20.2: Africa

The European "Scramble for Africa" was both astonishingly quick (lasting from the 1880s until about 1900) and amazingly complete, with all of Africa but Liberia and Ethiopia taken over by an European state. In the 1950s and 1960s, the most striking case of decolonization took place as waves of independence movements spread across Africa. In the post-WWII era, almost every African country secured independence. In some places, this process was peaceful; but in many, it was extremely violent.

Ghana

In West Africa, the former colony of the Gold Coast became well known for its charismatic independence leader Kwame Nkrumah. Nkrumah successfully led Ghana to independence in 1957 after a peaceful independence movement and negotiations with the British. In addition, he founded a movement called Pan-Africanism. The goal was for the nations of Africa to create a “United States of Africa” that would achieve parity with the other great powers of the world, while improving the lives of Africans. While that vision did not come to pass, the concept of pan-Africanism still inspired other African independence movements at the time.

Kenya

In Kenya, hundreds of thousands of white colonists were not interested in independence from Britain. By 1952, a complex web of nationalist rebels, including impoverished villagers and farmers, and counter-insurgent fighters plunged the country into a civil war. The British and native white Kenyans reacted to the uprising by creating concentration camps, imprisoning rebels, and slowly starving them to death in the hills. Many people disrespectfully referred to the rebels as “Mau Maus”, who attacked and killed white civilians. Finally, after 11 years of war, Kenya was granted its independence and elected a former Mau Mau leader as its first president. Ironically, while British forces were in a dominant position militarily, the British state was financially over-extended. Thus, Britain granted Kenyan independence in 1963.

South Africa

Most former colonies adopted official policies of racial equality. As a result, and for the first time since the Scramble for Africa, black Africans achieved political power almost everywhere. However, there was one striking exception: South Africa.

South Africa had always been an unusual British colony. Twenty-one percent (21%) of its population was white divided between the descendants of British settlers and the older Dutch colony of Afrikaners who had been conquered at the end of the nineteenth century. The Afrikaners, in particular, were virulently racist and unwilling to share power with the black majority. As early as 1950, white South Africans (British and Afrikaner alike) emphatically insisted on the continuation of a policy known as Apartheid: the legal separation of whites and blacks and the complete subordination of the latter to the former.

South Africa became independent from Britain in 1961. However, Apartheid remained the backbone of the South African legal system, repressing and oppressing the majority black population. Even as overtly racist laws were repealed elsewhere - not least in the United States as a result of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s - Apartheid remained resolutely intact. That system would remain in place until 1991, when the system finally collapsed and the long-imprisoned anti-Apartheid activist leader Nelson Mandela was released, soon becoming South Africa’s first black president.

Algeria

Beginning in 1952, one of the most violent struggles for independence occurred in the French territory of Algeria. Hundreds of thousands of Algerians died, along with tens of thousands of French and pieds-noires ("black feet," the white residents of Algeria). The heart of the conflict had to do with a concept of French identity:

• many French citizens felt that France’s remaining colonies were vital to its status as an important geopolitical power, particularly on the political right
• many in France were ashamed of the French defeat and occupation in World War II and refused to simply give up France’s empire without a struggle
• many French officers had been on the losing side of wars (World War II and Indochina) and were determined to hold on to Algeria at all costs

On the other hand, many French citizens realized that the values the Fourth French Republic supposedly stood for – liberty, equality, and fraternity - were precisely what had been denied to the native people of Algeria. In fact, “native” Algerians were divided legally along racial and religious lines. For example, Muslim Arab and Berber Algerians were denied access to political power and usually worked in lower-paying jobs, while white, Catholic Algerians (descendants of both French and Italian settlers) were fully enfranchised French citizens.

In 1954, a National Liberation Front (FLN) composed of Arab and Berber Algerians demanded independence from France and launched a campaign of attacks on both French officials and, soon, pieds-noires civilians. The French response was brutal, often with complete disregard for human rights or concern for the guilt or innocence of those suspected of supporting the rebellion. Algerian civilians were often caught in the middle of the fighting, with the French army targeting the civilian populace when it saw fit. Rumors of torture soon spread to continental France, inspiring an enormous debate as to the necessity and value of holding on to Algeria. The war grew in Algeria even as France itself was increasingly torn apart by the conflict.

Figure 13.3.1: North Africa as of 2009

The anti-war protest campaign grew in France. Meanwhile, soldiers in Algeria and other parts of France and French territories created ultra-rightist terrorist groups, launching attacks on prominent intellectuals who spoke out against the war. Military troops launched an attempted coup in Algeria in 1958 and briefly succeeded in seizing control of the French-held island of Corsica.

It was in this context of near-civil war that Charles de Gaulle volunteered to “rescue” France from its predicament, with the support of the army. When it became clear he intended to pull France out of Algeria, a paramilitary terrorist group twice tried to assassinate him. He survived and forced through a new constitution that vested considerable new powers in the office of the president. De Gaulle opened negotiations with the FLN, which lead to the ratification of Algerian independence in 1962 by a large majority of French voters. Despite being an ardent believer in the French need for “greatness,” De Gaulle was perceptive enough to know that the battle for Algeria was lost before it had begun.

In the aftermath of the Algerian War, millions of white Algerians moved to France. Feeling betrayed and embittered, they became the core of a new far-right-wing Fascist-like party: the Front National. Racist, opposed to immigration, and anti-Semitic, the National Front remains a powerful force in French politics to this day.

Egypt

Egypt had been part of the British empire since 1882 when it was seized during the Scramble for Africa. After World War I, it achieved a degree of independence but remained squarely under British control in terms of its foreign policy. Likewise, the Suez Canal - the crucially important link between the Mediterranean and Red Sea - was under the direct control of a Canal Company dominated by the British and French.

In 1952, the Egyptian general Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew the British regime and asserted complete Egyptian independence. The United States initially sought to bring him into the American camp by offering funds for a massive new dam on the Nile, but Nasser made an arms deal with (communist) Czechoslovakia. As a result, the funds were denied. Nasser reacted by opening talks with the Soviets, who offered funding and weapons in return for Egyptian cotton, as well as added influence in North Africa and the Middle East.

In 1956, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. Henceforth, all of the traffic going through the vitally important canal would be regulated by Egypt directly. Immediately, Israeli, British, and French forces invaded Egypt in retaliation. Enraged by the attack on its ally, Khrushchev threatened nuclear strikes. In turn, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower forcefully demanded that the Israelis, French, and British withdraw, threatening economic boycotts (bans). The Israeli, French, and British forces withdrew. This “Suez Crisis” showed that the US might not run its allied governments as puppet states, but it could directly shape their foreign policy.

In the aftermath of the Suez Crisis, Egypt's control of the canal was assured, and the country tried to initiate a 'third way' between the two superpowers. Lastly, Egyptian leaders (all of them military leaders) called for Arab nationalism and unity in the Middle East as a way to stay independent of the Cold War.