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Summary Grade 12 Focus History - History
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Summary of Independent Africa (Congo and Tanzania) and Angola.
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Independent AfricaBecoming self-governing meant that each independent African state faced the question
of how to develop into a peaceful, stable and prosperous country.
Economic development
Independent African countries were now in charge of how their wealth was made, spent
and shared.
Some African states were influenced by capitalism, which upheld the idea of private
enterprise.
Others were influenced by socialism, which upheld collective enterprise.
African leaders developed an African version, called African socialism.
Political development
Underlying this new freedom were two difficult questions:
- how to share power among the people of the country.
- how to make sure that power was used for the good of all the people.
African states were influenced by political ideas such as democracy, which called for
elections and the representation of many political parties, each with different demands.
Others were influenced by the alternative to democracy - one party states.
African socialism
Newly independent African countries emerged into a world where the dominant economic
system was capitalism.
African leaders sought an alternative economic system and decided to develop a unique
type of socialism that would suit their new countries.
The basis of socialism is that everyone should have an equal opportunity to share in a
country’s wealth.
,Socialism also holds that a country’s main industries should be owned by the
government; and that a government exists to benefit the whole of society and not just
the individual.
Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of independent Ghana, was one of the earliest
promoters of African socialism.
He argued that, historically, African societies had worked according to a principle of
communalism, or group sharing.
Nkrumah believed that African socialism meant remembering ‘the spirit of traditional
African society’, which had put the welfare of the majority of people before the welfare
of individuals. This really meant no individualism or selfishness.
There are three main features of African socialism:
- no private ownership of land.
- no social classes (no division of the population according to wealth status).
- no avoidance of the responsibility to co-operate or work for the common good.
Capitalism
Under capitalism, industries, businesses and property are privately owned.
In a capitalist country, the government usually does not interfere with, or have control
over these sectors.
The system of ‘supply and demand’ regulates the manner in which goods are bought
or sold, and the prices at which they are sold.
As African countries became independent, capitalism threatened to undermine the
optimism of the new states, for two reasons.
Firstly, capitalist economies often improve the living standards of a small number of
people but do little to address (and may even lower) the living standards of the rest of the
population. Adopting a capitalist system would simply re-create the inequalities
experienced by Africa under colonialism.
Secondly, the poverty gap that resulted between rich and poor might become a major
cause of unrest and instability in the new states.
,Democracy
A democracy is a political system in which everyone is equal and in which adult citizens
have the right to vote.
A democratic country has a government that is elected by the majority of its people.
This also means that another important feature of a democracy is majority rule.
The protection of human rights in a democracy is important for its success.
Political systems are also important to ensure that power is not abused.
In a democracy, the representation of different groups' interests and open discussion
among these groups are essential.
This means that for democracy to work, there have to be several political parties.
During colonialism, political parties formed among Africans were usually dedicated to a
shared goal - gaining independence.
Once independence was achieved, however, the different parties wanted to focus on
achieving their specific political goals. The debate among African leaders became:
- Should different political parties be allowed to achieve their special goals in
competition with each other?
- What should be done when this promotes unrest in a country, and gets in the way
of progress?
One-party states
In one-party states, a single party forms the government and holds all the power.
No other party is permitted to run for election.
After independence, many African leaders chose single-party systems over
multi-party democracies.
The reasons why they did so can be identified as follows:
- Some leaders considered one-party states to be in their country's best interests.
Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania said that a system of
government with many parties would not be in the best interests of a newly
independent African country.
, According to some people, one-party states represented traditional African types
of governance, in which a chief had ruled over a group of people. It was also argued
that all the energies of the country needed to be directed towards the task of
nation-building. Opposition parties with different ideas and plans would divide
the people against one another, and distract attention from the country's
development.
- The influence of the Cold War. During the Cold War, the USA and the USSR often
supplied newly independent African countries with military equipment. This made
the military a very strong presence in several African countries. Leaders such as
Mobutu Sese Seko in the Congo, and Idi Amin in Uganda, used the power of the
military to create one-party states. In such cases the army seized power through
force, and used brutal methods such as torture and murder to silence any
opposition.
The Congo and Tanzania
To a great extent, the type of colonisation a country experienced lay down a blueprint,
or pattern, for how that country dealt with what happened in the early years of
independence.
This cause-and-effect method is a useful place from which we can begin to compare
the Congo and Tanzania.
For many historians, the roots of the Congo's violent years of independence lie deep
in its colonial history.
Between 1878 and 1959, the Congo was ruled by Belgian authorities. The King of
Belgium, Léopold II, ruled the area as his own personal property. Léopold ruthlessly
exploited the colony's people, and its supplies of ivory and rubber.
Nearly 10 million people, half the population of the Belgian Congo, died under
Léopold's rule.
Tanzania did not experience quite the same brutality. In the late 19th century,
Germany occupied the regions that are now known as Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi,
calling them German East Africa.
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