This note pack includes in-depth and detailed notes on Independent Africa covered in the Grade 12 IEB History syllabus. Everything you need for your exams or tests! These notes have been written by two History students who received A's from these study notes. These notes are SAGS compliant & have e...
Independent Africa:
VALUE OF AFRICA
- Diamonds, gold, coco, ivory, rubber cotton
- Strategic trade routes
FRENCH:
- Ground nut & cotton
- Crucial to industrial Europe
- Wanted to assimilate a population
- Cultural colonization → forced to speak French
KING LEOPOLD II (BELGIUM):
- Founded committee to civilise Africa
- Congo free State
- 23-year reign
- Population halved while
- Collect huge quotas of rubber
- Hand amputation if misbehaved
- Tyre created → Leopold
1960 - withdrawal of colonial powers from Africa
Uhuru:
- Swahili for ‘freedom’
- Fuelled by:
→ Pan Africanism
→ Exposure to western concepts of freedom and democracy
→ Weakness of colonial powers after WWII
→ Atlantic Charter - giving all people the right to choose their own form of government. Rights enshrined
in the UN Charter
African Socialism:
- Adopted by most African countries after becoming independent
- Supported socialist ideals → considered to be a deviation of Marxist-Leninism
Homegrown Capitalism:
- Capitalism with peculiarities making it specific to that country
,Kleptocracy:
- Government that uses public funds for private undertakings/corruption
“Authenticity”:
- Mobotu’s policy of abandoning Western cultrural norms in favour of ‘authentic’ Congolese culture
- Involved the adoption of traditional dress in the form of hats and shirts
Zaireanization:
- The economic equivalent of ‘authenticity’
- The removal of foreign influence and ownership from Zaïre’s economy
Nationalisation:
- State control of industries (businesses) and mines
Ujamaa:
- Swahili word for “neighbour less”
- The name for collectivised peasant villages in Tanzania
, Historical context:
1800s:
- Europeans found Africa to be primitive
- No desire to explore Africa due to tropical diseases, unnavigable rivers and dangerous animals
- This changed after the Industrial Revolution (18th & 19th century)
- Africa became the target for European Empire building
- After WWII African sentiment changed → Europeans were no longer all powerful conquers
- World viewed colonisation as evil
- At the same time, European colonials, who generally dominated politically and economically, countered
independence movements largely through limiting voting rights
- Africa formed part of the empires of European colonial powers
1900s:
- Most of Africa was not free in the first half of the 20th century
- After WWII, African nationalists fought for freedom from colonial rule
- 1957 → Ghana became independent (first colony to become independent)
1960s:
Most of Africa was independent
IN SOUTH AFRICA:
- Sharpeville (1960) → Demonstration against Pass Laws resulted in massacre by the police
- MacMillan’s Winds of Change Speech
- South Africa announces its intention to withdraw from the British Commonwealth
→ showed intent to use for independence
- Formation of uMkhonto we Sizwe and Azanian People’s Liberation Army (POQO)
uMkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation):
- The armed wing of the African National Congress co-founded by Nelson Mandela in the wake of
the Sharpeville massacre.
- Its mission was to fight against the South African government
IN THE REST OF THE WORLD:
- Civil Rights Movement gains momentum in 1950s and 1960s
- Pan Africanism and Black Power are on the rise
- People are more critical of their government
- Communism is still seen as a threat to Capitalist countries
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