Decolonisation
Vincent Khapoya (p. 148f) notes the significant resistance imperialist powers faced to their domination in Africa. Technical superiority enabled conquest and control. Africans recognized the value of European education in dealing with Europeans in Africa. They noticed the discrepancy between Christian teaching of universal brotherhood and the treatment they received from missionaries. Some established their own churches. Africans also noticed the unequal evidences of gratitude they received for their efforts to support Imperialist countries during the world wars:
"Many British veterans were rewarded for their part in saving Britain and her empire with generous pensions and offers of nearly free land in the colonies. The African soldiers were given handshakes and train tickets for the journey back home. They could keep their khaki uniforms and nothing else. These African soldiers, after returning home, were willing to use their new skills to assist nationalist movements fighting for freedom that were beginning to take shape in the colonies." (p. 158)
Vincent Khapoya notes that while European imposed borders did not correspond to traditional territories, such new territories provided entities to focus efforts by movements for increased political voice up to independence. Among local groups so concerned were professionals such as lawyers and doctors, the petite bourgeoisie (clerks, teachers, small merchants), urban workers, cash crop farmers, peasant farmers, etc. Trade unions and other initially non political associations evolved into political movements.
Khapoya (p. 177f) describes the differences in gaining independence by British and French colonies. Britain sought to follow a process of gradual transfer of power. The French policy of assimilation faced some resentment, especially in North Africa. Shillington (p. 380f) describes the granting of independence in March 1956 to Morocco and Tunisia to allow concentration on Algeria where there was a long (1954–1962) and bloody armed struggle to achieve independence. Khapoya writes (p. 183) that when President de Gaulle in 1958 held a referendum in its African colonies on the issue, only Guinea voted for outright independence. Nevertheless in 1959 France amended the constitution to allow other colonies this option.
As Shillington describes (p. 385f) farmers in British East Africa were upset by attempts to take their land and to impose agricultural methods against their wishes and experience. In Tanganyika, Julius Nyerere exerted influence not only among Africans, united by the common Swahili language, but also on some White leaders whose disproportionate voice under a racially weighted constitution was significant. He became leader of an independent Tanganyika in 1961. In Kenya Whites had evicted African tenant farmers in the 1930s. Since the 40s there had been conflict. This intensified in 1952. By 1955 Britain had suppressed the revolt. By 1960 Britain accepted the principle of African majority rule. Kenya became independent three years later.
Shillington (p. 391f) vividly portrays Belgium's initial opposition to independence, the demands by some urban Africans, the 1957 and 1958 local elections meant to calm this dissatisfaction, the general unrest that swept the colony, the rapid granting of independence and the civil strife that ensued.
The main period of decolonisation in Africa began after World War II. Growing independence movements, indigenous political parties and trade unions coupled with pressure from within the imperialist powers and from the United States ensured the decolonisation of the majority of the continent by 1980. While some areas, in particular South Africa, retain a large population of European descent, only the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and the islands of Réunion, the Canary Islands and Madeira remain under European control.
Read more about this topic: Colonisation Of Africa