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Music Music and Singing Music>> The West Coast of Africa looking today much as

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it did 100 years ago. At that time, the old evils of the slave trade had become

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a distant though disgraceful memory. But there now opened a new chapter of

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confrontation along these tropical shores. In past years, Europeans had come

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here for profitable business. Now they wanted more, much more. Old trading

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posts, like this one, had long been the scene of a partnership between maritime

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traders from Europe and local Africans.By the 1880s, that old partnership was

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being swept away in a dramatic change,the outcome of a new European drive for

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overseas empire. Industrialized countries led by France and Britain had begun to

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invade the black continent,each hoping for new sources of raw materials for its

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factories, new markets for its manufacturers, and new positions of advantage

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against its rivals. This was called the scramble for Africa. By 1914, only two

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countries remained outside European possession, Liberia in the west and Ethiopia

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in the east. Britain had seized the lion's share of control: Egypt and the Sudan

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in the north, the immense wealth of South Africa, valuable colonies like

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Rhodesia and Kenya, and richly populated territories such as Nigeria and the

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Gold Coast. France had invaded Algeria in the 1830s. Now after new wars of

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conquest, she added more colonies to her empire south of the Sahara, including

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the island of Madagascar.Little Portugal carved out of two vast colonies, Angola

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and Mozambique, while the imperial Germany took the Cameroons and southwest

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Africa, and on the East Coast Tanganyika. The vast Congo basin fell to King

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Leopold of the Belgians.Italy and Spain completed the enclosure. The fate of the

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continent was utterly changed. Between the colonizing powers themselves, the

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carve-up was peaceful.But their rivalry was intense. In 1884, a congress of the

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competing governments met in Berlin to settle their disputes. Germany's Iron

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Chancellor of Bismarck was there. And active behind the scenes was the ambitious

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Belgian king. He spoke for them all when he said, "I am determined to get my

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share of this magnificent African cake. Any power that could occupy African soil

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could effectively claim it."Music Now the task was to stake out frontiers in

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utterly uncharted land. Said the French prime minister, "We have embarked on a

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gigantic steeplechase into the unknown." The British Prime Minister Lord

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Salisbury was to say of this period,"We've been engaged in drawing lines on maps

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where no man's foot has ever trod.We've been giving away mountains and rivers

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and lakes to each other, only hindered by the small impediment that we never

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knew exactly where we were."Music The great game was to get hold of places and

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positions of advantage over rivals,no matter what irrational frontiers might

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result. One of the most absurd cases was the magnificent Gambia River. Britain

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had long held Bathurst, Banjul today,and was determined to keep this river route

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to the interior. But France,invading from the West Coast, enclosed all the

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territories surrounding the Gambia River in her new colony of Senegal. So the

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French was naturally eager to obtain the Gambia River. They offered Britain in

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exchange the much larger and richer Ivory Coast. But the British Parliament

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insisted on keeping the Gambia,thus dividing the peoples of the region. And the

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result and is a country that is 300 miles long but never more than 30 miles

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wide.Conversations Indistinct What the African inhabitants might think of this

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colonial carve-up was never asked. The European idea in the words of one British

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governor was to seize African territory and then as much as possible rule the

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country as if there were no inhabitants.Conversations Indistinct

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In fact, European contempt for Africans now reached new depths. And no wonder;

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for how otherwise and by asserting that Africans were helpless children, lazy

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savages could Christian Europe justify taking their countries away from them?

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Singing The helpless children meanwhile sang their own version of a famous hymn,

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"Onward, Christian soldiers. On to heathen lands. Prayer book in your pockets.

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Rifles in your hands. Take the happy tidings where trade can be done; spread the

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peaceful gospel with a Gatling gun.Music The European invasions were widely

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resisted. Conquest was never easy. And sometimes as these old drawings and

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photographs testify, conquests led to a ruthless killing that later generations

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would prefer to forget.Drums Resistance took many shapes. In French West

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Africa, a focal point was found in Muslim loyalties. Many heroes, still

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unforgotten, came on that scene. Some, like the Senegalese religious leader

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Amadou Bamba, offered the way of peace but was still sent into exile. Others,

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like the fierce warrior leader Samori, fought off

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French attack after attack and was crushed and exiled only after years of war.

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Death took many, strong or weak. With the skulls of earlier wars displayed in

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their capital, Kumasi, the powerful Ashanti nation ruled over most of modern

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Ghana. Led by their kings who had the title of Asantehene, they had long

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defended their country against Britain. But now they desperately wanted a

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peaceful settlement. In 1895, fearing a disastrous war with Britain, King

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Prempeh made a strong bid for peace from his palace here at Kumasi. He offered

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the British the right to establish in Ashanti a chartered company with all the

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concessions, the privilege that such a company could possibly desire. But it

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wasn't enough, for the British now wanted territorial possession as well as

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privilege.Gunfire The Ashanti nation had already fought long, hard battles

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against the British.But this time, in 1896, they decided to surrender.

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Gunfire In a ceremony of deliberate humiliation, the king was made to kiss the

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British commander's boot, and then sent into exile. But it wasn't the end of the

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story.The British now blundered. A new British governor, Sir Frederick Hodgson,

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decided that he had to get possession of the sacred golden stool, symbol of the

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Ashanti Nation's soul. Arriving at the British fort here in Kumasi, he ordered

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the assembled chiefs to hand the stool over. Worse still, he demanded the right

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to sit on it, something that no person had ever been allowed to do, not even the

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king himself.Gunfire To Hodgson's final insult, the Ashanti replied with war.

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This little fort at Kumasi is what the British had built, just in case, and now

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they sorely needed it. The few dozen British inmates of the fort were besieged

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for months, and had to eat rats to stay alive. Hodgson's act of folly had

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exacted a bitter price.Efforts to send in relief from the coast were repeatedly

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frustrated by Ashanti resistance, until finally, the governor and his wife got

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away to the coast, and the absurd but tragic affair could be closed. This ended

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war between Britain and Ashanti, and a year later, in 1901, the British quietly

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annexed the country,which became part of the colony of the Gold Coast. All over

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Africa, the new military technology of automatic guns gave easy victories to the

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invaders.Singing Background Singing Countless resisters died, many thousands at

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the single battle of Omdurman, in Britain's conquest of the Sudan. Meanwhile, in

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another part of the Sudan, the French were also scoring victories. For the most

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part, public opinion rejoiced, for were these not victories over an inferior

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species, a kind of joke humanity? There were some critics, but not many, and

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their voice was ignored or silenced. What really mattered was to do down one's

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European rivals:if you were British, to get the better of the French in West

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Africa, or of the Germans in East Africa, while orphans like little Uganda were

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left on the protective doorstep of Father John Bull. Even before 1900, there

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came a new source of conflict: settlers from Europe, French in the far north,

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Dutch, and then British in the far south, and some Germans. Other settlers were

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attracted to the good farming land of the east, to Tanganyika, northern and

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southern Rhodesia, and the British territories of Uganda and Kenya. Once again,

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nobody asked permission. An early French governor had laid down the Golden Rule:

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"Wherever good water and fertile land are found," he said, "settlers must be

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installed without questioning whose land it may be." The settlers, not

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surprisingly, agreed. The next step in East Africa was to build a railway from

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the coast to the interior. The line was completed in 1901, and millions of acres

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of good farming land in Kenya were opened to white ownership and settlement for

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the buying price of next to nothing. These white strangers, oddly enough, were

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at first welcomed by the African inhabitants. But the welcome didn't last for

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long, for they soon discovered that colonial government wanted them to give

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things, above all their land, and their labor. These colonial demands provoked a

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repeated resistance. And against that resistance, the colonial government, with

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white settlers arriving in ever larger numbers from Britain, waged a war with

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little mercy, and of course with rifles and machine guns against spears and

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arrows.Drums This beating down of a sometimes violent and desperate African

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protest was called pacification, or less politely, hammering. A British officer

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then fighting in Kenya kept a sadly instructive diary.

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>> "Marched into Fort Hall, and the expedition comes to an end. To my mind, the

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people of the Embu have not been sufficiently hammered, and I should like to go

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back at once and have another go at them. During the first phase of our

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expedition against the Iriani, we killed 797 niggers, and during the second

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phase, against the Embu, we killed about 250.">> There was, in fact, much more

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of the same thing. In a sixth campaign against the Kenya Nandi, for example,

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British troops reported killing 1117 people,besides seizing all their

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livestock. In 1906, a junior British minister in London cabled this protest: "

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Surely it cannot be necessary to go on killing these defenseless people on such

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an enormous scale." The minister's name was Winston Churchill, but on that

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occasion, his intervention had no effect.Music By 1915, about four million acres

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of African farming land in central Kenya had been given to about one thousand

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British settlers. By the 1920s, about half of the able-bodied men of Kenya's two

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largest founding peoples, the Kikuyu and the Luhya, were working as laborers for

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British newcomers. How was that done? The answer, once again, was something new

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in Kenya: taxation. To cultivate these splendid acres, it was necessary to make

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Africans pay taxes in cash. Having no money economy of their own, Africans could

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pay tax in cash only if they went to work for a European wage. An old Masai

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recalls those early days. The Masai proved particularly good at dodging the

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payment of the new taxes, so the colonial government thought it should send some

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of these apparently idle warriors to school, so as to turn them, if possible,

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into tax collectors among their own people. Small boys were seized for this

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purpose. On the other side of the continent, in northern Nigeria, the colonial

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scene was very different. With no white settlers, life was peaceful. Things

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continued much as before. The British had conquered this huge region far from

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the sea for no real reason other than to keep it from the French, so the British

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were content with a supervision which allowed them to take a back seat. Under

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the direction of Lord Lugard, this was called indirect rule. This was the

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residence of the British official who governed the northern Nigerian province of

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Kano. Indirect rule meant ruling through local kings, in this case the local

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emir, who, after defeat, accepted British over lordship on condition that

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nothing was done to modernize or democratize the conquered system. Indirect rule

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was cheap and highly effective.Local kings and princes kept the peace and law

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and order, in their own interest as well as in that of the British. Both sides,

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at the top, had much to gain. So kings like this one, the Emir of Katsina, were

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able to stay in power and even add to their personal privileges. They were able

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to call on their own local retainers to govern the everyday affairs of the

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country.Music In this way, the native governing class, as the doctrine said, was

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to remain a real living force, as well as being a curious and interesting

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pageantry.Chanting>> The ceremonies are the same as a thousand years ago. There

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were kings in northern Nigeria when Richard Lionheart set out on crusade.

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Today, he and all the emirs of northern Nigeria play their part as subjects of

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the king of England, but their subjects still show their loyalty as in the days

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when Katsina was warring with her neighbors.Horn Katsina still keeps her way of

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life, still resists new influences from the world

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outside.>> In short, no modernization of any kind, and therefore, big problems

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for the future. I talked to Nigerian Professor Obaro Ikime.

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>> For the larger part of Nigeria, British rule did not mean anything, for many

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years. In other words, although at the centers of administration there was a

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change which could be seen by the people and felt by the people. In the outlying

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areas, life went on as if the British did not exist. If you take a look at one

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particular area, the north, for example, the seat of the emir, and the seats of

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the district heads, may have felt the immediate impact of the British presence,

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but the villages were ordered and run just as before, with one important

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difference, though, taxation, that the people had to pay tax to a new power. The

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British built up a corps of Africans, who became known as native administrators,

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developed some commitment to the system. The salaries were comfortable. They had

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power, which they used to enrich themselves at the expense of their followers

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and their subjects. Consequently, the British were able to succeed largely by

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developing a corps of people who became partners with them.

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>> British officers, headed by a resident, are there in every emirate to advise

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and assist the emir and his ministers in their day-to-day work. And each month,

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the resident presides at a full meeting with the emir's council. There may be

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words from Nigeria's governor in Lagos, or from the colonial office in London.

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Or the council may discuss the repatriation of pilgrims from Mecca. The dignity

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of the past, the traditions of Katsina are present in the council chamber.

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>> Here once more, this time behind polite words, was the essence of colonial

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paternalism.Music In the French colonies along the coast, the scene was both the

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same and different. Dakar, capital of Senegal, actually the little suburb of

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Rufisque, a charmingly nostalgic place. Senegal was France's oldest colony in

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tropical Africa, and one where the French presence, like that of the British in

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northern Nigeria, could easily be absorbed. Generally, the French ran their

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colonies on much the same system as the British. But there was one important

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difference. The British thought that their Africans could never become anything

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but Africans,and certainly not British. The French idea, on the contrary, was

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that in the end, at some distant time, all their Africans would become black

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Frenchmen. The culture and the language of France were offered as the eventual

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supreme blessings. This idea was called assimilation. Originally, this was a

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generous idea, but colonial rule reduced it to little or nothing. Yet in four

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municipalities of coastal Senegal, assimilation did take effect. This

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picturesque island of Goree, just off the port of Dakar, was one. Here you could

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go to school, and even become a French citizen. But you belonged to a tiny

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minority. By 1926, only 48,000 Senegalese had become assimilated, out of a total

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of one and a half million. The Senegalese historian Professor Cheikh Anta Diop

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explains. One man from Goree Island who did make it, and carved out for himself

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a brilliant career, was Blaise Diagne. Of humble origins, Diagne became the

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first black man to be elected to the French national parliament in Paris. He

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campaigned for black rights, and began to win concessions. That was in 1914.

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Music During the First World War, an embattled France called for tens of

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thousands of African troops, as Flanders swallowed its victims. Blaise Diagne

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agreed to be France's recruiting sergeant, and his African reputation vanished

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in the slaughter. France had long relied on African mercenaries, even as far

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back as the Crimean War, but now it was different, in scale and in suffering.

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More than 200,000 African troops, mostly conscripts, were sent to France, and at

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least 170,000 were thrown into the Holocaust of the trenches.

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Music Thousands never came home. Others returned with an experience that

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survivors have still not forgotten. Shoulder to shoulder, white men and black

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men, equal in the trenches. Were they now to become equal in the colonies? Only

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the monuments suggested that. With the coming of peace in 1918, the victorious

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colonial systems looked more strongly entrenched than ever before, though

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military rule now gave way to civilian government. This led to a far more

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thorough system of tax collection, to pay for the government. The linchpin of

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the British system as the District Officer.>> I'm the District Officer in this

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particular area. The native authority treasurer sends his figures to me for

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checking against last year's. When it's decided what the tax is to be this

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year, I go up to tell the chiefs and people what they're to pay, and why. That's

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my wife. I spend so much time doing the rounds that if she didn't come, we

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wouldn't see much of each other. We take our beds and everything else, as the

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rest huts where we spend the nights have no furniture. You know, we're very

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ordinary people, but the pagans still find us a bit of a puzzle with our fuss

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and bother. That's the local chief. We ask news of

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the crops and the children.Music It's like sitting in a shop window. We come

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here every year, and follow the same ritual, but they always behave as though it

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was the first time. Peace is all very well, but it is dull, and they love a bit

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of variety.>> Many colonial officials were good, practical, hardworking people

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devoted to their ideals. They were sure that the strong paternal arm of colonial

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rule must be a blessing for Africans, and would have to be continued for

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centuries. They firmly believed that if left to themselves, Africans would

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simply go on living as before, and that, they thought, would be a thoroughly bad

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thing. An old film tells the story as the colonial officials saw it.

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>> Background Music This simple life under the hot African sky was once a life

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of fear and uncertainty. British rule has brought peace. The enterprise of

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European officials and settlers, and of Indian traders, has opened up the

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country. But there is still a long battle to be fought with ignorance, poverty,

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and disease. In these lands, where there are so many changes to be made, much

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can be achieved by money, and the initiative of the white man.

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>> In the more favored colonies, those were the hopes of the 1920s, and in some

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respects they were fulfilled. There came the founding of the first modern

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hospitals, veterinary services, and other benefits of Western life. But all the

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money to pay for these good things had to come from Africans, so there now began

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a drive for the export of crops to yield cash. The cash crop era got into its

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stride. Groundnuts, as here in Senegal, were a crop that brought cash to farmers

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and to colonial purchasing companies. But the cash crops' success also brought

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problems. So long as their crops were bought, African growers could be

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reasonably content. But in 1929, there began the huge and long disaster of the

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world Depression, and prices collapsed. Food production for local people,

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already badly hit because of land taken for cash crops, became a subject of

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major crisis. What is true of the French Empire was just as true of all the

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others. Here in the Gold Coast, the big cash crop was cocoa, providing the bulk

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of the colony's exports. The crop was grown and harvested entirely by African

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farmers, who had to sell it to British and other foreign buying companies. These

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companies banded together so as to pay the farmers an artificially low price.

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The farmers of Ghana, then the Gold Coast, nonetheless worked so well that they

264
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became the world's biggest producers of cocoa, and so of chocolate, which

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Africans didn't eat. But the gains were far from equally shared. The Ghanaian

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historian, Professor Adu Boahen.>> There's no doubt at all that the farmers were

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being cheated. The prices that were being paid for the cocoa bore no

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relationship to the prices that we had to pay for the imported goods. We had no

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say in the pricing of our own commodities.We had no say in what we paid for what

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was imported. This was in fact one of the greatest indictments against the

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colonial economic policies, the fact that so much emphasis was placed on a

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single cash crop. And we had to import rice. We had to import oil, palm oil, and

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so on, you know, to feed ourselves, because so much emphasis and so much

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attention was paid to this single cash crop, cocoa.

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The colonial governors were just concerned with obtaining raw materials to feed

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their factories abroad.>> The raw materials were produced by the skill and

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enterprise of hard-working African men and women, yet the advertisements in

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Europe, deeply racist by this time, presented an insultingly different picture.

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At the same time, African businessmen found that the trading positions they had

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established in earlier times were now swept away.>> There's no doubt at all that

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before the colonial period, Africans were playing a far more important and

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dominant role in the economy than during the colonial period, with many of them

283
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running their own import/export business. In the 1920s and 1930s, all these

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African merchant princes eventually disappeared from the field, because the dice

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were so much loaded against them under the colonial system. The banks were

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discriminating against them in the granting of loans. The export trade firms and

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particularly the inaudible firms were undercutting them. And they just could not

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stand the challenge, and therefore many of them simply ran out of business. And

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the children of these great merchant princes now became the employees of the

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great African capitalist companies like UEC, UTC, SUA and so on.

291
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>> Colonial trading companies, British, French, Belgian, Portuguese, monopolized

292
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wholesale business with the full backing of their colonial governments. What

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King Leopold had called "this magnificent African cake" was beginning to yield

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its riches. Often those were painful days, but they have to be recalled by

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anyone who wishes to understand the problems of Africa now. The turmoil of today

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in the Congo, or Zaire, has its roots in the infamous Congo Free State of King

297
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Leopold. Here the emphasis was on the growing of rubber, and the methods used to

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extract it were no better than a reign of terror. Local people were forced to

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collect rubber under the most cruel conditions, as these old photographs show.

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If the rubber they collected was poor, or small in quantity, men, and sometimes

301
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women too, could expect to lose a hand or foot in punishment. Terrible things

302
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were done. An official British fact-finding commission reported, "The daily

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agony of an entire people unrolled itself in all its repulsive, terrifying

304
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details." Public opinion in Europe grew horrified. Gradually, the agonies were

305
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reduced. Yet huge damage had been done, moral as well as physical, and was going

306
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to cast a dark and violent shadow over the future of the Congo. Forced labor by

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the 1920s was practiced on a wide scale in most of the colonies. All early roads

308
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and railways were built by forced labor. Much was achieved, but the cost in life

309
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and health was sometimes catastrophic. This spectacular railway in French

310
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Equatorial Africa was built by 125,000 Africans to link the coast with

311
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Brazzaville, the inland capital. Beyond doubt, a great feat of engineering, but

312
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before a single passenger could travel on it, nearly 14,000 Africans were to die

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in building it. Travel in comfort came at a price. By the 1920s, the colonial

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railway map was complete. These lines had one central purpose: to ensure the

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export of minerals and other wealth, most of all from Southern Africa. European

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mining activity for gold, copper, zinc, diamonds transformed Southern Africa,

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thanks again to African labor, acquired by the usual procedure of administrative

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force and taxation. Conditions were hard to bear. Some 30,000 Africans died in

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Southern Rhodesian mines between 1904 and 1933, mostly of disease. And wages at

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the end of that period were lower than they'd been at the start. This labor

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system was called chibaro. Very old men can still remember it. Gold mining

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boomed. In those years of chibaro, the Southern Rhodesian mining industry

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produced gold worth 87 million pounds sterling, at the cost of 20 dead African

324
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miners each week, on average, for 30 years. Just as in the bigger mines of South

325
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Africa, living conditions for miners were appalling. Safety provisions were

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primitive. Discipline was often brutal, healthcare almost nonexistent. Prison

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labor was used whenever available, and that was often, and child labor too.

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After 1930, the whole labor system in large regions had come to depend on people

329
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having to abandon their villages and go far away to work in colonial mines or on

330
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plantations. This was called migrant labor, a huge upheaval which soon began to

331
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destroy the old stabilities of rural Africa. An official British committee in

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1935 reported that the old order of society was being completely undermined by

333
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migrant labor. The years ahead were going to confirm it. But it was in the

334
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Portuguese colonies, especially Angola and Mozambique, that forced labor was at

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its worst. Here in Mozambique, and by brutal methods, African farmers were

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forced to grow cotton and to sell it at prices fixed by the colonial government,

337
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prices kept so low that the farmers used to say of the cotton that they were

338
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forced to grow, that cotton was the mother of poverty.

339
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Singing The raw cotton was sent to textile factories in Portugal, and returned

340
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in the form of shirts for Africans to buy. All the profits were Portuguese. The

341
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more the farmers learned to hate cotton, the more they were forced to grow it,

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on pain of severe punishment.Singing The farmers in this old film had no legal

343
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means of protest, but they could express their anger by singing anti-colonial

344
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songs in their own language. There seemed, then, no way out, no hope ahead. And

345
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before long, the same disaster struck here as elsewhere. Food crops

346
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disappeared, and once-prosperous areas were hit by famine.

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Music In spite of African suffering, settlers arrived in growing numbers. Some

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were political exiles from the Portuguese dictatorship. Many were poor people,

349
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hoping for a better life. Sent out to be farmers, most preferred the easier life

350
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of the towns. They opened shops and businesses, and aimed at the success which

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had eluded them at home. This actually suited the official colonial doctrine.

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The Portuguese dictator, Marcelo Caetano, laid it down in plain words:"The

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blacks are to be organized and enclosed," he said, "in an economy directed by

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whites."Music Mass resistance was to develop later, but already even the poorest

355
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and least educated Africans could see that colonial rule had much more to take

356
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than to give. Whatever good may have come from colonial rule, has to be

357
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measured,unfortunately, against the essential aims of each of the colonial

358
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systems. These aims were frankly stated: They were to extract wealth. We've

359
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looked at some of the ways in which wealth was extracted, by the use of forced

360
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or cheap labor, by the seizure of land, by the incessant pressure on growing

361
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crops for export,rather than crops for local food needs, and always, by the

362
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deliberate treatment of Africans as inferior beings. Whatever appearances might

363
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suggest, Africans in fact were no longer prepared to accept their permanently

364
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inferior status. All over the continent, the first signs of a new political

365
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dissent had already begun to appear. In the 1920s, for example, was the protest

366
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action of Harry Thuku in Kenya. At the same time, with Casely Hayford and his

367
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companions in British West Africa. And perhaps above all, with Herbert

368
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Macaulay, often called the father of Nigerian nationalism. But their demands

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were small.>> Some of these inaudible were completely taken in by the British

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system, which they thought was a good thing, and that we should become part of

371
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that good thing. The real pressure was for the British to become a bit more

372
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liberal.>> During the 1930s, and notably with the rise to prominence of the

373
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firey but very effective Nigerian nationalist, Nnamdi Azikiwe, much stronger and

374
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more far-reaching demands began to be made. Men like Azikiwe used the press

375
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where this was possible, as it was in British West Africa. They now sought a

376
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mass audience. Politics moved out of polite drawing rooms into the clamor of the

377
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streets.>> So the resistance movement took many forms and it was not confined

378
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only to the elite, as some people tend to think. In fact it was also evident in

379
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the rural area, and even among the ordinary farmers and the ordinary workers.

380
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>> One form of mass resistance took shape in a big cocoa hold-up, in the Gold

381
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Coast, when farmers demanded fairer prices. Once again, the press could be used

382
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to good effect.>> But unfortunately, in the 1930s there was never any

383
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coordination between the protests of the rural folk and the farmers, and the

384
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protests being organized by the elite. And this is why the resistance movement

385
00:49:56,359 --> 00:50:02,989
was not very successful.>> But now, in 1935, came a new and savage challenge to

386
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African hopes of progress: another colonial invasion, Fascist Italy's brutal

387
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assault on Ethiopia,then called Abyssinia.>> No power on earth now seems able to

388
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hold up Italy's sweeping advance across Abyssinia's rain-swept mountains. Now

389
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Dessie has been captured. From there a direct road leads to Addis Ababa, so

390
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perhaps it's only a question of time as to when the victorious Italian troops

391
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will march into the capital, and the emperor will have to sue for peace.

392
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>> With the colonial powers sounding quite pleased about this invasion, Italy's

393
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armies pushed on, against afar weaker adversary, explosions and bombed and

394
00:50:42,569 --> 00:50:50,239
shelled their way to success. But Africans were outraged.

395
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>> For the first time, the blacks all over the world, not even Africa alone, but

396
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the blacks all over the world felt that they have been attacked. You know,

397
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Ethiopia and Liberia, were the only two countries in Africa that were able to

398
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maintain their sovereign existence during the period of the scramble and the

399
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occupation of the continent by the imperial powers. And Ethiopia therefore

400
00:51:17,309 --> 00:51:21,519
became the symbol of hope, not only for Africa but for all the black people all

401
00:51:21,539 --> 00:51:28,500
over. Ethiopia was looked upon as the symbol of the revival and the regaining of

402
00:51:28,519 --> 00:51:33,170
the independence and sovereignty of Africa. And therefore when this invasion

403
00:51:33,190 --> 00:51:42,329
took place, it meant the complete snuffing out of this last beam of hope.

404
00:51:42,349 --> 00:51:47,829
>> Italy's troops entered Addis Ababa, capital of a now subjected Ethiopia, and

405
00:51:47,849 --> 00:51:54,609
still there came no more than verbal protest from outside powers. Yet Ethiopia's

406
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defeat, painfully confirmed when her people laid down their arms, sent out a

407
00:51:59,500 --> 00:52:06,579
call for action to Africans everywhere.>> Indeed for some of us, 1935 now is

408
00:52:06,599 --> 00:52:12,989
being considered as the more appropriate date for the beginning of the modern

409
00:52:13,009 --> 00:52:20,710
nationalist period of African history,rather than 1939, or even 1945. Because we

410
00:52:20,730 --> 00:52:25,940
believe that, but for the breakout of the, outbreak of the Second World War, in

411
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1939, probably the struggle for independence would have begun from 1935, as a

412
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result of the indignation, as a result of the anger, as a result of the

413
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emotions, as a result of the strong feelings of anti-imperialism that were

414
00:52:44,769 --> 00:52:51,029
aroused by the Italian invasion of Ethiopia.>> Those feelings were aroused above

415
00:52:51,049 --> 00:52:56,829
all among the few who could win a modern education at schools like this one:

416
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Achimota in the Gold Coast, where Kwame Nkrumah, future leader of the country's

417
00:53:01,299 --> 00:53:06,639
independence movement had been a student. Young people began to read whatever

418
00:53:06,659 --> 00:53:11,230
anti-colonial newspapers they could find. Even in the midst of discouraging

419
00:53:11,250 --> 00:53:19,480
years, hope flourished afresh. A new generation of educated Africans, some of

420
00:53:19,500 --> 00:53:24,949
them trained here at Achimota, was reaching maturity. And then came the

421
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tremendous upheavals of the Second World War, surging with revolutionary force

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through the entire colonial world. By 1945, as we shall see in our next

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program, the scene was set for great dramas in a struggle for independence.

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Music