"The result today is a continent of states stranded between its old ways and
modernity. African rulers grabbed the European-style institutions bequeathed
to them, but nearly everywhere ran them into the ground, without creating
new ones based on African traditions and values. Whose fault was it? In
1998, on the 100th anniversary of the battle of Omdurman, the British
ambassador to Sudan was asked if he planned to apologise to his hosts for
that butchery of their Mahdist forefathers resisting invasion. "Why not?" he
said, "as long as we also apologise for the roads, hospitals, schools and
university; in-deed for creating a country called Sudan." "


The Scramble for Africa


Story Filed: Wednesday, February 02, 2000 10:58 PM EST 
Accra (The Independent, February 2, 2000) - The last century saw colonialism
ensnaring the continent of Africa only to be uprooted in the latter half.
Below is a piece that looks at the phenomenon of Africa's colonialization
again. 
The Europeans were slow to seize black Africa, ruthless in doing so, harsh
when they had done it-but by no means doers only of harm. 
Of all the targets of European empire-builders, Africa was nearest; and
"black Africa" among the least advanced. Yet, save for its far south, it was
the last to be grabbed. Its coast had been known to Europeans for centuries
and was dotted with their trading posts. But until around 1860 the interior
was protected. Fevers killed off intruding white men, roads were few and
cataracts blocked access by river. 
Then, setting off from their enclaves along the shores, European explorers
began to walk old Arab trade routes. They searched for the truth of ancient
stories about the dark continent and the sources of its mighty rivers. By
1862 they had reached the source of the Nile. A little later, they traced
the route of the Niger. They confirmed the reality of Africa's fabled
riches-ivory, gold, diamonds, emeralds, copper. Entrepreneurs also saw that,
in-stead of buying crops like cot- ton or palm oil from its villagers, they
could set up plantations and use cheap local labour to work them. Africa was
becoming too valuable to be left to the Africans. Besides these were
violent, savage and backward, in need of Christianity and civilisation, were
they not? 
Yet, ripe for takeover as Africa was, the European grab for it was neither
inevitable nor consistent. Britain at first opposed a carve-up, but ended
with the richest parts: today's South Africa, Ghana and Nigeria. Belgium's
King Leopold II was one of Eu-rope's least powerful rulers. But once he had
carved out the Congo basin as a personal fief, other countries were quick to
stake claims. Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of the strong new Germany, put
in a bid for huge chunks of East and West Africa. 
Europeans, quick to fight each other at home, were loath to do so for slices
of a continent that they barely knew. Besides, it would set a bad example to
the natives. So in 1884 the powers met in Berlin to share Africa out. 
In some areas, ignorant of people and geography alike, they made frontiers
simply by drawing straight lines on the map. 
The Africa they seized was technologically in the iron age, and politically
divided into several thousand units, some based on language and culture,
others on conquest, paying tribute to the conquerors. Much of the continent
was in turmoil, as slaving gangs sent out by some of its own rulers spread
war and sent communities fleeing. 
Some Africans resisted the takeover, but the Europeans, no slouches at
savage violence, most often swept their spear-wielding armies aside with the
Maxim gun and repeater rifle, and brutally crushed local resistance. Much of
Africa gave in without a fight, its kings signing away their sovereignty
with a thumb-print. Many allied with the intruders, maybe believing that
these would not stay long and would give help against some local rival. Some
tried to play one set of Europeans off against another. Others were
over--awed by technology: the kingdoms of northern Nigeria surrendered to
forces, led by a handful of white men, far smaller than their own. By 1914
Europeans ruled all of Africa, bar Liberia, the state founded by America for
its ex-slaves, and Abyssinia (Ethiopia), an ancient kingdom which had fought
off the Italians in 1896. 
Posing as parents to Africans, Europeans counted them, taxed them and
ordered their communities into tribes or, where true tribes did not exist,
invented them. Mean-while, the best land was taken for plantations, and the
minerals dug out and shipped off to be processed in Europe (a division of
labour and, inversely, of profits-which, except in South Africa, largely
continues to-day). The storehouse was steadily exploited, but Africans saw
little of its wealth. 
Yet not all was oppression, nor plunder. King Leopold's arm-choppers were no
improvement on the past; Christian missionaries mostly were. Europeans
brought schools and hospitals; and order, and the start of modem
administration, on which independent states would later be built. 
Not late enough, thought many colonial administrators. The European
occupation of black Africa was short-lived barely a generation in some
areas. After the second world war (in which many Africans died fighting for
the Allies), America wanted an end to European imperialism, and African
leaders, often socialist and aided by the Soviet Union, wanted self-rule. In
Algeria, Kenya and Rhodesia, white settlers tried to keep power by force,
but in time lost support from "home". White South Africans-far more numerous
and longer in place-held out into the 1990s, but, facing unrest and outside
pressure, had to give up. 
It is too soon to draw up a balance-sheet of colonialism. Perhaps the
Africans' worst loss was not of land or power but self-respect, as the
newcomers taught them that their ways, cultures and gods were inferior and
should be abandoned. The alien religion put in their place often caught on;
but the Europeans kept their version of politics, which arguably was indeed
superior, for use at home, merely chucking Africa a few tattered pretences
at it as they lowered the flag. Africa was left both psychologically and
politically impoverished. Much of it still is so. 
The result today is a continent of states stranded between its old ways and
modernity. African rulers grabbed the European-style institutions bequeathed
to them, but nearly everywhere ran them into the ground, without creating
new ones based on African traditions and values. Whose fault was it? In
1998, on the 100th anniversary of the battle of Omdurman, the British
ambassador to Sudan was asked if he planned to apologise to his hosts for
that butchery of their Mahdist forefathers resisting invasion. "Why not?" he
said, "as long as we also apologise for the roads, hospitals, schools and
university; in-deed for creating a country called Sudan." 
Credit: The Economist 
Copyright (c) 2000 The Independent. Distributed via Africa News Online.