From Suez to Sharpeville: the end of high imperialism In late 1954, several factors prompted the British and the French governments to send forces into Suez, aided by Israel. Nasser was seen as a threat to British interests across the Middle East. The French were keen to humiliate Nasser following his support for the FLN in Algeria. The Anglo-French invasion was mostly motivated by Nasser's decision to nationalize the Suez Canal Company. The Israelis quickly followed suit. Nasser's triumph was a victory for pan-Arabism, but Africans could celebrate his accomplishments too, for it seemed to symbolize the rise of the new postcolonial state over the old imperial powers. As decolonization was spreading, the apartheid regime in South Africa was hardening. In 1960 in Sharpeville, police opened fire on a crowd of unarmed demonstrators. In the wake of the massacre, as South Africa was internationally condemned, the government banned the ANC and the PAC. Newly independent African and Asian states attempted to have UN sanctions imposed, but such proposals were repeatedly vetoed by Britain and the US indicating the extent of their economic interests in South Africa. The anti-apartheid struggle entered a new phase: the ANC now founded a military wing, while many of its leaders went into exile, organizing support abroad very effectively. A HISTORY OF MODERN AFRICA: 1800 TO THE PRESENT - RICHARD J. REID - 2020 1.UNDERSTANTING THE CONTOURS OF AFRICA’S PAST The Africa of the XX century cannot be understood in isolation from its XIX century. Africa was underpopulated until mid-XX century. Thus, African ideologies were centered around the celebration of fertility. One of the major challenges for ruling elites across Africa was the construction of systems of governance to control large numbers of people. XIX century was a period of violent political reformation. External influences influenced African cultural, economic and political development. Islam was the most important influence before the XIX century. The coming of Islam also involved the emergence of a long-distance slave trade, linking the Sahara to the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian Ocean. European influence was much less than that of Islam before the XIX century. Europe's greatest impact came through the Atlantic slave trade. Such external influences were not unilateral impositions, rather they involved mutual borrowing and adaptation. For example, the Islam that came to Africa was adapted to local circumstances, and the global faith would be greatly enriched in retum. A brief history of the study of Africa African history as an academic discipline is relatively young. From the 1950s onward, professional historians began to treat African history as a field for serious study. This started when Africa was gaining independence from colonial rule. Analysing Africa's deeper past was necessary for the nation-building process. Before there was no attempt to reconstruct Africa's past because there existed a firm belief that Africa did not have a history. This belief persisted through much of the colonial period: Africans were perceived as primitive, savage, and lacking in political and cultural sophistication. With the Atlantic slave trade came the rise of European racism toward Africa. Africans were seen as meant to be slaves. Over the XVIII century, there emerged in Europe a debate around the slave trade. The apologists defended the slave trade, arguing that Africa was a savage and backward place and that the slave trade was a blessed release, taking Africans from their cursed environments to the Americas. The abolitionists were opposed to the slave trade, arguing that Europe needed to help Africa by introducing Christianity, commerce and civilization; the slave trade caused only violence and suffering. The two groups shared the belief in African backwardness. At the end, the abolitionist position prevailed. Land Africa's natural diversity cannot be separated from the history of its inhabitants: environment and human history are intertwined. Disease and poor soil have obstructed the growth of human settlement in many regions; the history of Africans is in large part the struggle to adapt to hostile environments. Africa has a very regular coastline, with very few deep bays and peninsulas. This has meant that Africans couldn't develop maritime travel. Except for the Mediterranean coast, Africans had intense contact with other continents only in recent times. We can divide the continent’s physical geography into 8 zones: * The northern Mediterranean coast - it is noted for the fertility of its soil. * The Sahara Desert - due to its drought, it's uninhabited outside the cases. Oases and camels facilitated long-distance caravan routes permitting contact between the Maghreb and the sub- Saharan Africa. * The Nile Valley - it contains some of the richest cultivable land in the world. * The Sudanic belt - the name Sudan was given by the Arabs, and it means “land of the blacks”. * The west-central rainforest covers most of the west African coast, with the exception of the Benin gap. * The highlights of Ethiopia are covered largely by volcanic material which breaks down to give a fertile soil. * East-central Africa - it's hot and dry, with some exceptions, such as the cool and fertile Kenyan highlands. * Southem Africa People This diversity of environment facilitated the emergence of distinct languages and cultures. Africa can be divided into four distinct language families. * The Afro-Asiatic, encompassing the northern half of the continent as well as western Asia. It comprises the language of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Berber in North Africa, Hebrew and Arabic. * The Niger-Congo family - it covers the Bantu languages which are spoken across tropical Africa. *. Nilo-Saharan languages * Khoisan is associated with the nomadic groups of southern Africa. Africa's history is that of migrations and integration. For example, in North Africa, the process of Arabization is associated with the migration of Arab nomads, the Bedouin, between the X and XIII centuries. They brought with them Arabic language and culture, as well as Islam, and they gradually absorbed Berber communities. This period saw the transformation of North Africa into part of the Arabic-speaking world. 2. WESTERN TRADITIONS - SLAVE TRADE AND LEGITIMATE COMMERCE IN ATLANTIC AFRICA Africa's experience with trade was not uniform. However, it is possible to make some statements on how international trade had a profound impact in the political and social structures. Most dramatically, with the slave trade from the XV century onwards, millions of western and central Africans were forcibly transported to the Americas and Europe. States and societies during the Atlantic slave trade Atlantic and internal long-distance commercial systems had brought about major changes among African societies. The major political consequence was the creation of mercantilist states, characterized by the fusion of political and economic power; either political elites controlled the commerce or traders acquired political power. Across western and central Africa, militarized states arose as imported firearms made it easier for minorities to dominate large populations. The slave trade resulted in an increased level of violence for the acquisition of slaves, resulting in the systematic devastation of weak communities. The slave trade involved a serious loss to Africa's productive potential. Most of the slaves were young, the most productive members of society. Atlantic Africa experienced no significant economic development during the era of the slave trade. Illegal traffic: the XIX century slave trade In the late XVIII century, European intellectuals and churches were gaining a momentum for the abolition of the slave trade, promoting the universal right to freedom. Slave labor was no longer viewed as profitable: economic growth relies now on industrialized systems making use of waged labor. At first, this was not universally accepted: slave labor would continue in the US until the 1860s; Brazil was the largest illegal importer of slaves. Slavery remained legal in the British empire until the 1830s. This said, the abolition of the slave trade by the major European powers brough significant change. Africa was increasingly regarded as a source of raw materials and a market for manufactured goods, rather than simply a source of slave labor. By the mid-1830s, most European states had outlawed the slave trade, but it was extremely difficult to enforce. The Atlantic slave trade continued through much of the XIX century. The slave trade was so deeply embedded in the political and social configuration of African states that it was impossible to simply stop. The British used military force to compel African rulers to accept their abolitionist demands. Legitimate commerce Legitimate commerce supplanted the export of human beings and involved European demand for raw materials, natural resources, and agricultural produce from western and central Africa. Atlantic states that relied heavily on the export of slaves struggled to make the transition to agricultural exports. While many societies transitioned successfully, others collapsed. Demand for vegetable oils, notably palm oil, increased with industrialization. Groundnuts were cultivated in the Senegal-Gambia area. Some societies cultivated and exported cotton, taking advantage of the disruption of the world's cotton supply caused by the American civil war in the 1860s. The export of rubber was also profitable. Most of the production took place in the coastal area because it was cheaper compared to the deeper hinterland. This imbalance caused the migration of people from the interior to the coast. However, production techniques did not change; the expansion of legitimate commerce simply involved the cultivation of more land, using more labor. Thus, there was a labor shortage. Ironically, the result was an increase in slave labour to meet demand for legitimate produce. As now part of the global economy, Atlantic Africa was vulnerable to shifts in demand and prices beyond its control. African producers started being indebted with the European merchants. From the second half of the XIX century, Europeans began to penetrate into the hinterland in an effort to bypass the African coastal middlemen and get the products directly from the producers. Legitimate commerce did not really stimulate African economy. Africa was never an equal partner in the global trading network. Personal freedom declined as domestic slavery increased. Change and continuity in forest and savannah During the commercial transition, while large empires such as Oyo (current eastern Benin and westem Nigeria) collapsed, new states came to prominence in the coastal forest and savannah zones. The Oyo empire was weakened by internal division and the abolition of the slave trade. The Islamic jihad of 1804 was a significant factor of the destruction of the Oyo empire. The empire's demise left the Yoruba states competing violently with each other, as well as with foreign invaders. By the end of the 1830s, Ibadan (second biggest city in Nigeria) emerged as the single most powerful Yoruba state. Several Yoruba states coalesced in order to prevent a further expansion of Ibadan's power. The British imposed a pax on the warring parties. The violence on Yorubaland (current Nigeria, Togo, Benin) brough about dramatic changes. Many people moved from the savannah southward into the forest. Islam spread into the region. Recurrent conflict led to a military revolution: the use of firearms became common, and a professional army emerged. The violence provided the British with a justification for intervention; missionaries introduced British culture into coastal society. Dahomey was a dynamic and expansionist state, able to escape the subordination to Oyo and to launch incursions into Yoruba territory. Dahomey and Asante were examples of highly militarized and centralized states with expansionist foreign policies driven by commercial interests. Dahomey (current Benin) was a successful slave-owning and slave-exporting military way - was wholly groundless. Rather more seriously, interpretations which have aimed to explain the escalation of warfare in terms of competition for land and commerce are compelling. Mfecane cannot be fully understood without recognition of the role of commerce in ivory and slaves. Shaka's (founder of the Zulu kingdom) contribution was not inconsiderable: he built a state and an identity, where none had existed previously. Cape colonialism: white settlement and the native question The modern history of southern Africa has been characterized by a clash between Africans and Europeans; and the hegemony of the latter in the XX century served to distort understanding of the region's past. The white version of southern African history was that Bantu speaking farmers crossed into modern South Africa in the XVII century, the same time that the first Dutch settlers were beginning to arrive. Thus, according to this theory, Europeans encountered an empty land. Historically inaccurate but politically convenient, the empty land thesis provided the white minority with the justification they needed for claiming authority over southern Africa. In reality, by the time the first European settlers arrived, an array of African states and societies inhabited the region. The Boers (Dutch for farmers) developed a distinctive identity, language and culture. They were tough and independent-minded, they later developed an anti-Britishness and came to regard the area around Cape Town as theirs by right. They soon came into conflict with the African population, over access to land which the Boers occupied according to the principle of right of conquest. The Khoisan (Bantu indigenous people of Southern Africa) responded either by raiding Boer farms or by withdrawing far to the north, where they rebuilt their societies with a degree of independence. Although initially interracial relations in the Dutch Cape Colony were flexible, racial attitudes hardened in time; there was a strong sense of hierarchy and privilege based on color. Slave status was influenced by color: while slaves of mixed parentage were generally skilled labor; the worst positions were filled by Africans. In 1805, Cape Colony came under British control; settlers of Dutch descent were joined by British emigrants. Tensions heighten between two white communities. Important changes were taking place in the relationship between the Boer settlers and the newly arrived British administration. Boer government officials were replaced by British officials, and English was introduced into the education and legal systems. Further tensions mounted over the issue of African labor, toward which British policy was comparatively liberal. The granting of certain basic rights to African workers horrified most Boers. Moreover, the British introduced a system of private land ownership, replacing the previous loan- farm system by which many Boers had occupied land on loan from the government; very few could afford to hold land under the new British law. In 1834, slavery was abolished by the British administration in Cape Colony. This had disastrous consequences for the poor white farmers who could not afford to pay competitive wages to free laborers. The problem of “poor whites” would be a key dynamic in the shaping of South African society. Many Boers were considering expanding northward, of escaping from British oppression. They eventually settled around the middle Vaal. The presence of the Zuluwas an obstacle to the acquisition of the attractive pastureland of the area. Balances of power to around 1870 When the Boers migrated out of Cape Colony, by the mid-1850s, Britain had recognized the political independence of the Boer republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The British boundary had been extended to include a considerable part of Xhosa territory. A certain level of balance had been established between southern Africans and Europeans. The British government was not interested in further extending its territorial reach. The situation changed with the discovery of diamonds and gold in the 1870s. PART Il - AFRICA AND ISLAM: REVIVAL AND REFORM IN THE XIX CENTURY Islam has been of immense importance in Africa's history. It formed the basis of much African resistance to European expansion. North Africa and West Africa have always been more Muslim than Christian. Eastern and southern Africa are predominantly Christian; but Islam was fundamental to the creation of a distinctive coastal civilization in east Africa, namely Swahili culture. African Muslims belonged to a global civilization encompassing the Ottoman empire, Persia and India. African Muslims were part of a global community in which the exchange of information - for example during the pilgrimage to Mecca - generated political consciousness. 5. REVIVAL AND REACTION - NORTH AFRICAN ISLAM Trade and conflict in the Mediterranean world: Ottoman and European frontiers From 1517, Egypt was under the Ottoman empire. It was used as a platform to push south, the Ottoman advance into the Red Sea was partly a response to Portuguese incursions into the Indian Ocean. The Ottomans took control of Massawa on the coast of modern Eritrea with a view to challenging the growing infidel presence. Egypt would come to achieve considerable autonomy within the Ottoman empire. Egypt's modern history began with the invasion in 1798 by a Napoleonic army which was only repelled in 1801 by an alliance of Ottoman and British forces. This marked the beginning of a growing Anglo-French rivalry over Egypt. The Ottomans captured Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers, ensuring that the Maghreb remained within the Islamic world, until the age of European imperial expansion. Yet, Istanbul had little effective control of them. The western Maghreb witnessed the rise of the independent state of Morocco, which halted Ottoman expansion and involved the expulsion of the Portuguese from their Atlantic ports. The XIX century saw a gradual dismantling of the empire, several provinces were lost to European conquest, including Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya. The challenges of the XIX century prompted Ottoman rulers to introduce reforms aimed at the reduction of the role of Islam in public life. The outcome was the gradual emergence of a new academic class which espoused western values. Changing society: the Maghreb Through the early XIX century, the nominally Ottoman states of North Africa were increasingly independent from Istanbul. Morocco was already an independent monarchy. The French conquered Algeria in 1830 which it became a white settlement. The Regency of Tunis requested British protection from the French threat. Britain offered protection against both the French and the Ottomans. Tunisia became one of the more reformist minded regimes of North Africa, abolishing slavery and making moves toward constitutional modernization. European influence was considerable in Tunisia, through a powerful diplomatic presence - both British and French - and through the wealthy European trading community. During the 1860s, with the relative decline of British involvement, France adopted a more aggressive position in Tunisia. The British had also supported the pasha of Tripoli, Yusuf Karamanli, against the Ottoman Empire. After Karamanli's death in 1830, civil war broke out, resolved by the reassertion of Ottoman authority. In the Libya region, it was difficult to suppress the slave trade, brought to an end only by the Italian conquest in 1912. The kingdom of Morocco was the only state of the Maghreb not administered by the Ottomans. Morocco stubbornly resisted European influence and restricted the activities of European merchants. Spain, in possession of the ports of Melilla and Ceuta, was claiming that these were being harassed by hostile locals. Spain dispatched an army which inflicted heavy defeats on the Moroccans, who in 1860 agreed to pay the Spanish a hefty indemnity. This marked the end of Moroccan independence, for in order to pay the indemnity the Moroccans had to raise a loan in Britain, which awarded the British a degree of control over Moroccan commerce. In 1912, Morocco fell under European control, partitioned between Spain and France. Changing society: Egypt The Macedonian Muhammad Ali was an officer in the Ottoman army which had expelled the French and he positioned himself as the most powerful military leader in Cairo by 1805. He was then appointed governor of Egypt by the Ottoman sultan. Muhammad Ali established a military dynasty of his own and achieved de facto independence from Istanbul. Egyptian hegemony was extended down the Red Sea area and the ports of Suakin and Massawa were leased by Istanbul to Cairo. Muhammad Ali imported European technology in attempting to lay the foundations for an industrial revolution. Egypt witnessed the creation of a new modern middle class which would become involved in politics, administration, law and journalism. Muhammad Ali also looked into Sudan. In 1824, the Egyptian capital was established at Khartoum. The Egyptian presence in both Sudan and the Red Sea facilitated an expansion of trade, but also led to conflict with the other expanding state: Ethiopia. When Muhammad Ali sought to expand into the Levant, a Ottoman expedition dispatched to take Syria and Palestine away from Egyptian control. Britain pressured Muhammad Ali to withdraw. He was also forced to reduce the size of his army and to allow Europeans into Egyptian markets. This ended Muhammad Ali’s industrial ambitions; the Egyptian economy became greatly exposed to European influence. Under the modernizing reign of Ismail, the construction of the Suez Canal was completed in 1869. Railways were built, modern communications installed, and cities redesigned. AII this required capital, and it was the enormous loans raised in Europe which made Egypt vulnerable to Europeans. In 1875, Ismail was compelled to sell his shares in the Suez Canal to pay some of his debts. By the end of the decade, the Egyptian government went bankrupt. Ismail was overthrown and European experts stepped in to oversee Egypt's finances. Popular protests were provoked by the growing foreign influence over the government in Cairo. As riots erupted, the British dispatched an army in 1882. In seizing Egypt, Britain excluded the French. 6. JIHAD: REVOLUTIONS IN WESTERN AFRICA Islam in western Africa to the XVIII century Berber merchants carried Islam across the Sahara to the western savannah. Islam brough about a sense of brotherhood and cooperation between traders and facilitated interaction between the Maghreb and the savannah. Rulers and traders who converted adapted Islam to fit existing features of West African religion. Ghana became a Muslim kingdom. The empire of Mali was recognized as a Muslim state, although the broad mass of the population continued to adhere to local beliefs. In some areas Muslims constituted isolated enclaves, but they still enjoyed political importance. This was the case in Asante, where a small Muslim community served as translators, advisors and diplomats, but made no effort to convert the wider population. Islam was primarily an urban religion, little developed beyond the towns; the shariah was not enforced with rigor. But in the XVIII century, there was a series of movements in West Africa which had the objective of purification of Islam and the enforcement of the shariah. The Wandering Fulani By the beginning of the XVII century, much of the West African savannah was at least nominally Muslim. It was not only trade to facilitate the spread of Islam, but also the migration of people due to drought and crop failure and political oppression. One of the most important long-term migrations was that of the Fulani. Originating in the area of the middle Senegal, the pastoral Fulani migrated across the savannah in search of better pasture and had spread across much of the region between Senegal and Niger. By the beginning of the XIX century, they were most numerous in modern northern Nigeria. The Fulani came under pressure from local populations who resented the intruders. This sense of isolation may explain their readiness to embrace Islam, which offered a common sense of protection and purpose. Prophets and warriors Across the West African savannah, Muslim clerics promoted a return to a purified Islam, which was deemed incompatible with local religions. Uthman began preaching in the state of Gobir (current Nigeria). He expressed the need to enforce the shariah. A dedicated community formed around him. Due to official persecution, Uthman had to leave Gobir. Jihad soon followed, erupting in 1804. Most Hausa states were seized by Muslim forces. A new empire across modern northern Nigeria and northern Cameroon had been created out of a revolution against infidelity to God: the Sokoto caliphate was the largest polity in West Africa, surviving into the colonial period. Uthman's brother and son took over the government. The caliphate of Sokoto was organized into emirates. Through Sokoto, Hausaland was fully part of the Islamic world. Sokoto was governed through Islamic administration and its legal system was interpreted by Muslim judges. The creation of Sokoto was a source of inspiration across the savannah, leading to the formation of states based on revitalized Islam. These jihads are not only seen as being genuinely concerned with religious reform, but also as representing deep-rooted tensions between ethnicities or as insurrections against repression. The uprisings of the West African savannah were often against Muslims who were believed not to be adhering to the shariah. It was difficult to verify the legitimacy of such jihad, as it targeted Muslims from other brotherhoods rather than infidels. Consequently, jihads in Africa are interpreted as ethnic conflicts. This was particularly true across Hausaland, where support for Uthman's revolt came from the pastoral Fulani, who felt oppressed at the hands of the Hausa. Many Fulani were not dedicated Muslims; they were motivated by a sense of ethnic solidarity. Jihad was partially motivated by socioeconomic repression with factions competing for control of regional resources. By the end of the XIX century, Islam became much more deeply rooted across West African savannah. As European colonial invasion gathered pace, Islam provided a great sense of unified resistance. Yet the opposition to European imperialism was never fully effective, in large part because it was undermined by sectarian rivalry. Moreover, Europeans tackled the threat of Islam by co-opting Muslim authorities into the colonial system. The British, having militarily subjugated the Sokoto Caliphate, governed through the Fulani and Hausa aristocracy and avoided interference in day-to-day administration. 7. THE EASTERN CRESCENT - THE ISLAMIC FRONTIER IN EASTERN AFRICA Swahili Islam in the XIX century Swahili - the term denotes a civilization, a language, and a culture - was born out of the fusion of African and Arabic elements along the Indian Ocean coast between modern Somalia and Mozambique. The first Muslim migrants from southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf began settling along the East African coast in the XVIII century. They intermarried with the local people, including ruling elites, and their presence facilitated trading relations between the African coast and the Muslim world. From this dynamic interaction, Swahili civilization emerged. The term in Arabic means “people of the coast”. Swahili became a distinctive coastal culture, Islamic in religion, centered around a series of commercial city-states. Muslim immigrants moved further south, creating new settlements mainly located on Islands close to the continent. The larger towns - e.g. Mogadishu, Zanzibar, Mombasa - generated considerable wealth through trade and they were self- governing sultanates. Islam was largely confined to ruling elites; the African majority was not yet. Each coastal settlement had its own local spirituality. However, urban dwellers operated in the context of a much wider world, thus a universal set of beliefs was required. Thus, many townspeople adopted Islam. As in West African savannah, conversion was confined to the commercial class who employed Islam to gain access to overseas trade. At the same time, however, in the Swahili settlements, two sets of belief systems (local spirituality and Islam) coexisted interdependently. Islam along the East African coast was soon challenged by the Portuguese who saw the seizure of the Swahili trade as part of the global mission to destroy Muslim control of the rich commerce with India. Islam in the central east African interior the rootless and the traumatized. A lasting British colony was established, and a dynamic community of ex-slaves developed. Sierra Leone also embodied the notion of “assimilation”, with its Francophone equivalent in Senegal. Assimilation represented the belief that the native, through exposure to British values, could be expected to become British, to become literally assimilated into British culture. Assimilation, better described as the creation of “black Englishmen”, was the ultimate goal of the British civilizing mission - at least for a while. Thomas Buxton, evangelical humanitarian, formed the African Civilisation Society with the support of the British government. Political and humanitarian interests united as the British government agreed to finance an expedition up the Niger River. However, a good part of the contingent died of fever, and the whole affair had to be abandoned. The African Civilisation Society collapsed soon afterwards. An important principle was established: official support for humanitarian endeavour could only be guaranteed once it was clear that British national interests were also being served. The Christian impact on culture, state, and society Africans proved stubbornly resistant to Christian theology. People do not convert to new religions unless they have very good reasons for doing so; and missionaries did not really provide any. In terms of political elites, whose power was rooted in the control of indigenous religion and in their links with the supernatural, Christianity was a real threat to their authority. The fundamental principle of Christianity - monotheism - was alien to polytheistic societies. However, this began to change as the presence of Europeans increased in the XIX century. Africans became more receptive to both Islam and Christianity. They both offered the advantage of literacy, which ruling elites were eager to acquire. For the disadvantaged in society, Christianity offered some degree of protection. Mission compounds were sanctuaries during war and hiding places for slaves who were offered freedom and salvation. Sierra Leone was one of the missionary success stories. Its form of Christianity is the forerunner of the much later Africanization of Christianity. Another area of relative success was southern Africa, were the displaced were drawn to the Christian message. In this region, David Livingstone combined evangelical endeavour with the need to introduce legitimate commerce and with scientific curiosity. Livingstone was the embodiment of Victorian humanitarian conscience, railing against the slave trade and calling for Britain’s youth to commit themselves to missionary work. Livingstone contributed to the creation of the rhetorical for Britain's humanitarian conquest of Africa. The kingdom of Buganda (Uganda was the Swahili rendering of the name) demonstrates the dynamics of the last years of the XIX century. Stanley, the ultimate explorer of the age, made a plea for missionaries to come to Buganda. Missionaries arrived to take on the task of wresting Buganda from the forces of Islam and paganism. Here, a dedicated missionary was Mackay, who was careless to local sensitives and hated Catholicism. Both the Protestants and the Catholics managed to convert the elite of Ganda society. The king Mutesa gave enough encouragement to the missionaries to keep them hopeful, without committing himself to anything. He was smart enough to keep a balance with the White Fathers, the Muslim traders and the local spirit mediums. Both Islam and Christianity attracted more and more followers. When Mutesa died, he was succeeded by his son Mwanga who launched a persecution of both missionaries and Ganda converts. Mission and empire Imperial ambition was dignified within the language of the Christian mission. Even though according to the British government, morally motivated intervention should coincide with genuine strategic and economic interests, missionaries increasingly looked to governments at home for support in changing African society. The area of Lake Nyasa (present-day Malawi) witnessed some of the most intense activity on the part of British missionaries. Missionaries lobbied for governmental intervention in order to crush the slave-traders. When the British government declared a protectorate in 1889, it was motivated by the desire to prevent Portuguese invasion. Missionaries in Uganda lobbied for government intervention more urgently, as the kingdom descended into civil war with the factions divided according to allegiance to Protestantism, Catholicism, or Islam. Christian conscience and commercial potential prompted the government to declare a protectorate over Uganda. 9. TOWARDS THE SCRAMBLE At the end of the 18705, most of the continent was still in African hands; yet within the next 20 years, the entire continent (except for Ethiopia and Liberia) was under European colonial rule. Africa and theories of Imperialism There are different theories that explain the factors behind the European partition of Africa. A very dated and Eurocentric explanation focuses on events outside Africa in the second half of the XIX century. The emergence of a united Germany led to heightened tension within Europe. Shifts in the balance of power led European states to reinforce their international positions through acquisition of territory overseas. The British and the French pursued defensive imperialism in response to rising German power. Germany itself also sought territory in Africa in order to maintain the new European balance of power. According to this reading, imperialism in Africa was merely an instrument to strengthen powers within Europe. As a domino effect, many smaller European nations sought colonies as a prerequisite to national prestige. The partition has also been interpreted in the context of economic developments in Europe. When European merchants found demand in their home markets declining, they turned to overseas markets. Global competition increased sharply, and free trade gave way to protectionism, namely the establishment of colonial territories from which rival European powers could be excluded. Many European merchants were convinced of the existence of infinite resources in the African interior. European states believed in their right to control these resources directly. For several centuries, Europe had taken from Africa what it needed without political intervention; but the process of commercial change led to greater involvement and military pressure to induce Africans to cooperate. The British relied heavily on local collaborators to sustain an informal empire. Once such collaborative regimes collapsed, Britain was compelled to involve itself directly in those societies in order to protect its interests. By the 1870s, it had become clear that economic penetration would not proceed peacefully or smoothly without intervention; the free market could no longer provide what Europe needed, and obstacles had appeared which only imperialism could remove. This was compounded by the rise of racialism in Europe, involving the idea that Africans could not be left alone to create conditions conducive to healthy economic development. There was also the problem of the of the fragmentary nature of African political systems, manifested in the existence of numerous small states. It was necessary to crush the many African rulers in order to make trade run smoothly. Race and culture European invasion was framed within the concept of racialism. European attitudes toward race hardened in the XIX century. African natives were seen as neither committed to improving themselves nor were they grasping the opportunities provided through exposure to European civilization. The Indian uprising of 1857, followed by a rebellion in Jamaica, carried the question of native ingratitude. These rebellions have convinced the white world that it was time to start treating people of color differently. The European Enlightenment produced the notion of the “noble savage” as the model of man untouched by civilization and at peace with himself and the environment. The savage was an innocent naive, but he could also be capable of evil if left without guidance. Discussion of racial differences was part of a broader movement toward the classification of species. From such debate emerged the: - Monogenists: all men were descended from Adam and Eve; therefore, all humans possessed a common origin. Subsequent differences were caused by environmental factors. The lot of degenerate people could be improved if the socio-political and cultural environment could be altered. - Polygenists: all races had evolved separately. There was no common point of origin and crossbreeding would lead to degeneration and genetic weakness. As indigenous peoples took up Christianity, gained access to European education, and adopted European manners, they became a threat to the social and political order. It became difficult to maintain the distance between rulers and ruled, and new interpretations of race thus became necessary. Seen from this perspective, race was a deliberate construct necessitated by socio- political change. Civilizing violence: political and economic justifications There was a growing belief in the need for more forceful intervention in African society. The British annexation of Lagos in 1861 was a rare act of direct military intervention, but it indicated a readiness to intervene in the enforcement of legitimate commerce if necessary. The concept of a civilized order forced through violence was at the heart of the late XIX century thinking about Africa. Imperialism had its critics. In particular, there was a widespread idea that British power lacked moral direction; the means of destruction employed in the extension of the empire undermined the civilizing mission. Nonetheless, what most agreed upon was the desirability of bringing civilization into the world. Some believed it could only be done by force, others believed that force destroyed the chances of progress. They disagreed over the means, but not the end; and neither doubted that there were lower races which needed saving. 10. AFRICANS ADAPTING - CONQUEST AND PARTITION Explaining the conquest There was no single European invasion of Africa, but rather a multitude of uncoordinated invasions. From a military point of view, the Scramble for Africa took place with ease. Conquest was carried out by small military forces, mostly composed of African soldiers, under the command of European officers. African combat skills and local knowledge were deployed. Violent competition between states provided Europeans with the opportunity to exploit local rivalries. The Scramble must be seen as an extension of the African violence of the XIX century. The military technology, especially in the field of firearms, gave Europe an enormous advantage in the closing decades of the XIX century. Modern firearms proved decisive in a number of colonial campaigns, as African armies (on foot or on horseback) could be cut down before they had a chance to fight. Moreover, while Europeans had professional armies, African amies tended to be non-organized militias. Africans had different conceptions of what the European presence meant. Europeans were seen by some as trading partners, or political allies against local adversaries, and by others as enemies. Sometimes Europeans were seen as protectors and liberators, particularly in the context of the abolition of slavery. Stronger resistance was possible in Muslim areas, Islam providing a unity unavailable to non-Muslims. It's not easy to identify the moment at which the Scramble began; a series of events between the mid-1870s and early 1880s accelerated the process by which the continent came under increasing European control. British influence was solidifying in the Gold Coast and Niger Delta, King Leopold of the Belgians was taking an active interest in the Congo basin, and the French were beginning to expand their colony in Senegal. The British and the French started to perceive each other as threats to their commercial position. Meanwhile, events in the nominally Ottoman province of Egypt raised the stakes in this unfolding rivalry. British and French investors were largely in control of Egyptian finances, while it was a French company which controlled the vital Suez Canal; but it was the British government to extend formal political control over the territory, sparking intense competition with the French over the Nile Valley. Unwelcome Italian interest in Tunisia, forced the French into seizing Tunis. As for Germany, Bismarck was unconvinced of the usefulness of African colonies but was even more unwilling to see Britain and France acquire more than their fair share. Bismarck declared protectorates over Togo, Cameroon, and Southwest Africa. The chancellor called for an international conference to discuss what many feared was becoming a dangerous situation in Africa. The main concerns were the threat to free trade and the need to negotiate an international agreement regarding the demarcation of boundaries across the continent. The long- term political implications of this conference were profound. Leopold's authority in the Congo basin was recognized, in return for which European traders were allowed free access to the region; thus was the Congo Free State born, a territory under Leopold's personal domain. The claims of a European government to a particular region would only be recognized if the European power in question was already effectively in control of that region. Bismarck's aim was to undermine the British concept of “spheres of influence”, particularly in the area of present-day Tanzania. Britain had long regarded the Tanzanian hinterland as being within its “spheres of influence”, but when the Germans declared a protectorate over this territory, they had effectively occupied it. Violent resistance Violent resistance to European incursions erupted between 1880 and WWI. Europeans were often able to exploit local rivalries, as the French first discovered when they advanced into the western savannah from Senegal. The main obstacles to French imperialism in the region were the Tukolor and Mandinke empires, neither of which could set aside their competition for hegemony. When the French invaded in 1891, the empires were weakened by internal revolt, but they still managed to keep up a mobile resistance for several years. Islam facilitated a unity of purpose in resistance to European incursion in the West African savannah, witness the French struggle in the area of modern Chad. Compact, centralized states were often the easiest to crush. Although the French proclaimed the colony of Cote d'Ivoire, it took 20 years to subjugate an array of decentralized communities in the forest. British influence over the coast of present-day Nigeria was expanding. Britain declared a protectorate over the Delta. Military campaigns in the area were largely motivated by the desire to remove middlemen who were seen to be impeding commerce. These campaigns were extended deeper into the hinterland, exploiting local rivalries, enabling them to face one opponent at a time. In some areas, there was no physical conquest. Rather, there was the making of treaties which African chiefs regarded as pacts of friendship, but which Europeans regarded as evidence of effective occupation. In this manner, the French claimed territory of the lower Congo, and a French explorer was dispatched to collect more treaties from chiefs who were offered gifts. These chiefs had little understanding of the treaties’ implications. The German administration in Tanzania was quite violent. The Tanzanian Maji Maji revolt erupted in 1905 as pressure mounted from the colonial authorities to grow cotton for export. Farmers were forced to abandon their own cultivation and saw little profit in return for the cotton they produced. Religious ideology represented by priests provided coherence for the revolt, advancing a belief in the supernatural to overcome European weaponry. Spiritual belief brought unprecedented unity and made rebels confident of succeeding. However, the next year Germany superior military technology crushed the revolt. The human cost was horrendous, hence the Germans made sure not to provoke another uprising, committing more resources to development, mission schools and clinics. Farmers took to growing cotton voluntarily, suggesting that the violence was not in protest at the cultivation of cotton in itself, but the coercion involved. The revolt demonstrated the potential of multi-ethnic anti-colonial protest to the next generation of nationalists. For some societies, the European presence was strategically advantageous. When the British government declared a protectorate over Uganda, the Ganda assisted in the subjugation of the surrounding kingdoms. Buganda was regarded as the ideal sub-imperial agency in the region and was rewarded with a favored status within the protectorate. Economic considerations placed southern Africa into a unique scramble for territory. The modern history of southern Africa began with the discovery of huge diamond fields from 1869 in the north of Cape Colony. The local chief owner of the land requested Boer protection, but the British annexed the area anyway. Although initially worked by individual diggers employing African labor, 1920s onward, coercion was largely unnecessary, as willing participation became the norm. Entry into the labour market was necessary in order to pay taxes and feed families. Also matters of public life, e.g. the provision of health care and education, demanded attention. The state remained small in many spheres of African life for many years. Until the 19205, the education of Africans remained in the hands of mission schools which had an uneasy relationship with the colonial authorities. Only between the wars did state school systems begin to develop. One of the most important issues with regard to colonial regimes is the extent to which the state transformed African society. What is clear, however, is that colonialism tied the continent firmly to the international economy. Colonial rule transformed internal economic systems through the exposure of societies to global demand for certain commodities and through the construction of railways and road networks, which made transport cheaper and therefore production for the international market more viable. Yet the state was still insignificant in many aspects of life. After WWI, colonial systems became more stable. Among Africans, there was a recognition of the futility of armed resistance. There were many ways of adapting to the system. For example, new lines of Islamic thought were emerging in the period between the 20s and 40s, seeking to reconcile modern political realities with spiritual rejuvenation. Africans were able to impose themselves on the system and change it in subtle but important ways. It is important to acknowledge African agencies of change and not simply assume that the colonial state possessed a monopoly on transformative capacity. By 1930, indirect-rule chiefs were established across Africa, they often operated as agents of colonial rule, collecting taxes and administering justice. Chiefs had access to mission education and were thus essential in the articulation of the colonial rhetoric of development. Yet mission education also facilitated the emergence of a new educated elite which would challenge the old system. Colonialism seemed to provide security and stability; peace had been imposed on African societies. The ambiguity of colonialism lay in the fact that while it brought with it massive dislocation, new diseases and environmental disasters, it also possessed the technological and organizational power to address these crises. In the 1930s, the socioeconomic hardships caused by the Great Depression cultivated heightened levels of political consciousness. Within colonial administrations, attitudes toward governance and indirect rule began to change. There was growing disillusionment with the philosophy underpinning the colonial order. The mission came under critical scrutiny, or was rejected outright, as in the case of North African movements. An important outcome of this was a move toward greater colonial intervention in African societies and an enlargement of the state itself. This was accompanied by a recognition of the need for greater political inclusiveness and of the fact that Africans might be brough into government and become self-governing. Ultimately, this happened much more quickly than was originally envisaged. Awareness of the hardships brought about by the Depression led to a shift in colonial thinking. The new line of thought suggested that the state should take greater care of its subjects and that Africans must be protected from the fluctuations of the global economy. Colonial rulers were unintentionally paving the way for the incorporation of the new elites they had long excluded. These changes would facilitate the new forms of protest and identity which came forward immediately after WWII. 11. PAX COLONIA? - EMPIRES OF SOIL AND SERVICE Monopolies on violence Africa was policed by African themselves. From the early 19005, the practice of recruitment of Africans into colonial forces became systematic. Africans became disciplined and loyal servants of the new order. While African soldiers were seen as savages in the precolonial era, colonialism brough order and rectitude. Africans who served in European armies were exposed to the civilizing mission. The practice of indigenous recruitment had a long history in Africa. The French had recruited local men into their colonial force in the coastal settlement of Senegal since 1857; Britain had recruited from its settlements in Gambia and Sierra Leone. African militia had been used to protect trading stations and deployed in the low-level conflicts with peoples in the hinterland since at least the early 18008. Without African combat skills and local knowledge, the Scramble of Africa would have been impossible. These forces would become the representatives of European armed power, the upholders of order, and a constant reminder of the conquest itself. During the WWI, conscription increased dramatically, particularly in the French territories. The Tirailleurs Sénégalais would play a significant part in the action of the Western Front. Yet, it was the need to make tax collection more efficient that prompted governments to increase expenditure on police and army. Europeans found it easy to recruit among displaced and rootless peoples: military service provided stability, identity, a salary. Europeans believed that certain indigenous peoples were particularly well-suited to military service. The interpretation of “martial races” involved the idealization of recruits from the savannah area where people were masculine and warlike, and suspicion of the coastal regions. Slaves and labor One of the stated aims of the civilizing mission had been to bring an end to the practice of slavery. Colonial authorities approached the abolition of domestic slavery with caution, conscious of the potential turmoil involved in abruptly emancipating the slave population. The legal basis of slavery was not recognized, but slaves were discouraged from leaving their masters, for example by preventing them from owning land and not assisting them to resettle. In northern Nigeria, the British were reluctant to interfere in domestic arrangements, and slavery was abolished only when slaves purchased their own freedom in 1936. Along the East African coast, slaveowners were compensated if their slaves departed. Slavery continued in the Portuguese territories well into the XX century, and it persisted in Ethiopia until the interwar years. African employers often treated free labor as mere slaves, in their minds their legal distinction was irrelevant. At the same time, freedom is relative. Early colonial states had relied on freed slaves for their armies and police forces. Former slaves became part of the forced labor. Slavery had largely disappeared by the middle of the XX century, even if some of the forms of labor which replaced it were not less exploitative. Cash crops Markets and raw materials were the primary economic needs of European colonialism. Initially, responsibility for opening up the interior was given to private companies, which also represented attempts at administration. This was quickly discovered to be inefficient: many companies went bankrupt as a result of mismanagement and African resistance, and administration was inexpert. Most companies had been superseded by governmental authority by the beginning of the 19205. Moreover, companies pursued private profit, often violently, and were scarcely interested in long- term investment. The Congo Free State witnessed some of the worst abuses: here, the main focus around the early 1900s was wild rupber. Companies employed armies of ex-slaves to collect rubber, terrorizing communities in the process. African resistance and international condemnation (even by the standards of the day events in the Congo were seen as shameful) were to bring about a major shift in the way the territory was governed. In 1908, Leopold was compelled to hand over responsibility to the Belgian government, which managed to bring the worst of the abuses to an end. Across the tropical belt, production was largely left to African peasant producers. In West Africa, farmers were encouraged to produce cash crops for export. In some areas, production quickly reached remarkable levels. In Senegal, production of groundnuts expanded dramatically thanks to the railway that linked the interior with the coast. In Dahomey and Cote d'Ivoire, palm produce output reached remarkable levels. By 1914, the Gold Coast became the largest single producer of cocoa in the world. Production continued to expand until the beginning of the 1970, in the hands of millions of smallholder farmers around the area of Accra. The railway system in the Gold Coast only began to have an impact at the beginning of the 19205, by which time African producers had already brought about the dramatic expansion in production. In Atlantic Africa, there was a certain continuity from the precolonial to the colonial era; the production of cocoa reflected the long experience of the export trade. The colonial state was relatively irrelevant in bringing about socio- economic change. In eastern Africa, however, there was a profound discontinuity and socioeconomic transformation. Commercial agriculture was ill-developed; the only exception was Zanzibar. Soon, the commercial frontier advanced into the interior. Uganda demonstrates the transition very well. Here, profound economic change originated in the kingdom of Buganda, whose highly centralized and hierarchical political system offers a striking contrast with the decentralized and egalitarian Gold Coast. In the second half of the XIX century, Buganda's export economy was based on slaves and ivory, the purchasers of which were Arab traders. During the 1890s, this trade was in terminal decline. Uganda became a major producer of cotton. The colonial state had been very instrumental in bringing out change. The Uganda Railway was crucial, making cash crop production viable in the Lake Victoria area. From 1902, the cotton production was spread by the British Cotton Growing Association. Cotton became the backbone of the colonial economy in French western and equatorial Africa. Cotton was the major crop in Egypt and Sudan as well, where the British financed the building of an extensive irrigation system. White settlement In those territories where production was not in the hands of African farmers, communities of white settlers were positioned at the center of colonial economies. In Kenya, the railway shifted the center of political gravity from the coast to the highlands. The colonial administration sought to regain the investments. In this respect, one issue was Kenya's geography. Much of the territory was arid savannah, the exception was the fertile and rainy southern zone, which was quickly identified as an attractive area for European settlement. Another problem was the stark contrast between Kenya and neighbouring Uganda. Buganda had a centralized monarchical system; Ganda chiefs favoured the development of cash crop farming. The Kenyan interior was sparsely populated by stateless groups; there were no intermediaries with whom business could be done. Early administrators thus encouraged settler farming. By the time of the WWI, a small but significant settler community had emerged. Africans would be marginalized and forced labor was increasingly common. The settlers were given an increasingly powerful voice in the administration of the territory. African land was located in areas characterized by poor soil and far from the main markets. A system of squatters emerged: white settlers often expropriated more land that they could actually farm, and so African squatters were encouraged to settle on white plantations and cultivate their own crops, in return for which they would work for the white landowner for a certain number of days per year. It took many years for the settler economy to become profitable. There was the small-scale family farm, where maize was grown. However, these small-scale units were largely irrelevant to the Kenyan economy, the wealth of which rested on the large-scale plantations, involved in growing coffee and tea for export. Dreams of gold in Southern Rhodesia were disappointed. There was some gold, but nothing on the scale of that found further south. Also here, the territory was flooded with white farmers and Africans were compelled into a wage labor market. White power was gradually consolidated and in 1923 the territory achieved self-governing status. Algeria was second only to South Africa, as a territory of white settlement. The settlers were largely concentrated along the Mediterranean coast and comprised mostly poor peasants from southern France who owned small plots of land and struggled to expand beyond subsistence level. The urban centers, notably Algiers and Oran, attracted settlers; from here the colon community began to exercise political power. They secured direct representation in the Paris Assembly and established a considerable degree of control over the internal affairs of Algeria. Their political identity was expressed in the concept of Algérie Francaise, portraying the territory as a part of France overseas, and consequently asserting racial discriminations over Arabs and Berbers. Industry Across southern Africa, mining economies shaped the political administrations. Northern Rhodesia became one of the largest producers of copper. Southern Rhodesia was a settler economy based on farming and small-scale gold mining. By the WWI, South Africa was producing 40% of the world's gold, while Johannesburg became the largest urban center south of the Sahara. Large-scale diamond and gold mining operations were dominated by huge companies, profiting from a combination of European capital and cheap African labor. Around the second Boer war, African labor proved difficult to recruit. Companies turned to the international labor market and thousands of Chinese workers were brought it but were paid very low wages. The Chinese demanded, and succeeded in having granted, a series of “color bars” which specified that certain jobs could only be filled by whites. In 1907, the Chinese were sent home; and Africans were back into the mines, but the color bars remained in place. At the same time, a major cross-border labor recruitment system developed. Migrant labor served the mining industry. Both work conditions of service and the housing system provided for workers were horrendous. Migrant laborers came without families and were thus paid lower wages as single men; they were subject to a brutal system of rules, a legal structure backing mine owners which aimed at absolute social control. In areas where voluntary recruitment was slow, a system of forced labor was created. In the 1920s mining for copper on a large scale began in Northern Rhodesia. Migrant labor formed the bulk of the workforce, maintained on low wages and short-term contracts. Conditions were a bit better in the copper mines of neighbouring Katanga province (southern Congo) where Africans were offered longer-term contracts, provided with a basic education and trained for more skilled positions. Immense damage was done to rural economies, as migration and urbanization drained communities of some of their most able-bodies members. The powerful white minority in South Africa was able to confine African to designated “reserve” territories, who could only legally travel to areas of white settlement by carrying a pass which indicated tribal origin and employment. Governments started to develop a legislation aimed at racial segregation and the maintenance of white control. Social change and emergent crisis During the 20s and 30s, small-scale African farmers dominated cash crop production across tropical Africa. Africans took advantage of the colonial opportunities. The railway opened up commercial opportunities in rural areas that were previously out of reach of global trade. After the era of military conquest, the 1920s was a period of stability and prosperity. A commercial hierarchy developed, with small groups of powerful and successful African entrepreneurs dominating production. However, even the poorest usually had access to some land, and thus a degree of economic independence. In the Gold Coast, cocoa production was based on the share-cropping system: individuals would come to the cocoa-producing area, and the resident community would permit them to grow cocoa privately on its land in exchange for a share of the produce. This system prevented capitalism to blossom. Europeans were generally hostile to increasingly powerful and wealthy African entrepreneurs. Colonial authorities were wary of the rise of new economic elites which would increasingly get involved in politics. White settler colonies faced different challenges. In Kenya, Africans were squeezed into overcrowded reserves. The colonial administration was increasingly committed to the creation of an African labor force. Global depression brought some relief for Africans: as demand for cash crops fell, many settlers abandoned the land, allowing Africans to cultivate for themselves. By the mid-1940s, international demand was again on the rise, and with it, the arrival of a community of white settlers. This time, the aim was the abolition of the squatter system and the creation of a permanent wage labor force. Many Africans were forced off European land. There was also significant differentiation within Kikuyu society. A minority was able to profit from the domestic economy by selling surpluses, thus gaining a privileged position in the colonial system, an advantage not enjoyed by most Kikuyu. The political implications were far-reaching, as a growing mission school could no longer provide answers to African questions, especially during the hardships of the 19305. Class and tribe: the industrial complex Economic change brought about new patterns of resistance, most dramatically in South Africa, with its oppressive system of passes. Some of the earliest organized protests were confined to the political elite, which became in 1923 the African National Congress, which laid the foundations for wider political action, notably in its cooperation with Indian and coloured (mixed race in segregationist legislation) groups. In 1920, 40.000 mine workers went on strike. Worker consciousness developed slowly. For the early period, there was no collective worker action: there were no trade unions and no leaders capable of mobilizing workers. Yet unions and strikes are not necessary in identifying some form of worker consciousness, as workers themselves often registered protest informally: confronted with a brutal and exploitative system, they developed complex intelligence networks, which sought to understand that system, and thereafter they leamt how to work it: passes were forged, machinery was sabotaged, work rates were slowed. Shared experiences facilitated the growth of communal identity. In the 19305, collective consciousness began to translate into strike action. This was also connected to the emergence of a settled community capable of organized activity, as temporary migration gave way to more permanent residency. The worker population needed to be geographically concentrated. In Southern Rhodesia, mines were scattered over a wide area, making large-scale action problematic. In Northern Rhodesian, mines were closer together, workers were able to cooperate and organize major strikes. Miners understood that the British needed copper, and the concessions they won indicated to them that, when organized, they did indeed have considerable economic muscle. Migrant labor initially hired men on short-term contracts from rural areas. From 19205 onward, longer-term contracts and the settling of workers with their families in the mining areas laid the foundations of an urban working class. Johannesburg, built on gold, is the most notable example. Urban identities were not rooted enough, as early immigrants were temporary residents. With their roots still in their village, they often recreated aspects of rural culture while in towns. Tribalism retained a powerful hold, especially in towns, where the competition for resources was greatest. Nonetheless, towns became cultural melting pots where ethnic groups engaged in intermarriage and the exchange of language, customs, ideas. The 1930s witnessed a collapse in wages across the continent. It was a period of hardship for millions of Africans and the poor whites. The commercialization of farming had seen poor whites moving from their lands to the cities in search for work. Cash crops, rural crises, and peasant protest Commercial agriculture did not necessarily mean rural prosperity. Africans had to balance subsistence farming with export crops, while the import of European manufactured goods undermined Africa's economic development. Peasant farmers had no control over the prices they were paid for their exports and imports. In order to compensate for falling prices, Africans had to use larger areas of land for the cultivation of cash crops, at the expense of subsistence food crops. The result was soil exhaustion and famine. By the end of the 1920s, a handful of European companies had come to dominate the West-African import-export trade. African producers were soon on the defensive, establishing farmers’ associations at a local level to protect their interests. In the Gold Coast, farmers refused to sell their cocoa until the offering price was increased. However, the companies were able to ignore local concerns and simply buy from other sources. The situation in the Gold Coast also revealed the hostility toward the indirect rule system; traditional chiefs were reluctant to support farmers. A Western-educated generation of political activists would come to perceive indirect rule chiefs as obstacles to the achievement of independence. Global depression made peasant farmers more aware of the colonial economy's injustices; self-help associations served to articulate anticolonial grievances at the local level and they reflected a crisis of confidence in the colonial order. The reaction of the colonial state in many territories was government intervention. There was a belief that colonial government should become more closely involved in the marketing of exports, attempting to alleviate the impact of price fluctuations and social distress. There was also a move toward state intervention in production itself. Due to overcultivation, governments intervened by protecting the soil and maximizing the production. Such aggressive interventionism would stroke up bitter rural resentment. 13. BATTLES HOME AND AWAY - AFRICA IN GLOBAL WAR (AGAIN) The war in the continent The WWII saw African colonies drawn into a European conflict, and once again, the continent was a crucial source of men and materials. For Africans, the WWII had in many ways begun in 1935 with the Italian invasion of Ethiopia from colonial Eritrea. With the partial exception of Liberia, Ethiopia was the only independent African state, but it was now the target of Mussolini’s expansionist ambitions. Italian forces invaded Ethiopia and entered Addis Abeba. However, the Italians could never really claim to be in control of Ethiopia in its entirety; guerrilla activity continued for the duration of the Fascist occupation and swathes of the country remained beyond Italian jurisdiction. Abroad, Ethiopia became a notorious case. Within the African-American community and inside Africa itself, Ethiopia became the focus of pan-African protest and nascent nationalism. The ability of Ethiopia to remain independent during the European partition served to underpin its status as Africa's only great power. The Italian invasion was regarded as an outrageous violation. In 1941, both Ethiopia and Eritrea had been liberated by the Allied forces, and Haile Selassie restored to power, although this was compromised by the presence of British military and political advisors. In Eritrea, the British set up an administration which relied heavily on Italian personnel. Many Africans had become politically conscious through their wartime experience, and had developed heightened awareness of the colonial system. Returning war veterans had a much broader view of the world. Once again, they have closely observed the European weakness and failure. The myth of European supremacy was crashed once and for all. Shifts in politics and society In Algeria, nationalists were frustrated by the French government’s continued support for the white settler community. The fate of Libya, freed from the Italians, was to be decided by the victorious powers (Britain, France, US, Soviet Union). Initially, independence was not considered an option. The British had developed a certain interest in the Cyrenaica province. Tripolitania had long been more developed, under the Italians, but it was deeply divided internally. Most of the Italian settlers were based in Tripolitania. In Egypt, nationalists were more organized and vocal. In 1939, the British had converted Egypt into their base for operations in the Middle East. By the 19405, protests became common, but the British were concerned first and foremost to protect their strategic and financial investment in the Suez Canal. In the French sub-Saharan territories, appeasement of nationalist leaders was aimed at the stabilization and retention of the colonies. France, like Britain, could not contemplate surrendering its colonies, and thus the promise of reform was tactical. While there was no talk of political independence, there was talk of the incorporation of Africans into higher administrative positions. By the early 19405, African workers were using strikes and trade unions to considerable effect. The fear of social unrest produced a cautious approach on the part of the colonial authorities. The African voice was increasingly difficult to ignore. African newsletter spread dramatically and reached a wider audience. Africans were becoming politicized to an unprecedented degree and they were also conscious of colonial hypocrisy. The Charter written by Churchill and Roosevelt proclaimed the fundamental right of all peoples to self-determination and protection against aggression and persecution. This caused quite a stir in African educated circles: doesn't this also apply to them? The British prime minister felt compelled to make the point that the peoples of the British Empire were being adequately looked after. But the damage had been done, as African political activists sensed the weakness of the colonial system and the moral bankruptcy of the philosophies which underpinned it. As the war drew to a close, a group of young, educated Africans was emerging. They were the first generation of African nationalists, and would later constitute the first wave of independent leaders. For the remaining principal colonial powers (Britain, France, Portugal, Belgium), their African territories were more important than ever. Interventionist policies were pursued with renewed vigor after 1945. The African contribution to Europe's post-war economic recovery was vital. European governments needed to be more closely involved in managing colonial economies. This amounted to what has been described as a second colonial occupation. PART 5 - THE DISSOLUTION OF THE EMPIRE In the period between 1945 and 1970, the colonial empire gradually collapsed. As the Pan-African Congress demanded an unconditional end to colonial rule, colonial strategists devised ways of securing their territories. For Portugal and Belgium, this meant a refusal to move beyond limited political concessions. Britain and France developed policies aimed at the commercial development of their colonies and the gradual incorporation of Africans into administrative structures to appease nationalists. African nationalists had to develop political parties in order to nurture wider territorial consciousness. The elections organized by colonial authorities provided a platform on which such parties could postulate national agendas. The forms taken by political movements were influenced by the challenges they had to overcome. In the Gold Coast, Senegal, and Tanzania, the national movements combined negotiation and veiled threat to deal with retreating colonial authorities. In Uganda and Nigeria, nationalists disputed with each other about the future of their territories and colonial officials became negotiators. Nationalist victories were in fact negotiated settlements. While colonial authorities may have left behind friendly regimes governed by people educated within the colonial system, they also left behind structures noteworthy only for their inequity and instability, unsustainable over the long term. Subsequently, we witness the resurgence of the precolonial XIX century dynamics, notably the struggle to win access to scarce resources. 14. THE BEACHED WHALE - COLONIAL STRATEGIES IN THE POSTWAR WORLD Post-war Africa and the international climate The world was dramatically different in 1945. Events in Asia had been significant for Africa. The advances achieved by Indian nationalist movements immediately after the war served as an inspiration to African movements. Japan had been seen by many as the model of a successful non- European, anticolonial state. It had humbled the Dutch, the British, and the French. Japanese forces had captured Singapore, the center of British imperialism in Southeast Asia. President Roosevelt's deeply antipathy toward European imperialism had an enormous impact. Roosevelt used his profound influence in British political circles to push for a timetable for decolonization. However, the US under Truman and Eisenhower was less concerned with the dismantling of the European empires. Of prime concern was to protect the so-called Third World from communism. The US was willing to support colonial regimes threatened by communist insurrection. For example, military aid was provided to the Portuguese fascist regime fighting Marxist guerrillas in Angola and Mozambique in the 60s. The USSR was deeply anticolonial and it was prepared to support African movements seeking independence. Economic policies, c.1945-50 In 1945, Europe was economically exha usted and it was marginalized by the power of the US and the USSR. African colonies were more important than ever in economic terms. Portugal, due to its economic weakness, clung to its empire with determination and lasted the longest, until the 70s. By contrast, Britain, which recovered quickly from the war, was the fastest to decolonize. The immediate post-war period witnessed increased colonial interventionism. As demand for African goods in Europe increased, governments became more closely involved. In British colonies, substantial government funds were made available to maximize production. In the French colonies, marketing boards had been established to take advantage of the agricultural boom. Even in the supposedly independent Liberia, an American rubber company invested in huge plantations, an early example of African sovereignty compromised by foreign commercial concerns. The introduction of capital-intensive schemes implied a new kind of colonial economy in which African farmers would be marginalized in favor of the large-scale importation of mechanized equipment and settler experts. It was a large-scale and expensive disaster. In Tanganyika (exploited for groundnut), it was discovered that the soil was too dry and thin for this kind of agriculture, while the machinery proved vulnerable in such a climate. There was growing skepticism concerning the sustainability of such capital-intensive schemes in Africa. There was similar disappointment in the French Sudan, where large-scale investment in dams on the Niger was made for the production of cotton. Instead, local farmers used the land to grow sugar and rice for the domestic market, and cotton production never reached significant levels. African producers were aware that marketing boards (organizations set up by the governments to regulate the trade of commodities in order to increase profit) did not benefit them. Africans were paid a small percentage of the value of their labor, while governments were able to build up surplus, which was then invested for further capital development. In the Portuguese colonies, increasing numbers of white working-class settlers, lacking in skills and capital, were arriving. The colonies were seen as extensions of Portugal itself; the same way the French perceived Algeria. Portugal's fascist system was exported to Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau. The Belgian Congo experienced an economic boom and it was key to Belgium's post-war recovery. For Portugal and Belgium, economic control was necessary for political control. For Britain and France, economic control could be maintained without political control. Political plans, c.1945-50 There were also change in European political thinking about the colonies. Governments became more conscious and sensitive. The socioeconomic traumas of the Great Depression in the 30s had forced a reassessment of the colonial rule. The British government emphasized the need to move away from indirect rule, toward the incorporation of the emergent educated elite. The French, too, began to consider the gradual transfer of power to Africans, although they were planning a qualified degree of autonomy rather than unconditional independence. Political thought was rather different when it came to territories of white settlement. For the British, this meant Kenya and Rhodesia. For the French, it meant Algeria. The British Colonial Office envisaged the creation of special powers for white settlers, guaranteeing for them a privileged position. Portugal and Belgium envisaged nothing more than superficial political reform. Local elites might be further co-opted into legislative bodies, but no significant autonomy was contemplated. Their intransigence would render their territories more violently unstable. Italy, as a defeated power, lost its empire of Libya, Somaliland, Eritrea, and Ethiopia (a very recent acquisition). Italy was granted over the Somalis a ten-year trusteeship. Eritrea was federated with Ethiopia. Libya, under the UN, was granted independence in 1951, although for other two decades it was heavily dependent on British and American economic support. Ultimately, the British and the French envisaged that peaceful, legal, constitutional change would facilitate the rise of moderate African leaders willing to compromise and protect the interests of the outgoing colonial powers. 15. CONCEIVING AND PRODUCING NATIONS The widening horizons of belonging African exposure to Western political concepts would lead to the embracing of these novel political ideas, including nation and nationalism, as weapons with which to combat European hegemony. This involved a process of Africanization, for imported ideas were rendered meaningful to indigenous communities. Thus, we are dealing with the organic growth of an internal African identity. But there was also a process of external invention, manifest in the emergence of the pan- African movement outside Africa itself. African Americans began to seek their ancestral identity. government elevated segregation to the level of state ideology. One of the grand aims of apartheid became the movement of all Africans to self-governing republics on the fringes of white society, racially purifying South Africa. From the 19605, reserves became autonomous homelands, a deceitful kind of decolonization aimed at the solution of the native problem. Apartheid depended on the systematic classification of people into distinct racial categories. The Population Registration Act of 1950 divided the population broadly into white and non-white; the latter was subdivided into Coloured, Indians, and Bantu, or African. The Bantu category was further divided into tribal groupings. The Group Areas Act specified where particular tribes could live, in an attempt to divide the native population: the aim was to undermine a sense of African unity and hinder the growth of nationalist feeling. Further laws provided directives regarding social activity, segregating public spaces, public transport, and education, and outlawing sexual relations between the white and the black races. African trade unions were banned, facilitating the payment of low wages. Africans were placed in designated government schools whose curricula provided education only in basic skills; this facilitated social control. However, a fortunate elite was able to organize popular protest. In the 1950s, African nationalist leaders, faced with a newly aggressive regime, recognized the need for more radical tactics. Public demonstrations erupted across South Africa, while the moderate ANC was rejuvenated under a new generation of young leaders, such as Nelson Mandela. By the mid-50s, the various non-white groups had joined together and were calling for a non-racial South Africa. The alliance was fragile, given the hostility between Africans and Asians. There were also tensions within the ANC leadership, some of whom resented the influence of non-Africans, notably white liberals and communists. 16. COMPROMISING CONFLICT - ROUTES TO INDEPENDENCE Constitutional transfers of power Peaceful transfers of power took place between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s. The perceived threat of the violence witnessed in Algeria was a major influence over metropolitan decision- making south of the Sahara. After 1945, France envisaged that the colonies would remain part of a Greater France. Initially, this concept was supported by a Francophone African elite. Disappointment originated from the realization that French West Africans were not to be accorded full citizenship. Although colonies were permitted to send representatives to the French National Assembly, they were allowed less than 3% of the seats; Africans were underrepresented. Spurred by the violence in Algeria, the French introduced further reforms, leading to internal self- government in 1956; metropolitan government, however, retained control over the military, foreign affairs, and economic planning. As the situation in Algeria worsened, De Gaulle - concerned to remove any potential for conflict - offered the colonies the choice between maintaining the link with France, which promised economic benefits, or complete independence. Most of the African leaders voted for maintaining the metropolitan connection; only Guinea elected for uncompromised sovereignty. De Gaulle sought to demonstrate how dependent the colonies were on France by making an example of Guinea; all economic and administrative assistance was cancelled. Yet, Guinea survived, thanks to assistance from USSR and newly independent Ghana. Soon nationalists across Francophone Africa were following Guinea's example. After ensuring continuing economic ties, De Gaulle complied, and in 1960 the French colonies of western and equatorial Africa became independent. Decolonization had been achieved through compromise and the recognition of mutual interests. Only in Cameroon, communist agitation sparked a leftist insurrection. The uprising was only crushed after years with considerable bloodshed by an army commanded by French officers. In Rwanda, the run-up to independence was dominated by growing tensions between Tutsi and Hutu. A Hutu uprising against the Tutsi monarchy in 1959 was brought under control by the Belgian authorities which now sought to manage the transition to majority Hutu rule. In local elections, Parmehutu, the main Hutu party, took over the power and took Rwanda to independence in 1962. The apparent threat that the Tutsi were aiming to seize power again sparked the horrific massacre of the Tutsi in 1994. In response to escalating challenges in the Gold Coast at the end of the 19405, the British set up a commission of enquiry to discover what had gone wrong in their model colony. The commission advocated more representation for African politicians and further constitutional reform. The administration hoped to integrate the moderate political elite, represented by the leader Danquah. In the 1951 elections, things did not go as the British planned: the Convention People's Party (CPP) under the radical Nkrumah won a sweeping victory. Nkrumah gently forced the pace of decolonization, achieving full independence in 1957. Ghana was the first independent sub-Saharan state. The CPP's tactics played a key role in challenging the colonial order, advocating positive action, but avoiding outright violence. The CPP avoided direct military confrontation but applied considerable political pressure. Nkrumah was a great orator, employing the rhetoric of radicalism in public but tempering this in private dealings with colonial officials. As leader of independent Ghana, Nkrumah retreated from his anti-British stance and joined the Commonwealth, establishing a precedent for future sub-Saharan states. He was a combination of the radical, populist leader and the compromising, pragmatic diplomat. It is important to note how the British strategy of continual constitutional change and willingness to cooperate with Nkrumah made peaceful independence possible and helped Britain to partially keep hold of the initiative. In Tanganyika, Nyerere spent the late 1950s building up the trust of the colonial administration, while establishing the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) as a territory-wide organization with a very effective mobilization effort. The transfer of power was at first characterized by the creation of a multiracial constitution that increased representation for Africans, but which provided a powerful voice for the minority European and Asian communities. Nyerere managed to persuade a number of white settlers’ representatives to support TANU, and the movement won a majority in the assembly elections of 1958. Independence for Tanganyika was granted in 1961. The British held on to Zanzibar until 1963. The next year, Nyerere oversaw the amalgamation of Tanganyika and Zanzibar into the republic of Tanzania. In other territories, decolonization gravitated toward catastrophe. The Uganda People's Congress (northern, Protestant), the Democratic Party (Catholic), and the Kabaka Yekka, or The King Alone, movement (Ganda) competed with one another in the countdown to independence. A short-term alliance between the UPC and Kabaka Yekka took the territory to independence in 1962, under the leadership of the northerner Obote. The special status of Buganda was underlined when the Kabaka was installed as executive president of the new state. Obote considered the Ganda alliance unnecessary and damaging to his plans. The new constitution involved Obote's elevation to the position of executive president, abolishing Buganda's special status. Deep sociological differences were also evident in Nigeria, where the decolonization process was slowed by the inability of the factions to agree on a constitution. Ultimately, the federal system was opted for, and in 1960, Nigeria became independent with the northerner Balewa as prime minister. The north dominated the parliament, while all three regions (north, southeast, southwest) had considerable autonomy. Most of French and British tropical Africa became independent with a minimum of violence. Contrarily, in Kenya, social problems had created a dangerous political climate. The compromise reached in 1947 involved the establishment of multiracial councils that brought together African moderates and white settlers, although the latter were guaranteed majority. It was against this background of limited constitutional reform that the first acts of rural violence occurred. By the early 1950s, such violence had spread, with assassinations of prosperous Kikuyu as well as white settlers. The Mau Mau fighters were mostly Kikuyu. The British declared a state of emergency and brought in the army. Villages were targeted, indiscriminate search-and-arrest tactics resulted in the placement of thousands of Kikuyu in detention camps. The ruthlessness of the British response to the insurrection served to drive many young men into the ranks of Mau Mau. The war was one of the most violent in the British empire. Vastly superior British firepower had played its part in the defeat of Mau Mau, but the uprising also failed because it was unable to establish a broader and popular base. It remained isolated in the Kenyan highlands, hindered by the absence of a coherent ideology. Unlike the FLN in Algeria, Mau Mau made no diplomatic contacts beyond Kenya, and thus, the world saw the revolt only through British eyes. Yet, the Mau Mau brough about a fundamental shift in British attitudes toward the future of the colony. Colonial officials began to question the wisdom of keeping the settler community at the heart of Kenyan politics and economy. The Mau Mau had been regarded as a symptom of social displacement on a massive scale. Military action could not be a solution because the problems at the root of the uprising would eventually re- emerge. Socioeconomic change was needed in order to preserve security. As a result, reconstruction began, involving the consolidation of African landholdings, particularly in terms of the guaranteeing of property rights. However, resentment over European control of the best land in the White Highlands persisted, as did settler domination of the export economy. Eventually, the colonial administration loosened restrictions and allowed Africans into the lucrative export market. As the 1950s closed, a split emerged in the settler community. Many continued to refuse to deal with Africans and sought to maintain their historical privilege, but the New Kenya Group, including business managers and plantation owners, were willing to grant concessions in order to prevent the re-emergence of Mau Mau. Constitutional reforms that moved toward the abolition of white privilege were thus introduced. Events in Kenya led many to question the morality of the imperial mission. Multiracialism was abandoned in favor of African majority rule. With the lifting of the state of emergency, nationalist parties were re-established. Released from prison, Kenyatta took Kenya to independence in 1963. In the final months of colonial rule, the British set up the Land Purchase Scheme, whereby they purchased over a million acres of land from departing European farmers with the aim of redistributing it among Africans. This project was intended to assist the landless poor. However, land could also be acquired by Africans who had the money to do so. The actual beneficiaries of this project were not the landless poor, but those Africans who were already well- established and prosperous landowners. In the process of creating an independent African government, outgoing Britain was also transferring power to a middle class willing to safeguard British interests. This was a new form of indirect rule. Violence Decolonization in the areas previously analysed involved a relatively peaceful compromised transfer of power, even in Kenya. Some territories, however, achieved independence through violence. Algeria experienced a bloody conflict between 1954 and 1962 that resulted in the deaths of several hundred thousand people, settlers as well as Algerians. When de Gaulle finally ordered a withdrawal, the bulk of the settler population departed too. Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau became independent in 1974, following the coup d'état in Portugal itself. Civil war continued in these newly sovereign states for many years after, intertwined with the machinations of the Cold War. In Southern Rhodesia, simply Rhodesia after 1965, a liberation war against white minority rule was waged from 1966, only ending in 1980 with the establishment of African majority rule. In South Africa, a struggle unfolded against the apartheid regime. In Eritrea, guerrillas fought for 30 years against Ethiopian rule. Namibia battled against South African occupation until achieving victory in 1990. The liberation struggle in Angola was shaped by foreign intervention. While Portugal initially received support from the US, the Marxist MPLA (People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola) was reinforced by Soviet assistance. Other movements soon emerged, including UNITA, backed by South Africa; and the FNLA, supported by the US once it was decided that counterinsurgency through a rival movement was more effective than backing the Portuguese. When Angola achieved independence, it was torn by civil war. The MPLA secured partial victory in 1976, but UNITA remained undefeated in southeast Angola. Fearing a total collapse of law and order, and another “Algeria”, the Belgians fled Congo in 1960. Political parties proliferated, many of them were rooted in ethnic regionalism which threatened to destroy Congo before its sovereignty had even begun. Lumumba initially attempted to hold together a national coalition, but the state was collapsing around him, with the copper-rich Katanga province seceding in the south. Foreign interests fuelled civil war. A UN peacekeeping force had brought Katanga under control by 1962, but in the meantime, Lumumba had been murdered. The US-backed Congolese army commander, General Mobutu, took control and secured power in 1965. He established a centralized and extraordinarily violent government. Britain had long felt uneasy about the Central African Federation (Rhodesia + Nyasaland), fearing a repeat of the situation in South Africa and settler entrenchment. The new British policy was to facilitate the transition to African majority rule, but the federal government had no intention of sharing power. In 1963, the federation collapsed. The transfer of power was relatively straightforward. Northern Rhodesia was awarded independence as Zambia and Nyasaland as Malawi. The problem of Southern Rhodesia, with its intransigent white minority, remained. The dominant settler political party in the colony was the Rhodesia Front, which reached beyond businessmen, representing white farmers and the white urban working class. They represented the extreme right wing of the settler community, opposed to compromise and hostile to the British themselves. The Front leader, Smith, became internal prime minister and issued the Unilateral Declaration of Independence. The UN imposed sanctions on Rhodesia in an attempt to bring down the Smith regime. The Rhodesian economy was instead stimulated as Smith successfully sought regional partners, witnessing rising living standards, for whites as well as Africans. In early 19705, ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union) grew as a guerrilla movement. As it became more professional, it was better able to develop motivational ideologies. Following the economic boom, there was now a sharp downfall, as a result of the isolation imposed on Rhodesia: lack of export markets produced widespread unemployment among Africans, who were propelled into the guerrillas’ ranks. White farmers, no longer able to sell their tobacco abroad, forced their way into the internal maize market, pushing Africans further to the fringes of the domestic economy. ZANU was able to cultivate a broader sense of support than previously. South Africa was no longer convinced that Smith could win this war and began to pressure him to enter into negotiations with ZANU. In 1980, with the settlers militarily beaten and the guerrillas in control of most of the country outside the main cities, Smith was forced to accept majority rule. Mugabe, leader of ZANU, was elected leader of the new Zimbabwe. Major internal tensions, around land distribution and ethnicity, still had to be resolved. Mugabe would embark on a disastrous attempt to address the issue of land by evicting white farmers from theirs. From Suez to Sharpeville: the end of high imperialism In late 1954, several factors prompted the British and the French governments to send forces into Suez, aided by Israel. Nasser was seen as a threat to British interests across the Middle East. The French were keen to humiliate Nasser following his support for the FLN in Algeria. The Anglo-French invasion was mostly motivated by Nasser's decision to nationalize the Suez Canal Company. The Israelis quickly followed suit. Nasser's triumph was a victory for pan-Arabism, but Africans could celebrate his accomplishments too, for it seemed to symbolize the rise of the new postcolonial state over the old imperial powers. As decolonization was spreading, the apartheid regime in South Africa was hardening. In 1960 in Sharpeville, police opened fire on a crowd of unarmed demonstrators. In the wake of the massacre, as South Africa was internationally condemned, the government banned the ANC and the PAC. Newly independent African and Asian states attempted to have UN sanctions imposed, but such proposals were repeatedly vetoed by Britain and the US indicating the extent of their economic interests in South Africa. The anti-apartheid struggle entered a new phase: the ANC now founded a military wing, while many of its leaders went into exile, organizing support abroad very effectively. and rejected any suggestion of altering borders. To open up boundaries for negotiations - for example adjusting them according to notions of precolonial ethnicity - would cause a violent chaos. It had been agreed that it is necessary to respect the immutability of colonial boundaries, and make it work through their flaws. African leaders, moreover, quickly came to reject multiparty parliamentary systems as unworkable in the African context. Strong leadership was needed to guide the continent toward stability. Botswana, with relative ethnic homogeneity and an economic stability based on diamonds, was an exception in that it enjoyed regular democratic elections. For the rest of the continent, single-party states had become the norm. Such states led to abuse of power and the establishment of authoritarianisms. The army came increasingly to intervene to remove incompetent governments. This was necessary in the absence of institutions able to offer checks and balances against the power of politicians. From the 19805, people became more politically conscious and less tolerant of state-level abuses. The autocratic states were less able to exercise absolute control. The situation was ambiguous: while pressure on old authoritarianism increased in the 90s, key international actors (e.g. US, UK, France) either continued to support them or, as in the case of China, wished merely to do business with them without demanding political reform. Political stability and Islam The spread of Islam involved both conflict and cooperation with other spiritual systems. Muslims had long been merchants in the continent. Islam had been gradually absorbed into populations and accepted by royal courts. Yet Muslims were also leaders of violent revolutions and builders of states. In the XVIII and XIX centuries in West Africa, jihad was deemed necessary to bring about a revived and purified Islam. There is a long history of Muslims being both part of the state apparatus and railing against that apparatus once it was seen to have drifted away from the righteous path. These patterns continued in the postcolonial era. Debates about the application of Islam have persisted within independent states. In postcolonial sub-Saharan Africa, Islamists have been concerned with the rights of Muslims in countries in which populations are split between Muslims and Christians. Here, Islam has remained highly localized and it has been adapted to local circ umstances. In territories where Muslims are a minority, they have organized themselves into political lobbyists, fighting against Christian domination of government. This was most dramatically demonstrated in Kenya, where 10% of the population is Muslim, who organized themselves around the common grievance that they had been economically marginalized. In North Africa, Islamist groups were in conflict with governments which adopted a secular line. While in Morocco and Tunisia Islamists accepted electoral means by which to fight for their vision, in Egypt and Algeria Islamists advocated violent struggle in order to bring about change. In Sudan, an aggressive Islam in the north has attempted to impose itself in the south, with disastrous consequences. Civil war raged from 1955 until 1972, and it erupted once again in 1983. Sudanese Islamism attracted the attention of the US, which saw the Sudan under president Bashir as a destabilizing influence and an exporter of terrorism. While Christians and Muslims have often achieved peaceful coexistence in both Ethiopia and Eritrea, there are many episodes of religious conflicts. The early decades of the XXI century have witnessed new strains of radical Islam. For example, Somalia witnessed the rise of al-Shabab. Crowded house: Africa and the Cold War The process of decolonization must be understood against the background of an international order defined by the Cold War. Africa, as well as Southeast Asia and Central America, has been the location of many proxy conflicts between the superpowers. Africa was a Cold War periphery which became the focus of attention for both American and Soviet global strategists. Africa had caught the attention of revolutionary Marxists long before the Cold War. Lenin had regarded imperialism as the highest form of capitalism. In the 19205, the Soviet Union had encouraged Marxist revolutionary movements as a means to bringing about a global revolution. However, under Stalin, the tendency to overlook the potential of communist anti-colonial protest remained characteristic of Soviet policy. Although the USSR represented an alternative ideological reference point for the emergent African protest movements, in fact communism had a very limited impact on African politics. The Cold War had an impact on Africa in a variety of ways. The Cold War in its early stages provided a justification for the strengthening of African empires. For example, Britain portrayed its empire as a fortress against the spread of communism. Britain's reinvigorated interest in its African colonies after 1945 involved the investment of funds aimed at the protection of colonies from the predations of communism. At the same time, however, African nationalist leaders became conscious of the opportunities presented by the East-West struggle. Some leaders were drawn, during the 1950s, by the communist ideology for mass mobilization and revolutionary political action. Others used the language of popular revolution to evoke the threat of mass violence. In the Gold Coast, Nkrumah combined the two. He found inspiration in leftist ideology, but was also conscious of the impracticality of mass revolution. This did not prevent him from employing the language of the Left with a view to popular mobilization. As leader of independent Ghana, Nkrumah demonstrated a willingness to remain close to Britain, joining the Commonwealth, but he also cultivated relations with the USSR, from whom he received material aid. In North Africa, the USSR first made its presence felt to considerable effect. Moscow offered patronage and material assistance to nationalist figures. The Algerian war was for many a source of alienation from the West. The USSR supported Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal. Although Nasser had no significant leanings toward socialism, he strongly shared the anti-Western rhetoric. There were also independent governments which attempted to implement African socialism. In Tanzania, Nyerere persuaded “villagization” as a means to socialist self-sufficiency, with disastrous results. He also cultivated a friendship with the Chinese, who funded the building of a railway linking Tanzania and Zambia. In Ethiopia, the Marxist military dictatorship of Mengistu pushed an aggressive socialist program. These leaders sought foreign assistance via particular ideological standpoints. By the same token, there were others who allied themselves firmly with the West which in turn was willing to neglect the human rights abuses. The Cold War also made itself felt in civil conflicts and armed struggles. From the 1960s, both the US and its allies, and the USSR or China became actively involved in a number of conflicts. South Africa, regarding itself as the region's superpower, also became involved in these conflicts. South Africans were notoriously secretive about their global alignment but they received much of their military hardware from the West and did broadly adopt an anti-communist stance, particularly when it came to the leftist leanings of the ANC. Guerrilla and rebel movements across Africa were drawn to socialist programs, whether genuinely motivated by the principals involved or attracted by the military support. So, generally speaking, the Cold War intensified many internal conflicts. 18. VIOLENCE AND THE MILITARIZATION OF POLITICAL CULTURE The military in African politics Political instability and economic fragility facilitated military intervention within a few years of independence. Features of postcolonial Africa are the proliferation of violent conflict and the militarization of political culture. The process can be traced to the violent upheaval of the XIX century, when warfare became an extension of political and economic strategy. During the colonial period, Africans could not bear arms beyond that in the service of the colonial state. In considering the failure of democracy in Africa, observers pointed toward the absence of those institutions that constitute civil society, e.g. the separation of legislative and executive power or an independent judiciary. The only stable and functional institution was the army. By the early 1970s, a remarkable number of African states had succumbed to military rule, and the intervention of the army had become a defining characteristic of African politics. The coup d’état that was most talked about in the world was that in Ghana, in 1966, which removed in Nkrumah, one of the fathers of African nationalism. It is important to take into account the importance of militarism in the XIX century. In most precolonial African societies, the military and politics were closely intertwined; political leaders were very often soldiers. Armies were often private rather than public forces in so far as they followed particular local leaders. The armies that existed in African states upon independence had developed directly out of colonial forces, and thus had their roots in the armies of conquest used from the 1890s-1900s. Therefore, they had a long history of control over Africans themselves. Upon independence African armies were regarded as very disciplined. Through the 60s and 70s, in the face of inefficient and corrupt civilian regimes, military coups were welcomed. The African professional armies projected themselves as guardians of society. For example, the Nigerian army held the country together in the face of an Igbo revolt. Nigeria remained under military rule until 1979 as the army prepared for the transition back to civilian rule. Since the subsequent civilian rule was very corrupted, the army was back in charge in 1983. It did not take long for the army to lose such a good reputation. Armies seized control not only for the greater good. Soldiers became involved in disputes surrounding national policy; they were mostly motivated by specific military grievances, namely those stemming from pay and working conditions. They were affected by ethnic tensions as well. In many colonies, armies had been recruited from marginal groups, overwhelmingly rural and living on the edges of society. They were regarded as less sophisticated and thus more naturally obedient. These recruits viewed military service as a means to social status advancement. The ethnic balance of the armies had important political consequences: armies saw intervention in politics as a means of advancing narrowly defined ethnic interests. Military regimes were as corrupt, incompetent, and brutal as the civilians they had replaced. The politics and cultures of insurgency The political soldiers of the 60s and 70s were the direct descendants of the indigenous agents of colonial rule. Officers oversaw the transition of African militaries from colonial forces to national armies. They had in common with their European predecessors the monopoly on force; they had almost complete control over weaponry. However, professional armies of colonial heritage found themselves challenged by well-armed guerrilla forces which constituted a second wave of military intervention in African politics. Such guerrilla forces represented the oppressed masses; they aimed at the destruction of the existing system and subsequent rebuilding. In part, this reflected the influences of the Cold War, most dramatically manifest in the massive influx into Africa of automatic weapons. The state monopoly on military power was gone. The guerrilla forces in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, and Rhodesia sought to seize the firepower necessary to challenge the state, then the moral authority (in terms of popular ideological revolution), and last the political power itself. In southern Sudan, a revolt against northern rule created one of the longest African wars. Eritreans fought a war for independence against Ethiopian occupation from 1961 until victory in 1991. The Horn of Africa provides a useful illustration of how liberation war often erupted along old fault lines and also of how such conflict might unfold in intricate ways, against the backdrop of the Cold War. Under Emperor Selassie, Ethiopia had presented itself as a loyal ally of the West, anti-communist, and against Islam. In the 50s, the US established a series of military agreements with Selassie and engineered, through the UN, the award to Ethiopia of the former Italian colony of Eritrea in exchange for the development of a military base in the Eritrean capital of Asmara. This mutually beneficial arrangement came under attack when in 1974 Selassie was overthrown by a Marxist faction. In the mid-70s, Ethiopia aligned itself with Moscow, and the Americans pulled out. The USSR poured enormous amount of military aid into Ethiopia, which became strong enough to declare war to Siad Barre's Somalia. The main purpose of this equipment, however, was to crush the growing insurgency in Eritrea and Tigray. Through the 80s, Eritreans fought with growing success, capturing equipment from the Ethiopian and Soviet military and using it against the enemy. The Soviet withdrawal in the late 805 weakened Ethiopia, and in 1991, Eritrea won its independence. In the first half of the 90s conflict was widespread. In Rwanda, longstanding ethnic tensions between Tutsi and Hutu erupted in 1994. There was similar fragility in neighbouring Burundi, where tensions between Tutsi and Hutu persisted as well. The region of eastern DRC and the Great Lakes was caught between the Rwandan Genocide and the collapse of the state in Congo itself and witnessed the proliferation of militia groups. The DRC became one of the most violent zones in Africa. Meanwhile, Somalia's implosion in the early 90s led to a US-led intervention which ended in disaster. State collapse in Sierra Leone and Liberia involved the proliferation of warlords which meant leaders of ragged bands of disaffected and traumatized young men. A range of sophisticated insurgencies had seized power across the continent between the mid-70s and mid-90s. In Uganda, for example, the National Resistance Movement had absolute domination of the political space, but its polity was characterized by increased levels of intimidation and intolerance toward opposition group. Societies liberated by force of arms have become more militarized and tightly controlled as a result of guerrillas becoming governments. These movements believe that they are the only one entitled to power. They have a strong sense of political responsibility, in the face of the precedent blood sacrifice. It remains to be seen whether such movements can in the longer term share power with those who were not involved in the armed struggle. This is a question of whether indigenous traditions of militarization (dating back to the XIX century) might come to incorporate recent democratic rights. New wars, old problems, and expanding military horizons The early XXI century witnessed ongoing conflict in Angola, in Congo, and in Somalia. Ethiopia and Eritrea used Somalia to continue their own war by proxy. Conflict in the western Sudanese province of Darfur involved rebel movements fighting for autonomy against forces backed by Khartoum. Khartoum-sponsored violence against the local population was characterized as genocidal, and the war spilled over the neighbouring Chad. The north-south civil war in Sudan was brought to an end in 2005 by a peace accord, and South Sudan became an independence state in 2011. But 2013 saw the eruption of a civil war within South Sudan. The powerlessness and indifference of the UN has been often clear, although in the wake of the Rwandan genocide, the UN was prepared to be more involved in a range of conflicts. Peacekeepers were deployed in Congo and along the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The UN set up a special tribunal in Tanzania to bring the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide to justice. However, diplomatic pressure and sanctions are more effective and common solutions. 19. RECTIFICATION, REDEMPTION, AND REALITY - ISSUES AND TRENDS IN CONTEMPORARY AFRICA Africa and the contemporary world An understanding of contemporary Africa must begin with an appreciation of the intersection between old and new dynamics. The western world came to view the continent a little differently following the collapse of the USSR. The West became more concerned with human rights, political structures, good governance, and democracy. In these spheres, the West became more interventionist. Yet over the last decade, African economies’ extraordinary growth has been fuelled in large part by investments from new players, such as China and India. This has given rise to the new scramble for Africa, this time purely for resources rather than territory. It has enabled African states to be selective and strategic about how to engage with the West. African governments have found themselves under greater scrutiny from their own peoples. A sort of second wave of liberation has taken place. The number of nationalist politicians has decreased because they have been unable to withstand popular opposition and sociopolitical collapse. Gaddafi in Libya and Mugabe in Zimbabwe have been removed from power. In the XXI century, moral politics has come to the fore in the West's dealings with Africa. The feeling of guilt has become an influence on policy-making and popular perceptions of Africa. The media has made it difficult to be unaware of human catastrophe. Unprecedent media coverage of millions of Africans starving left a profound