 |
| Timeline |
 |
 |
 |
Historical Dictionary |
|
Narratives : History of Sub-Saharan Africa http://www.zum.de/whkmla/sat/texts/narrssafrica.html |
|
Early Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is defined by not having been part of the Mediterranean civilization respectively
the European and Arab civilizations which grew out of the former. The Sahara was regarded the border separating the two,
and physical appearance seems to prove the hypothesis right. Sub-Saharan Africa was not as isolated as it may seem. Nubia and Axum (Ethiopia) interacted with ancient Egypt respectively with Yemen; christianity spread into Nubia and Axum in the third and fourth centuries A.D., even a Jewish community emerged in Axum. Axum and the Swahili coast interacted with India; in Axum, the presence of a Buddhist community is recorded. Further to the south, the island of Madagascar even received a considerable influx of Malay immigrants. Here, communication across the Indian Ocean seems to have been episodic. The Sahara was not impermeable either; the camel was introduced to the African continent in the 9th century B.C.; the Sahara was crossed by a network of caravan routes, via which African products - gold, leatherware, ivory, slaves - were traded while the Africans received salt, textiles, metalwares. Islam reached Sub-Saharan Africa via this network of caravan routes. Sub-Saharan Africa never in history as part of the Caliphate; similar to the spread of Islam in the Malay archipelago, states in Sub-Saharan Africa, such as Mali, accepted Islam and then overcame non-Islamic neighbours such as Ghana, conquered by Mali in 1240. Islam legitimized a policy of conquest directed against non- Muslim statelets, and this legitimation was successfully used as late as in the 18th century by Futa Djalon and in the early 19th century by the Fulani Jihad which established the Sultanate of Sokoto. In East Africa, African, Arab, Persian and Indian elements merged to form Swahili society, which developed an urban Islamic identity, taking pride in her Arab ancestry. Regular contact with the Muslim world reinforced this identity, made the Swahili Coast cities (Mombasa, Kilwa, Zanzibar, Sofala) appear as anomalities in the African environment. The Islamic societies of the Sahel zone made a peculiar impression on European visitors in the 19th century. With the exception of a few cultural centers, such as Timbuctu and Kano, books were very rare; Islam was superficial, often combined with pre-Islamic superstitious beliefs, and in a number of Islamic states, significant elements of the population maintained animistic beliefs and practices. Most written sources on precolonial African history are written in Arabic, Ge'ez or in the languages of European travellers. The Mandingo in West Africa, for instance, knew and used a script related to Linear A and the Indus Valley script, of which comparatively few inscriptions survived. The fact is that comparatively few written sources on pre- colonial African history survive, many of whom written from a foreign or from an African-Islamic or African-christian perspective. Precolonial Africa had an urban culture of her own. Intensive contact with overseas Arab and Indian cities had an impact of the Swahili cities of East Africa. The Sahel cities of West Africa were dominated by Islam, but very African in their architecture. The buildings mostly were constructed using clay and woodwork, the city walls less effective for holding out an extended siege. In the Sahel zone, cities functioned as capitals, as markets, as centers of artisan crafts, but in periods of political change they could experience a drastic decline, while other cities emerged as new centers; Sokoto, capital of the sultanate of the same name, was established as late as 1812. Yoruba country had a number of urban centers of their own, Oyo, Ilo-Ife, Benin, capitals of states of the same name. As these cities were located in the rainforest region, these states mlitarily were not based on cavalry (the tsetse fly). When slave raiders armed with rifles made trade insecure in the late 17th and the 18th century, most of these cities / states underwent a decline The Bantu states of eastern and southern Africa had krals at their center, large fenced settlements centered around the ruler. These krals, such as Lobengula's kral at Bulawayo, functioned as capitals. They consisted of more or less elaborate one-storey thatched huts, easily burnt down. For defence they seem to have relied on the impi, the fighting force. In Tanganyika and the eastern Congo, fortified settlements called boma were known, often surrounded by dense, impenetrable bushwork, with narrow passageways easily controlled, and with palisades surrounding the boma. The deserted stonen city of Great Zimbabwe, constructed between the 4th and 15th centuries, is an intriguing exception, the only historic stone-walled city in southern Africa. Metal working has an old tradition in Africa; in the 5th century B.C. the inhabitants of modern Nigeria were able to forge iron tools. In the middle ages, west Africa was the source of gold traded to the Mediterranean, to Arabia and beyond. The Lunda in Katanga were engaged in copper mining, on a limited scale; the Katanga Crosses did have the function currency had elsewhere - although monetary economy, in the region of Congo, eastern Africa and the Zambezi valley in precolonial times had very limited scope. Frequent misconceptions on African history - Sub-Saharan Africa would have had no cities, no writing, no currency - thus all are wrong. West Africa and the Swahili Coast were integrated to a larger extent into the world market, here urban settlements, monetary economy, division of labour, written tradition. The rainforest and savannah regions of central and southern Africa, in precolonial times, were less developed, the krals and bomas less urban, monetary trade playing a less important role in an overall largely self-sufficient economy. A factor which does distinguish Africa from Europe - the lack of navigable seas and rivers, which did provide a communications network for the Europeans. The river in Africa providing best navigation was the Niger. Africa 1445 to 1807 . West Africa. By 1445 Portuguese navigators had reached the Guinea Coast. Europeans and coastal West Africans alike were interested in trade, which, for the coming centuries, would develop on a peaceful and mutually profitable basis. The West African coast, for the most part, was difficult to access; natural harbours were few. The climate was unhealthy for Europeans; many caught infectious diseases such as Malaria. The Europeans were content with erecting coastal forts - the cannons pointed in the direction of the sea, to defend the fort / trading post against an attack from other Europeans. The Europeans brought items such as iron tools, mirrors, cloth, weapons, ammunition, but also alcoholic beverages, tobacco, glass beads etc.; they introduced tobacco and maize to the Africans; maize was to become a staple crop, tobacco, in some parts of Africa, was used instead of money. The Africans in return gave gold, ivory, pepper, rubber, leather products - and African slaves, which happened to be a commodity on the West African markets before the arrival of the Europeans. The Africans beyond the coastal zone, only by the way of trading in European products from their neightbours living on the coast, by acquiring maize as a new crop to grow, were affected by the European-African trade. With the growth of the sugar plantation industry in Brazil and the Caribbean, the European demand for African slaves increased, outgrowing the 'natural supply' on the African market (due to debt; prisoners of war); now the symbiotic relations between European merchants and coastal Africans turned detrimental, as Africans supplied with European firearms undertook raids against villages of other African tribes with the purpose of taking slaves. Also, the diversification of West Africa's export trade, which before 1445 exclusively was conducted along the Trans-Saharan caravan routes, and since 1445 was split between Trans-Saharan and coastal trade, had an impact - in 1591 a Moroccan expedition took Timbuktu, a trade center on the southern end of the Sahara. East Africa . While the Portuguese found the West Africans to be keen on trade, the reception in East Africa they found was a suspicious and potentially hostile one. The Swahili cities were Muslim, and engaged in a profitable trade with India, Persia, the Arab peninsula; even Chinese porcelain mde its way to the Swahili Coast. The Portuguese soon adopted a policy of conquest, taking a number of Swahili cities, and in 1505 massacring the Muslim population of Kilwa Kisiwani. In the 17th century, other European forces arrived on the scene; their interest in East Africa was limited; in the late 17th century the Sultanate of Oman expelled the Portuguese from the northern Swahili coast. Southern Africa . Originally the Europeans regarded Southern Africa an obstacle on the map, making the sea route to India unnecessarily long. The people of southern Africa were, in the European perspective, uncivilized, as they either did not know the concept of trade or had little of interest to offer. Only in 1652 did the V.O.C. decide to set up a supply station for ships sailing to and from the East Indies at Kaapstad (since 1806 Cape Town). Africa's Interior . European Atlasses, until into the 1880es, would show large parts of the continent's interior as white spots, uncharted territory. However, Africa's interior, for the most part, was settled; a trade network existed in Eastern Central Africa; rubber from the rainforest region, Katanga's copper (in form of the Katanga crosses), African ivory were transported by human caravans to the Swahili cities on the East Coast. There was a chain of states in Africa's interior, along the Niger River, from Lake Chad to Darfur, from the Sudan southward along the rift valley, and further south into the Natal. Africa 1807 to 1885 In 1807 Britain abolished the slave trade, in 1834 slavery altogether. This greatly affected West Africa, as hitherto's number one trade item suddenly was no longer legitimate. The British tried to persuade their African trade partners to switch to oil palm cultivation. European interest in trade with West Africa deteriorated. The Danes (who had banned slave trade in 1792) for years left their trading forts on the Gold Coast unmanned, and in 1850 sold the forts to the British. The British placed their Gold Coast possessions under Sierra Leone, where they not only maintaned a trade station, but also a settlement for freed slaves - Freetown (since 1807). While the interest of Europes traditional merchants in Africa declined, other groups developed an interest in the continent : explorers who wanted to gain knowledge about the white spots on the map; missionaries who, in a time when the churches in Europe were regarded as private organizations, looked for souls to convert, first among the freed slaves, then among the Africans of the interior. Missionaries and explorers alike wrote letters which were published in Europe's magazines and newspapers, attracting a wide readership. The invention of the steamship drastically reduced bothy time for travel and cargo costs per ton. Suddenly the transportation of items becam profitable, which used to be cost-prohibitive. A need for coaling stations along the coast of Africa arose. Medical progress removed obstacles to a European penetration of the interior. Hitherto, expeditions into Africa's interior had to live with a considerable percentage of the expedition falling victim to Malaria; in 1850 Samuel Baker conducted an expedition without losing a single man, due to quinine. In Egypt, Ferdinand de Lesseps organized the construction of the Suez Canal (1859-1869), which turned the Red Sea from a backwater in world trade into a major traffic route, while simultaneously reducing the traffic around the Cape. Repeatedly, the applications of West African or Pacific chieftains for British protection were rejected. There were exceptions; the Cape Colony in South Africa expanded; in her neighbourhood the world's largest diamond mine at Kimberley (1871) was discovered, to be followed by the discovery of the Witwatersrand gold mines (1886). The French expanded the area under their control along the Senegal and established new protectorates in Guinea, the Ivory Coast, on the coast of Benin and Gabon. The political landscape in Africa's interior, meanwhile, had become more instable. The Zulu wars of the early 19th century had created a new infantery tactics based on the assegai; they caused the flight of entire peoples (Mfecane); Zulu-style warrior nations, such as the Ndebele, established empires based on conquest and suppression, such as the Matabele Kingdom. In the Katanga, trader-chieftain Msiri, based on an arsenal of acquired rifles established a kingdom (1856-1891). It was based on the control of Katanga's copper production, but also conducted slave raids. In the 1890es, Rabeh would establish a similar polity arounf Lake Chad, conquering Bagirmi and Bornu-Kanem. Africa 1880-1935 . The ongoing Industrialization of Europe increased the importance of Africa, as a market for European goods, as a supplier of raw materials. Yet many European politicians, among them Otto von Bismarck and William Ewart Gladstone, regarded colonialism a policy of the past, the costs of which outweighed the benefits. On the other hand, King Leopold II. of Belgium (a monarch with largely representative function; Belgium was a constitutional monarchy) dreamt of leading his country into the elite club of colonial powers. His opportunity arrived when exploring journalist Henry Morton Stanley, after finding Dr. Livingstone, ventured down the Congo River, realized the economic potential of its basin. Yet when he proposed to the Britieh Colonial Office to take the area under British protection, he was rebuffed. So he travelled to Brussels; Stanley and King Leopold established what was to become the Congo Free State (a free state, not a colony, as the Belgian government also refused to take responsibility). This event lead to the European governments' reconsideration of their Africa policies; Bismarck presided over the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, in which the European powers agreed to promote the cause of civilization in Africa (i.e. to combat slave trade and slavery, to provide protection to missionaries), to promote free trade on Africa's navigable rivers, and where they set rules for the establishment of protectorates. Soon, Africa's coasts were partitioned and the powers competed for stretches of the interior; the Scramble for Africa was on its way. In the 1890es the competition heated up; the French, by supplying Ethiopia with arms, thwarted an Italian attempt to conquer Ethiopia (Battle of Adowa 1896); in 1898 French and British troops faced each other in the Sudan (Fashoda Crisis); in 1899-1902 the British conquered the mineral-rich Boer Republics (Boer War); the Congo Crisis of 1903-1905 was a predominantly British media campaign intended to prepare the ground for a change of ownership; the Morocco Crises of 1906 and 1911 are interpreted as an indicator foreseeing the constellations which faced each other in World War I, and World War I itself, among other matters, was fought over territory in Africa. The partitioning of the African continent by the European powers resulted in the political borders being drawn as they are; since, they have undergone only minor modifications. When the process of colonization was restarted in 1884-1885, it was assumed that protectorates were to be established in agreement with the expressed desire of the chieftains of the villages of the respective stretches of African territory. And in the 1880es agents of colonial chartered companies travelled from village to village, signing numerous treaties with the local chieftains (usually between half a page and one and a half page long) in which the latter signed over the sovereignty over their area to the colonial company. One has to keep in mind that in previous decades the Europeans had refrained from penetrating the interior, that, especially in West Africa, the coastal African peoples benefitted from trading with the Europeans. The chieftains who made their Xs under these treaties often asked for the establishment of a trade station, for a missionary to be sent to them. Once the nucleus of a protectorate (in many cases a euphemism for a colony) was established on the coast, the drive to expand into the interior began. Now, chieftains were bullied into signing treaties, or such diplomatic niceties were disregarded, and military expeditions (African troops (=Askaris) commanded by white officers) sent out to conquer. In the European press, the necessity of such campaigns was argued by the purpose to end the slave trade in the African interior. The European powers, in the case of traditiional African political entities such as Bornu-Kanem, Bagirmi, Adamawa often deliberately drew the new colonial borders in order to split up these entities. The colonies were named after rivers (Senegal, Gambia, Upper Volta, Congo, Nigeria), after a mountain (Cameroon) or after colonial power and direction (British East Africa, German South West Africa). Only in exceptional situations did they maintain the name of previous African political entities (Uganda, Swaziland, Lesotho). The establishment of a modern state, according to the standards of 19th century Europe, in Sub-Saharan Africa, required the establishment of a minimum of logistics. Only a few gems among the colonies provided over natural harbours and navigable rivers. Many colonies needed the construction of a deep sea harbour, of railroad lines in order to open up the interior. As this kind of construction work and technology was new to the African continent south of the Sahara, engineers and material had to be brought in from Europe, local workers had to be trained. A network of stations had to be established within the protectorate; the station chief was responsible for running a trade station, but also to administrate his region. Schooling of the natives, caring for the health of the natives was regarded a responsibility of the missionaries. In the protectorate's capital, government buildings, a hospital, schools for the whites, a garrison, a court house and prison were established, a number of workshops to produce furniture, to make minor repairs etc., a vocational school for an elite of African students to provide cheap skilled labour. All of this required considerable investment; a modern state, even on a minimalistic scale, required financial revenues. Plantations and mines could generate tax revenues, but required an existing infrastructure of a port, roads and/or railroads. A major source of revenue was to be provided by the taxation of the local Africans. This, however, provided a problem - in most regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, the natives were not accustomed to any kind of taxation; the newly introduced hut tax caused a number of rebellions, the most notable in Sierra Leone in 1898. In the Congo Free State, instead of a monetary tax, the natives were required to pay a monthly tax in form of a certain amount of rubber, a policy which in 1903-1905 was at the center of international criticism. The African natives were not accustomed to a monetary economy; in order to obtain the money to pay the tax, they had to take on extremely low-paying jobs as plantation workers, railroad workers, miners etc.; the mines, plantations and other enterprises depended on the supply of cheap labour. The colonial administrations, in order to make railroad lines stretching out into the African interior profitable in the long run, sold land (the colony regarded any land not cultivated as state property) at very low price to immigrant Europan prospective plantation owners; thus a stratum of European settlers emerged in countries such as Kenya and Zimbabwe, providing the background for novels such as Dinesen's Out of Africa. The colonial administrations engineered a colonial society consisting of a white elite, for whom positions in the higher administration, positions requiring qualifications, positions of officers were reserved. An African elite was educated to provide skilled labour, to work in the lower ranks of administration, to serve in the police or armed force under European officers. In a colony like German East Africa, there were two vocational schools for the Africans, one high school for the country's white population, no university. The African elite existing at the time of the foundation of the colony, in many cases, was expropriated; the colonial administration liked to treat the native population alike. Many native Africans, in the 1880es and 1890es, recognized the superior skills of many Europeans; stuck in a world of superstitious thought, they little comprehended modern technology and medicine, the coastal West Africans accustomed to trade with Europeans to a larger extent than Africans living in the interior of the Congo basin or further to the south. The Maji Maji Rebellion in German East Africa 1905-1907 was an example for this kind of cultural clash; the rebels were told the magic of their witch doctors would turn the German bullets into water. World War I provided a turning point. The war was fought on African soil, in the German colonies. Togo fell in 1914; German South West Africa (present Namibia) in 1915, Cameroon in 1916 (when the defenders ran out of ammunition), German East Africa in 1916, with the German commander, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck continuing a guerilla campaign until he was informed of the end of the war in Europe three weeks after armistice had been signed, in 1918. During this war, African soldiers were instructed by their white officers to shoot at white officers on the other side. The French army, in 1917-1918 facing a significant shortage of French soldiers, sent regiments of African soldiers into the trenches. A number of Africans who served in World War I were, after the war, able to obtain a higher education, in Europe or the U.S. An African intellectual elite, fluent in the language of the respective motherland, emerged; although with an education, in their homeland they felt disciminated against. In Algeria, the average European was paid 20 times the average Algerian. The first political organizations were founded, the first African-edited newspapers or magazins issued - in the language of the motherland. The Colonial Powers massively reduced their investments in the African colonies; most of the infrastructure had been established by 1914. A few railroad lines were extended. However, the Scramble for Africa was over, hardly any new territory to be acquired, the major mineral deposits (except for oil) discovered. The immigration of white prospective plantation owners continued; Africa's population began to expand (the colonial powers had enforced peace among Africa's ethnicities; improved health care, new crops, the establishment of new industries, but also the suppression of practices such as cannibalism, the killing of twins at birth, the partial destruction of the tribe as a social unit, and the teachings of the churches contributed to this effect). Africa 1935-1965 . In 1935 Italian forces invaded Ethiopia, one of the two remaining countries not ruled by colonial powers. This caused a wave of indignation among Africa's educated elite; Ethiopia was seen as an example to prove the case that Africans were capable of governing themselves, taking care of their own affairs. The 1930es were a period in which African nationalism emerged; the ultimate goal of the politically aware African elite was independence; independence activists in various colonies regarded each other as political allies. Yet, the formation of political organizations openly advocating political independence would be prohibited by colonial administrations. Rather cultural or labour organizations provided the fora in which political opinions were formed. The mother country, through the education system, provided a lingua franca. Nigeria is a country where 510 languages are spoken, culturally and religiously diverse; English was to provide the lingua franca for an emerging Nigerian nationalism, propagated by an English-educated elite which resented being disciminated against. During World War II, suddenly Africa gained importance. With the Japanese controlling the Malay peninsula, the industries of the western world rediscovered Congolese rubber. The uranium in the bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki came from Katanga, in the Belgian Congo. And when France surrendered to the Germans in June 1940, Charles de Gaulle, unwilling to accept this, established a Free French Administration, with residence in Brazzaville (French Equatorial Africa). De Gaulle, at the outset, had only a handful of French supporters; if he was to realize his plan to topple the Vichy-administration and liberate France, he needed to mobilize all forces available; one he could mobilize was the native population of French Equatorial Africa. This, however, required the complete revision of French colonial policy. De Gaulle promised the Africans that things would improve. One argument to prove his point : a black man from French Guiana, Felix Eboue, in 1938 had been appointed governor of the Chad. It was made possible for Africans to rise in the hierarchy of colonial administration. After World War II was over, Britain, France, Belgium faced the costs of reconstruction - and, at least in part, hoped to finance this undertaking with revenue extracted from the colonies. Promises made during the war were not retracted, but treated as issues to be addressed some time in the future. On the other hand, part of the Marshall Plan aid granted to the British, French and Belgian ended up invested in Africa; while the investments in the African colonies had remained sluggish throughout the 1920es and 1930es, they picked up in the late 1940es and early 1950es. In Asia, decolonization made great progress in the 1940es. In Africa, the structure of racially segregated population became a hot political issue. In 1948, Daniel Malan's National Party won the elections in South Africa, promising to turn the reality of a largely racially segretated civilization into a system prescribed by law - Apartheid. In Kenya, a movement no longer willing to accept such a society and the discrimination of the native African majority by a small, privileged white minority, the Mau Mau took up a policy of guerilla actions (1952-1954). The British did maintain the upper hand. In the United Nations, the colonial powers came under pressure as the UN promoted the issue of decolonization. The former German colonies in Africa were UN mandates - Togo, Cameroon, South West Africa and Tanganyika. The colonial powers charged with administrating the respective mandate had to give annual reports, which came under increasing scrutiny. In the end, the French military defeat at the hands of the Viet Minh in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu 1954, and the US protest against the concerted Anglo-French action in the Suez crisis of 1956 caused the colonial powers to rethink their position. If they wanted to hold on to their African possessions, this would come at a price; if the Mau Maus had been armed with Soviet Kalashnikoffs, the human losses on the British side would have been immense. So the process of decolonization in Sub-Saharan Africa suddenly was accelerated. Already, the franchise in the colonies had been gradually extended; the colonial parliaments experienced the sudden appearance of a black majority. The issue then quickly became that of independence within or outside of the framework of the British Commonwealth respectively French Community. In the various colonies, suddenly African politicians competed with each other for political influence; often the leader with the most radical demands gained most votes; practically all candidates lacked experience. On the side of the white population of the colonies, the missionaries often saw the transfer to a native African government as an inevitable solution; the settlers (plantation owners, most of whom were born in Africa) were opposed to give up both their land and their privileged position. The companies operating the mines were intent on maintaining control over them. Among the black population, they hoped for colour bars against promotions being removed, for a land reform, for better pay for their work; the elite campaigning for independence hoped for better jobs in the administration, for political power. Between 1957 (Ghana) and 1965 (The Gambia), most countries of Sub-Saharan Africa became independent. The white parliaments of the Union of South Africa (1961) and Southern Rhodesia (1965) unilaterally declared independence, to maintain racial segregation, turning into the Republic of South Africa and Rhodesia respectively. Decolonization and Independence . By 1965, most of the African countries had been released into independence. Portugal (Cape Verde, Portuguese Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, Angola, Moçambique; until 1974-1975) and Spain (Western Sahara, Fernando Poo, Rio Muni, until 1968 / 1975) stubbornly tried to hold on to their colonies; in South Africa, Rhodesia (until 1980) and (South African-administrated) South West Africa (until 1990), white minority governments continued to deny the black majority the right to participate in the political process, a policy which in South Africa was called Apartheid, and which was ended 1990-1994. From the early 1960es to independence / the inclusion of the black majority in the political process, these countries were the site of insurrection. While the governments in London, Paris and Brussels in/around 1960 had decided to withdraw, there were strong and influential businesses which were intent on protecting their interests in the colonies; Congo Leopoldville, the former Belgian Congo was such a case; the Union Miniere thrived on the exploitation of the Katanga mines. When Congolese PM Patrice Lumumba wanted to nationalize the Katanga mines, the Union Miniere engineered a civil war, in which Katanga temporarily seceded and in which Lumumba was ousted. Oil-rich Nigeria had been released into independence in 1960; in 1967 the mainly christian southeast, under the name Biafra, seceded. For the following three years the country saw a civil war in which the British supported the central government, the French supported Biafra. The French, from the 1960es to the 1990es, maintained troops in Africa, which occasionally interfered in the internal affairs of former French colonies, such as to prevent coups from succeeding, in civil wars, or in case of Libyan invasions into the Chad. However, the dominant political group was the generation of 'Great African Leaders', the politicians who lead the African states into independence. Many of them were Pan-Africans; they regarded the borders drawn by the colonial powers, as artificial. In 1952 Eritrea had been annexed into Ethiopia; in 1960 (Italian) Somalia and (British) Somaliland merged to form Somalia; in 1964 Tanganyika, by the means of force, annexed Zanzbar and the state was renamed Tanzania. Attempts were made to establish federations - the short-lived Mali Federation 1959-1960, later a Senegambian Federation. Many of the statesmen leading Africa in the years immediately following independence believed Africa to be economically underdeveloped, because the colonial powers, by withholding investment, had deliberately prevented the colonies development. Many also regarded colonialism a feature of capitalism and therefore leaned toward socialism. Democracy had only been introduced by the colonial powers in the last years of colonial rule; within a few years after independence, most states converted into one-party-states, into virtual dictatorships. Change of power rarely was the result of democratic election, more likely that of a coup d'etat. On the eve of colonialism, few universities had been established on the African continent; with independence came a wave of university foundations. A number of ambitious large scale projects were undertaken (with foreign firms getting the concessions) such as the Volta Dam in Ghana. African nations accumulated foreign debt. In 1960, prospects for newly independent African nations were not that bleak; prices for minerals and for oil were good, Nigerian oil production just beginning. Yet in the 1970es the prices for most minerals declined sharply (for instance for copper, main export of Zaire, Zambia, South West Africa), while the prices for industrial products rose, those for oil increased sharply. Now the African governments had high debt, low revenue, and were dependent on high-priced industrial products and oil. To make matters worse, protectionist policies prevented the African countries to export their agricultural produce to industrial nations. When Ronald Reagan became U.S. President, the U.S. raised interest rates sharply, forcing the African states to pay excessive amounts in interests. Many African states had to pay 50 % or more of their annual revenue in interest, and were unable to provide basic services, such as schooling; this matter only was addressed when the G8 decided to grant debt relief to African nations which applied budgetary discipline in 2005. When Nigeria was released into independence in 1960, the country had 42.7 million inhabitants; for 2000 the population was estimated at 123,3 million, a projection for 2005 145,6 million; these figures despite the Biafra Secession War 1967-1970. Most of Sub-Saharan Africa experiences rapid population growth, the expansion of farmland (which leads to erosion on a massive scale in Madagascar), the intensification of grazing (larger herds, diesel pumps) which results in using up the ground water, hence the Sahel Famine of 1972-1974, and desertification. Africa saw the emergence of new infectious diseases such as Ebola and AIDS; the states on the continent do not have the resources to effectively deal with such diseases. In many regions of Africa, the rates of HIV infections among the popultion are high; there are villages where the sexually active generation has died off, leaving the grandparents to care for the grandchildren. Students graduating from Africa's universities expected well-paid desk jobs, for instance in state administration; Africa lacked engineers, entrepreneurs. Trade barriers do their part in preventing African development - Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana produce cocoa; the chocolate factories are in Switzerland, Belgium, the U.S. etc. During the last decades, many African countries went through civil wars, not fought over ideological issues or who is in government, but over who controls mineral resources - Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola, Zaire/D.R. Congo etc. (Blood Diamonds). Children were forced into serving as soldiers. The World Bank set conditions for new credits and thus caused the introduction of multiparty democratic elections in many African countries (since the 1990es). Debt relief has given many African countries the chance to start new. An effort has been undertaken to make AIDS medication available to Africans at prices reflecting the cost of production. On the other hand, the countries of the west are often accued not to do enough for Africa - the non-interference in the Rwandan genocide 1994 being a prime example. |
|
EXTERNAL FILES |
| REFERENCE |
General History of Africa, published by Heinemann / UNESCO Vol.VI : Africa in the Nineteenth Century until the 1880es, edited by I.F. Ade Ajayi, 1989, 861 pp., KMLA Lib.Sign. 960.23 A 312a Vol.VII : Africa under Colonial Domination 1880-1935, edited by A. Adu Boahen, 1985, 865 pp., [G] Vol.VIII : Africa since 1935, edited by Ali A. Mazrui, (1993) 1999, 1044 pp., KMLA Lib.Sign. 960 M476g A.G. Hopkins, An Economic History of West Africa, NY : Columbia UP 1973, 337 pp. [G] J.F. Ade Ajayi and Ian Espie (ed.), A Thousand Years of West African History, Ibadan UP (1965) 1967, 543 pp. [G] John D. Hargreaves (ed.) : French West Africa, an Anthology of Historical Documents, MacMillan 1969, 278 pp. [G] Wilfred Cartey and Martin Kilson, The Africa Reader : Colonial Africa, NY : Vintage 1970, 266 pp. [G] John Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, Cambridge : UP (1979) 1987, 616 pp. [G] Harold G. Marcus, A History of Ethiopia, University of California Press 1994, 261 pp., KMLA Lib.Sign. 963 M322b Toyin Falola, The History of Nigeria, Greenwood 1999, 269 pp., KMLA Lib.Sign. 966.9 F198t Robert O. Collins, African History in Documents : Western African History, Markus Wiener 1997, 252 pp., KMLA Lib.Sign. 966 C712w; Eastern African History, Markus Wiener 1997, 244 pp., KMLA Lib.Sign. 967.6 C712e Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th edition, Macropædia, articles Central Africa (Vol.15 pp.612-653), Eastern Africa (Vol.17 pp.772-858), Southern Africa (Vol.27 pp.838-953), Western Africa (Vol.29) pp.790-916 |
|
Click here to go Home Click here to go to Information about KMLA, WHKMLA, the author and webmaster Click here to go to Statistics |
