Introduction

South African soccer fans watching the 2010 World Cup. Photo by the United Nations.

“The Dark Continent” is a traditional European term for Sub-Saharan (south of the Sahara Desert) Africa. The Europeans used this term because they believed the interior of the continent was unexplored. To be sure, the Sahara Desert presented a daunting obstacle to communication and travel between the Mediterranean world and the kingdoms and tribes to its south, but trade routes crossed the desert, plied by expert nomadic guides since the days of the Roman Empire. In the 15th Century, Portuguese navigators charted the West coast of the continent, and Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, opening a sea route to India. The Europeans certainly understood the African slave trade well enough. By tapping into the existing trade, and encouraging its practice among the local chieftains, Europeans found the cheap manpower they needed to exploit the riches of the New World.

When the British outlawed the slave trade in 1807, Europeans had little use for Sub-Saharan Africa. They had captured colonies in North Africa, such as Morocco and Algeria, which is no more than the Romans had done; the coastal climate suited them, and coastal North Africa also has excellent agricultural lands. But, although they knew the coasts of Sub-Saharan Africa, they were prevented from colonizing it by a tiny but implacable enemy: malaria. Malaria is passed from mosquito to human, and, fortunately, not transmissible between humans. Malaria-carrying mosquitos thrive in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Europeans had no genetic immunity to the disease, as Africans had.

With the development of quinine pills in the mid-19th Century, Europeans could protect themselves from malaria, allowing them to safely travel into the continent. Furthermore, the industrial revolution was underway, meaning that Europeans needed the resources of the region for their factories, as well as new markets for their goods. At the 1884 Berlin Conference, European leaders divided Africa between them, to prevent them from fighting each other for the spoils of the continent. After that, the Europeans conquered the entire continent, except for Liberia, allied with the United States, and Ethiopia, which resisted an Italian conquest and remained independent.

The conquest of Africa was extremely disruptive of African culture. The Europeans seized the best agricultural lands, leaving the less-productive land to the Africans, thus impoverishing them. Colonial economies were established to exploit the natural resources of Africa, using Africans as cheap labor, mid-level administrators, or substitute local leaders, but never empowering them as real decision-makers. Numerous laws established and enforced a system of racial hierarchy of White over Black, enforced by local police. While some Africans were able to leverage this system through collaboration, gaining a higher social status than they were born into, most Africans found their lot in life worse than it was before the European conquest. As a result, colonial Africa saw at least 25 revolts against White rule prior to World War I, none of them successful.

As we saw in Chapter 4, World War II changed the calculus of imperialism. Western European nations were impoverished by the world wars and focused on rebuilding; they had little money to spare for policing their colonies, and anyway, the Bretton Woods agreement removed some of the economic impetus for imperialism. The colonized peoples saw their opportunity, especially since the UN, the US, and the USSR were all anti-imperial. The first three decades after World War II witnessed the birth of 50 new nations in Africa, each with its own local drama, some peaceful, some exceedingly bloody.

Imperial Approaches to Independence

After the war, the European imperial powers initially hoped to use their colonies to pay for reconstruction; the plan was to not only retain control of the colonies, but to actually expand their extractive industries, producing more raw materials for international sale and increasing profits.

This brought a strong backlash from the Africans. For one thing, about 374,000 Africans had served in the British military in World War II, with another 400,000 serving with the French. These soldiers had a new sense of pride and confidence, having helped save their imperial masters from fascism. They returned home to unemployment and repression, leading to an unsurprising backlash - – and the first postwar resistance to White rule began with riots in the British colony of Gold Coast (Ghana) in February 1948.

Realizing how expensive it would be to constantly repress the colony, and that it still needed the financial support of the anti-imperialist US, the UK attempted to placate the opposition. They allowed Africans to elect representatives to a parliamentary government which would exercise a certain amount of self-rule, though not over defense or foreign relations. The British were disappointed when Kwame Nkrumha’s pro-independence party, the Convention People’s Party, won the elections and agitated for the end of White rule. The British realized that their imperial cause was lost, and began the process of granting Ghana full independence, which it received in 1957. That was the beginning of decolonization in Africa.

Kwame Nkrumha

The imperial powers improvised their responses to African nationalist movements. While the Europeans knew what they wanted – the wealth of the colonies, as well as to keep the Soviets out of Africa -- they didn’t know how to get them. The British and French at first tried to accommodate the nationalists, granting the colonies limited self-rule so long as it didn’t interfere with economic control. The nationalists didn’t fall for it; across Africa, both north and south of the Sahara, Africans demanded complete independence. The British subsequently decided to grant independence, since they guessed (correctly) that the new international trade standards of Bretton Woods would still grant them access to African resources. The French, however, needed to restore their national pride, which had been damaged by their loss to the Germans during the war. And the best way to do that, they decided, was to fight for their colonies. The hardest fight would be in Algeria.

Algeria

Algeria was the most consequential anti-imperial battle in postwar Africa. France wrested the country from the Ottoman Empire in 1830, while also suppressing local nationalists. Algeria was one of only three colonies in Africa which saw large-scale European immigration, the others being South Africa and Rhodesia. As with South Africa, the Algerian coast attracted Europeans with its moderate Mediterranean climate. French citizens in Algeria, known as colons (colonists) or, later, as pied-noir (black feet), seized the best agricultural lands from the indigenous and established themselves as an elite ruling class. By 1962, about a million and a half colons lived in Algeria, constituting about fifteen percent of the national population.

Another salient point of French Algeria is that, legally, it was considered an integral part of France. Unlike other colonies, Algeria was considered as inviolable as Normandy or Provence, and France could no more abandon it than it could French provinces. These two factors – the large European population and the legal status of the colony – made it very difficult for France to justify granting Algeria its independence. Add to that the fact that France was even more willing to fight for its last major colony after the loss of Indochina, and it is unsurprising that France would fight as hard as it did to retain Algeria. What French leaders did not know was just how high the price would be, and that the conflict would reach into the heart of France itself.

Algerian nationalist movements had flared all during the 122-year occupation. In October 1954, experienced anti-imperialists formed a new organization: the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN, National Liberation Front). The FLN’s leaders proclaimed they sought independence for Algeria and a government of social democracy, based on Islamic values and citizenship for all Algerians of both native and European ancestry. Over the next two years, the FLN carried out attacks across Algeria, threatening to overrun colonial cities. The new French prime minister, Guy Mollet, promised to quash the revolt and sent half a million troops to Algeria. Furthermore, France decided to grant independence to its two other North African colonies, Morocco and Tunisia; since they were not considered part of France, the French government could afford to give them up. It only meant that France had more assets to use in maintaining control over Algeria. To keep the two newly-independent countries from assisting their fellow Muslims in Algeria, the French also erected long border fortifications, including electric fences, along the Algerian borders to isolate the colony. FLN leaders decided to fly to Tunisia to discuss their plans; the French, alerted to the flight, intercepted the plane and forced it to land in the Algerian capital of Algiers. The French arrested the leaders, who spent the rest of the war in jail. This did not dissuade the FLN, who found new leaders and intensified their fight.

FLN troops in Algeria. Image by Zdravko Pečar, Museum of African Art at Belgrade.

In 1956 and 1957, the FLN fought a campaign in Algiers itself, using assassination and bombings to terrorize the Europeans and their Algerian sympathizers. The French responded in kind, arresting anyone suspected of sympathizing with the FLN, and torturing and even murdering them. While this did stop the FLN campaign, driving the rebels into the countryside, it also had the effect of angering many Muslims. Once-loyal Algerians were shocked at the French depredations that killed as many innocent people as rebels. Many Muslims joined the FLN after that.

In 1958, a new crisis emerged as European Algerians, fearing that the French government would abandon them by granting Algeria its independence, demanded that Charles de Gaulle be appointed prime minister of France. De Gaulle had been leader of the Free French Forces in World War II (see Chapter 1). A conservative and an imperialist, he was also a war hero, and the French Algerians viewed him as a champion of their cause. The French military – both veterans of WWII and serving officers – were typically pro-imperialism and pro- de Gaulle. The political tensions in France had grown so intense over the Algerian issue that high-ranking French military officers planned a mutiny and insurrection if de Gaulle was not made prime minister.

On June 1, 1958, the National Assembly did appoint de Gaulle the prime minister. De Gaulle then oversaw the establishment of a new constitution, the passage of which created the Fifth Republic in France. The pied-noir and the French conservatives, including most of the military, were about to be sorely disappointed. In 1959, de Gaulle – probably realizing that the era of imperialism had passed – stated that the Algerians had a right to self-determination. This brought resentment and violence from European Algerians, who attacked Muslim Algerians in a campaign of murder and terror.

The battle came to France, where Algerians, both pro- and anti-independence, lived as immigrants. Algerians of both sides attacked each other, bombing the cafes they tended to frequent in a campaign known as the Café Wars. Furthermore, a group of disgruntled French conservatives who opposed Algerian independence formed a terrorist group called the Organisation Armée Secrète (OAS, “Secret Armed Organization”). This group committed bombings and assassinations in France to dissuade the government from abandoning Algeria. The group also tried to assassinate Charles de Gaulle and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (who supported the FLN); both attempts were unsuccessful.

Finally, de Gaulle managed to persuade all sides to accept a peace treaty, pending a referendum in Algeria regarding independence. In July 1962, Algerians voted overwhelmingly for independence. The Algerian War for Independence had cost the lives of over 100,000 Algerian rebels and 10,000 French soldiers; hundreds of thousands of civilians on both sides were killed and tortured. Furthermore, the majority of French Algerians, fearing reprisals, fled the country for France, along with thousands of native Algerians who had supported them.

The war not only granted Algeria its independence; it also served as an example for other African colonies, who now considered violent revolution a viable tool in decolonization, should more peaceful methods fail. The British were well aware of this new attitude and careful to avoid going down the French route.

Pan-Africanism

Kwame Nkrumha, the new Prime Minister of Ghana, had another role to play beyond being the first leader of a decolonized African nation. Nkrumha was the foremost African proponent of Pan-Africanism. Pan-Africanism is the concept that people of African descent, no matter where they live, are linked by cultural and spiritual bonds and share a brotherhood despite living in different countries. The idea actually came from the Americas; W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey were early proponents of this idea. Nkrumha also believed that Pan-Africanism was an anti-colonial idea. To him, it meant that all African people should become politically unified; that the old boundaries established by the imperialists at the Berlin Conference should be dissolved, and that Africa should become a federation of states, united by their cultural commonalities. Other African nationalist leaders, such as Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, also subscribed to this idea.

Nkrumha did what he could to advance Pan-Africanism. He sent advisors to assist other African nationalists in their anti-colonial struggles in the name of African unity. He also established the short-lived Union of African States between Ghana, Guinea, and Mali; he meant for this union to serve as a model for a future African federation.

Despite its appeal, Pan-Africanism also had its detractors. Many nationalist leaders fighting for independence from Europeans were not keen to simply hand power over to other Africans via a continental federation. This philosophy may be been based on a true desire for their people’s independence, or perhaps a selfish desire to rule their new countries without outside interference. Furthermore, Nkrumha was a socialist, and some African nationalists feared he would turn a Pan-African union into a socialist state.

Nevertheless, Nkrumha’s Pan-African political vision remained a major philosophy in Africa until 1963. That year, independent African states established the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the predecessor to the African Union (AU). The OAU rejected the idea of a Pan-African political federation, asserting that the old European colonial boundaries must be maintained. It did promote cooperation between African nations to improve their economies and to resolve tensions between nations, but it did not go as far towards political union as Nkrumha advocated. The OAU was a nail in the coffin of Nkrumha’s Pan-African dream; Nkrumha himself was overthrown in a coup in 1966, ending his aspirations. While the concept of Pan-Africanism continues as a philosophy, it was never able to overpower the idea of nationalism and sovereignty in Africa.

The Cold War and African Decolonization

Given that the African continent underwent a massive political upheaval after World War II, it is unsurprising that the superpowers would both intervene, to some degree, to influence the process to their own benefit. Nor was it surprising that some African nationalists were interested in communism, since the imperial powers which had suppressed them for so long were capitalist democracies – demonstrating, once again, that democracies are their own worst enemy.

Nevertheless, the superpowers were not very concerned with Africa. The Soviets were more concerned with influencing India and the Middle East, which would bring them greater strategic benefits. The main exception was Somalia, where the USSR was able to use the naval base at Berbera. The US was not very interested in Africa, either; it had few economic or security concerns there, and thought it appropriate to let the imperial powers suppress communists before they granted independence. Furthermore, African nationalists were rarely ideologically-pure Marxists, preferring instead what they termed “African Socialism,” a collection of socialist-inspired theories adapted to African culture. Moscow was not particularly impressed or interested. The Africans were also unwilling to uncritically embrace the Soviets since, although they were busy trying to eject their capitalist rulers, they were also unprepared to swap them for communist ones.

Although Africa was not critical to the superpowers, they did sometimes find themselves involved in regional decolonization. The foremost example was Angola.

Angola

Portugal probably doesn’t come first to mind when one considers the great empires of history, being much smaller than the grand British and French empires; but Portugal created the first European overseas empire in the Age of Exploration, starting with its African colonies, established as it mapped the African coasts. The Portuguese colonized what is now Angola, the Cape Verde Islands, Mozambique, Guinea, and the islands of Sao Tome and Principe, exploiting the resources and the local slave trade.

While Portugal’s empire was relatively small, its government was initially unwilling to part with it after World War II. The semi-fascist government of Portugal, led by dictator António de Oliveira Salazar, had a policy of autarky (economic autonomy in order to neutralize foreign embargoes; see Chapter 1 for other fascist nations with this policy). That policy required Portugal to keep its colonies for access to their resources. Since Portugal was not a democracy at the time, the government could largely ignore public opinion about the ethics of imperialism. Nor did foreign pressure amount to much, since Portugal was a valued member of NATO, with air and naval bases helping secure the Atlantic Ocean. Alliance members were unwilling to push Portugal too hard for the sake of its African colonies.

In 1961, anti-imperial groups in Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique launched armed revolts against Portuguese rule; this became known collectively as the Portuguese Colonial War, since the rebels in the various colonies supported each other. The worst spot in the conflict, and probably the most consequential, was Angola, the largest of the Portuguese colonies.

The three major rebel groups in Angola were the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA, a communist group supported by China), the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA, also communist, supported by the USSR and Cuba), and the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA, a nationalist group supported by the US, South Africa, and several other nations). In response to the uprising, Portugal mobilized its military (already on the alert since the Algerian Revolution) as well as local security forces and paramilitaries. The resulting 13-year Angolan War of Independence cost the lives of thirteen thousand people. It only ended due to the 1974 Carnation Revolution, a nearly-bloodless coup in Portugal. Angered by repression, large-scale conscription, and debilitating military expenditures in Africa, left-wing military officers overthrew the Portuguese government and established democracy. One effect of this was the Alvor Agreement, in which Portugal granted Angola its independence. Separate agreements were made with the other Portuguese colonies too, and Portuguese forces departed Africa, with hundreds of thousands of Europeans and their African collaborators fleeing the former colonies for fear of retribution.

Angola’s problems were just beginning. Because the three major Angolan rebel groups differed ideologically (the communist groups didn’t agree on policy, and each demanded total power), the country quickly devolved into the Angolan Civil War. The FNLA and UNITA decided to join forces against the MPLA despite their differences. Then, in October 1975, South African forces entered Angola to prevent an MPLA victory; South Africa was already fighting against communist groups at home, and new a communist country on its borders would assist the insurgents. The MPLA then asked its own ally, Cuba, for support, and Castro sent 12,000 Cuban troops to assist them. US President Gerald Ford interpreted that as Soviet expansionism and asked Congress for more money to support the FNLA-UNITA. Congress was unwilling to become too deeply involved in the region so soon after the debacle in Vietnam; furthermore, Congress did not want to be seen as supporters of South Africa, an apartheid state. As a result, the MPLA and Cubans drove out the South Africans and took control of the country. The FNLA-UNITA coalition continued to resist sporadically until 2002. The war cost around 800,000 lives, with another four million displaced due to the fighting. The Republic of Angola is now a constitutional republic, and the MPLA remains the strongest political party.

The Congo Crisis

In Chapter 4, we saw that the Congo Free State was probably the worst place in colonial Africa, due to its being the private property of King Leopold of Belgium and free from any oversight. The Belgian government, after international outcry, took possession in 1908, and renamed the colony the Belgian Congo. While the government relaxed the repression to some degree, it still exploited the wealth of the colony and suppressed independence movements. After World War II, the colony would become a Cold War hotspot, fought over by many different rebel factions, the Congolese government, United Nations troops, and hired mercenaries.

The two largest nationalist groups in the Congo were the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC), led by Patrice Lumumba, and the Alliance des Bakongo (ABAKO) led by Joseph Kasa-Vubu. The ABAKO was the more radical of the two, pushing for immediate independence rather than gradualism; it was also more focused on ethnicity and federalism than the MNC. There were several smaller, provincial groups, and each party had several splinter groups, creating a badly-fragmented political situation.

Patrice Lumumba

Under pressure from both the international community and Congolese nationalists (who instigated widespread anticolonial rioting in 1959), the government of Belgium decided to grant the colony its independence in June 1960. Meetings between the Belgians and major Congolese parties sought to settle political questions before that time, but left many questions unresolved due to ideological differences. Nevertheless, the Republic of the Congo was established on June 30, 1960. Lumumba was appointed the first president, and Kasa-Vubu the prime minister. This created a divided government, and one which Belgium did not appreciate; the Belgians disliked Lumumba, accusing him of communism. Since the Belgians still wanted to exploit the wealth of the Congo despite its independence, they hoped for a weak, fragmented Congolese government that would be easier to manipulate. Most of the ten thousand Belgian administrators in Congo expected to maintain their positions of power despite independence.

The trouble began immediately. One month after independence, Belgian Lieutenant-General Émile Janssens, commander of the national military, declared that independence meant nothing to the troops and that Black personnel would remain in low-ranking positions under White officers. This provoked a nationwide mutiny by disgruntled troops, who rioted, plundering Belgian property and killing White civilians. The Belgian government responded by sending troops to protect its citizens fleeing the attacks; the troops ended up in combat against Congolese forces.

In July, separatist forces in the mineral-rich province of Katanga declared Katanga’s independence from Congo, with Moïse Tshombe as its new leader. The Belgian government sent military support to the breakaway province in the hopes of gaining access to the mineral wealth there. This was followed the next month by the secession of a portion of Kasai province, another mineral-rich area.

International pressure forced the UN to act. The UN sent a peacekeeping force into Congo to protect civilians, and also demanded that Belgian forces leave the country. The UN force was ordered not to get involved in the secession crises, considering them an internal affair. This disappointed Lumumba, who hoped the UN would assist him in bringing the rebellious areas under control. He first asked for American assistance against the rebels; the Eisenhower administration refused the request. Lumumba then turned to the USSR for help. The Soviet Union sent a thousand advisors who assisted Congolese forces in retaking the breakaway Kasai region. The arrival of Soviet forces alarmed the US, and the CIA believed that it represented an attempt to expand Soviet power into Africa.

Soviet support also caused a fatal split in the Congolese government. Kasa-Vubu and Lumumba, bitterly at odds over the crisis and other issues, each tried to dismiss the other, leading to a divided government in the middle of the crisis.

In order to resolve the situation, the ambitious Army Chief of Staff, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, launched a military coup and appointed Kasa-Vubu the President, arresting Lumumba. Mobutu exercised real control from behind the scenes. In December 1961, Lumumba was turned over to Katangese forces loyal to Tshombe, tortured, and executed.

Joseph-Désiré Mobutu

Meanwhile, the UN peacekeeping forces found little peace to keep. A group of Irish UN peacekeepers were captured by Katangese forces, and the UN’s attempts to disarm mercenary troops led to several firefights. When UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld flew to Congo to resolve the situation, his plane crashed, killing him. His UN successor, U Thant, took a much harder line towards Congo than the moderate Hammarskjöld. He pushed for the UN to authorize its forces to end Katangese secession, and in December 1962, UN forces defeated the Katangese and ended the revolt.

With the rebellions over, the government tried to reconcile the various groups by writing a new constitution granting more power to the provinces; Kasa-Vubu even made Tshombe the new prime minister as an offering to the Katangese. The constitution also changed the name of the country to the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a sign of their hopes. It was not enough to placate followers of Lumumba who, following a vaguely-Maoist ideology coupled with indigenous religion, launched the Simba Revolt in 1964. The marauding rebels were finally suppressed by CIA-supported White mercenary troops, who were also responsible for war crimes against civilians.

Kasa-Vubu’s government again broke down in political infighting, and Mobutu again launched a coup to break the impasse. This time, however, after declaring martial law, he established himself as dictator by turning the country into a one-party state and removing any officials not personally loyal to him. Mobutu ran the nation from 1967 to 1997, when he was finally ousted from power.

South Africa and Rhodesia

Aside from Algeria, two other colonies hosted large White populations: South Africa and Rhodesia. South Africa had the same Mediterranean climate as Algeria, and Rhodesia had encouraged European technicians and other specialists to immigrate in order to run the many mines in the mineral-rich country.

Great Britain granted South Africa its independence in 1910. The South African White population was descended from both British and Dutch settlers, but it was the African Dutch, called Afrikaners, who dominated the government. South African Whites had a long tradition of exploiting Black Africans as cheap labor in the gold and diamond mines. They also seized all the best agricultural lands, again using the indigenous people as labor.

This economy required the Afrikaners to keep tight political and social control over Black Africans. The system of racial segregation and domination was eventually codified and named apartheid (“apartness”) in 1948. Apartheid was far more abusive than even the Jim Crow laws in the Southern US. Black Africans were forced to live in states known as Bantustans; they were not allowed to live in White cities. While Black Africans had some political autonomy in their own Bantustans, which were organized by tribe, they could not vote in national elections and exercised no control over national policies. Nor could Bantustans collaborate with each other, preventing African unity. Black Africans could not leave their Bantustans without a passport and visa. If Black South Africans needed to work in White cities, they could live in adjacent Black townships, which were as controlled as were the Bantustans; they served as large-scale workers’ barracks. Under apartheid, Black Africans could not marry White people nor even use the same public facilities, like bus stations, as Whites. This was racial segregation and control taken to the extreme.

British decolonization did not involve South Africa, which was already an independent nation. The White population there had no intention of ending apartheid. As decolonization swept the continent, White South Africans viewed themselves as surrounded by nations hostile to their racist system, and dug in their heels to resist.

The Black Township of Soweto. Townships essentially served as segregated worker’s barracks outside White cities and were notably poor. Image by the UN.

The White government of Rhodesia also felt besieged. While the British government expected to help the colony transition to independence, it also had a policy of “no independence before majority rule,” meaning that Black Africans must be permitted to participate equally in politics. Rhodesia’s White rulers balked at this. Instead, in November 1965, Prime Minister Ian Smith of Rhodesia unilaterally declared Rhodesia an independent state to the applause of the ruling White minority there. The British government condemned the move as treasonous, but since the Whites of Rhodesia were of British descent, it was loathe to use military force to bring them back into the colonial fold. The UN was also appalled by the move, since it set up a racist, minority-rule government in Rhodesia in contravention to the UN Charter. The UN initiated an embargo of Rhodesia, but many countries (including the United States and South Africa) ignored the embargo. But no country, even South Africa, recognized the legitimacy of the Rhodesian government, so as not to antagonize the UK.

Black nationalists in Rhodesia realized that the Smith government would never consent to real democracy, and two groups, the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) launched an insurgency. This quickly developed into the Rhodesian Bush War, which became a Cold War proxy conflict. The USSR supported one small communist group, and China supported another, and these two groups fought the Rhodesian military separately and sometimes fought each other as well. South African troops crossed the border to suppress the rebels, fearing that they would help the ANC and other anti-apartheid parties. Although the US did not send troops to help Rhodesia, several hundred White Americans volunteered to join a mercenary group to fight for White minority rule.

The Bush War raged until 1980. By that point, the White population was tired of war; so many of them had fled the country that those remaining wondered why they were still fighting. After a series of attempted compromises, Rhodesia agreed to hold democratic elections in February 1980. ZANU won the election and its leader, Robert Mugabe, became prime minister. The new Black-majority government renamed the country the Republic of Zimbabwe.

White rule lasted longer in South Africa, though not by much. The African National Congress (ANC) and other Black nationalist groups demonstrated against the Afrikaner government, demanding an end to apartheid. Since some of these groups were communist, the United States supported South Africa, although the superpower looked on with increasing unease at South Africa’s racist policies. The apartheid government was notably brutal in its suppression of Black nationalism, which only brought internal dissent, international condemnation, and embargoes. Finally, after it was almost entirely isolated, the White government decided to negotiate with Nelson Mandela, leader of the ANC, who had been in prison for over two decades. In 1994, South Africa held its first national elections with Black participation, and Nelson Mandela became President of the Republic of South Africa.

Ethnic Tensions

Africa is the most ethnically-diverse continent in the world, the Sub-Saharan nations particularly so. There are more than three thousand ethnic groups in Africa, speaking over 2100 languages. This diversity is often cited as a cause of African conflicts, with commentators referring to intrinsic ethnic hatred and ancient animosities between groups, suggesting that there is no answer to these intractable struggles. Such beliefs can translate into misguided and ineffective government policies.

Careful historical analysis demonstrates that people do not fight strictly over ethnic differences. In Africa and elsewhere, people of different ethnicities live as neighbors, work together, share religions, languages, and nationalities, and intermarry. The cause of ethnic conflict is not ethnic differences, but political leaders who leverage differences for their own political gain. Blaming ethnic minorities for the nation’s problems is an easy diversion, displacing responsibility onto scapegoats; it can also be used to manipulate people into attacking leaders’ chosen enemies (consider the case of the Nazis). In other situations, policies meant to buy the cooperation of one group may be detrimental to other groups, causing animosity that is based more on injustice than ethnicity.

One of many examples may be found in Plateau State in Nigeria. Local governments in the state are responsible for classifying all people as “indigenous” or “settlers” (based on whether they moved there from other regions of the country). Settlers are not permitted to own land or hold certain government positions. The Hausa-speaking Muslims are usually classified as settlers, even though their families have lived in Plateau State for generations. This cuts them off from economic opportunities and incites hatred and inter-ethnic violence.

Ghana is another example. The dictator, General I.K. Acheampong, needed the support of northern tribes in a national referendum designed to make the country a one-party state. To buy their support, he granted a few tribes control of all the land in the northern part of the state. This angered other tribes, and violence began shortly thereafter. Outside observers saw this as mere ethnic conflict, unaware of the backroom deal which had been made. As Clement Mweyang Aapenguo put it, “People do not kill each other because of ethnic differences; they kill each other when these differences are promoted as the barrier to advancement and opportunity.”

Often, the European imperial powers were responsible for the ethnic animosity in their colonies, conflicts which continued after independence. The clearest case was in Rwanda. The German imperialists, who were replaced by the Belgians after World War I, used ethnicity as a tool of indirect rule. The two main ethnicities of Rwanda are the Tutsis and Hutus. It is quite difficult, ever for Rwandans, to differentiate between the two groups based on physical appearance alone, as they are so similar and speak the same language. In fact, the terms Tutsi and Hutu were more indicative of whether one was a farmer or a herder, and one’s identity could change if one changed his occupation.

The German imperialists preferred the Tutsis over the Hutus for vague racial reasons, and because the Tutsis were more agreeable to conversion to Christianity than the Hutus. The Germans granted the Tutsi king power over the entire colony, ruling indirectly through him. This gave the Tutsis great advantages over the Hutus, setting off a series of revolts and conflicts spanning years. The 1994 Rwandan Genocide, in which Hutu extremists murdered eight hundred thousand Tutsis and moderate Hutus, was one such conflict. The genocide was the result of ambitious Hutu leaders who weaponized longstanding ethnic hatred in order to eliminate political enemies and consolidate their power. And the ethnic hatred they leveraged through propaganda did not even exist before the Germans created it.

Conclusion

The world had high expectations for post-colonial Africa. Exploited for decades, the people now contemplated greater political freedom and, most of all, expanded economic opportunities and a higher standard of living.

They were, almost everywhere in Africa, disappointed. Instead, Africa seemed to descend into an endless cycle of corruption, poverty, and coups. A great many problems plagued the new nations from the start, most of them legacies of imperialism. In the colonies, most of the capable specialists and administrators were White, and they returned to Europe upon independence, robbing the new nations of civil servants and necessary specialists. For example, the new nation of Tanzania had nine million citizens, and only nine doctors. It would take many years to train enough doctors to serve the population.

Another legacy of imperialism is badly decentralized government. The British, in particular, practiced indirect rule; they controlled the central government, but outlying areas were allowed to rule themselves as long as they carried out the colonizer’s orders. After the British left, this led to a nation in which the outlying regions were so accustomed to ruling themselves that the new central government could not control them. This led to corruption, lawlessness, and even revolts. In many countries, autocratic governments set up patronage systems (see Chapter 10), in which government positions were handed out to political supporters, regardless of their qualifications. This leads to ineffective government, in which civil servants are more interested in plundering the national treasury than serving the people.

Often, the proffered cures for poverty make matters worse. The International Monetary Fund and World Bank, while interested in helping developing nations, have often done more harm than good with Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs). In these programs, the IMF and World Bank offer multi-million-dollar development loans to nations which are in economic crisis. But the receiving nation must restructure its economy to obtain the loan, in order to guarantee, they are told, that they can pay it back. The structural adjustments are based on neoliberalism (i.e., unregulated capitalism). Some of the adjustment policies are not even universally accepted in the Global North, such as privatized water and health care, but are forced on the borrower nations if they accept the money. While ostensibly voluntary, the crushing poverty in these countries has compelled their governments to take the loans and accept the changes. This has caused tremendous upheaval in Africa, where people found that they were no longer in control of economic policy in their country. SAPs have forced nations to remove trade restrictions, forbidding economic protectionism for indigenous manufacturing; this has led to the collapse of much of Africa’s traditional craftwork due to foreign competition. Other conditions for SAPs include cutting budgets for housing or food assistance, or raising taxes, making them very unpopular with the poor. Since the loans must be repaid in cash, governments sometimes privatize communal land in order to grow and sell cash crops on the international market to get the money, or open new areas to mining or oil drilling, completely transforming the nature of certain regions without the input of the people living there. Many Africans complain that SAPs are actually a system of neocolonialism, opening African markets and natural resources to foreign exploitation. In any case, SAPs do not have a very good record in solving African poverty; while the sacrifices for the loans were made, the development programs have typically failed to deliver the promised results. As one analyst put it, African SAPs are “all pain, no gain.”

Certainly, Africa remains economically weak and politically divided. These weaknesses make the region susceptible to unforeseen shocks, like famine or the AIDS epidemic, because they have few resources to marshal in the face of disaster. Furthermore, many African governments are “pseudo-democracies,” which hold elections but are marred by political repression and voting irregularities. Others analysts hold out hope for Africa, claiming that democracy is finally catching on in the region, and that true democracy will finally translate into economic policies which lift the region out of poverty.