African colonialism

A detailed Summary of African colonialism

World Influence on the Modernization of Africa

The way countries, nations or states act and base their policies on many times reflect what their past was like. This is very true in the case of Africa. The only problem is that Africa is said to have no history. This just means that Africa's many cultures did not affect the way imperialists and other influences acted towards the huge continent. Everything was based on their interests and consequently this meant that the way of dealing with Africa in every way was based on Western traditionalists. To this we must answer the question how has the Western World affected Africa's present stage and what must be done to undo what is wrong and hopefully correct this situation.

Africa first played a role in Europe's and the America's history when the U.S. and Great Britain needed labor. They needed a lot of it and they needed it cheap. There was nothing cheaper than free labor. It would require an initial investment to African "leaders" but it paid off almost instantaneously. This is what we used to call slave trading. In around the 1860's this became an illegal act. However, like any other crime, this trading could not be stopped entirely. British Nav

The Europeans tried to make Africa another version of the west. They tried to set up schools, hospitals and other bureaucracies that were successful back home. Many people would argue that because of this Africa had no history. More specifically this means Europe molded Africa's history. They did not let the African nations play out their destiny themselves. When Europe set up governments in their colonies they did not want, for the most part, the traditionalists, which consisted of the kings and chiefs, to be involved in running the show. They instead took the recaptives who were modernizers because they saw what went on in the West while they were. The British knew that the modernizers would be more loyal to them than the traditionalists, being grateful for the freedom they were granted for slavery. The modernizers would favor westernization during colonialism and eventually after it too. They were now the bourgeoisies. They believed that now, when the British were finally moving out of Africa, Africa could not go back to traditionalist values. They believed that post-colonial independence would have to bee taken care of by now the sons and grandsons of the recaptives who have since become doctors, lawyers and teachers. The traditionalists disagreed saying the British should give back what they took away from them many years ago. They agreed they had to modernize somewhat but they were still inherinent to the power of their returned independence. In the end the modernizers were the ones to be named the rulers of newly independent African countries. The only problem was that when the countries became independent they continued to run as they were during colonial times. Partitions of the states remained as they were. Instead of like in Europe where nations, cultures and ethnic groups collectively rule themselves under self-determination, African leaders self-determined that the countries where staying as they were namely as sectors that the imperial powers set up. This meant ethnic clashes continued.

Africa was colonized by Europe by countries such as Great Britain and France, which one can still see evidence of today. This was done at the Berlin Conference. The only two countries not directly colonized where Ethiopia for somewhat religious and Biblical reasons and Liberia, which had a legitimate government and this way the West would not have to directly imperialists the country but could just tell the leaders what, they wanted. The leaders obliged in return for not being colonized. When first colonized the many cultures languages and religions were not considered. Consequentially many opposing people came to live in the same state and this resulted in bloody hatred and eventually civil wars in many of these countries. Europe did not reali

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Approximate Word count = 1862
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History