Big dream, big hope; it was a very
romantic period. This year 17 African
nations mark 50 years of independence
from decades of European colonialism; one
continent hungry for another's riches.
European imperialism in Africa set up
the continent to be raped, its resources
just sucked out. The dreams of the
independence era were to be short-lived.
The initial euphoria disappeared very
very quickly within a year, two years.
This is a story of mass exploitation of
the ecstasy of independence and of how
with liberation, a new scrabble for
resources was born.
Whether in bustling cities or remote
villages, the 1880s and 90's were years
of terrifying upheaval in Africa. People
were killed. Villages were destroyed.
Critical systems were completely
destroyed. Leaders were arrested put in
jail. Fleet upon fleet of foreign
soldiers armed with new weaponry and a
sense of entitlement descended as if
overnight. That was traumatizing. This
was a face of their European trading
partners people had rarely seen. United
in their cause but divided in their
efforts, armed resistance failed. In the
space of just 20 years, 90% of Africa was
brought under European occupation. Europe
had captured a continent. Gunboat
diplomacy: in many instances the British
did not actually have to go to war. Just
the threats of war, the fact that they're
all this big powerful guns was enough to
force the local chiefs to design a
treaty. All this because of massive sea
changes, not in Africa itself but in
Europe
which was in the throes of the
Industrial Revolution. The advent of the
machine was transforming the continent
into the workshop of the world; a
workshop in need of raw materials. Ham
and peanut oil would literally grease
the engines of the revolution. Modern
transportation would need rubber for
tires. And Europe's prosperous middle
classes now demanded luxuries from
overseas. This was the dawn of industrial
scale production, modern capitalist
economies, and mass international trade.
Thanks to a generation of explorers and
traders, the great powers knew what
riches lay in Africa. Britain and France
already controlled most of the
continents ports.
They had diamonds and coal, had
lots of things. They had cocoa they had
lots of things that that Europe needed.
But in the new industrial era the value
of Africa rocketed not only for
materials and strategic trade route but
also as a market for the goods it now
produced in bulk. Africa was an
opportunity.
The Africans wanted to trade right from
the word go.
They wanted to sell their labor.
From from Malawi and Northern Rhodesia,
they used to go down into South Africa.
You had a movement of people people
wanted to learn. They wanted to meet each
other and and and and so it was a
natural thing that the outside world
should get involved with Africa. But the
Scramble for Africa wasn't just about
economics. Colonialism had become the
fast track to political supremacy in
Europe. Britannia may have ruled the
waves but Germany was rising after
victory in the Franco-Prussian war.
Meanwhile the defeated French Empire
sought to regain its glory and a new
unified Italy was also growing in
strength.
Europe was a continent in the ascendancy
whose nations were vying for supremacy.
And back in Africa, the competing
imperial armies were pushing inland. And
this looked set to bring them into major
confrontation.
the rival powers convened around a
conference table in the German capital
and in February 1885 signed the act of
Berlin an agreement to abolish slavery
and allow free trade but the act also
drew new borders on the map of Africa
awarding territory to each European
power and turning trading partners into
subjects of Empire it legalized the
Scramble for Africa what it did was it
carved up what were between what a
thought to have been about between six
and ten thousand political units in
Africa and they were then carved up
often cutting peoples in half water
tables just sort of cut off from their
resources it was just it was complete
geographical madness simply drew lines
on the map places where they had not
even been yet they had no idea what was
there Africans were not aware that there
were conferences be organized in Berlin
to determine about them now they did not
know about it they only saw the
consequences but the governments of
Europe were at pains to stress that
therefore raised in to Africa were just
the product of vested interest the
beneath train tracks and shipping lanes
lay a moral justification which caught
the public imagination and they
justified it by saying that they were
bringing civilization and Christianity
to these belated primitive
people a white man's burden beautiful
language so the European politician and
the petition of colonialism to explain
to their people why should we send our
children to tom cam the gulf of tonkin
to Vietnam why should we send them to
die in the malaria infested part of
Algeria or black Africa and so on white
man's burden we have to bring
the light a partnership with the church
in Africa offered the colonialists an
insight into living conditions and the
social services that would be expected
of a supposedly benevolent Empire but it
also delivered a moral pretext Europe
had long harbored an image of the Dark
Continent wild exotic and in need of
enlightenment the Christian missionaries
and for many colonialists their project
was a humanitarian one I didn't see the
colonial service as racist after all I'd
come across real racism in Southern
Rhodesia and South Africa well when I
was at school in South Africa I had no
African friends there was no contact
between white people living in South
Africa at that time and African people
on a basis of equality it was all master
and servant and this was that these were
the days of apartheid I just could not
accept the idea that every white man was
superior to every black man I knew that
this was just nonsense it cannot
dominate the people without giving him a
sense of inferiority racism is part of
the colonial system white supremacy was
an exercise wasn't practiced in all the
colonies as far as I was concerned being
able to get into the colonial service
was exactly what I wanted because I I
thought and I knew that the British
government had the right idea towards
Africa and Africans and I wanted to have
a normal relationship because I loved
Africa black men and white men were not
equal even if there were all citizens
there was a limit as Africa was brought
under colonial rule the Lions itched on
the map Matt Berlin were now drawn on
the
around between them Britain and France
had the lion's share of territory among
Britain's colonies were key ports in
Egypt the Gold Coast now Ghana and
Nigeria and settler colonies in Zimbabwe
and South Africa
excluding Libya France controlled the
rest of para big speaking North Africa
as well as large Federation's in West
and Central Africa
Belgium had taken the vast Congo
colonies taken by Spain Italy Portugal
and Germany were relatively few and only
Ethiopia and Liberia remained autonomous
was difficult to explain how people made
so much money in the slave trade the
bourgeois parts of bill of England or
France and so on for hundreds of years
they invested in it suddenly found that
it's what we are doing is despicable
something happened
you only can explain that because
imperatives have changed they wanted now
to have access to the resources the 19th
century abolition of slavery in Africa
failed to bring freedom instead once
colonial armies had expelled the slave
traders people began to realize they
simply had new masters to serve gold and
diamonds cocoa ivory rubber and cotton
intensive exploitation swept through the
continent as Africa delivered on its
promises of untold riches bound for the
dockyards of Europe by the end of the
19th century it had helped crown Britain
the powerhouse of manufacturing with a
massive share of world exports half of
all cotton goods and 80% of all clothing
the French built their business plan on
to materials crucial to industrial
Europe groundnut and cotton but in
colonizing the Sahara and Staffing an
elaborate administration they struggled
to see profits
France didn't simply want to rule an
area they wanted to assimilate a
population African towns were remodeled
to replicate dijon or Marseille and the
more French a person became the better
their chances in life it was an attitude
to Africans that they were proud of but
even the gift of citizenship wasn't
quite what it seemed I remember I come
from a family in which we don't speak
French but when I went to the elementary
school we had to learn French so during
the first year to be honest with you we
just remain quiet
we learn how to recite the alphabet and
bit by bit we'll learn some French word
because it was forbidden to speak a
modern language
the French ideal of cultural
assimilation proved grossly misjudged
the colonies were founded by French
military men to the exclusion of
existing leaders their heavy-handed rule
often created grievances among African
subjects but remote communities in
places like Chad were able to evade the
daily influence of French rule
altogether only in Senegal the seat of
French West Africa did a privileged few
find a political voice if the goal of
building France in Africa succeeded in
bricks and mortar it largely failed in
hearts and minds the contact was a
contact of inequality in other words we
were made to believe as if we had no
civilization no culture that was very
traumatizing indeed
while the British rejected the French
policy of cultural colonisation it still
often happened in practice for my
father's generation the the relationship
with England was completely uncritical
uncomplicated
they they went to church they had the
British education they loved Shakespeare
they listened to the BBC World Service
and they were just they spoke English
with Eclipse actually English accent and
they referred to England as a mother
country even though very few of them
actually had the opportunity to travel
to England aside from the settlers
States most British colonies saw only a
small clique of British officials
installed main part of the job was to go
out on village to village touring and
you'd you'd go with the chief
you'd have meetings at villages with the
village headman you'd ask them if there
were problems you just look at their
crops you'd you talk about road
development or a dam or whatever you
kept in close touch with the people and
incidentally you would speak to them in
their own language it was terribly
important to learn the local language as
quickly as possible
the British mainly took in direct
control by appointing local leaders to
manage the colonial mission but ruling
by proxy created huge variations in
practice and fostered emiti between
tribes and ultimately African leaders
working for the British lacked
credibility in the eyes of the people
when the white administrator in his
Bentley or anniversary boys with the
Union Jack appears there is no question
there are no two so there are no two
sources of authority there is only one
authority it is authority of the king or
the queen one man at the conference of
Berlin walked away with his own private
colony and showed what colonialism
looked like at it's very worst
king leopold ii of belgium had
originally founded a committee to
civilize africa convincing the berlin
delegates that he merited
a territory 2.3 million square meters in
size the congo free state but instead of
improving the congo his 23 year reign
was so brutal that the population halved
while Leopold and his men amassed huge
personal fortunes men women and children
were forced to collect huge quotas of
rubber for export those considered
work-shy could face a punishment of hand
amputation or worse Dunlop's invention
of the pneumatic tyre in 1888 increased
the price of rubber the profits of
Leopold and the misery inflicted by his
men when you look at Congo under King
Leopold you realized the whole imperial
venture in Africa
could have been a great deal worse I
mean that was just pure looting and
Africans who didn't allow themselves to
be enslaved were just killed by 1903
reports of atrocities compiled by
Christian missionaries and British
envoy's reached the world press Leopold
was exposed but it took another five
years for the Belgian government to
finally repossess the Congo from Leopold
amid a state cover-up the British the
French the Germans the before 1918 of
course the Belgian used taxation the use
false labor for their enterprises for it
was the same practice of almost ever
from the point of view of the African
there was a unity in the colonial system
the imposition of European rule was at
best a bittersweet encounter
in many places rapid development came at
the expense of personal freedoms
development designed to help the
European project as much as to help
African society wards were built
planned by the European the French were
the British are the Belgians does not
matter words were built schools were
built with the taxation imposed upon the
people colonisation is always a system
of high planning but the planning is not
done democratically the planning is
imposed by the Masters all the
infrastructure that they built the
railways and the roads were travelling
from mines or plantations to the port it
was about sucking Africa's wealth out of
it and you can contrast that with India
say where actually it the the railways
and roads linked up towns if India was
linked up internally but in Africa it
was about getting the resources out may
have delayed conflict in Europe but it
couldn't prevent it the outbreak of
World War one in 1914 pull the hammer
things to make the ultimate sacrifice
for their mother country even if they
had never set foot on its soil at least
165 thousand Africans are thought to
have died in the fighting and in the
Second World War France and Britain's
dependency on African troops peaked at
around half a million men
the plunder Africa's Human Resources had
caught up with the plunder of the earth
younger people from my generation were
drafted to go to Vietnam the 14th France
began de nasi again the Germans the
fortunate junior in Tunisia against the
liberation movement there
there was no choice but to do it tens of
thousands indeed of Africans of all
confession Christians non-christians
Muslims Arabs and blacks for the goal
the leader of free France their show of
loyalty would not go unrecognized after
World War two the way reforms in the
colonial system the French began to
introducing the constitution of 1945 and
1946 the idea of extension of
citizenship to all people regardless of
his or level of education the British
began to appoint Africans to the
Assemblies in the respective colonies
and so on but it was too late to buy
loyalty to the Empire war had released a
powerful genie from a bottle African
nationalism World War two was a turning
point in terms of the relationship
between all the colonized people of
Africa Asia the Middle East and Europe
because World War two destroyed
systematically the invincibility of the
Europeans they suddenly found that this
white people who back home in Nigeria
they had sometimes they fight you know
they basically lived completely
unequaled unequal existences and
suddenly they found him in places like
Burma but they were just human as anyone
else they were brave there were cowards
they did everything any human being did
and when they went back to Africa my
father's generation quite a few of them
became really politicized and
two part in the struggle that ultimately
culminated in independence Africans were
about to get a global platform for their
struggle with the war's end in 1945 the
world powers pledged never again in the
form of the United Nations the new UN
Charter explicitly promised self
sovereignty with a committee dedicated
to hear the grievances of colonized
peoples throughout the 1930s an economic
depression had loomed over Europe and
the running costs of colonial
administrations had soared since the
start of the war at the same time
Europe's economic crisis devalued the
prices of Africa's War Goods war-torn
economies now buckled under the burden
of running colonies overseas the driver
of colonialism once again became a
catalyst for change money Britain was
bankrupt after the Second World War and
it simply couldn't afford to go on
running them my grandfather was then
working in the Gold Coast and he was
sending rice and ground nuts back to his
four sons in Britain and they write
pathetically grateful letters thank you
for sending us this food and I think the
irony of that is amazing
Africa feeding very hungry Britain but
even as late as the 1950s many in Europe
allowed themselves to believe the Empire
could endure
instead the colonial powers were about
to discover that exposing their subjects
to world events had planted the seeds of
their own rapid downfall the European
being in the position of power had one
yardstick
he didn't use anybody else's yardstick
his yard stick was the yardstick but
what has happened and most Europeans
don't realize it time has changed with
this new sense of dignity and this new
sense of self-respect a new Negro came
into being with a new determination to
suffer to struggle to sacrifice and even
to die if necessary in order to be free
and as the people in Africa and Asia get
some power of their own they get a mind
of their own the European yardstick now
isn't necessarily the yard today the
Negro came to feel that he was somebody
grace had emerged as the touchstone of
the post-war world by the 1950s colonial
raw had produced an elite of African
nationalist intellectuals and behind
them large urbanized and literate
working classes
together they witnessed the power of
nationalism in Egypt where Gamal Abdel
Nasser expelled the British and in
Algeria where the resistance stood firm
in its war of liberation from France
at the same time the presence of the
United Nations the rise of the civil
rights movement in the United States and
the nascent anti-apartheid movement
focused the lens of world scrutiny on
black rights and spurred on colonized
Africans in their core for self
sovereignty
I'm happy to say that in accordance with
your wishes arrangements are now in
progress
Ghana is free in 1957 Ghana became the
first sub-saharan state to be granted
independence by transfer of power to
Kwame Nkrumah widely considered the
father of African nationalism
it was impressed by the United States he
was a student here the more candid sums
extraordinary said the church in
colonies instead of each one becoming
independent they came together created
Union power is in the Union that is
lucuma
explained American Dream and American
realization and so on so he dreamed for
something like that in Africa
and kuma had inspired others with his
vision of a united states of Africa
men like Leopold Singh you're in Senegal
Felix Hobart Wang Yi in Cote d'Ivoire
and Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya men who had
received colonial education with the
idea of Empire increasingly unpalatable
to the vote in public European
government had little choice but to work
with the Nationalists there was an
indifference at this stage towards the
Empire towards the colonies and I found
that really rather depressing you know
you'd start trying to talk about it in
the pub and people say oh I should have
another drink or something
there was just this this idea that that
colonialism is is wrong and and needs to
be got rid of the pressure for wholesale
decolonization had been building ever
since the end of the Second World War
the tipping point came on Wednesday the
3rd of February 1960 whether we like it
or not this growth British Prime
Minister Harold Macmillan delivered a
warning shot to the whites of apartheid
South Africa and a deathblow to the
colonial venture across the continent
that signaled to my mind the idea that
Britain disapproved and the world
disapproved of apartheid and the racism
of apartheid but it didn't necessarily
mean that we were giving up on our role
in Africa I didn't think so
in fact within 10 months of the wind of
change speech Britain had surrendered to
keep African
trees France 14 the rate of the
colonization when it arrived was
breathtaking
many were freed without bloodshed 1960
was held the year of Africa and hurried
withdrawals of the colonial powers
continued into the next three decades
the transference power did not indicate
that the Europeans suddenly realized
that well it's time to give independence
to the natives of Africa Asia no it is
in view of the possibility of
large-scale war to sub-saharan Africa
that the first understood that was
better to prepare to negotiate with
nationalists
and hence you have the liberation
movement
will you go back to the Congo one day no
never do you think that it's finished
for the Europeans in the Congo yes I
think so but no sooner had African
nations escaped the shackles of
colonialism then a new battle for the
continent was underway the cold war
back when the colonial idea had Europe's
politicians spellbound the Communists
had opposed it and throughout their
years of struggle African nationalists
had found a powerful friend in the
Soviet Union these two great powers
America and Russia begin to carve up the
world between them independence
coincided with the Cold War where it
mattered whose side the president was in
terms of this global struggle between
Russia and America and they both tried
to organize coos to get there their
people in and this was very
destabilizing the congos Patrice Lumumba
was a hard-line nationalist labeled a
communist by America his game of Russian
Roulette appear to have paid off when in
1960 he oversaw the handover of
sovereignty from Belgium he was to
become victim or their position between
the west and east between the bloc
Soviet bloc and Americans because
militia leaders with control of the
mineral-rich Katanga province refused to
be swallowed up in a wider Republic led
by a Soviet backed Lumumba fearing their
own material losses the US and Belgium
supported them rebels and just three
weeks after bringing the country into
independence Lumumba was captured by the
Katanga
tortured and killed Terry Buchanan
imaginary figures not for what it did
but for what he could represent remember
suffered more indignities including
being forced to eat a speech which he
restated his claim to be the Congo is
rightful premier cobblers riches
combined with global geopolitics had
again proven a disastrous mix and with
freedom from overt colonial exploitation
the scramble for resources was driven
underground for a fleeting moment the
Lumumba affair raised the questions of
what in Africa would replace the strong
arm of colonial rule and where the
national unity was achievable with
hostilities bubbling beneath the surface
but in the excitement of independence
this was quickly forgotten
I suppose one of the ironies is that the
European countries that were democratic
didn't really introduce much democracy
to Africa so when independence comes and
people can vote many of these countries
then politically exploded all sorts of
political problems that have been
suppressed by colonial imperial rule
then burst out and many of them like in
Congo practically tore the countries to
pieces I think it was a very unplanned
thing frankly and it was only in the
last year and a half or so before
independence that all of a sudden with
independence looming we started to have
accelerated programs to divert to to
train locals that that wasn't enough so
in the end we handed over to a country
which was not properly prepared for
independence I think that we would have
done Africa a lot of good by staying and
preparing flat out
another five or six years but the
Africans everywhere decolonization
couldn't happen fast enough for that
generation of Nigerians it was just a
feeling of complete euphoria of triumph
of total confidence in the future of
Nigeria they really believed that
Nigeria was and all of Africa I mean
there were pan Africans they believed
very much in the idea that the whole of
Africa was going to rise from from the
shackles of the past dream big dream big
hope people thought that independence
will bring about the solution to many
problems so it was very romantic
the real celebration of independence
dances big projects that euphoria
wouldn't last
I think the sixties were very violent
decade and so the definition euphoria
disappeared very very quickly within a
year maybe two years and then from 62 to
1970 it was just one incident of
violence of carnage after another it
faded when the military began to seize
power and military are not leaders there
are not political figures the only our
specialize in what in the use of the
weapon and so on they have no political
mission except mental the security or
the country and so on so you have the
becoming of new leadership for whom
nobody voted that was a terrible fact
many newly sovereign states of Africa
left with the legacies of occupation and
the challenges of State Building was
soon consumed by bitter power struggles
in many places militiamen over ran the
nationalists of thinkers within the
first 20 years of Independence there
were 40 successful to's a many more
failed one
former British territories were torn
apart by ethnic conflict as the dark
side of ruling by proxy gradually came
to light one of the problems with
independence when it came was that the
colonial powers hadn't ruled Nigeria
Nigerians as Nigerians they ruled the
most hauser people or your other people
or ebo people have been Kenyans as
Kenyans but as Kikuyu or newer people
and suddenly they all had to be Kenyans
Nigerians and very quickly the
politicians naturally looked to their
own people for their political power
base and they and politics became very
Ethne sized in the 30 years which
followed the year of africa two billion
people are thought to have died in
ethnic violence in X British colonies
alone in the case Nigeria basically when
the British left in 1960 they they they
left a political class that was already
even at that point divided against
itself they had a system where the
Chiefs and the Kings run things and just
reported to the district officers in
western Nigeria as a result of the in
this encounter schools were built
churches were built and very quickly and
elites and educated elites emerged in
the north again with the same system the
the Chiefs and the King said okay we
accepts you as a colonial power but can
you just step you know to stay out of
our business of things and and so they I
mean most parts of the north they would
not allow
churches and schools to be built the
consequence of that about hundred years
later was that there was an imbalance
between the north and south and then
ended up in a civil war but elsewhere
the problem wasn't the rate of
decolonization but the lack of it
France redefined its relationship with
its African colonies to become the
unseen hand in national affairs quietly
French control was going underground the
French never really left when at
independence behind for many years
afterwards you go to a ministry in
francophone Africa there would you would
talk to the minister would be African
behind the door there would be a
Frenchman signing the checks doing the
accounts reporting to Paris in 2006
President Sarkozy promised a cleanup of
the French foothold in Africa no more
secrets real independence
but Bastille Day celebrations in Paris
this year sent a clear message that they
remain as closely interested in the
continents affairs as they ever were
ever since independence domination of
resources has continued to fuel violence
in many states with former Belgian Congo
still seemingly locked in a vicious
cycle of conflict over its mine
African rulers foreign multinationals
and governments have continued to strike
deals to plunder commodities and help
national economies already set
back by the colonial experience as well
in the 19th century the Europeans just
went in enslaved people forced them to
dig and and took it all for themselves I
think these days there's a complicity
between the the rulers of Africa and
Western companies or middlemen mines in
whichever country you're talking about
needed somebody to bring in the the
personnel and the equipment to dig out
the minerals to employ people to
continue to dig out the minerals to
maintain the place outside investment
then as now is terribly important
the continuing diversion of minerals
isn't the only exploitative practice
today Africa is the largest recipient of
external aid in the world a continent
where half the population survive on
less than a dollar a day but for every
$1 coming in ten dollars are lost
through illegal capital heading out 437
billion dollars has left Africa between
two thousand and two thousand and two
thousand and eight lefted illicitly
secretly illegally and much of that has
flowed into tax havens owned by European
countries Britain particularly and so
the ordinary people of Africa haven't
benefited from these this last decade
which has been a very good decade for
Africa economically but you when you go
there you still see people as poor as
ever under a shadow financial system
built on the ruins of colonialism
foreign banks and multinationals working
in Africa avoid paying tax anonymous
trust accounts fake foundations money
laundering tax havens and trade
mispricing all go unchecked since 1970
an estimated eight hundred and fifty
four billion dollars has been lost
enough to have wiped out external debt
and have left six hundred billion more
for development the financial rewards
can be traced back to those countries
proudly bailing out a dependent Africa
with aid a striking parallel to the
colonial story also echoing the past
China is entering the scene once
monopolized by Europe opening up options
for African commerce
the process of decolonisation is still
unfolding it's quite interesting that
China has now come into the scenario
vine for contracts and for rights to
exploit natural resources with European
countries it's China's demand for
African resources which has pushed their
prices globally that's actually been
very good for Africa but whether African
governments are really taking the best
advantage of this one-off opportunity to
sell their what's under their soil is
I'm not sure I do the jury's out this is
the moment to build the infrastructure
to educate people bring health to their
people and I'm not sure that that is
being done as effectively as it might be
United States of Africa may never have
materialized Africa today does have
success stories like Botswana where
diamond revenues of finance development
under a multi-party government and
Senegal were democracy stability and
civil liberties have characterized the
past 50 years of self-rule I think we
can be very confident about the future
of Africa Africa espouses education it
just supposes modernity it is also
becoming more and more democratic we
have not just the natural resources but
the intellectual resources strength of
character I believe a lot in the the the
new professional classes these are not
the elites who have robbed Africa these
are world-class professionals they've
got an uphill struggle but I think
Africa may have turned the corner
where the days of empire or nationhood
for over a century now the world's
relationship with Africa has been built
on disparity Africa's wealth has helped
bankroll the giant strides in technology
communications and business made
elsewhere but by safeguarding natural
riches prioritizing national interests
and we trade and development done on
equal terms there's a chance the coming
50 years could break the cycles of the
past and finally bring real independence
we shall not make colonialism
responsible of everything bad in Africa
after all for 50 years some of this
country have been independent now I will
agree with you the story on that 50
years are not long enough but 15 years
not began to see clear where to go we
have to insist on the responsibility of
the African leadership also the natural
bounty is given by natural and God
instead of being acres may well become a
new opportunity for better tomorrow
democracy transparency great respect in
the law