Lecture: Decolonization & Neocolonialism , with the example of the Belgian Congo & South Africa

1. Professor Chee
Lecture on Decolonization &
Neocolonialism – With the Example
of the Congo & South Africa

2. What is Neocolonialism?
Intrusion of foreign
economic domination, as
well as military and
political intervention, in
states that have already
achieved independence
from colonial rule

3. Robert F. Kennedy in Capetown - 1966
"Each time a man stands
up for an ideal, or acts to
improve the lot of others,
or strikes out against
injustice, he sends forth a
tiny ripple of hope...
•4 years after Sharpville…
•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o57dEuXj-Y

4. What are Nationalist Movements?

5. Edward Said. Culture & Imperialism. 1994
"Neither imperialism nor
colonialism is a simple act of
accumulation and acquisition…
Out of imperialism, notions about
culture were classified, reinforced,
criticised or rejected."
Edward W. Said.

6. British Empire – late Nineteenth Century
Conquest of
India begins in
the 1700s
First Dutch, later the
English begin settling the
Cape in the 1650s

7. Indians in South Africa?
Gandhi Develops his political
consciousness while in South
Africa, 1893-1915
Mohandas Gandhi. Hind
Swaraj (Indian Self-Rule), 1909
Satyagraha or Soul Force
Civil disobedience as a
national policy

8. The First World War (1914-18)
o colonies became natural
extensions of tensions among
European nations
o 1 million Africans
conscripted in the British
army
o 1.5 million Indians
conscripted in the British
army
o preventing aggression &
rights to self-determination

9. 1925-61 Fanon
African elite
o Christian
o European educated
o Worked for European colonial
governments/companies
o Economic, cultural, and social
benefits during colonial rule
o Some looked to the precolonial past
for inspiration, identities based on
ethnicity, religion, and languages
Frantz Fanon. Black Skin, White Mask.
Peau noire, masques blancs. 1953
Psychologist from Martinique,
France & later, Algeria

10. African elite

11. Paris – 30s -Senghor, Césaire, Damas & Negritude
Negritude – origins w Francophone African (&
Caribbean) students in Paris in the 1930s
“Blackness” – celebrated African culture based on
emotion superior to European empiricism and
scientifically driven society
Léopold Senghor
Senegal President
(1960-80)
their personal friendship also a symbolic encounter
between Africa and the African Diaspora
Poet Aimé Césaire
from Martinique
Léon Gontran Damas
from Guiana,
First African selected to
the French Assembly
(1948-51)

12. Négritude: “Blackness”
o Influence of “black is beautiful” from
USA
o Revolt against white colonial values,
reaffirmation of African civilization
o Connection with socialism,
Communism
o Geopolitical implications
12

13. Pan-Africanism
A set of ideas and ideologies (the social, cultural, political, economic,
material, and spiritual aspects), uniting all Africans throughout the world.
Linked by a common experience of oppression and slavery, the
movement promotes negritude, or a sense of African pride, and worked
towards self-determination

14. Pan-Africanism
o Black advancement
o Back to Africa/separatism
o African unity in Africa

15. Back to Africa
Late eighteenth century or the 1700s –
African Americans (like Paul Cuffe and Prince Hall (and
later Olaudah Equiano from the West Indies/England))
advocated for African emigration
new settlements in the West African coast, Sierra Leone
and Liberia.

16. Sierra Leone
o 1787 – Society of
Friends & Abolition
Society
o Krio – resettled
African/British
Blacks
o 1808 became Britain’s
first West African
colony

17. Liberia
o Settled by the
American
Colonization Society
o Freed African
American Slaves
from the early
nineteenth century
(1820s)

18. Europeanization of
the Economy
Rodney. How Europe
Underdeveloped Africa.
1973
Loss of African male
labor

19. African Slave Trade to be replaced by
“legitimate commerce”
Cash crops – peanuts (groundnuts), palm oil, cocoa, bananas,
Gold, firearms, alcohol

20. WEB DuBois (1868-1963)
o an American Harvard Ph.D.
started the National
Association for the
Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP) in 1909
o the organization promotes
Black advancement.
o He also started pan-African
congresses or conferences
beginning around WWI.
o After the fifth pan-african
congress, Nkrumah a leader
from Ghana takes over

21. Marcus Garvey (1887-1940)
o a Jamaican
o Africa for the Africans
o called on people of
African heritage from
around the globe to
return and establish a
pan-African state
o In the U.S., started
UNIA – Universal
Negro Improvement
Association (1920s).

22. 1937 the Government of India Act
1947 India is divided into India & Pakistan &
Gain Official Independence
The Muslim League
started in 1906 – with
British assistance – take
Pakistan (Jinnah as
leader)
The Indian National
Congress (started in 1885
leads India (Jawaharlal
Nehru as leader)

23. WWII & Consequences for Africa
1. Europe fatigued &
very poor
2. US & SU became
super powers (and
begins the cold war
conflict)
3. United Nations
Charter - 1945
4. Colonized Asian
countries demanded
independence.
Africans were
inspired, finding
themselves on a
stronger moral
ground.

24. The cold war, 1949-1962
Conflict between two superpowers, the U.S. and the S.U. which polarized the
world into spheres of influence for the two superpowers, along political,
ideological and economic hostile lines. Both countries refrained from direct
armed conflict in Europe, but not in Africa, Asia, Latin America.

25. American Vision of the World - 1942

26. Jawaharlal Nehru, First Prime Minister of
India, 1947-64, on Nationalism
1955 – Bandung Conference
23 Asian and 6 African nations
meet in Indonesia
Jawaharlal Nehru calls for
ononalignment during the Cold
War,
oStruggle against colonialism and
racism
“each country has not only the
right to freedom but also to
decide its own policy and way of
life”

27. 1957 – Ghana first African country
to gain independence
“Seek ye first the political kingdom”
o1949 - Started the Convention People’s
Party (CPP)
o1957 - won independence for Ghana
(the former Gold Coast) from the British
in 1957.
oOusted as Ghana President in 1966
oPromoted Negritude—a pride in
African traditions
oLed the Organization of African Unity
from 1961+ (which eventually becomes
the African Union.
Kwame Nkrumah
First President

28. Kwame Nkrumah leading
Independence Celebrations

29. Decolonization
of Africa
While the French
allowed most of their
west and equatorial
African colonies to
become independent,
including thirteen alone
in 1960 (“the year of
Africa”), they fought
tenaciously to maintain
control over Algeria

30. Decolonization in Africa
o 19th century “scramble
for Africa” left a legacy
of colonial competition
o Internal divisions
– Ethnic
– Linguistic
– religious
30

31. Organization of
African Unity (OAU)
• Formed 1962
• Declared boundaries
permanent
– Despite arbitrary nature,
necessary to forestall
conflicts
• Promotion of PanAfricanism
• Failure to prevent ethnic
strife, even Nkrumah
deposed 1966
31

32. Genocide in the
Belgian Congo –
King Leopold’s
Association
Internacional de
Congo
1880 - 20 million
1910 – 8.5 million

33. Invention of Bicycles – Baden, (Germany) c.
1820

34. Invention of cars – Benz model, (Germany)
c. 1885

35. King Leopold II of
Belgium
1890 – 100 tons of rubber – 60K
pounds
1896 – 1300 tons
1898 – 2000 tons
1901 – 6000 tons – 720K pounds
Fondation de la Couronne
donated 2.4 million pounds for
Belgian public works projects

36. King Leopold’s
Association
Africans forced to
collect rubber in
lieu of paying taxes
to the state
Villages given quotas
1906 Punch political cartoon

37. Hands as evidence of killings, that
soldiers did not waste their bullets
Those who
didn’t pay were
flogged, killed,
and eventually
hands cut off

38. 1960 - Belgian Congo Gains Independence
June 1960
oPatrice Lumumba the first
democratically elected
leader of the Democratic
Republic of Congo, becomes
Prime Minister
omakes a speech on
independence that offends
the Belgian king

39. July 1960 – the province of Katanga Secedes
o with support from the
Belgian government and
mining companies such as
Union Minière, and 6000
troops
o copper, gold and uranium,
the richest and most
developed areas of the
Congo

40. Colonel Joseph Mobutu overthrew
Lumumba; Belgian officers executed
Lumumba & others – Jan 1961
o the President of Republic of
the Congo, from 1965 – 1997
o Supported by Belgium & the
US
o Mobutu renamed DRC, Zaire
in 1971
o Why is this problematic?

41. South Africa
o Apartheid (1948)
o 87% of territory for whites
o Division of Africans into
tribes, settlement in
“homelands”
o African National Congress
publishes Freedom Charter
(1955)
o Repression of ANC causes
worldwide ostracism of SA
41

42. System of Laws creating Apartheid
Land appropriated (taken)
from Africans for European
settlers
Passlaws – Africans, Asians,
“Coloreds”
Creation of townships
African nationalists jailed

43. Students Shot in Soweto Uprising - 1976
o 20K students marched
through Soweto
protesting the decree
that education was to
be in Afrikaans
o Nearly 200 kids killed
43

44. Nelson Mandela – after 27 years in Prison
1990 – released and legalized the ANC
44

45. 1994 – First Election in South Africa
Nelson Mandela
First President from 1994-99
ANC now in power
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela,
“Inauguration Speech, 1994”
Begins slow dismantling of
Apartheid

46. Post-Independence Difficulties
o Civil wars in Rwanda, Burundi, Angola
o Economic hardship
o Instability of democratic regimes
46

47. Developments in Latin America
• Mexico: failed attempts to redistribute land
• Argentina: military dominate politics
– Juan Perón (1895-1974) elected president,
1946
– Wife Eva (Evita) especially popular
(1919-1952)
• Guatemala and Nicaragua: US intervention
as local governments attempt to control US
economic interests
• Under Reagan, US supports anti-communist
Contra forces
47

48. Grace Chee
2013
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