Africa: States of independence - the scramble for Africa

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