The decolonization of the Africa corresponds to the withdrawal of the colonial powers of Africa after the Second world war.

Inventory of fixtures

See also: the division of Africa

During the Division of Africa at the end of the XIXe century, the European powers divided Africa and its resources into political zones with the Conférence of Berlin of 1884 - 85. In 1905 the African territory is completely controlled by the European forces. The Great Britain and the France had the greatest possessions, but the Germany, the Spain, the Italy, the Belgium and the Portugal were not in remainder. Africa suffered, in the long run, of the effects of the Colonisation and the Impérialisme, with the loss of important natural resources like the Or and the rubber, economic collapse, the cultural upheaval, a geopolitical division and assujetissement political.

Europeans often justified that by using the theory of (" mission of the man blanc"), an obligation of " civiliser" populations of Africa.

Causes

On the African level, the Second world war saw the colonies helping their colonizers in a battle against an unknown enemy, but without mention of independence for the African nations. Certain leader, like Hendrik Verwoerd and John Vorster of South Africa supported Hitler while the majority of the French colonial governors showed their honesty with the Régime of Vichy until in 1943. German propaganda during the war is not foreign with this mistrust towards the British authority. Owing to the fact that the imperial conquest Japanese started in the Far East, it dealt with insufficiency out of raw material such as rubber and various ores. Africa was then forced to compensate for this shortage and profited much from this change. Another key question to which Europeans had to face was the presence of U-boot S (German submarines) who patrolled in the Atlantic Ocean. This reduced the quantity of raw materials transported towards Europe and pushed with the creation of local industries in Africa. These industries have, in their turn, caused the enlarging and the creation of new districts. With the increase in the urban areas and industry that came from the Syndicat S. In addition to the trade unions, the urbanization encouraged the reading and the writing, which supported the birth of newspapers pro-independence.

In 1941, Roosevelt and Churchill meet to discuss the world after war. It results the Charte from it from the Atlantic. One of the clauses of this document, introduced by Roosevelt, was the autonomy of the imperial colonies. After the second world war there was thus a pressure on the British to conform under the Charter of the Atlantic. When Churchill introduced the charter with the Parliament, it expressly transposed the colonies in recently conquered country to the Germany to be able to make it pass. After the war, the colonies African being always considered " infantiles" and " immatures" , of the democratic governments were introduced only with the local scales.

During the years 1930, the colonial powers took care to maintain a minority elites leaders, formed in the Université S Western and familiar with ideas like the Autodétermination. These leaders, whose some nationalist major like Kenyatta (Kenya), Kwame Nkrumah (Coast-with-the Or, Ghana), Léopold Sédar Senghor (Senegal) and Felix Houphouët-Boigny (Ivory Coast), carried out the battle for independence.

Consequences

In the majority of the British and French colonies, the transition to independence was relatively peaceful. Certain colonists disapproved the introduction of democratic governments however.

Following the decolonization, Africa posted an political instability, an economic disaster and a dependence with the debt. Political instability arrived with the introduction of the influences Marxist and capitalist as well as the permanent frictions due to the inequalities between the races . This led to the civil war, of the black nationalist movements took part in violent attacks against the white colonists, trying to put an end to the " predominance of the minority blanche" in the governments.

Other violences take place because of the dissension relating to the geographical cutting made during colonization. In spite of a very widespread acceptance of this cutting, frontier conflicts like those between the Chad and the Libya, the Ethiopia and the Somalia and the Nigeria and the Cameroun emerge, sometimes still today.

Another result of colonialism, follow-up of the decolonization, was impoverishment in natural resources of the African economy without possibility of diversification of the export of its commercial cultures towards the countries colonists. Suffering from famine and dryness, Africa fought to industrialize its labor struck by poverty, with insufficient funds.

In an attempt to influence the Third world so that it adopts, either the ideology of capitalism, or that of Communism, the the United States and the Soviet Union lent food and money to Africa. To nourish, to educate, and modernize its populations, Africa borrowed important sums from various nations, banks and companies. In return, the creditors have constrained the African countries to devaluate their currencies and tried to exert a political influence in Africa. However, the borrowed money did not raise the devastated economy. The enormous borrowed capital being usually wasted by the bad management of the corrupted dictators, the social problems like education, health, and political stability were ignored.

The derivatives of the decolonization, political instability, the frontier conflicts, the economic collapse, and an enormous debt continue to corrode Africa today.

Because of the military Occupation current, the Spanish Sahara (today the Western Sahara), completely decolonized forever. The majority of the territory is under administration Morocco groin, the remaining part being managed by the Arab République sahraouie democratic.

Chronology

¹ administration colonial Spanish on the Sahara Western is completed de facto when the territory was divided between the Mauritania and the Morocco (which annexed the totality of the territory in 1979), returning the declaration of independence of the Arab République sahraouie democratic null and void (it does not control that a portion limited to the east of the Moroccan Mur). Since Spain did not have the right to yield the Sahara Occidental, under the international law, the territory is always, of swears under Spanish administration. The administrator, in the facts, remains however the Morocco (See Liste of the non-self-governing territories according to UNO) .

See too

• Colonialism

• Decolonization
• the division of Africa