Category Archives: South Africa

AIDS Patients of Khayelitsha SA

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Khayelitsha+township+xgold+2012

Most of South African AIDS patients of Khayelitsha live in shacks. They don’t have access to water or electricity in their hovels. They are unemployed, and probably lack the diet necessary to take the drugs. Just as many have tuberculosis. More than 5 million people in South Africa have HIV, and probably more than 1000 die every day HIV/AIDS and the diseases that accompany it. AIDS affects South Africa more than any other country. There us access to drug therapy, but their use must be regimented for them to be effective.

These drugs will have to be taken for as long as the patient lives. People need to be trained in their use for them to hold back the virus effectively. Low-cost generic versions which work just as well, but there are just so many people to reach. It is a logistical quandary short of manpower.

There are not enough hospitals, clinics, doctors, nurses, counselors, or meals to meet the need of the afflicted. An effective state program to combat the matter is the only hopeful solution. Until then, many will go without.

Alongside anti-retroviral therapy, the government must find a way to treat the human—clinic access, food, water—or any other obstacle that stands in the way of ARV distribution and efficacy. The selection must be fair, as this epidemic has elevated AIDS treatment to a human right. Because Khayelitsha is one of the apartheid regimes final attempts to enforce separate development, it is the mandate of the ANC to assist in resolving its problems.

Biko Was No ANC Communist

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Mr. Biko understood that society must acknowledge its group consciousness, and do so under one banner, as opposed to multiple, self-defeating fronts.

He was disheartened by the committees which advocated revolution, feeling that there was no need for violence–that the overall numbers gave them the leverage they needed. Biko hoped that barbarism and riotous behavior could be avoided. He believed that black South Africans would have a free nation, one day, in ANY outcome, because the untenable situation mandated it and that it would be quite sad if it came by way of bloodbath, when it needn’t be.

The ANC claimed ‘solidarity’ with the working men of the world, but failed to unite their own people against their local oppressors. Biko feared they were at the suggestion from outside influences and willing to use violence when the most effective approach would be peaceful confrontation.Biko felt that submitting to the ANC’s claim of representation, meant sharing the guilt in their crimes, and suffering the penalty of their actions.

The ANC overlaid the nonsense of foreign geopolitics on top of the liberation struggle. This resulted in justice seeking blacks like Biko being called a great many things: ‘agitators’, ‘communists’, while holding no sympathies to Russia or planned economies. From what I have studied, Biko believed that there were more liberating philosophies, and perhaps room for both the public and private sectors in the economy.

Biko believed that participation in the economy had been legally denied, as well a voice in that process. From his point of view, no white representative could suffice in fully representing the concerns of black South Africans. Nor, he felt, should he be the speaker of the people his race marginalizes. What Biko sought was representation and the ability to represent. The same status before the law.

But many of South African leaders leaders disagreed, aligning with the ANC, content to subscribe to borrowed notions to solve the disparity. Biko believed that Communism would not solve South Africa’s woes, in the same way that the Western Democratic model would be ill suited. Biko suggested the solution must be African, and borne of black Africans, who recognize their entitlement to such freedom under God.

ZIM HIV/AIDS Response: Near Tie w/SA

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via http://www.thezimbabwean.co/lifestyle/health/53415/the-right-to-arvs.html

via http://www.thezimbabwean.co/lifestyle/health/53415/the-right-to-arvs.html

Although Zimbabwe was one of the first African nations to witness a decline in the prevalence of HIV/AIDS, the disease is as much a problem, still, as it is in the rest of southern Africa.  Adult prevalence has 24.6% of the population to 15.3%. However, “caution should be taken when interpreting the data available,” according to Avert.com.  Large numbers of homeless and displaced people aren’t regularly surveyed.

“Many people have left Zimbabwe and the ones that are left are so struck down by poverty and the collapse of the health delivery system such that they cannot access hospitals. We wonder if these figures can be trusted.”

Like many countries, the Zimbabwean government was slow to acknowledge the AIDS problem.  In 1999, a formal AIDS policy was announced.  These measures have helped, but poor mismanagement and politicalization of the issue (both negative and positive) have “overshadowed the implementation of the National AIDS Policy.”

http://www.avert.org/aids-zimbabwe.htm

FOLLOWUP STORY:
http://www.thezimbabwean.co/lifestyle/health/53415/the-right-to-arvs.html

Settler Colony Culture of Violence

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Boer & Xhosa

Boer & Xhosa

While the majority of Africa attained their independence by the ballot during the early 1960s, southern Africa was forced to armed struggle to gain majority representation.

Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), was a white ‘settler-colony’[1]. The Ian Smith regime sought to keep the country under white rule. They declared Rhodesia independent from the United Kingdom, who at the time, were granting self-rule to their other colonial holdings. Smith refused to allow wider ballot access, believing that the masses of people were not competent enough to vote.[2] Holding on to his principle of a ‘qualified vote’ and restricting voting access to the vast majority of the country, Ian Smith forced black Zimbabweans to radicalize, in order to obtain political equality. Political parties such as ZAPU (Zimbabwean African Peoples Union—1961) and ZANU (Zimbabwean African National Union—1963) were formed, though they were quickly banned and their leaders imprisoned.[3]

Ethnic Matebele, followers of ZAPU and Shona, followers of ZANU took up arms under militant wings of the political parties. They conducted guerilla warfare from the bush, hiding and training across the border in neighboring countries that had already obtained their independence. The widest population in the country advocated a form of socialism via armed struggle. This would bring independence by 1980, but not before all manner of atrocities committed against whites and blacks over the course of 20 years, which included plane bombings of Air Rhodesia[4] and the mass murder of Matebele ZAPU supporters by ZANU militants shortly after. The party forced a merger with opposition ZAPU (Zimbabwe African Patriotic Union) in 1987, and since, the country has been predominantly single-party.[5] It is still under the rule of ZANU-PF and Robert Mugabe. The issue of equitable land reform has yet to see resolution, and ‘War Veterans’ hold the country hostage, economically[6] and through violence and intimidation.

In Zimbabwe and elsewhere on the continent, there were multiple problems which would form crises in the short and long-term. It began, foremost, with partitioned colonies containing borders which bore no reality, geographically and demographically. These new states became nations of disparate people, with multiple ethnicities competing for leverage and power after independence. This crisis of disunity in the African nations would lead to the creation of single-party rule, as an attempt to mitigate and control dissent. In the struggle for upward mobility, education was lagging in presenting Africans with leadership chances. This begets the popularization of force as a means for upward social mobility. Other parties became outlawed, and ‘opposition’ no longer had a lawful opportunity to question and change policy through political means.  In 1963, Togo became the first of many African countries to suffer the coup.

In order to change policy, it was felt necessary by dissidents to implement coups against stagnant, inept, or corrupt governments. In many cases, coups were perpetrated against governments, who did fit that case. One such instance is the removal, arrest, and murder of Patrice Lumumba of Zaire, who had no chance to govern his country before the Mobutu Sese Seko leapt at a chance (backed with covert foreign support) to replace the Prime Minister in 1961. Oftentimes, these new military junta’s were on a scale of corruption which dwarfed the purported corruption of previous regimes[7].  In many instances, the juntas were responsible for extreme violence and gross violations of human rights, including the assassination and murder of activists, such as Ken Saro-Wiwa of Nigeria in 1995.[8] They are responsible for stripping civil liberties, and creating a culture of fear and intimidation. In the post-coup state, the means of self-protection are found with the gun, as is the route to power and ‘self-improvement’.

Historian Ali Mazrui states that “the culture of violence and the absence of democracy are at the root of the multitude of crises in Africa,”[9] and this is true. In total, there have been more military coups than free and fair elections since the ballot victories of the Convention People’s Party of the Gold Coast of the 1950’s and early 1960’s. But ultimately, even in the model example of Ghana, the seeds of discord were set from the beginning. Irrational borders, and instability in managing disparate ethnic groups, led to policies which ostracized participants, such as the single-party state. This forced citizens into participation with a government that did not work in their interests, or in situations where they were excluded in decision making. Brought on by tribalism and ego, leaders were replaced, by murder or exile, only to see the cycle repeat and ratchet forward.

[1] Colonized initially by Afrikaners, and then the UK, Rhodesia was a colony that became home to many whites, whereas many other African colonies to the north and west were claimed chiefly for commerce.

[2] Frost, David. “Frost Programme – David Frost interviews Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeG9eGfRBdA.

[3] Eliakim M. Sibanda. The Zimbabwe African People’s Union 1961-87: A Political History of Insurgency in Southern Rhodesia. Trenton: Africa World Press, 2005. (print copy), ISBN 978-1-59221-276-7.

[4] “ZAPU Responds To UK MP’s Condemnation of Air Rhodesia Shooting.” Zim Eye, February 12, 2013. http://www.zimeye.org/zapu-responds-to-uk-mps-condemnation-of-air-rhodesia-shooting/ (accessed December 12, 2013).

[5] “Gukurahundi, Mugabe’s Cold War cover.” Zimbabwe Independent, September 20, 2013. http://www.theindependent.co.zw/2013/09/20/gukurahundi-mugabes-cold-war-cover/ (accessed December 12, 2013).

[6] ‘War Veterans’ have been implicated in unauthorized farm seizures, and illegal diamond exchange, circumventing Zimbabwe’s revenue attempts.  Most importantly, War Vets physically confronted Mugabe in 1997, demanding reparations and stipends, which Mugabe was forced to authorize. The payout is known as “Black Friday,” and in a single day, the expenditure crashed the Zim economy. The impact on the economy is still felt, and the War Veterans continue their demands.

[7] French, Howard W. “Anatomy of an Autocracy: Mobutu’s 32-Year Reign.” New York Times – International, May 17, 1997. http://partners.nytimes.com/library/world/africa/051797zaire-mobutu.html (accessed December 12, 2013).

[8] “Nigerian junta charges Nobel winner, dissidents with bombings.” CNN World News, March 12, 1997. http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9703/12/nigeria.treason/ (accessed December 12, 2013).

[9] Mazrui, Ali. “”The Africans: A Triple Heritage”.” BBC, 1986.

African Society Is Older Than Slavery

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1818 Pinkerton Map

1818 Pinkerton Map

It is has been expressed that Africa, in effect, had “no history” prior to western colonialism. On the contrary, curiosity attracted me to continent, wherein I easily found much.  I read books as a child which described the ‘mythical city’ of Timbuktu; I learned of the vast resources of the Congo, (as Zaire), merely by watching contemporary television coverage. Early on, I was led to a picture book of the Great Zimbabwe society, and fascinated by the stone structures that seemingly stretched across much of the southern third of the continent; as well as the ancient gold mines nearby.

When Oxford University History Professor Trevor Roper to claim in 1964 that “there is only the history of Europeans in Africa,” there could be no statement further from the truth.  With that type of instruction, taught to a nation’s most brightest students, it is no wonder that recent statistics show students to disbelieve in Timbuktu, as pure myth, akin to an African ‘El Dorado’. It is known, though apparently not taught well enough, that the city actually exists, and was THE center of Islamic learning (and by extension, world learning) during from the middle ages until the rise of European powers. Roper would say I’m “seduced…by the changing breath of journalistic fashion,” in hoping that the ‘common knowledge’ become commonly known. Granted, modern technology has put libraries at my fingertips, where I can explore the continent, virtually, at whim. However, this history has always been there to find, and an Oxford Professor of 50 years past, had just as much resource, if not more in terms of primary sources and artifacts.

Africa is a story about the loss of human capital, extracted like a resource from their people of origin. Why is the memory short on Africa? Is it that “Darkness is not a subject for history,” as Oxford University Professor of History, Trevor Roper, expresses? He charges that students should be taught about black African history, that unless it is, history will only be known from the European perspective… and that perspective, much like the history of pre-European, pre-Columbian America, it “is largely darkness.”

In order to fully grasp the state of current affairs, one should look to the past to see how things were before they became the way they are. It puts into context and grounds one to the material, in that that the learner may realize the changes that have occurred between two times in history. In our schools we are taught about the “Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade,” but what is taught is merely cursory, and oftentimes simplified to less than a page, to where all ‘history’ is merely the modern era, and everything before: ‘ancient’. One can only begin to make sense of the mad reality and come to terms towards a peace and reconciliation by a deeper, more historical understanding of the issue, and moving beyond the Euro-centric conception of the African continent. Well-travelled 14th century explorer Ibn Battuta described the African people he encountered in Mali as “seldom unjust, and have a greater abhorrence of injustice than any other people.” He described the peace and security maintained by the people and noted that “neither traveler nor inhabitant has anything to fear.”[1]

This greatly contrasts the European vision presented hundreds of years later, in 1831 by German philosopher George Wilhelm Hegel, who declared the African “completely wild and untamed,” and “unhistorical.” Justifying his lack of wont to guess a timeline for African self-governance, Governor of Kenya Sir Philip E. Mitchell urged that “it is necessary to realize that history began for these African people about 1890.” Which the Governor said in 1947, making one wonder: when is the start year for African history? It’s obvious to many, including L.S.B. Leaky, that Africa, rather than being without history, “was the birthplace of man himself, and that for many hundreds of centuries thereafter, Africa was in the forefront of all world progress.” And that many people “should know better.”[2]

Even still, history occurs in real time, and it is just as much a contemporary study, then as it is now. Did Roper not understand French (or implications) when it was uttered “Ou es Carlucci?” following the Western ‘intervention’ and deposing of Lumumba.  Roper pines: “Undergraduates… demand that they should be taught the history of black Africa,” as if he didn’t want to teach it. Rather than curiosity, he clings to academic self-preservation, but not before using subtle innuendo to describe his vision of African history as “largely darkness” and that “darkness is not a subject for history.” Whether a product of his times, with racism still in the collective ethos, or an intellectual bully with his steadfast, biased vision of history, regardless of the evidence; there is something to explore.

[1] Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325-1334

[2] The Progress and Evolution of Man in Africa (OUP. 1961:1)

Occupation: Claim Your African Cake

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Berlin Conference

Berlin Conference

In their scramble for Africa, the dominant European powers of the late 1800’s took claim to the continent for a number of reasons, foremost, out of necessity to compete with their neighbors who were doing the same. This was for resources and trade to existing and new markets borne “from the demand for raw materials unavailable in Europe, especially copper, cotton, rubber, tea, and tin, to which European consumers had grown accustomed and upon which European industry had grown dependent.”[1] Sub-Saharan Africa, in turn, was a new market for surplus European goods, and not participating in the Berlin Conference would have put them at a loss to their competitors. As well, instability in the Suez and the Barbary region necessitated an alternative thru-route into Africa and points east. Part of their effort to solve the Suez and Barbary pirate matters encouraged the plan for powers to protect their trade ability by occupation and control of Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia (for example).

Although slavery had been essentially outlawed by all the European powers, much of the proposal was billed “The diplomats put on a humanitarian façade by condemning the slave trade, prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages and firearms in certain regions, and by expressing concern for missionary activities.” In the worst case, the King Leopold’s land acquisitions—‘trinket’ treaties negotiated by Henry Morton Stanley wherein the signee would have no concept of what they were participating in—were organized into a front-agency “International Congo Society” and proclaimed the “Congo Free State” at the conference under the personal control of Leopold. Very soon, the exploitation and harsh treatment of labor for rubber would soon have the ‘Free’ ‘State’ ignoring its advertised precepts, and original ‘scientific’ beginnings “as an entirely disinterested humanitarian body” which sought to “administer the Congo for the good of all, handing over power to the locals as soon as they were ready for that grave responsibility.”[1]

The terms for keeping the European claims under the conference mandated “effective occupation”—European powers could acquire rights over colonial lands only if they actually possessed them: “if they had treaties with local leaders, if they flew their flag there, and if they established an administration in the territory to govern it with a police force to keep order.” As well, the dispossessed white Voortrekkers (slaveholding), were moving into the interior of southern Africa, establishing independent Boer states, contrary to the aims of the United Kingdom, and were not included as parties to the partitioning. In fact, the Boers were to become detainees in modern history’s first concentration camps for in their attempt to assert their independence.

[1] http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/april2007/africa_scramble.html

AFRICA: Reactions To Colonialism

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Ashanti War

Ashanti War

Europeans made headway into Africa by making associations with disaffected ethnic groups—who hoped that the newcomers would provide leverage over territorial disputes with other groups.  Some initially welcomed the Europeans, but eventually all would resist European occupation. In the west, the coastal Fante Confederation, weak from raids of the nearby Asante, would side with the British; in the east, the Buganda province would align with against the dominant Bunyoro.[1] European powers capitalized on regional conflict to at first gain footing on the continent, and then secondly, to undermine the native ruling structures of the interior. The Europeans conducted long wars against holdout groups, which fought with both conventional and guerrilla tactics, such as the Islamic empire of Samory Touré, which held a resistance for nearly 20 years against French rule in West Africa at the end of the 19th century.[2]

Defeat for Africans meant a new means of tribute. The European model of taxation for the purpose of capitalizing work projects was introduced to the continent, as a means of self-sufficiency for the European colonies. Hut taxes, Head taxes, and a host of other taxes were introduced upon the Africans who never had to pay such things.[3] Failure to pay taxes, would force conscription into a forced labor gang to build improvements desired by the European nations, which mainly consisted of roads and railways to coastal ports, but nary a road between neighboring groups. Africans were also pressed into mine work, and other dangerous duties by the local chief, who was only crafting the work detail out of a European demand from higher up.

Avoidance of taxation and forced labor could lead to imprisonment; another system foreign to the continent.[4] Prior to physical incarceration, punishments were closer to moral judgments and self-reflection. The true leaders of the people were often jailed, for instigating rebellion, or on the fear they might, and it is from this practice that Africa, again, was forced into chains and captivity, and suffered the loss their human capital. Though the slave trade purportedly ceased, a new model of slavery replaced it, one of economic and political servitude. All the while, Africans were being dispossessed of their lands, and forced into meager reservations of poor soil, which would sew “the incipient seeds of future African nationalism.”

Where once the Europeans were welcomed by certain parties, when the demands that were placed upon their enemies were eventually then put upon them, they too, were forced to rebellion in their own self-interest. In what is described as the Secondary Reaction to European colonialism, the ethnic groups that initially welcomed the Europeans would rebel against them, when taxation, forced labor, imprisonment and land alienation began to be imposed on them, in addition to their enemies. The opportunity for alliance was too late, and these rebellions were suppressed, forcing Africa into compliance with the European colonial objectives.

[1] Amii Omara-Otunu, Lecture, University of Connecticut, September 24th, 2013.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Amii Omara-Otunu, Lecture, University of Connecticut, September 26th, 2013.

[4] Ibid.

Direct/Indirect Colonial Management

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Foncha Ahidjo, West Cameroon (1960)

Foncha Ahidjo, West Cameroon (1960)

The European powers each managed their holdings differently, but the most utilized strategies were Indirect Rule and Assimilation, by the British and French colonies. Employed by the British, Indirect rule sought to dictate from London, and rule through local (loyal) “chiefs.” The French sought to assimilate Africa into their empire, and disseminate the French culture to Africans. The Portuguese, in contrast, made no effort at a teaching Africans to read, and literacy rates generations later reflect that—in 1945, less than 1 person in 100 in the Portuguese colonies could read.[1] The continent would be subject to European rule, save for countries of Liberia and Ethiopia which maintained their independence and self-governance.

The method of ‘Indirect rule’ was favored by the British, whereby the native group is left to administer locally. Chiefs were appointed, usually men loyal to the Empire, as Africa’s indigenous leaders were prone to capture and imprisonment. These chiefs were subjects to the Empire, installed by British Administrators to collect taxes and conscript labor for road and rail building projects, in addition to maintaining local order. In their role as agents of the empire, the chiefs would bear the brunt of local criticism for policies and mandates crafted in the colonial capital or elsewhere and acted as a buffer against anti-colonial sentiment; the chiefs were seen as transgressors, locally, for British crimes mandated upon them.[2] Africans were seen as a lesser species, and though Britain had ended its role in the Atlantic Slave Trade, their managers ruled with racism in mind. The British though that the ‘inferior’ African people, could never attain the level of culture and sophistication of a European nation, and preferred their arrangement with Africans to be one of master and servant.

The French chose to adopt the attitude of ‘assimilation’ in their colonial holdings. They incorporated their African colonies into their Empire, and sought to share the French culture, which they viewed as enlightened. [3] They allowed for any African to become a French citizen, by virtue of adopting French ways and customs. The French established schools to aid in literacy, and allowed for travel to France and education in universities. Exhibiting none of the racism of the United Kingdom’s colonial endeavors, the French also allowed representation in their national assembly. In Senegal, communes were established in Gorée, Dakar, Rufisque, and Saint-Louis[4] which exemplified their attempt at integrating the French culture into Africa, although most Africans living outside the communes had no access to schools. Davidson notes that by 1926, fewer than 50,000 out a regional population of 13 million acquired the status of French citizen.[5]  Many Africans, retained their native customs, and carried on their traditional way of life. However the culture was pervasive enough that the Franc survives as the currency and French as a predominant language, more than fifty years after Senegalese nationhood.[6]

The most devastating method of management from this time period employed by all European powers was the development of the cash-crop, or monoculture. These crops, exclusively for export, were grown to the exclusion of the regions basic food needs, and are responsible for famine to this day. In his book, “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa,” Walter Rodney illustrates how “in Gambia rice farming was popular before the colonial era, but so much of the best land was transferred to groundnuts that rice had to be imported on a large scale to try and counter the fact that famine was becoming endemic.”[7] This was a practice repeated all throughout Africa, and left Africans vulnerable not only to famine, but the ravages of crop failure and international price fluctuations.[8] According to Rodney, these land use practices are responsible for rendering the continent “helpless in the face of capitalist manoeuvres.”[9]

[1] Basil Davidson, “Modern Africa, 3rd Edition” 1994.

[2] Amii Omara-Otunu, Lecture, University of Connecticut, September 24th, 2013.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Maelenn-Kégni Touré “Black Past – Four Communes of Senegal (1887-1960)” accessed October 7, 2013: http://www.blackpast.org/gah/four-communes-senegal-1887-1960

[5] Basil Davidson, “Modern Africa, 3rd Edition” 1994, page 38.

[6] The CIA World Factbook, Entry “Senegal” accessed October 7, 2013:  https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sg.html

[7] Rodney, Walter, and Abdul Rahman Mohamed Babu. 1974. How Europe underdeveloped Africa. Washington: Howard University Press.

[8] Amii Omara-Otunu, Lecture, University of Connecticut, September 24th, 2013.

[9] Rodney, Walter, and Abdul Rahman Mohamed Babu. 1974. How Europe underdeveloped Africa. Washington: Howard University Press.

Africa As Cake: Berlin Conference

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berlinconference

The Berlin Conference of 1884-85 was the ‘international’ agreement to settle the territorial Scramble for Africa, led largely by France and Britain. It set the ground rules for taking of African land and resources between European powers, in order to avoid war and international conflict. African historian Basil Davidson notes in “The Magnificent African Cake” that by the 1880’s, industrialized Europe saw in Africa “new sources of raw materials for its factories, new markets for its manufactures, and new positions of advantage against its rivals.”[1] Represented in Berlin were fourteen different countries; of these, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Portugal were the primary stakeholders, holding the largest share of Africa at the time.

At the time of the conference, most colonial holdings were limited to coastal areas of Africa. The conference, among its range of purposes, was foremost convened to decide the interior boundaries between the European powers in order to avoid conflict between Europeans. Africans were not represented at the conference, nor were African leaders consulted on boundary exchanges.[2] However, its outcomes are responsible for the aggression of Europeans and the visiting of conflict upon the African people. The African people would effectively be rendered non-persons, suppressed further from the Atlantic Slave Trade of prior centuries; an act which set precedent for the theft of Africa’s resources and incarceration or murder of its human capital. The outcome of the Slave Trade, and that of the Berlin Conference, created a long-term chaos in African society which forms the root of the continent’s contemporary issues.

As is the modern rhetoric when one country intervenes upon another, the notion of Humanitarian concern was visited as a motive for Africa’s partitioning. Africans were viewed, paradoxically, as “lazy” or “savages” that required conversions to Christ, and taxation schemes to develop a western work ethic, under the instruction European empire.  Whether the phrase “humanitarian reasons” would be conveyed sincerely or euphemistically,  a conference of that nature—stealing and sharing an inhabited continent—would not be allowed by the collective morality, were it not for racism and the predominate view of Africans as sub-human. The land itself was seen as empty, and for the taking. Davidson describes how Belgian King Leopold “Spoke for them all when he said, “I am determined to get my share of this magnificent African cake.””[3] Africa was not seen by the European powers as belonging to someone else.

The land and Africa’s other natural resources, were sought for a number of reasons, from which they are largely the result of the “dynamic growth of industrial capitalism.”[4]  The British needed new markets, The French had a desire for land largesse, and needed to nurture the cultural ego, while their European territory was contracting[5]. The Portuguese concerned themselves with the perpetuation of their coastal trade outposts, which were among the earliest modern European settlements on the continent; the earliest, European settlements, Sub-Saharan, that history can establish. The Dutch, much like the Germans, sought fertile land and homesteads and religious freedom. Each saw Africa as a means to their survival against competing powers; Resources, to sustain industrialization and capitalism; Redemption and espousal of cultural identity; continuation of naval trade dominance, and land for the political or religious refugee. Religion would also settle Africa; missionaries of a certain nationality in a particular area would be used to justify a land claim[6], and the scramble saw waves of missionaries make their trek into the interior; a practice that still occurs to this day.

The primary stipulation to any land claim was the principle of ‘effective occupation. “Any power that could occupy African soil could, effectively, claim it,” as Basil Davidson describes.  In addition to settler colonies and forts on the frontier, claims by the European nations were bolstered by the presence of missionaries and explorers within a desired territory. Commercial companies, like the Imperial British East African Company, were the foundation for British claims in the East, while the entrepreneurial efforts of Cecil Rhodes were responsible for British claims in Southern Africa. Davidson likens the strategy to a “great game” which purpose “was to get hold of places and positions of advantage over rivals, no matter what irrational frontiers might result.”[7]

In The words of British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury, European nations were “engaged in drawing lines on map where no man’s foot has ever trod. We’ve been giving away mountains and rivers and lakes to each other, only hindered by the small impediment that we never knew exactly where we were.”[8] Wherein the Berlin Conference signatories were to inform other signatories and Western nations of their land claims[9], they were not required to inform the people of Africa, which who were more or less captured, coerced, or strong-armed into ‘agreement’.

[1] Basil Davidson, “The Magnificent African Cake,” Documentary film, 1986.

[2] Amii Omara-Otunu, Lecture, University of Connecticut, September 24th, 2013.

[3] Basil Davidson, “The Magnificent African Cake,” Documentary film, 1986.

[4] Amii Omara-Otunu, Lecture, University of Connecticut, September 26th, 2013.

[5] Amii Omara-Otunu, Lecture, University of Connecticut, September 19th, 2013.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Basil Davidson, “The Magnificent African Cake,” Documentary film, 1986.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Amii Omara-Otunu, Lecture, University of Connecticut, September 19th, 2013.

Politics of Race in 20th Century Africa

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Rainbow Nation

Prior to the Afrikaner-dominated Nationalist Party coming to power and implementing their apartheid policies, the British grappled with the question of how to handle the ‘native question’. In 1911, Maurice Evans, the listened-to expert of his time on offered, “I have put the question many times, often without answer, and at best to have been told that our policy would be to keep him (the African) in his place,” his defense of a paternalistic policy towards Africans.  To Evans, that place was a role of subservience and obedience to White interests. Even he would acknowledge, though that the African’s “place is a shifting one; we ourselves are altering the plane; what was his place yesterday may not know him tomorrow.” He was ahead of his time, forecasting the violence that would result in the second half of the century as a result of such oppression, “in other words, repression with an appeal to the rifle.” (Kidd, 171)

It is this uncertainty alarmed Afrikaners, in an age of systemic racism. The bitter end of the Boer Wars and white poverty birthed sympathy and attraction to the Nationalist cause. Issues such as black suffrage and equitable land apportionment were seen as a direct threat to Afrikaner interests—even equated with ‘suicide’. It was also seen as damaging to the morality of whites to associate with blacks. Very often, the ‘natives’ were portrayed as contented or childish, on the whole. In 1925, Ernest Stubbs would claim that “contact means the utter and irretrievable ruin of the white races of South Africa.” (Stubbs, 224) The fact that blacks could obtain a Western intellect, or that they had it, innately, was a hard matter for many whites to grasp. Like Dudley Kidd’s account, westernized—therefore qualified to vote blacks—were few and far between, confined to a niche. In 1908, Kidd posits “if we may judge by the violence and intemperance of their language, this handful of educated Kafirs wants the franchise very badly.” (Kidd, 171)

A series of pass laws prohibited black migration. At a hearing for African labor concerns in 1904, one line of testimony calls it “Giving a right to a man to interfere with another man when he is in his own castle. (African Workers Discuss, 194) The Native Land Act would be passed in 1913, and like the pass laws and the franchise, it affected everyone. However, “this Act satisfied no one,” said DDT Jabavu who offered an analysis of the Act in 1928. The Professor found that the Act “confirmed the natives in the sole occupancy of their reserves in which they were already overcrowded.” (Jabavu, 224) Sol Plaatje would say fifteen years earlier that it “allowed Dutchmen, Englishmen, Jews, Germans, and other foreigners may roam the ‘Free’ State without permission—but not natives…It would mean a fine and imprisonment to be without a pass.” (Plaatje, 218)

To address these grievances, Africans organized politically, first in local Congresses, and then ultimately consolidated into the African National Congress. The movement attracted many intellectuals. According to ANC President, Reverend J.A. Catala in 1938, “the inception of the National Congress was due to a crying need for comprehensive machinery by which to manage and direct national affairs.” The ANC’s purpose was “to unite, absorb, consolidate, and preserve…existing political, and educational associations, vigilance committees, and other public and private bodies whose aims are the promotion and safeguarding of the interests of the aboriginal races.” (Catala, 1938) Catala reasons that their work was “to make the Government realize that the African is an integral part of the body politic of South Africa.” In response, the Nationalist sentiment of the Afrikaners grew stronger. Catala would lament that “South Africa is a funny country in that its rulers are full of fear…they fear the black people who outnumber them by 3:1…It is a country of many races, yet it is possible for it to have a Cabinet composed of men of one race. This signifies that the problem of race relations is not easy to solve.” (Catala, 1948)

The older rhetoric of a separate Black and White South Africa would still pervade the country even after the close of World War Two, which saw whites fighting alongside blacks in many areas of the globe. The Stubbs sentiment, that separateness could be obtained and would be beneficial to all, was popular, albeit quaint. “We cannot have an all-white South Africa…We can have, with all the elements of permanency a White South Africa and a Black South Africa, side by side.” (Stubbs, 224) Kidd’s point-of-view still carried weight, and many Afrikaners agreed—“If (blacks) are left to follow their own natural political development, the result arrived at will be more stable and will have a more permanent value than the outcome of an impatient patchwork of our own.” (Kidd, 171) However, blacks were not left to their own natural development. Their efforts were increasingly thwarted by the state, and whites were still dependent on black labor. The conditions were so onerous that they demanded challenge. In reporting on the condition of African Farm Workers, Drum Newspaper opines that “while the Industrial Revolution is causing as much chaos in South Africa as it caused in 19th century Europe no lessons have been learnt…the same abuse of labor is repeated in the same style…farm prisons and contracted labor…depends upon compulsion, not persuasion. (Drum, 267) International and internal pressure would mount on the Nationalists, and laws would be passed, such as the ‘Abolition of Passes Act’ and the ‘Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Bill’ but typically, according to Nelson Mandela, these titles meant “the opposite of what the measures contained.” (Verrwoerd’s Tribalism, 2)

Robert Sobukwe labeled the treatment “humiliation, degradation, and insult,” stating that blacks were “ruthlessly exploited.” Steve Biko would later elaborate that “the leaders of the white community had to create some kind of barrier between blacks and whites so that the whites could enjoy privileges at the expense of the blacks.” (Biko, 87-88)  This policy of labor exploitation and segregation became a moral weak point for whites and the violence at Sharpeville became the proof of this moral degradation. The efforts towards non-violent revolution would peak in 1960 with Nobel Peace Prize winning ANC President Lutuli, but go by the wayside. Despite their position on the moral high-ground, the ANC would respond with violence. Umkonto we Sizwe, or “the Spear of the Nation” would be called to action by Nelson Mandela. The ANC would splinter off its non-violent activists like Sobukwe, and adopt more radical ideologies and tactics offered to them by Communism. The South African Communist Party would face bans, and imprisonment, and create figureheads out of Robben Island prisoners, whom the public could rally around for another thirty years.

Kidd recognized in 1910 that “if we insist upon keeping alive racial conflict, we must be prepared for the inevitable consequence; racial problems will then remain an open sore.” (Kidd, 172) Apartheid would finally reach a settlement and majority representation and a new constitution obtained. The new government carries with it the stain of the past racial struggle and the violent history of both the Afrikaner and ANC, though it remains very plain as it did 100 years in the testimony of Dr. Abdurahman in 1912: “Show the…people that the government is for the good of all, not for the privileged class…grant them equal opportunities. If you do so, then the happy harmonization of the community will be achieved.” (Abdurahman, 214)