By: Sneha Sagi
War and Peace in Sub-Saharan Africa
- The optimism in Africa from World War II disappeared over time.
- Large numbers of unsettling coups replaced the civilians who ran the independent state with military leaders
- Effect of colonialism: European powers made African territories who's borders were artificial and temporary. They did not correspond to economic or ethnic divisions.
- Having a national unity was difficult, many tribes had conflicts with each other within the states.
- Political institutions collapsed.
- Poverty in most of the states created tensions, making a stable government ore necessary.
- Poverty also prevented nations from getting the capital that would have been a good political and economic infrastructure.
The Aftermath of Decolonization
- Created in 1963 by thirty-two state members, The Organization of African Unity (OAU) attempted to stop and prevent conflicts that could lead to intervention by the former European colonial powers.
- The artificial boundaries were not changed but became permanent by the OAU in order to prevent conflict over boundaries.
- Kwame Nkhrumah (1909-1972) was a leader of a state who promoted Pan- Africa, another way for the states to resist domination from foreign powers.
- National borders were held by the people but unity was not. African nations couldn't avoid the internal conflicts. Nkhrumah was overthrown in 1966 from his position as President of Ghana.
- Ghanaians tore down statues and photographs that represented his leadership.
- Many sub-Saharan states politics evolved into dictatorial one-party rule, they didn't use multiparty elections to end political separation.
- Several African nations fell prey to military rule.
- South Africa managed to solve its political crisis, providing a model of African transformation.
The Organization of African Unity (OAU) Flag
South Africa
- Due to white settlers in South Africa, black freedom had been delayed just as the rest of the continent.
- South Africa gained independence in 1910 from Britain, but the black population, although it was the majority, remained the same.
- South America was different than the rest of sub-Saharan Africa after becoming anti-colonial, it became a struggle against internal colonialism, against a white regime that denied basic human and civil rights to millions of South American people.
- The ability of whites to resist majority rule was still there in the South African economy, the strongest on the continent.
- The strength came from the extraction of minerals and industrial development.
- The industrial development became bigger during World War II.
- The growth of the industrial sector open many jobs to black people, creating the possibility of a status change.
- Black activism and the need for serious political reform after World War II with the possibility for change went into the heart'f of white South Africans.
- The Afrikaner National Party in 1948 came to power. They were dedicated to stop any changes made for black independence.
- Under the new National Party, the government made a very harsh new set of laws, made to control the rebel black population.
- These new laws constituted the system called the apartheid system which means separateness.
Nelson Mandela
Apartheid
- The apartheid system gave white supremacy and implied racial segregation that had been established years before 1948.
- The government gave 87 percent of South Africa's territory to white settlers.
- the remaining 13 percent was all that was left as a home land to black and colored citizens.
- Nonwhites were classified according to a variety of ethnic identifications.
- white South Africans divided the black and colored population in the name of preventing the rise of rebellions.
- The system soon evolved to keep blacks in a position with no political, social, or economic power.
- In 1912, The African National Congress (ANC), gained new leaders like Nelson Mandela who inspired direct action campaigns to protest the apartheid system.
- In 1955, ANC published it's Freedom Charter, which stated the ideal multiracial democratic government and rule for South america.
- The goals of ANC challenged the white rule and was suppressed. The government declared al of its opponents communists and increased its actions towards lack activists.
- Protests increased in 1960 and on March 21, white police gunned down black demonstrators in Shrapevile. Sixty-nine blacks died and almost two hundred were wounded. Sharpville instituted a new era of radical activism.
- White regime banned black organizations and jailed their activists, international opposition to white South African rule grew.
- Newly freed nations called for UN sanctions against South Africa.
- In 1961, South Africa declared itself a republic, removing itself fro British Commonwealth
- In 1963, government forces captured the leaders of ANC's military unit, including Mandela.
- They were sentenced to life in prison, and Mandela and the other activists became symbols of the oppressive white regime.
- Many protests against the system continued in both the 1970s and the 1980s.
- The combined efforts of massive black protests and international pressure eventually led to reform.
- If South Africa was to survive, it has to change.
The African National Congress (ANC) flag
F.W. de Klerk
The End of Apartheid
- When F.W. de Klerk became president of South America in 1989, with the help of the national party, he dismantled the apartheid system.
- In 1990 De Klerk released Mandela from jail, legalized the ANC, and worked with both Mandela and ANC to negotiate the end of white minority rule.
- The National Party, the ANC, and other African political groups collaborated in the creation of a new constitution.
- They also held elections that were open to all races in the April of 1994.
- The ANC political group won overwhelmingly and Mandela became the first black president of South America.
- Mandela made the nation better by having a free society, where everyone lived in harmony and had equal opportunities.
- In 1994, still the president, Mandela proclaimed South Africa "free at last."
The Democratic Republic of the Congo flag
The Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Political stability remained hard to achieve outside South Africa
- Once known as Belgian Congo, then Zaire, is now known as the Democratic republic of the Congo.
- Mobutu Sese Seko (1930-1997) took power in 1965 by having the first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961) killed in a military coup.
- Lumumba was a Maoist Marxist and the US Center Intelligence Agency (CIA) supported Mobutu's coup.
- Mobutu soon received support from the US and European democracies that hoped to stop uprisings
- With international backing and financial support, Mobutu ruled as a dictator. He used his power to bring fortune to his family, allies, and himself, but made Zaire's economy suffer.
- Mobutu endured until 1997, when he was kicked out by Laurent Kabila.
- Kabila changed the name to The Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- His first concern was stability, which became giving him more power as the president, head of military and the head of the state.
- He promised that this was a transition phase, as he prepared for a democratic ad stable Republic of Congo.
- However in just a year after starting his revolution, in 1998 Kabila came under attack by rebels in the Congo who had gotten help from the governments of neighboring states.
Mobutu Sese Seko
Laurent Kabila