African Nationalism

In the words of Kwame Nkruma, "Colonialism and its attitudes die hard."⁽¹⁾ Africa is on the front line of knowing this truth. Being rich in resources and having an adequate level of technology, educational systems, and "military," Africa was not the backwards place that early colonizers claimed. Her people were intelligent and innovative. As Europe expanded its domination, the lives of her inhabitants were turned upside down. All of the social structures and institutions among the people were replaced by the oppressive structures of the dominating elites. This went on for several centuries before the people of Africa began to really stand up and demand freedom from their captors in the middle half of the twentieth century. African Nationalism rose to reclaim Africa for Africans.

To understand the rise of African Nationalism, we first need to understand colonialism. But, to understand colonialism, we first must understand Africa before colonialism. First of all, Africans could not separate their religious lives from the physical life. Everything they did was in sink with their spiritual practices. They saw the world through their ancestral religion which created a "metaphysical" view. Economics, political activity, hunting, harvesting-everything was done with careful consideration for the spirit world. Although their devotion to religion caused them to be a more disciplined people, it was also a hindrance to change and advancement. Instead of inventing ways to control the impact of weather or more efficient means of harvesting their crops, they would pray and leave it up to the spirits as to what would happen. It kept them from taking initiatives towards the European's idea of an "advanced" society. In contrast, Europeans gave no consideration to religion in political, economic, medical, or any other arenas. They had mastered the art of completely separating religion from all social structures.⁽²⁾

Another reason for a lack of "advancement" in pre colonial Africa was a lack of need for it. The people were communal, meaning production and distribution of goods were based on kinship ties. Land inheritance, work, distribution-everything was based on the matrilineal ties. Families would till their own land and extended families would join together to hunt and fish. This system was efficient and effective for them. In other words, with this system in place where families depended on each other for everything, there was no need for new technologies. They did not have to worry about food or work because they all looked out for each other. They simply had no need for new inventions because what they has worked.⁽³⁾

This leads to another misconception- that there was no technology or manufacturing at all. In fact, African technology was based on their knowledge of the total environment and included terracing, crop rotation, mixed farming, and regulated swamp farming. They also created and used iron tools, such as axed and hoes. Their weakness in this area was a lack of interest in gaining scientific knowledge and in inventing methods and tools that would lighten their labor loads. Manufacturing in pre colonial Africa was basic consisting of handmade tools, cloth, and crafts. It was un-advanced small scale production. Before the colonizers arrived, specialization had begun to take place as well as elements of a guild system were surfacing.

Finally, we need to understand the social stratification system of Africa. Social stratification began with a headship of elders. Later, successful families established themselves as permanent "rulers". This led to the tradition of the family with the most livestock (or whatever was appropriate for the region) became more socially and politically dominant. As these dominant groups began to challenge each other one would "dominate" the other. This was nothing in the form of domination as Europeans knew it. All people, captured and free, were allowed to keep their human dignity and rights. Basically, there was not much in the way of social classes in pre colonial Africa.⁽⁴⁾

The slave trade was the vessel through which Africa's initial contact with the out side world came. Although the slave trade ended in the 19^th century, Europe at that "very time expanded its conquests and almost all of Africa became colonial territory."⁽⁵⁾ When Europeans came onto the scene, they destroyed the traditional way of life and replaced it with their own. They justified their actions claiming that the natives were backwards due to their "inferior biological make up."⁽⁶⁾ They claimed that the cultural history of the people was backwards, and they were "less rational and more emotional," and viewed as "deficient in technological inventiveness and competence."⁽⁷⁾ According to Nkruma, "anything of value uncovered by imperialist anthropologists has been accredited to outside influence."⁽⁸⁾ The colonial powers acted as though the people of Africa were nothing more than helpless animals who needed to be broken in. And when the colonial powers began to see the intelligence of the native people, they quickly excused it has having come from an outside source. They claimed that the African was "incapable of education beyond certain limits; he would not respond to the incentives of a higher standard of life."⁽⁹⁾ After denying them basic human rights, the Europeans began taking their land away from them and implementing taxes that were nearly impossible to pay.⁽¹⁰⁾ These taxes drove the people to work for "starvation wages."⁽¹¹⁾

Africa was (and still is) very rich in her resources. Her land contained ninety-six percent of the non-communist world's diamonds, sixty percent of its gold, forty-two percent of its cobalt, thirty four percent of its bauxite, and twenty-eight percent of its uranium.⁽¹²⁾ The justification the colonial powers used for raping the land as they did was that, "the resources of Africa were useless to the native inhabitants until they were developed, and they could not develop with out European capital and skill."⁽¹³⁾ They saw themselves as doing a great service to the Africans. According to the European elite's views, the African would not appreciate a better condition than the domination they were under.

The conditions for Africans under colonial domination were pretty pathetic. They had no bargaining power and were not allowed to form and type of union that would demand decent pay and decent working conditions. Despite popular perception, "Africans did not live in shacks and mud huts because they preferred them to proper houses. The had no choice!"⁽¹⁴⁾ Due to poor nutrition, poor quality of drinking water, bad living conditions, and being overworked, the native people became more susceptible to diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, yaws⁽¹⁵⁾, and kwashiorkor⁽¹⁶⁾. On top of this, Europeans had established seven hospitals for the three thousand Europeans living there but only thirty six hospitals for the four million Africans.

No uniform system of colonial government had been set up. The patters "varied according to the policy and traditions of different colonial powers."⁽¹⁷⁾ France owned the largest part of the African territory. They used a tactic in which they sought to "introduce a selected class of "elites" to French culture."⁽¹⁸⁾ They would pick children from the people and school them in their French missionary school where they were taught elements of the French culture. These selected 'elites' would also pick up on the religion of their oppressors and leave their own. They became a class stuck between their people and the colonizers. Not really fitting in in either group, they became a petite bourgeoises, a class of their own. Under the French rule, the petite bourgeoises nor the masses were allowed to have national election or any form of democratic assemble, no freedom of press, and were provided with poor education (except the petite bourgeoises). This policy of assimilation the French used in which the would pick out natives and "Europeanize" them to do their bidding before the masses, served to alienate the African intellectuals from the masses. They no longer shared in the plight of their people and therefore were poor representatives for them or to them.⁽¹⁹⁾ Europeans would alienate the land from the Africans. They oppressed the people with outrageous poll taxes that were unfeasible to pay. This forced the people to work for them only to turn right around and give the money they slaved for right back to the Europeans so that they could at least keep their huts and the small plot of land they did their subsistence farming on.⁽²⁰⁾ All systems of domination in Africa were harsh, unfair, and damaging to the people.

"The relationship of black man to white man, both in Africa and the Western Hemisphere became unmistakably that of social inferior to superior."⁽²¹⁾ It should have been seen from the time the first European stepped foot on the shores of Africa and set his mind to owning that the people would not stand for it forever. From catching a glimpse of colonial domination, it is easy to see what Nkruma meant when he said, "all people wish to be free."⁽²²⁾ Living in a land where "freedom" is a way of life and no one tells anyone else what to do or how to do it, Americans struggle with the concept of people living out in the world who have been stripped of all of their freedoms. Nkruma states that every movement for independence has two basic elements: demand for political freedom, and revolt against poverty and exploitation.⁽²³⁾ African Nationalism was no different.

Although there had been rumblings under the surface for years that there would one day be a rise of national movement, African Nationalism did not begin to take shape until the 1950s at a party celebrating the independence of Ghana as the first black independent African state from colonial rule.⁽²⁴⁾ National leaders from all over Africa came to celebrate with Ghana. "It was at this party that the idea of a meeting of independent African states was first evoked, and notable in the conversations between Nkruma and Bourguiba."⁽²⁵⁾ A "wind of change" began sweeping across Africa. African intellectuals attended the Fifth Pan-African Congress and brought the issue of anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism to the table: "Anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism became major themes of the Congress, and also for the first time, national independence was openly asserted to be the only valid solution to Africa's political aspiration."⁽²⁶⁾ There arose a desire and push towards African unity among African leaders and also the core: "The core wanted a revolutionary transformation of Africa by means of unity. The Periphery wanted to achieve and maintain power within African independent states."⁽²⁷⁾ "As in all social movements, the core hoped to use the periphery, the periphery to tame the core."⁽²⁸⁾ The colonial powers wanted a strategy to surrender political control while seeking to maintain economic control. Moderate nationalists played a key role in helping the core powers to do this. In order to maintain economic control during the transition to political independence, the colonial powers established the independent governments run by moderate nationalists. The moderate nationalists were connected to the Imperial elite. They maintained friendly political ties with the former colonial powers and would keep the basic core-periphery structure in place.⁽²⁹⁾ Therefore, the structure of domination stayed in tact while the impression of independence was portrayed to the people. Between 1940 and 1960 most of South and Southeast Asia and Africa became independent. Nkruma argued that there was no real independence in this new state, only an emersion of a new form of domination-neocolonialism. By the 1950s neo-colonial system was under core control. It must be understood that this condition for the support of the moderate nationalists and core powers was the preservation of core-peripheral relations which facilitates underdevelopment.

After several years, Africans began to realize the strategy the core was using and that this strategy could never create genuine independence. With this realization, the moderate nationalists lost credibility in the eyes of the masses. They realized that it was going to take more than moderate leaders to lead the people to true independence. In the earliest decades of the 20^th century, a social movement led by radical nationalists soon emerged into African Nationalism as we know it today.⁽³⁰⁾

A new serge of radical leaders rose to lead in the African Nationalist movement⁽³¹⁾. Unlike the previous "leaders" in Africa, they did not care to maintain the approval of the colonial elite. They knew what they wanted and they were going after it. Julius Nyerere was one of the native radical leaders. He said that Africa ran on the basis of Democracy although it differed from that of Western Democracy. African Democracy, he said, was similar to that of the Greeks: "a discussion among equals" until an agreement was met. This was a one party system absent of an opposition group like is found in Western Democracy which is based on conflict between the social classes.

Frantz Fanon was another key player in the movement. He believed that the colonizers could not have protected the economic and social systems of the colonized because in doing so they would be contradicting their current actions (which was basically suppressing the culture and economy of the colonized for their self gain). The colonizers were not willing to make any sacrifices for the well being of the native peoples. The affirmation by the native intellectuals would serve to encourage the people and to encourage the hope of a nationalism movement. He claimed it was also the responsibility of the native intellectuals to seek nationalism in terms of the whole continent and not merely the culture. This is necessary because the colonizers made no distinction between the continent as a whole and the individual people groups. He was calling for unity. It was necessary to use the same method for restoration that was used for destruction for the restoration to be effective. The problem with this was that when addressing issues concerning the whole of the continent, the issues of the people end u being overlooked and are left unaddressed. On the same token, the unity was necessary for the success of African nationalism. Fanon also found that when the colonized were able to show violence against colonizers, the violence proved to be a cleansing force for them.

We've already discussed Kwame Nkruma's ideas somewhat. He, too, was a major actor in African nationalism. He developed a theory of Consciencism, which was the incorporation of Western thought, Christianity, and Islam. He believed these three could be incorporated into the African tradition but not dominate it by any means. He believed that Africa should use what they want out of these three for their own purposes. The problem with this is how do you combine elements which are so different from one another? He developed the "cardinal ethical principle of philosophy of consciencism" that stated man should be seen as an end and not a means to an end. Man had been used as a means to produce for the end of the wealth of the colonial powers, but man should produce for man. No man should become rich at the expense of another man. Nkruma believed in the idea of non-alignment-Africa should not align itself with the colonizers but should remain separated. He also made the argument that the Colonial powers need Africa's economy to do well because they no longer need the raw materials of Africa but instead, they need Africa to buy the core's products.

Fanon, Nkruma, Nyerere, and many others lead Africans in a struggle against her colonizers. They encouraged their people to struggle for their basic democratic rights and for their land and lives. Despite their victories and ability to gain a degree of independence, their struggle was muted. Once again the core was able to snuff out the uprising of the dominated peoples. The core was able to maneuver in such a way as to maintain power and all of the benefits she received from the African nations. Although their voice was muted, it was not silenced. Like most movements against domination, African Nationalism is now being "maintained" by the core. The rumblings are still there waiting on another group of dedicated radicals willing to fight for freedom.

1. Nkrumah, Kwame, 1909-1972 Africa must Unite. New York, F.A. Praeger 1963. Pg. 1

2. Asante, Molefi Kete and Abu S. Abarry, editors. African Intellectual Heritage: A book of Sources. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996. Pp. 706-720. With the aid of notes taken from class discussion.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Wallerstein, Immanuel Maurice, 1930-. Africa: the politics of unity; an analysis of a contemporary social movement. New York, Random House 1967. p 4.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Nkrumah, Kwame, 1909-1972 Africa must Unite. New York, F.A. Praeger 1963.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

12. Mazrui, Ali. The African Condition. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1980.

13. Nkrumah, Kwame, 1909-1972 Africa must Unite. New York, F.A. Praeger 1963.

14. Ibid. p 33.

15. Webster's Dictionary defines this as "a disease occurring in certain tropical regions, caused by the organism Treponema pertenue, and characterized by an eruption of raspberry-like excrescences on the skin."

16. Webster's Dictionary defines this as "a nutritional disease of infants and children, occurring chiefly in Africa, associated with a heavy corn diet and the resultant lack of protein, and characterized by edema, potbelly, and changes in skin pigmentation."

17. Nkrumah, Kwame, 1909-1972 Africa must Unite. New York, F.A. Praeger 1963.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid. Thoughts were taken from class discussions and readings from Intro to African American Studies.

20. Ibid.

21. Wallerstein, Immanuel Maurice, 1930-. Africa: the politics of unity; an analysis of a contemporary social movement. New York, Random House 1967.

22. Nkrumah, Kwame, 1909-1972 Africa must Unite. New York, F.A. Praeger 1963.

23. Ibid.

24. Wallerstein, Immanuel Maurice, 1930-. Africa: the politics of unity; an analysis of a contemporary social movement. New York, Random House 1967.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid. p13.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid. p 21.

29. Ideas come from class notes and discussion from the Social Movements course.

30. Ideas come from class notes and discussion from the Social Movements course.

31. Some of these leaders had been trying to catch the attention of the masses for years. It was only after the failure of the moderate nationalists that the masses began seeking the "old voices" to rise and lead them.

Page created November 21, 2003.