How the Decolonization ofAfrica has Crippled the

Prospect of a Modern Africa

Jason S. GanzGlobal Ethnic Conflict

PSCI 384W – Senior ThesisFall 2010

Jason S. Ganz 1

***Introduction***

The artificial creation of borders by colonial powers for economic, social, and political reasons

has been instrumental in preventing any African nation from rising to power and is a main cause of

ethnic conflict in Africa. Colonizing states including Great Britain, France, and Belgium viewed the

colonies as centers for non-native natural resources as well as a means to define colonizing prowess.

Such behavior ensued with little to no regard for the indigenous nations that had existed in Africa prior

to European imperialism, and resulted in social, economic, and political exploitations that began with

conquest and culminated with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's idea of creating Africa's state

borders by swiping pen-strokes1 with little to no regard for pre-colonial Africa's histories and cultures.

To demonstrate the effect that colonization and artificial state-creation had – and continues to

have – on African states and their nations, it is necessary to analyze several colonial power to colony

relationships from the aforementioned perspectives. The case studies that will demonstrate this will be

as follows: The relationship between Belgium and the Belgian Congo, France and the colonies of

French West Africa and Equatorial Africa, and Great Britain and the colonies that ultimately composed

the Union of South Africa. Thus, colonial actions have left the continent of Africa as an amalgamation

of artificially drawn states whose post-colonial divisions have paralyzed the prospect of an influential

Africa in the modern world.

The questions that require answering is what is colonization and why do states seek colonies.

Colonization is the means of finding new sources of wealth (markets / colonies) and then taking these

sources of wealth and returning them to the colonial power as raw products (diamonds, precious

metals, spices) and the increase in production of consumable goods and exploitation of lands for

mineable resources.2 Egerton's definition is devoid of intimations towards actively exploiting tribes,

ethnic groups, and nations and emphasizes the importance of the raw materials and lands being

acquired for increasing colonial power. Additionally, colonization affords the colonial power several

home-state advantages as it pertains to the colony's resources: first-mover advantage through

preventing other states from having equal opportunity to the colony's resources and thereby allowing

that particular colony to monopolize the market for that resource3; and if we build on Egerton's

1James L. Gelvin “The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War” (Cambridge University Press) © 2005, Revised 2007. p. 89

2 Hugh Edward Egerton “The Origin and Growth of the English Colonies and Their System of Government” (Oxford, Clarendon Press) © 1903. pp. 7-8.

3 Sylvia Ostry “Governments and Corporations in a Shrinking World: Trade and Innovation Policies in the United States,

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definition, the influx of new goods into a home state to broaden its own market and further its presence

in the free market. The economic rationales alone were sufficient for colonizing powers to find lesser

states and nations to colonize for their own economic gains.

***Great Britain and South Africa***

ECONOMIC PRESENCE

England's economically-charged colony was the Union of South Africa; an amalgamation

resulting from consolidating the Orange River Colony, the Colony of Natal, the Transvaal, and the

Cape Colony into a single larger state as a result of winning the Second Boer War (1899 – 1902)

against the Dutch and Trasvaal.4 England's gains as a result of winning the Boer Wars included not

only the ability to consolidate the British Cape Colony and the Natal (Britain's pre-war colonies) with

the Orange Free State and the Transvaal (Dutch and Boer lands), but afforded the British to gold mines

in addition to the Kimberley Diamond mines that had been operating in 1866 and largely financed the

British Empire's wars and other operations.5

The Witwatersrand Mine, which the Boers had operated since 1886 in the Orange Free State

became – as a result of the aforementioned war – a second avenue of commodity based financial

stability for the British, who increased production every year throughout their control of the Union of

South Africa except during the two World Wars.6 Thus, based on Egerton's and Ostry's models of

colonization and economic advancement, South Africa's colonial purpose was to provide financial gain,

satisfying Egerton. Additionally, because Great Britain was able to second-move on the Boer's first-

mover advantage and lock themselves as the ultimate first-mover while being sole trader of diamonds

and gold with the Union of South Africa, Ostry's economic rationale of what a first-mover should do to

maximize profit is satisfied as well.

Additionally, the unification of South Africa yielded a benefit to Great Britain in terms of

connecting their empire via sea-based trade. Because South Africa was now unified as part of the

British Empire, trade between British India (comprised of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh) and South

Africa now had a “midway port” where commodities going to and from colony or colonizer could be

Europe, and Japan” (Council on Foreign Relations Press, New York.) © 1990. p. 604 John Galbraith, “The Pamphlet Campaign On the Boer War,” The Journal Of Modern History 24, no. 2 (June 1952):

111-12. 5 Paul May, “Diamond Thin Films: A 21st Century Material,” Philsophical Transactions of the Royal Society:

Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 358 (2000): 473. 6 H.E. Frimmel and W.E.L. Minter, “Recent Developments Concerning the Geological History and Genesis of the

Witwatersrand Gold Deposits, South Africa,” Society of Economic Geologists, Special Publican 9 (2002): 17-18.

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reassigned to new boats, maintained, traded within the colony, and so forth. Commodities included not

just the diamonds and gold mined from within South Africa, but also Indians who were indentured

servants; workers financed by a wealthy patron or minister and in turn work off the debt in servitude.7

Prabhakara notes that the influx of indentured servants had a massive effect in terms of work-based

economy; when indentured servitude was finally outlawed in 1911, 152,184 indentured servants had

passed through the ports of Natal, bringing along children, spices, and other mementos of “home”.8

However, not all economic gain in South Africa can be as arbitrary as “if it's good for the home

state, it's good for everyone in the host state”. Many of South Africa's ministers were no more than

owners of the predecessor of multinational corporations (MNCs) and effectively ruled in the interest of

their mother country as in the interest of their wallets and billfolds. Ministers such as the Right

Honourable Cecil Rhodes, Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896, had a “British

Manifest Destiny” to unite not only as much of Africa as possible, but even aspirations on other

planets9. The same Cecil Rhodes who sought economic gain and prosperity for the Cape Colony was

also the same Cecil Rhodes who sought equality for all civilized (read: British) men south of the

Zambesi (sic) River10, sought to unite a continuous path through Africa from South Africa to Egypt, and

viewed those who were uncivilized as no more than slaves that were paid a pittance to avoid the

demarcation of slaves, and the stigma that went with it11.

SOCIAL PRESENCE

It is therefore because of the treatment of non-British in South Africa both as workers and as

individuals that economic and social problems cannot be considered mutually exclusive. If Egerton

viewed ideal colonization as an economic action, he certainly did not consider a Cecil Rhodes to be

contrary to economic development if a Rhodes was capable of commerce and generating revenue for

the British Empire. It is this lack of social welfare towards those the British regarded as “Bushmen”

which led to the social strife in the Cape Colony and later South Africa, as hierarchies based on

economic and social classes were created in South Africa to discern the noble, the commoner, and the

glorified slave.

7 M.S. Prabhakara, “India and South Africa: Cautionary and Salutary Lessons,” Economic and Political Weekly 38, no. 19 (May 10-16, 2003): 1839-40.

8 Prabhakara 18399 Sarah Gertrude Millin “Rhodes” (London: Chatto & Windus, 1933) p. 138. It should be noted that Rhodes' statement

was one of obvious folly... yet still a measure of his highly aspirational desires for the British Empire10 Gordon Le Sueur, Cecil Rhodes The Man And His Work (London: J.Murray, 1913), 76. 11 Le Sueur 77. Rhodes makes a point to demarcate the “civilized” initially as “White British”, but later clarifies it to

include all persons black or white who are productive... perhaps to appease a more progressive and educated audience.

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As Rhodes stated earlier, equality for all civilized men was a key tenet of the Cape Colony and

South Africa, but such equality was only truly extended to British Colonists. Indigenous persons,

regardless of their national and socioeconomic statuses, were viewed as “savages” and were assimilated

into colonial society as their nations were destroyed through a myriad of methods including inter-nation

fighting, removing tribal leaders and colonial oppressions of nations unwilling to accept British

colonization.12 The British governments in power in the Cape Colony and later South Africa felt that to

maintain the economic power and purity of the British Empire in South Africa, that military action13

would be needed, actions that would ultimately lead to the rationalization of racial discrimination that

ultimately would result in the Apartheid policy, which will be elaborated in greater detail later.

POLITICAL PRESENCE

One of the more common methods the British would employ to gain power and land within

South Africa's colonies would be to play double agent and fabricate lies or rumors against two tribes it

wished to destroy.14 What some would call “imperial thuggery” due to the British using tribes as

hitmen against each other15, was a means of breaking long-standing borders between indigenous

nations as a means of further consolidating British power and presence. This stood in stark contrast to

the public policy that Great Britain and its colonies' prime ministers showed to the public world, an

image in which tolerance and acceptance of indigenous was promoted even as Jim Crow-esque laws

were enacted to hinder black ownership of lands16. Again the role of double agent is played by the

British; while publicly showing the world their tolerances of minorities as a means of demonstrating

progressive thought, laws were being passed that gradually usurped land from blacks through laws such

as the Glenn Grey Act of 1894, and reassignments that had begun as early as 186417. However, not all

tribes and nations were willing to accept the British's colonizing ways and resisted in the hopes of

maintaining sovereignty against a seemingly omnipotent and omnipresent power.

The reassignment policies Great Britain employed are analogous to the reservation policies the

United States imposed on the Native Americans. They were forced reassignments to less desirable

lands, with resistance usually resulting in a short war, the British winning, and British annexation to the

12 Anthony W. Marx “Making Race and Nation: A comparison of South Africa, the United States, and Brazil” Cambridge, 1998, pp. 36-37

13 Ibid 3614 Ibid 3615 Anne McClintock, “Family Feuds: Gender, Nationalism, and the Family,” Feminist Review no. 44 (Summer 1993): 72. 16 Marx 3617 Ibid 37

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applicable colony. The Zulus, privy to the fact they were becoming second-class citizens to what was

essentially an oppressive regime, waged war in 1879 to keep their tribal identity.18 The identity of a

tribe is one of the unifying tenets of a nation, a tenet that provides implicit rights to land not unlike how

Native Americans claim lands as theirs based on historical pretext. For the Zulus, what was lacked in

technology was made up by that desire to maintain national sovereignty, and the 1879 victory at

Isandlwhana19 may have provided short-term continuity of sovereignty, but ultimately resulted in a

hyper-realist British Government decimating what little ethnic identity was left in South Africa.

Spite is thus a massive factor in the destruction of ethnic and national identity in South Africa,

as the British sought to dehumanize those who had defeated them. A minority that holds land, is

capable of attaining an appreciable level of education, and has its own identity was perceived not only

as a threat by the British Empire20, but was the rationale for relegating minorities. The focus of such

relegations were derived from the victorious Zulu nation from the 1879 war of Isandlwhana and the

Boers and other non-British whites after the Second Boer War as a means of reparation 21. By enacting

new laws such as the aforementioned Glenn Grey Laws of 189422 that legalized segregation, the

practice of removing black students from academia was not only reintroduced, but given a rational-

legal legitimacy that would remove indigenous presence in academics while further promoting British

elitism in South Africa.

The British in that regard could be argued as calculating in their methodologies; by hindering

the education of blacks in the Cape Colony and ultimately the Union of South Africa, treaties and other

legal statutes could be passed with a minimum of resistance from minority nations, tribes, ethnicities,

etc. Thus, the Rhodesian clarification of “equality for all civilized men south of the Zambesi” truly

matched Rhodes' original intent of a civilized British population ruling over the seemingly uncivilized

majority of minorities. Treaties such as the Treaty of Vereeniging (1902, ended the Second Boer War)

and the South Africa Act of 1909 (Ratified 1910 and created the Union of South Africa)23, while giving

no explicit discretion to discriminate against blacks in South Africa24, were signed without any Black or

18 Ibid 3719 Ibid 3720 Ibid 3721 McClintock 6822 Marx 3723 George van Welfling Eybers, Select Constitutional Documents Illustrating South African History, 1795 – 1910 (London:

George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1918), 517-559. 24 a) Access http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/library-resources/online%20books/soul-of-nation-constitution/treaty-of-

vereeniging.htm for Further Reading on the conditions and status of blacks in the Treaty of Vereengling. b) The South Africa Act of 1909 did not have any black signatories, but per Paragraph 35, Section 2, could not be barred the right to vote based on age or colour (sic), however blacks could not ascend to colonial or state-level offices.

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Boer presence25, furthering the social status of blacks and other minorities as merely commodities and

hindrances in an already struggling union.

TYING IT ALL UP

The economic, social, and political exploitation of South Africa, its indigenous, and resident

holdovers from previous colonizers by the British in the late 19th and early 20th centuries may have been

under the guise of “solely for British economic advancement”, but was in actuality Britain's display of

its superiority to the rest of the world. The importing of Indians to South Africa to work as indentured

servants, the systematic discrimination and dehumanization of indigenous and white non-British

Africans, and the prevention of all non-British persons from partaking in South African government at

its various colonial stages and levels are integral in the actual understanding of the British perspective

of colonization. A perspective that not only desired global economic supremacy, but had no qualms in

eliminating through any and all means, tribes, indigenous nations, and other ethnic groups in the

process. It was this perspective in colonial South Africa that resulted in many of South Africa's

apartheid policies towards non-whites after earning independence from the British Empire in 196126.

Other colonizers also employed sociopolitical hierarchies as a method of ensuring economic gain,

though none with such brutality and disregard as the Belgians.

***Belgians in the Congo27***

INTRODUCTION

If the British empire was an empire that sought economic superiority and perceived the

marginalization of non-British as merely collateral damage, the Belgian Empire was far more

calculated in its methodologies of attaining social, political, and economic supremacy in the Belgian

Congo. Whereas South Africa had been used as an economic stronghold due to its prodigious yields in

diamonds and gold, Belgian Congo was primarily a land-grab for King Leopold II. Leopold privately

owned the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908 before relinquishing the Belgian Congo to appease

25 McClintock 7326 Elizabeth Landis, “South African Apartheid Legislation I: Fundamental Structure*,” The Yale Law Journal 71, no. 1

(November 1960): 1-8. Although at the time of press, South Africa was not yet independent, the article spells out fully the parameters for the constitution of a “White” and the constitutions of all “non-Whites”.

27 Billy Joel, “We Didn't Start the Fire,” www.youtube.com, MPEG4 VIDEO WIH MP3 AUDIO file, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g (accessed December 4, 2010).

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British Ministers who had revealed Leopold's exploitations to the western world28. The private

ownership of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908, and later the Belgian management of Belgian

Congo from 1908 to 1960, are key in understanding the economic, social, and political methodologies

of Belgium while in the Congo.

The main point that must be understood about the Belgian Congo was the Belgian government's

early employment of eugenics, or the belief that a more racially desirable population could be attained

by scientifically controlling reproduction among humans either on moral or genetic grounds.29

Eugenics, the Belgians argued, could be used not only to discern race, but the economic and social

viability of tribes and individual persons within the Congo Free State, and later the Belgian Congo.

The combination of the Eugenics movement, combined with the total disregard the Belgians had for

any aspect of the Congo – apart from the land and its resources – resulted in a colonization whose

ramifications are still present in the Democratic Republic of the Congo30.

THE SOCIOECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE

As mentioned earlier, the Congo Free State came to be as a land-grab for King Leopold II and

did not formally become a Belgian colony until 1908. It was during this time that the Congo Free State

was most economically exploited, as exotic woods such as ebony and mahogany, fauna and edible

flora; and minerals, were extracted from the Congo's various nomenclatures at the whims of Leopold II

and later the Belgian state. However, unlike the British definition of colonialism in which the purpose

of colonialism is strictly for economic gain in terms of material goods31, the Belgian definition

perceived the indigenous as an economic commodity congruent to slaves who worked the land for the

benefit of their master.32 When the Belgians required increased, either a greater amount of Africans

were put to work; failing that, Congolese were simply made to work a longer day-shift cycle.33

For the Belgians, economic servitude of both the land and the citizens came out of the idea of

28 Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, The Congo: From Leopold to Kabila: A People's History (London: Zed Books, 2002), 26-27.29 United Medical Language Systems - Psychological Index Terms (Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health,

November 28, 2010), s.v. “Eugenics.” 30 Howard Adelman and Astri Suhrke, eds., The Path of a Genocide: The Rwanda Crisis from Uganda to Zaire (New

Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2000), 52-53. Much like Rwanda to its east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has a significant Hutu and Tutsi population, many of whom were involved in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide either as the genocidal party or Exiles from Rwanda. Additionally, the division of Zaire (as it was known after gaining independence) from Rwanda took no accounting for ethnic or tribal lands or persons.

31 Egerton pp.7-832 Nzongola-Ntalaja p. 29. Ntalaja distinguishes how the exploitation of the Belgian Congo effectively financed all

Belgian expenditures in World War II as an example of the value of commodities compared to the life of an indigenous.33 Ibid 29

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Eugenics that less desirables should be relegated to more menial and arduous tasks than those of more

desirable traits. Desirables, according to the British scientist Francis Galton, were based on skin color

and external body and facial features, as well as financial status within that society.34 The Belgians

took this social hierarchy concept and applied it to the indigenous tribes within the Congo as a means

of determining occupation and economic status within the colony. Tutsis, whom the Belgians had

characterized as more desirable due to greater height, lighter skin and their ability to conquer the darker

(and thus presumably less civilized) Hutus, were often given economic privileges including higher-

paying jobs, administrative positions35. Furthermore, Tutsi chiefs and other tribal leaders willing to

acquiesce to the Belgians were rewarded handsomely both in position and in financial gains.36

Although the Belgian method intended to provide a more distinct and class-based economic

hierarchy than the more arbitrary “British, then Boer, then indigenous” hierarchy employed in the

South African Colonies, and succeeded in doing so from a Belgian perspective, from the indigenous

tribal perspective, the arbitrary redistribution of persons based on psuedogenetics was far less desirable

from the perspective of natives, in particular Hutus. From the perspective of those classified as Hutus,

Eugenics was a relegation to the lowest economic caste; one with little opportunity for education or

advancement to a more desirable occupation.37 Relegation to “Hutu” status, from an economic

perspective effectively meant being a slave to a Tutsi or Belgian official or at best a servant or other

menial occupation intended to degrade one's dignity and morale.38 However, a key difference exists

between South Africa's indigenous tribes became relegated and the indigenous of the Belgian Congo. A

A difference that by no means exonerates the Belgian state's behavior, but acknowledges some of the

blame does belong within the tribal nations.

THE SOCIAL CENSUS

The main difference between the British perspective of indigenous and the Belgian perspective

of indigenous can be traced back to a Rwandan survey of tribal population in 1926, that was ultimately

extrapolated to the Belgian Congo as well39. The census' intent, which was to further rationalize from a

34 Francis Galton, Inquiries Into Human Faculty and Its Development (London: Macmillan and Co., 1883), 4-24. 35 Villia Jefremovas, “Contested Identities: Power and the Fictions of Ethnicity, Ethnography, and History in

Rwanda,”Anthropologica 39, no. 1 (1997): 96-97. 36 Ibid37 Ibid38 Alison Liebhafsky Des Forges, Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda (New York, NY.: Human Rights

Watch, 1999), The Meaning of Hutu, Tutsi and Twa. 39 Ronald C. Thompson, GOD-FORSAKEN TRENDS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: ZIMBABWEAN WHITES' FARMS

EXPROPRIATED (United States of America: Xulon Press, 2008), 134.

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legal perspective the differences between the Hutus and Tutsis, resulted in much the same tensions as in

Belgium's other colonies due to Belgium's methodology with identification methodologies40.

The Belgian census system threw little regard to the nations within the pre-colonial Congo such

as the Kongo, Kuba, Luba, Lunda, and other kingdoms and chose the nomenclature of Hutu and Tutsi

for population control reasons41. Although populations classified as Hutus and Tutsis may have

intermarried before colonial intervention, prevailing scientific (ie: eugenics-based) opinion dictated that

marriage between a desirable (Tutsi) and undesirable (Hutu) would result in a proliferation of the Hutu

caste, and a reduction of the Tutsi caste42. When parameters could not be met, discerning between Hutu

or Tutsi came down to whether the head male was possessing of ten or more heads of cattle43.

Thus, a similarity to the British system of “civilized persons” in South Africa can be seen as the

goal of the Belgian Census. However, unlike the South African ideal that one's education and financial

status was arbitrary for all persons ownership of cattle was sufficient in determining an indigenous

family's caste when no other parameter could be met. Plausibility can therefore be given to the

argument that if a family head was bordering on Hutu and Tutsi, that because of his ability to raise

cattle and manage sufficiently to have enough for a proper farm, that sufficient Tutsi predispositions

survived that he should be a Tutsi. The Rwandan Survey of 1926 and its extrapolation by the Belgian

Government into the Congo, combined with King Leopold II's perspective of Hutus and Tutsis, set up

the political arm of the Congo's eugenically caused ethnic tensions; tensions that in Rwanda were

responsible for the quickest and most brutal genocide in modern history.

THE CENSUS'S POLITICAL RAMIFICATIONS

While a hierarchy between Hutus and Tutsis had existed before Belgium's colonial occupation,

and Belgium's occupation of the Congo was tolerated by the Hutus in spite of Belgian-sponsored Tutsi

discriminations, the political ramifications of the 1926 Rwanda Census and its extrapolation into

Belgium's other colonies proved to be the breaking point for already tense inter-tribal relations.

Finalizing the borders of Rwanda and the Belgian Congo was one effect44, but more importantly was

the representation of the major tribes in the colonial governments of the Belgian Congo. Unlike the

40 Liebhafsky Des Forges, “The Meaning of Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa”. the Census undertaken by Belgium focused primarily on Rwanda's disparate population distribution of fifteen percent Tutsi, eighty-five percent Hutu, and one percent Twa (pygmoids).

41 Nzongola-Ntalaja 3342 Thompson 13443 ibid44 Adelman and Suhrke, 52-53

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British, whom in the South African Colonies and later the Union of South Africa relegated “educated

indigenous” to merely being able to vote45, Belgium set up a western system with a judicial tribunal of

puppet native leaders whose purpose was to make pseudo-laws and resemble a modern government that

promoted equality. The failing byproduct though was a Tutsi-only government that used its Belgian-

backed authority to engage in purges and persecutions on those deemed not desirable to the Belgian or

Tutsi inclinations46.

First and most importantly, the native tribunals and legislative body set up was aimed at

maximizing the dichotomy between Hutu and Tutsi power and presence. The native tribunals were

composed by persons to be appointed or elected would be former chiefs of Tutsi lineage who were

deemed by the Belgian government to be docile47, and these tribunal courts were inferior to the rulings

of the Colony's Court of Appeals and Trials of First Instance48. The Tutsis who were appointed to

adjudicated over Belgian Congo trials were relegated to meteing punitive damages against only other

indigenous, and those punishments could only be of duration of one month or less, as any ability to

give more significant punishments was considered impinging on the Belgian court system proper49. By

keeping distance between even the highest colony-level court, and the European courts, the Belgians

not only stymied any ability for the indigenous to have true self-rule, but white colonists living in the

Congo could seek a European trial and bypass the colony system outright.50 It was this inability to

impose rulings and laws upon the colonials living in the Belgian Congo that was key in the Tutsis

persecution of Hutus, both in terms of finding a scapegoat, and to maintain whatever power – real or

perceived – they had remaining.

By instilling a Tutsi-run tribunal system as a quasi-government within the Belgian Congo, the

Belgians had created an artificial selectorate and winning coalition that can be applied to Bruce Bueno

de Mesquita's selectorate theory, a theory in which the selectorate decides who will be in power, and

the winning coalition receiving dividends from powerholders as compensation for instilling or

45 The South Africa Act of 1909 did not have any black signatories, but per Paragraph 35, Section 2, one could not be barred the right to vote based on age or colour (sic), however blacks could not ascend to colonial or state-level offices.

46 Jefremovas 9647 ibid48 Marie-Benedicte Dembour, Recalling the Belgian Congo: Conversations and Introspection (New Directions in

Anthropology, V. 9), 2nd ed. (New York: Berghahn Books, 2000), 22-26. 49 Dembour 25. Dembour states that the Belgians enjoyed maintaining their power as much as possible in a “behind-the-

scenes” capacity, and that the Belgians wanted their courts to maintain a certain superiority even over the highest colonial court.

50 Dembour 26

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maintaining the head of state's power.51 If we take Bueno de Mesquita, et al's, model of how this theory

works, the entire selectorate would theoretically be every Belgian government official and Tutsi tribes,

the winning coalition would be the aforementioned officials and any tribes that acquiesced to Belgian

rule, and the disenfranchised would be the Hutus and possibly non-acquiescing Tutsi tribes52. Thus, the

Tutsi tribunals were essentially proxies for Belgian ideals, carrying out indirectly the desires of the

Belgians and countering Hutu uprisings while the Belgians were able to further exploit lands and

resources occupying the Belgian Congo.

THE CONGO CULMINATION

To claim that King Leopold II and subsequently the Belgian Government were oblivious to the

damages they were causing to the Belgian Colony from the late nineteenth century to mid twentieth

century would be a grave mistake. Although relative to the British, the Belgians preferred a reduced

physical European presence, they were more calculated in dismantling indigenous hierarchies through

politically-oriented eugenics. By exploiting the land with wanton disregard for the indigenous and

classifying the indigenous as a means of imposing European perspectives of class and color on tribes

that had lived in relative harmony for centuries, the Belgians only acquiesced any semblance of power

and autonomy when it did not threaten the colony, the actual winning coalition (the Belgian colonists

and the Belgian government), or any economic gains Belgium could acquire by allowing conflict to

weaken both indigenous tribes. Thus, colonization may have a common goal and some common tactics

such as the fabrication of inter-tribal wars to further colonizing power, but Belgium's creation of a

pseudo-government as a means of expanding dichotomies between tribes would stand as one of the

great barriers to Congolese unity after the withdrawal of Belgium from the Congo in 1960.

***The French Bisection: France in Equatorial Africa***

INTRODUCTION

The third case study to be analyzed is the relationship between France and its colony French

Equatorial Africa. French Equatorial Africa, which bordered the western end of Belgian Congo and

51 Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith, Randolph M. Siverson and James D. Morrow, The Logic of Political Survival (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2004), 55-56.

52 Bueno de Mesquita, et al 57-60. Bueno de Mesquita and his co-authors elaborate on the positions of the leaderships and challengers, and while there was not a great amount of political challengers to Tutsi seats, the large majority of Hutus can be perceived as disenfranchised due to their inability to gain political presence in Belgian Congo.

Jason S. Ganz 12

wrapped around its northern border, included the territories of Tchad, Gabon, Moyen-Congo, and

Oubangui-Chari,53 and existed primarily for land (as colony size equated to the perception of power)

and resources such as salts, ivory, ostrich plumes, fruits, and other commodities that were considered

desirable to the French empire as measures of status.54 However, much like their British and Belgian

counterparts, the French were no better with maintaining relations with their colonies, and if anything

perhaps even duplicitous in their approach to not only gain first-mover advantage to natural resources,

but used this leverage to force colonies to accept French rule55.

The French perspective on colonization was one done through a mix of coercion and consent;

one through violence and disingenuous relations between empire and tribes. If a tribal leader could be

tricked into concession, then the French Empire perceived the victory equivalent to winning a bloodless

coup.56 Thus, commonality in colonization methodologies is shared with the British and Belgians; the

resources and land came first, and the indigenous and their beliefs will be secondary or even tertiary to

the main goal. The French perspective to colonies additionally comes from the perspective of the

actual size of the colony as well; the bigger a single colony was, the better, a contrast that will be

analyzed further both in this section of the paper, and more critically within the section pertaining to

decolonization and its effects on the subsequent African states.

FRENCH POLITICS

The French colonial experience from a political perspective is one that maximized consolidation

of colonization and rule of colonies through legal legitimacy and maximizing the individual size of

each colony. As mentioned earlier, Equatorial Africa was made up of four individual states and

empires. The French, by using treaties57 while simultaneously discriminating who could serve in the

political stratas, were able to consolidate what would have normally been multiple colonies with

multiple bureaucracies into a unitary system.

The use of treaties by the French to gradually gain power is first noted by Thompson as

occurring between 1842 and 1862 between the French Empire and indigenous Gabonese officers and

53 G Vassal, “French Equatorial Africa,” African Affairs 31, no. 123 (1932): 167 54 Virginia McLean Thompson, The Emerging States of French Equatorial Africa (Stanford: Stanford Univ Pr, 1960), 427.

It must be noted that common to the French and British Empire was the desire for sugars, salts, and other flavorings as the standard European Diet was one that lacked in flavor, to say the least.

55 Egerton's definition of colonization and Ostry's definition of first-mover advantage (see earlier in paper) are relevant, however the French chose to consolidate both ideals rather than incrementally increase economic and political influence.

56 McLean Thompson 42757 McLean Thompson 6

Jason S. Ganz 13

tribal leaders as a means of gaining economic presence in Africa.58 Although the initial desires for

colonization was one for economic gain and thus follows Egerton's examples, the use of treaties differs

from the British and Belgians on one facet: treaties gives some implication of equality in state status

between both parties, if not necessarily an actual equality.

Treaties were also instrumental to the French in outlining which imperial power was granted

first-mover advantage and rights to that land, and the French were eager to both work with other

powers through treaties, as well as employ charismatic non-Frenchmen to persuade indigenous

compliance. One such person, Count Savorgan da Brazza, was an Italian national whom, upon

becoming a naturalized Frenchman, explored much of what is now the Republic of Congo and was

instrumental in the bordering of Belgium's King Leopold II's land-grab of the Belgian Congo,

spearheaded this compliance to maintain a “forced peace”59. For the French, if a treaty could avoid

armed conflict, then perhaps the French state could have allies in future conflicts.

However, while treaties between imperial powers were legitimized and all parties were viewed

as peers, the same cannot be said for the treatment of those tribes who entered such treaties. The

French political system in Equatorial Africa that arose from tribal treaties was one which was run from

Brazzaville (a tribute to Count Brazza's work for the French) and used Catholicism to justify inhumane

actions upon tribes60. Acts such as slavery, forced imprisonment, and even Brazza's own “humanitarian

schools”61 - which were missionary-based by design – were employed as ways to deconstruct ties to

indigenous beliefs and cultures while imparting Western ideals in order to purify and advance societies

that were perceived as contrary by the French.

It is therefore this perceived savageness and the need to increase docility amongst tribes that

ultimately allowed the French to justify restricting common political rights granted to citizens in

Western Societies; the right to vote, and the right to run and hold office. Although the French, through

the employment of the Subordinate System, ceded some autonomy to the colony, the French perceived

each subsection (Tchad, Gabon, etc.,) was a “nuclear family” with each subsection being connected in a

brotherly sense to make up the full extended family62. This extended family would be considered the

body of tribes composing Africa. As a result, offices held by the Governor-General in Brazzaville, and

58 ibid59 Ibid 6 – 860 McLean Thompson 14. It must be noted that Catholic mandate does require that those viewed as humans be provided

with dignity and respect, however if someone can be viewed as an animal or savage, such perspectives are replaced by the Catholic perspective of beasts of burden.

61 McLean Thompson 1262 I. William Zartman, “Africa as a Subordinate State System in International Relations,” International Organization 21,

no. 3 (Summer, 1967): 547

Jason S. Ganz 14

governmental operations would originate from Paris.63

Consequently, the political structure stripped the indigenous of any authority, leaving the

selectorate and winning coalition – to use Bueno de Mesquita's terms64 – as the French government

effectively handpicked who served as Governor-General. Additionally, while the leadership did have to

concede powers throughout the waning years of the French presence in Africa to the indigenous, much

of the conceded power was to ministers and aides selected by the French as local leaders.65 This

political dichotomy that existed was instrumental in the creation of the social dichotomy that existed

throughout Equatorial Africa.

SOCIÉTÉ FRANÇAISE DE COLONIAL (FRENCH COLONIAL SOCIETY)

French society in Equatorial Africa clearly designated class structure through the

aforementioned political means, but also social regulation through religion and levels of education.66

Humanitarian schools that Brazza had set up were superseded by religious schools designed to instill

professionalism and fear of God within Africans had resulted in the creation of social classes within the

indigenous. These classes were the elite, consisting of professionals, judges, doctors, wealthy farmers;

the évolué, composed of carpenters, skilled laborers, small farmers, merchants, artisans, etc., and the

disenfranchised / unemployed masses.67 Typically, the elite were the French and wealthy or well-

connected Africans who would effectively spread Western ideals and be educated to an appreciable

standard68 – hence the occupations held.

Consequently, either being an educated Frenchman, or an indigenous who aligned with the

colonial government or French government, was the only assurance of social mobility within

Equatorial Africa; and such education was not guaranteed. This “culture bar”69, as it was known, was

meant to ensure that Frenchmen received the appropriate education in the colonies, and only through

connections, or after reforms in 1946, was there any appreciable increases in school-aged students

63 Elliot T. Berg, “The Economic Basis of Political Choice in French West Africa,” American Political Science Review 54, no. 2 (jun 1960): 397. It should be noted that on p. 391 of Berg's work, he states the commonality of French West Africaand Equatorial Africa's government structure and the similarities between the two and later elaborates on how much power originated from Paris

64 Bueno de Mesquita 54 - 5665 Berg 39866 American Assembly, The United States and Africa (Columbia University, New York: F.A. Praeger, 1963), 252-53. 67 ibid68 ibid69 Assembly 255, it should be noted that the quoted text was employed by Cecil Rhodes as a means of discerning between

blacks who spoke Afrikaans, and those who were considered wholly indigenous

Jason S. Ganz 15

attending schools70. With fewer indigenous attending French colleges, - deliberately hampered by the

French government and colonial government desiring distance between French and even wealthy

natives – the French sought to provide a sort of psuedo-status enhancer in the form of écoles rurales71;

roughly equivalent of the modern vocational school.

Even the schooling was meant to provide a caste class structure of évolué through cultural

appeal. Educators, knowing the distrust that Africans possessed towards European literature, geared

classes towards manual labor and practical skills, thus minimizing any risk of books that could cause

further distrust between colonizer and colonized.72 The consequence, a large bourgeois class of évolué,

allowed for two benefits for the French government. First, having a large évolué promoted a large class

of persons interested in culture and the arts; and second, this large évolué was considered a progressive

move by a colonizing power. There was an acknowledgment by the French of local cultures and beliefs

within the écoles rurales73. These écoles rurales were particularly popular in Equatorial Africa, with 27

percent of indigenous in Gabon, and 46 percent of Brazzaville (Congo) attending these schools and

learning French thought in an Africanized package74.

This French thought came in French, as while the French claimed that it was a matter of

efficiency (teaching one centralized language IS admittedly easier than the hundreds of dialects that

existed within French Equatorial Africa)75, it can also be argued as subtle repression of indigenous

roots. As mentioned earlier, the French viewed the indigenous primarily as savages, and only after the

1930s was there an appreciable increase in a black aristocracy. By teaching French to the growing

évolué class, an intended and incidental result arose. The French intention was to have a universal

language throughout the colony, thus equalizing those in the educational system and maximizing the

amount of skilled laborers that existed. The incidental result was the birth of a nouveau riche

indigenous elite that slowly permeated France's university system through connections and civil

service.76 It would be these university-trained indigenous who would be, as both high-level indigenous

70 Berg 392, in this section, Berg goes into a statistic how in 1938, only 71,000 Africans were in any form of instruction, whereas from 1946 to 1958, the number climbed from 128,000 in school / 2.4 million total; to 377,000 / 2.8 million total

71 Remi P. Clignet and Philip J. Foster, “French and British Colonial Education in Africa,” Comparative Education Review 8, no. 2 (Oct. 1964): 193-94.

72 Clignet and Foster 19373 Clignet and Foster 193-19474 ibid75 Clignet and Foster 19476 Berg 398. The few blacks who endured the metropolitan universities in the French system could be considered the

winning coalition elected through their connections to French persons and the French colonial government. Thus, Bueno de Mesquita's argument of a winning coalition and a selectorate in government, can also be extended to social status.

Jason S. Ganz 16

and high-level in colonial perspective, charged with economic tasks and other tasks in the peak and

decadences of French Equatorial Africa.

ECONOMICS OF FRENCH EQUATORIAL AFRICA

The French, much like their British and Belgian counterparts, viewed their colony as a source of

economic growth from a resource-based perspective. From the land, the French favored imports of

wood, salts, ivory, ostrich plumes, fruits, etc77., and saw the masses of unskilled and uneducated as

cheap labor for jobs such as deforestation, forced labor in mines, fruit fields, etc.,78 From this

assessment, a commonality exists between all colonizers in their desire for resources and the use of

manpower as a commodity to extract more profitable and desirable commodities; the only difference is

the commodity being desired and the perception of the aforementioned laborers.

Much like the Belgians, the French chose to euphemize “slaves”; using the term“forced

laborers” to avoid the stigma associated with “slaves” both from a barbaric standpoint and from the

Western perspective that slavery had become a taboo. By calling these workers “forced laborers”,

French Emperors and Presidents up to and including Charles De Gaulle could exploit these laborers

with minimal cost beyond what was paid for the desired commodities79. In fact, even the workers

themselves were commodities at the whim of the Governor-General and other officials of the colony; it

was not unheard of for French West Africa – a colony lacking in population suitable for workers – to

exchange its commodities for indigenous Equatorials, who would then be used as forced labor in their

new colony.80 Ergo, laborers were themselves not their ethnic tribes, but merely commodities

themselves, to be bought and sold much like slaves in the early and mid 19th century United States.

Such behaviors taken on by the French resulted in a transition of French Colonial interests from

an economic perspective. Knowing that an increasing number of the indigenous were becoming

évolué and migrating to the metropole of the colonies, the French from the 1900s to the 1930s moved

their economic presence from all areas to the urbanized areas of Equatorial Africa in an attempt to

maintain revenues and profits.81 Consequently, as labor transitioned from pre-modern and agrarian to

modern and urbane through French modernization, those who remained loyal to the land lost revenue in

77 McLean Thompson 42778 Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa (African

Studies) (Cambridge, [England].: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 37-41. 79 Cooper 177, until the Brazzaville Conference of January to February 1944, no concessions had been made for the

disenfranchised, who were effectively slaves by another name.80 McLean Thompson 254-255. The economic gains a colony experienced by trading surplus commodity to compensate

for a lack of workers can also be considered a social effect of colonization.81 Cooper 179

Jason S. Ganz 17

favor of those who took the “obligatore au travail”, or the obligation to travel to a metropolis to work.82

However, even within these metropole, indigenous were discriminated relative to French colonists.

Because the French had relegated the uneducated to menial and degrading work, and even the

évolué restricted to civil service jobs upon showing sufficient proof of education, residence, etc.,– to

the satisfaction of his boss and colonial government – indigenous were now wage slaves in a new,

Westernized, environment83. What the French saw as city-building to modernize Africa, the indigenous

saw as a new method of discrimination. However, unlike prior incarnations, the more educated évolué

and indigenous elite viewed this as an opportunity to create labor unions that could collectively bargain

with the French.84 The French, forced through this unionization to concede minimum wages to

workers, terminate forced labor, and allow for indigenous to serve on councils such as the Brazzaville

Conference of 1944 (two were in attendance)85, may have been progressive in providing concessions to

urbanized indigenous, but had also inadvertently planted the seeds for the French Equatorial

independence movements that were about to rise.

IN SUM

Though the French shared commonalities with their British and Belgian counterparts in how

colonies should be operated and managed, there were differences in terms of colony size, treatments of

non-French, and the economic methodologies of the French government. Although some may say that

the French were economically progressive by allowing for an indigenous bourgeoisie to engage in

managerial roles, advance to the elite classes, and partake in economic conferences, these were the

same French Republics that justified social degradation of indigenous tribes on religious grounds,

employed these “savages” as prison laborers, and saw no problem using missionary-style schooling to

render such persons more docile and Francophilic.

Conversely, these repressive ideals of “Francing” the indigenous may have backfired on the

French. Although the French initially figured that the évolué would merely become mildly skilled

laborers graduating from a culturally friendly pseudo-school86, the abilities of the middle class to gain

presence economically through unionization, and politically as hand-picked ministers learned French

82 ibid83 ibid84 Cooper 182 – 185 85 Ibid. The Brazzaville Conference of January – February 1944 was a Conference held by the De Gaulle government and

spanned ideologies ranging from Socialist to Fascist. Its intent was to find an improved way to further modernize Africawhile maintaining the French Empire

86 The French believed that the Africans who would attend the écoles rurales, or rural schools, would be suspicious of textswritten by a white person, and so decided to teach for vocation rather than for scholarship

Jason S. Ganz 18

governing methodologies87 laid the groundwork for what ultimately would spell the end for the French

Empire's presence in Africa after World War II. Decolonization shared not only chronologically with

the Belgians and British, but also in the method employed in dividing up colonies to preserve the states'

respective financial stability.

***The Swipes of a Pen Cripples African Growth***

INTRODUCTION

It is Winston Churchill's quote that Africa would be divided by the swipes of pens88 that best

explains why Africa has been crippled politically, socially, and economically. As colonies to their

empires, the South African Colonies (later the Union of South Africa), the Belgian Congo, and

Equatorial Africa had been stripped of resources, seen indigenous persons reduced to laborers, psuedo-

politicians, and occasionally commodities, and viewed as experiments in Westernization and

beneficiaries of coerced advancements by modern powers. However, World War II had decimated

England, France, and Belgium to where neither country could finance the existence of an empire.

Thus, provisions and infrastructure had to be made in order to ease decolonization, or the transition

from colony to state.

France, Britain, and Belgium employed differing methodologies to their decolonization, ranging

from Great Britain's allowance of local political elites to receive powers formerly held by Great Britain,

to France's all-out desire to maintain its empire at any and all costs.89 Belgium, on the other hand,

sought to decolonize by allowing the Tutsis to gain full sovereignty over the Belgian Congo and the

industrializations the Belgians had instilled in the Congo90. The employment of different transition

methodologies by the colonial powers, combined with the nations of – and leaders of – these newly

independent states, are critical in explaining the continued hindrance of the African continent, and why

only in the past twenty years has Africa even begun its recovery from colonialism.

87 Bueno de Mesquita 54 – 56. Per earlier citation, the French government handpicked the leaders who would oversee daily operations at the local level, while watching these leaders from afar. A colonial selectorate handpicking a psuedo-winning coalition, if we use Bueno de Mesquita's terminology.

88 Gelvin 8889 Tony Smith, “A Comparative Study of French and British Decolonization,” Comparative Studies in Society and History

20, no. 1 (Jan 1978): 71. 90 William Reno, “Congo: From State Collapse to 'absolutism' to State Failure,” Third World Quarterly 27, no. 1 (2006):

44-45. Contrary to the belief that there has never been an industrialized colony, Reno points out that the Gross DomesticProduct of the Belgian Congo in 1960 was equivalent to the Gross Domestic Product of South Korea in 1960.

Jason S. Ganz 19

THE BELGIAN CONGO BECOMES ZAIRE AND REVERTS

Upon receiving its independence from Belgium in 1960, the Congo had the massive advantage

of advanced economic and infrastructures, and – after 1965 – a progressive young leader in Mobutu

Sese Seko.91 The Belgians, who had essentially backed out of the Congo without “swiping the pen”92,

had prepared for Congo's independence through ten year plans93 in the same vein as Stalinist Soviet

Union and Maoist China that rapidly industrialized the Belgian Congo. Under Sese Seko, the plan was

to continue modernization and industrialization while engaging in free-market practices as a means of

not only promoting a growing economy94, but to ultimately engage in consolidation of powers and

political practices for his own benefit.

Sese Seko's main interest was not in true democratization or a free market so much as it was in

ensuring his omnipotence in Zaire (Congo's name after 1971), and minimizing the presence of

dissidents.95 Having been instrumental in the decolonization of the Congo as well as maintaining

modernizations instituted by the Belgians, Sese Seko felt that to truly rid the Congo / Zaire of any

European influence, that previously accepted institutions such as children having European last

names,96 and accepting imported goods from any colonizing power,97 had to be eliminated. This

explains the growing dichotomy that existed between post-colonial Congo and its counterpart South

Korea98. Although both had authoritarian regimes, the Asian miracle of export-oriented trade would not

spread to Sese Seko's Zaire due to his personal contempt for any sort of interaction that would be

perceivable as “post-colonial interaction”.

At the same time, Sese Seko's Zaire is integral in understanding the crippling of Africa through

the regimes ideology of playing tribes against one another in the interest of generating weapons and

financial support from more industrialized states. That is, be anti-colonials when you desire to

Africanize, and when you seek resources to further consolidate power, employ free-market and other

Western practices. Sese Seko's leadership could be viewed as Machiavellian in that the ends justified

91 Reno 4592 Because Rwanda and Burundi were separate colonies, even though they shared common tribal nations, it avoids being

labelled a victim of pen swiping during decolonization. However, pen swiping did occur in dividing that region of Africa into the Belgian Congo and the aforementioned colonies (later states).

93 Reno 4594 Reno 4795 Reno 4896 Crawford Young and Thomas Turner, The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin

Press, 1985), 57. 97 Reno 48, it should be noted that until Sese Seko began his transition towards totalitarianism, that Belgium and the

Congo had a working relationship insofar as Belgium being a “guaranteed buyer” of Congolese goods.98 See Citation 90 for further reference

Jason S. Ganz 20

the means. By placating reservations the United States, France, and even former colonizer Belgium

had towards his regime, not only could Sese Seko secure funds and munitions to bolster his power, but

have these western countries act as proxies to prevent even the slightest of dissent99. A notable example

of such is Sese Seko's relationship with United States President Ronald Reagan, whom Sese Seko

acquiesced to to in order to procure funds and weapons for repressing the Tutsis; Sese Seko's target of

the moment in the 1990s.100

When the Belgians swiped their proverbial pen in bordering the Congo relative to Rwanda,

there was no accounting for nations divided by legal borders; a fact Sese Seko exploited during the

1994 Rwandan Genocide. Mobutu's relationship with the Reagan Administration101 enabled the

purchase of American munitions that would be used to aid the Hutus not only in the Rwandan

Genocide, but also killing those Tutsis who fled to Zaire seeking asylum.102 Unfortunately, Mobutu

worked the UN against the Tutsis in Zaire, preventing UN Peacekeepers from involvement by invoking

international laws so the UN could not intervene, but merely appeal to the Mobutu regime103. He did so

by claiming sovereignty to borders, and that his genocide was distinct from its Rwandan counterpart

due to borders. Thus commonalities in targeted ethnicity was overshadowed by the United Nations

Charter; the cost: 232,000 Tutsis and other refugees.104

The systematic repression of dissenters, expulsion of foreign influences, and calculated

acquiescence to Western states is one of the possible culminations for a state that has transitioned from

colonialism to independence. The Congo / Zaire under President Mobutu Sese Seko is indicative of a

state that had all the necessary economic and political infrastructure left behind by a brutal colonizer,

only to be rebrutalized by a totalitarian leader who viewed political and economic gain as a procession

of backstabbing, exploitation, and ultimately a genocide in its own right. Although realists and

rationalists may say that Mobutu was acting in the interest of a leader trying to keep his coalitions of

ministers and armies placated through pirated payouts105, the cost in doing so has been grave

99 Michela Wrong, “The Emperor Mobutu,” Transition 81 (2000): 104-5 100Washington Office on Africa, “Central Africa Intervention Must Not Reinforce Hutu Extremists or Mobutu

Regime,”Review of African Political Economy 23, no. 70 (Dec., 1996): 576-79. 101Heidi Kriz, “On the Trail of Marshal Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire's Former Kleptocrat-in-chief,” Metroactive: News and

Issues, http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/05.22.97/cover/mobutu-9721.html (accessed December 16, 2010). The relationship between Reagan and Mobutu was such that during Reagan's Presidency, Mobutu visited thrice and was proclaimed as a “voice of good sense and goodwill”.

102Washington Office 577-78103Kisangani N.F. Emizet, “The Massacre of Refugees in Congo: A Case of Un Peacekeeping Failure and International

Law,” The Journal of Modern African Studies 38, no. 2 (jul., 2000): 183-84. 104Emizet 163105 Gareth Lewis, “Why Bono Should Keep His Day Job: The Fallacy of Foreign Aid,” Fraser America,

http://www.fraseramerica.org/files/PDFs/students_learning/2007_Contest_Lewis.pdf (accessed December 16, 2010). It

Jason S. Ganz 21

financially, politically and socially. A 2010-era Congo that “enjoys” a per capita of $171 per annum,106

and stands as a warning that while a ruthless dictator may maintain power and unity in a state, he or she

does so at the peril of his or her citizens' collective socioeconomic welfare.

THE FRENCH DISCONNECTION

The French Empire in Africa had managed to languish through World War II and well into the

1950s and can be considered the consummate example of pen-swipers. French Equatorial Africa,

which had been a large, multinational colony comprised of former empires, was becoming a liability to

war-torn and financially deficient France. However, in spite of France's critical condition, France was a

state not willing to relinquish its empire; viewing it as a grounds for bargaining and maintaining

whatever greatness may have still existed, perceived or actual.107

Because of France's desire for greatness, both the Third and Fourth Republics were willing to

concede great amounts of sovereignty and powers to the colonies themselves so long as French Rule

was not jeopardized.108 The problem that the French faced was an inability to maintain French rule

through bureaucracies and infrastructures put in place before World War II, resulting in a disconnect

between colonizers and colonies that was often met with repressions and brief skirmishes as French

President Charles De Gaulle and his Parliament refused to provide independence to the increasingly

fractured French Equatorial African Colony109. For President De Gaulle and the Fourth Republic, this

post-war fighting spelled disaster for the dissolving colonies and their relationship with France, a topic

which will be analyzed further in the conclusion.

Decolonization came as a result of the increasing strength of trade and labor unions going on

strike with greater frequency110 combined with the fracturing of colonies as nationalism grew within the

colonies.111 Unions that were created as a facade to show “workers rights” were now bringing the

French businesses to a standstill as persons of common ethnicity, beliefs, etc., began to reunite and

is speculated that of the $20 billion in foreign aid provided to Zaire during Mobutu's Regime, he pirated $10 billion for his own enjoyment and to maintain mercenaries and government officials.

106 Bureau of African Affairs, “Background Note: Democratic Republic of the Congo,” Democratic Republic of the Congo,http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2823.htm (accessed December 16, 2010).

107 Smith 80108 Smith 84109 Smith 71. The constant fighting with the Algerian Colony in French West Africa was instrumental in the collapse of the

Fourth Republic, and ultimately the French Empire. French Equatorial Africa's disconnect is a byproduct of this.110 Cooper 408-410111 David N. Gibbs, “Political Parties and International Relations: The United States and the Decolonization of Sub-

Saharan Africa,” The International History Review 17, no. 2 (May, 1995): 320-21. 35th President John F. Kennedy is credited of noting the significant nationalization occurring within the African Colonies

Jason S. Ganz 22

strike against their French colonizers. Additionally, the nationalists throughout the French colonies had

the backing of a democratic United States Senate, and with 35th President John F. Kennedy, the

President of the United States112. For France, intra-colony pressure combined with the United States'

increasing presence in international affairs proved to be the death knell for the French Empire.

However, France was not going to concede the loss of its empire without fully decimating any

chance it had to maximize its final impact; the simultaneous laying out of infrastructure within a colony

followed by systematic division of that particular colony as a means of maintaining French presence

and dependency.113 By not taking into regard facets such as the indigenous tribes within the nation and

arbitrarily drawing borders for states such as Chad, Central African Republic (In French Equatorial

Africa) and for Senegal, Mauritania, etc., (French West Africa), France effectively dispatched much of

West Africa into a constant state of instability and fluctuation that even supranational organizations

such as the Organization for African Unity (OAU) could not rectify. The OAU, which had been

established in 1953 as a means of promoting African unity, communications, and eradicating

colonialism in Africa,114 was stymied due to the division of territories and the inability for these

territories to unite on issues. The French had thus succeeded in decolonization and destabilizing Africa

by crippling the Western Sub-Saharan portion through separating ethnic nations with simple penswipes.

At the same time, France offered its own idea of a community, namely the French Community,

in which the former colonies of France would be allowed to join while being allowed to maintain

sovereignty at the state level, the only influence from France would be military and currency based.115

The French Community would exist on the premise of association – maintaining contact and relations

with its former colonies – and had been designed by the Third Republic as a means to maintain a sort of

quasi-empire116. France's argument was that by making the Franc a supranational currency and

providing military power to the new states, France was providing a sort of transition from Empire to

republic while maintaining a light protectorate around its former colonies. In doing so, France would

serve a role akin to the parent watching over its children at the global sandbox; A laissez-faire

approach, but be ready to protect any attacked or financially jeopardized state. Although the intention

could be viewed as necessary to ensure the lesser developed states would survive and modernize, many

112 ibid113 Tony Chafer, The End of Empire in French West Africa: France's Successful Decolonization? (Oxford: Berg Publishers,

2002), 232-35. 114 Organization of African Unity, “OAU Charter,” The Africa Union, http://www.africa-union.org/root/au/Documents/Treaties/text/OAU_Charter_1963.pdf (accessed December 17, 2010). 115 Enzo R. Grilli, The European Community and the Developing Countries (Trade and Development) (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1994), 2 116 ibid

Jason S. Ganz 23

African states viewed the French Community as a form of indirect colonialism, and the French

Community was effectively liquidated by the mid 1960s117

French Equatorial Africa, while divided in terms of state borders, is a conglomeration of both

indigenous and French values and the heart of Africa. While it may have lacked the advancements of

the Congo upon receiving independence due to conflict with France, it is not entirely the fault of the

states that composed French Equatorial Africa, and neither can France be fully held liable for

decolonization's tensions. No nation of persons, or former empire, desires assimilation into an alien

state's empire and coerced into assimilation by an alien state, and likewise, no empire wishes to be

forced into dissolution. The promotion of the French Community as a transition from French Empire

to Republic, and from colonies to states, would have served both France and its former colonies well.

France's military and financial stability would have provided a backbone and legitimacy to the

fledgling states and their infrastructures, while the fledgling states would have been allowed to

experiment with various systems of government and have the financial means to grow. An opportunity

for global presence lost due to combinations of harsh colonial practices and anti-colonialist sentiments;

an opportunity the British would seize in full.

BRITISH DISSOLUTION OF THE SECOND USA (UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA)

Unlike their French counterparts, the British knew their empire was dissolving and accepted

that nothing could be done to stop the dissolution of the British Empire. However, unlike the French,

who met their waning empire days with constant (and often violent) last-ditch efforts to maintain its

colonial presence, the British knew the 1950s and 1960s would be a time of transition. To ease the

transition and attempt to improve relations between Great Britain and its former colonies, the British

Commonwealth was established in 1949 with the main stipulation being acceptance of the British

Monrach as symbolic head of state118. South Africa, however, would keep a colonial practice that may

not have swiped the pen geographically, but maintained a racial pen-swipe that not only kept it out of

the Commonwealth, but created acrimony between it and its European peers.

The racial pen-swipe that was maintained was a colonial policy called apartheid that has its

roots in Rhodesian-era Cape Colony, and spread to the rest of the South African Union after the Second

117 Ibid. The French Community was viewed as a last gasp at an empire by many former colonies. In fact, Guinea, led by Sekou Toure, outright rejected any participation in the French Community. His state paid famously... complete retraction of any and all foreign French Aid.

118 British Commonwealth, “Timeline,” Commonwealth Secretariat, http://www.thecommonwealth.org/Internal/191086/140633/timeline/ (accessed December 17, 2010).

Jason S. Ganz 24

Boer War of 1902 ended, unifying the colonies into the greater Union.119 These laws, called “Pass

laws” were intended to discriminate against colored persons by tracing their residences, their travels,

restricting where they could work, and what avenues of leisure activities blacks could engage in.120

When South Africa held its first general election in 1948, the elected Parliament and its leader, D.F.

Malan, engaged in legalizing the term apartheid as a continuation of the pass laws121. Decolonization

would have a racially-charged orientation to it.

South Africa would join the Commonwealth in 1960 and remove itself from the Commonwealth

in 1961 shortly after gaining full independence in light of its apartheid policy.122 A decolonized and

more racially aware world was putting political pressure on South Africa to reverse its policy.

However, South Africa felt its policy was necessary to maintain the White superiority that had been

instituted by colonial ministers including Cecil Rhodes123. Attempts to protest apartheid by non-whites

were met with long prison sentences, most famously Nelson Mandela's 27-year sentence (1963 to

1990) due to anti-apartheid activities with the ANC, and the government's demolishing of the dissident

organization124. Ironically, the dissolution of Apartheid would come quickly and from a former

proponent of apartheid, F.W. De Klerk.

The De Klerk Administration (1989 – 1994) would be instrumental in reswiping the racial pen

in South Africa, though not with its inky tip. De Klerk, a former proponent of apartheid, saw

Apartheid's effects on the South African economy and society and saw the increasingly dim

perspectives contemporary states had towards apartheid as a reason to initiate contact with the ANC in

1990 while maintaining a balance of power suitable for further decolonization.125 De Klerk felt that a

more constructivist approach was required to balance the power and protection the police provided126

while accepting that apartheid was no longer a viable practice. De Klerk's most sweeping reform

would be an overhaul of the South African political system; one that would require the police to solely

perform protective duties rather than enforce apartheid, engage in conversations and transition into

roles of government black leaders from formerly oppressed organizations127, and most importantly,

119 McClintock 68120 “Pass Laws in South Africa,” South African History Online, http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/governence-

projects/apartheid-repression/pass-laws.htm (accessed December 17, 2010). 121 ibid122 British Commonwealth: History123 Le Sueur 77. Although South Africa had become independent in 1961, Cecil Rhodes' belief that all white British males

were created equal would continue on through 1994. 124 Stephen Ellis, “The Anc in Exile,” African Affairs 90, no. 360 (jul., 1991): 443 125 David Welsh, “F.W. De Klerk and Constitutional Change,” Issue: A Journal of Opinion 18, no. 2 (Summer, 1990): 7-8. 126 ibid127 Ibid, the most famous of these formerly imprisoned anti-apartheidists would be Nelson Mandela, who would become

Jason S. Ganz 25

these reforms held perhaps in part due to whom was undertaking these reforms. Reforms that led to

South Africa rejoining the British Commonwealth in 1994.128

It must be considered that a dominant race or party, much like an empire, does not want to lose

power or presence, but is typically more conducive to acceptance when the leader is one of the

dominant. To put this into an analogy more conducive to an American audience, a Kennedy-esque

President visiting the People's Republic of China would be more likely to be viewed as a kowtow than

a hard-line conservatve President such as Nixon (who did visit China in 1972 and promoted a thaw

through talks with then premier Zhou Enlai). Had Mandela been released and immediately put to

power, De Klerk's reforms would have carried little weight, and his presidency viewed as merely an

abdication of white power in South Africa. However, because De Klerk was perceived as “one of the

whites”, he was able to provide credibilities to these reforms that ultimately put an end to the

legitimacy of apartheid in South Africa.

South Africa still has a long journey to endure if it truly wishes to become westernized.

Although signficant progress has been made politically and economically – South Africa is the sole

African representative on the Group of 20 – there is still much social progress that needs to be made in

order for South Africa to truly possess a role on the world stage. Social issues including a high HIV

rate (close to 23% as of 1999)129, and the still-present economic dichotomy between whites and

blacks130 are dilemmas the South African government needs to solve in order to be a post-colonial

success story. A story whose ending may be decades, or further, away.

CONCLUSION

It cannot be argued that colonialism and its redrawing of geographic and ethnic maps in South

Africa have been instrumental in the crippling of Africa, but in reality how much can actually be placed

on the colonial powers themselves? Granted, the colonial powers in this paper did engage in grave

discriminatory practices, but the infrastructures built and the transitions to independence were

opportunities for democracy and equality amongst persons. In all bar South Africa, there has been very

little signs of a democratic government and ideals of equality and human rights. Perhaps then the focus

integral in the continuation of mending interracial relations in South Africa.128British Commonwealth, History129 Brian G. Williams and Eleanor Gouws, “The Epidemiology of Human Immunodeficiency Virus in South

Africa,”Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences 356, no. 1411 (Jul 29, 2001): 1077. 130 Servaas van der Berg and Megan Louw, “Changing Patterns of South African Income Distribution: Towards Time Series Estimates of Distribution and Poverty,” SARPN's Paper to the Economic Conference to South africa, http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000727/P800-Poverty_trends_vdBerg_Louw.pdf (accessed December 17, 2010)

Jason S. Ganz 26

must be removed from the colonial powers and the critical lens placed on the authoritarian regimes

present in Africa, and why the populations have abhorred republics and democratic governments. Is

the post-colonial regime of sufficient totalitarian control, is anti-colonial sentiment still high even fifty

years removed from colonialism, a hybrid of the aforementioned, or a completely different rationale

altogether that possesses cultural and nationalist rationales. These questions must be answered by all

African states and until answered, Africa as a continent will be kneecapped from being a significant

presence in a globalizing world.

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