The wars of 1914–1918 and 1939–1945 are without parallel in the expansive stretch of decades of the pan-European conquest and occupation of Africa in creating such profound opportunity to study the ...very entrenched desire by the European conqueror-states in Africa to perpetuate their control on the continent and its peoples indefinitely. The two principal protagonists in each conflict, Britain and Germany, were the lead powers of these conqueror-states that had formally occupied Africa since 1885. Against this cataclysmic background of history, Africans found themselves conscripted by both sides of the confrontation line in 1914–1918 to at once fight wars for and against their aggressors during which 1 million Africans were killed. Clearly, this was a case of double-jeopardy of conquered and occupied peoples fighting for their enemy-occupiers. In the follow-up 1939–1945 war, when Germany indeed no longer occupied any African land (having been defeated in the 1914–1918 encounter), Britain and allies France and Belgium (all continuing occupying powers in Africa) conscripted Africans, yet again, to fight for these powers in their new confrontation against Germany, and Japan, a country that was in no way an aggressor force in Africa. Hundreds of thousands of Africans were killed in this second war. In neither of these conflicts, as this study demonstrates, do the leaders of these warring countries who occupied (or hitherto occupied) Africa ever view their enforced presence in Africa as precisely the scenario or outcome they wished their own homeland was not subjected to by their enemies. On the contrary, just as it was their position in the aftermath of the 1914–1918 war, Britain, France, Belgium, Spain and Portugal in 1945 each envisaged the continuing occupation of the states and peoples of Africa they had seized by force prior to these conflicts. Winston Churchill, the British prime minster at the time, was adamant: ‘I had not become the king’s first minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire’. Charles de Gaulle, leader of the anti-German ‘free French forces’, was no less categorical on this score: ‘Self-government in French-occupied Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, South America, the Pacific and elsewhere in the world must be rejected – even in the more distant future’.
The author discusses the African States’ inability to provide security and basic social services to the majority of the population. He argues that the “State of Berlin” created by the European ...conquest is still under the growing pressure of peoples or ‘nations’ that want to become independent. The world will have to deal with an African map in constant change based on independence movements that are not Islamic in essence.
O autor reflete sobre a incapacidade do Estado na África em prover segurança e fornecer serviços sociais básicos à maioria da população. Argumenta que o “Estado de Berlim” pós-conquista europeia está ...sob crescente pressão de povos ou nações que desejam se tornar independentes. O mundo terá que lidar com um mapa da África em constante mutação, baseado nos movimentos de independência, que não são em essência islâmicos.
For France, the so-called francophonie Africa or the total of 22 countries, mostly in west, northeast, central and southeast Africa (Indian Ocean) that France conquered and occupied in Africa during ...the course of the pan-European invasion of Africa during the 15th-19th centuries, belong to France in perpetuity. This is in spite of the presumed restoration of independence, since the 1960s, of each of the states concerned. French presidents and top officials of the French republic since the end of World War II, irrespective of ideological or political orientation, attest to this key position in French international politics. Quests for African freedom from this subjugation will be central in charting the salient defining transformative features of African-French relations of this new millennium.
The Achebean Restoration Ekwe-Ekwe, Herbert
Journal of Asian and African studies (Leiden),
12/2013, Letnik:
48, Številka:
6
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Chinua Achebe and his work represent the restoration of the African as the central focus of deliberation and agency. The importance of that cannot be over-emphasized for a continent and its peoples ...who were conquered and occupied most devastatingly by Europeans. Achebe has accomplished that task by: (1) ensuring that there is no universal loss of memory of the historic realities of African sovereignty and independence before conquest nor of the regenerative seeds of African freedom that survived the occupation and (2) by countering the conquest literature of the aftermath.
Pessoas de toda a África, independentemente da região, fervorosamente acreditam que a participação em uma eleição não é apenas uma “responsabilidade civil”, mas, fundamentalmente, a oportunidade de ...decidir quais indivíduos e/ou grupos assumem a liderança do país em que vivem e,
consequentemente, influenciar a evolução das políticas e dos programas dos eleitos. O eleitorado africano, infelizmente, não tem sido bem assistido pelo sistema judicial local, particularmente pelas cortes, que têm essencialmente
determinado os resultados das eleições no continente. Essa tendência predominante tem impacto devastador sobre a democracia. O papel dos ex-conquistadores europeus de perpetuar essa negação flagrante de participação democrática fundamental do povo persiste, e é evidente hoje que a liberdade de respeitar o voto do eleitor na África está intrinsecamente ligada às exigências frenéticas atuais e aos movimentos em várias regiões para construir novos estados que respondam aos interesses críticos dos povos constituintes - longe dos existentes “Estados de Berlim”, que em grande parte ainda servem aos objetivos de seus criadores.
This article argues that it is imperative for African peoples across the world to generate research centered and grounded in Africa and African realities to counteract the Western imposition of its ...interpretation of history. It is posited that until such a paradigm shift is made, the European academy will continue to distort the history and images of Africa and to exploit African people and resources. Denouncing historic and anthropological distortions, the article provides evidence that challenges the commonly held belief that Westerners go to Africa to help develop the continent. The article also confronts the media usage of isolated natural, as well as man-provoked, catastrophes to project an image of plight and calamities against which indigenous Africans have no recourse. Such mis-representations abound and help justify Western countries' constant involvement in Africa. It is finally argued that the West must confront the truth about its intrusive and destructive involvement in Africa and other so-called Third World countries of the world. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
PDF
