WORLD WARS AND THE DAWN OF NATIONALISM IN AFRICA

THE WORLD WARS AND THE DAWN OF NATIONALISM IN AFRICA.

The advent of 20th century was marked as the age of nationalism and imperialism in Africa ,Asia and Latin America. After the inversion, partition and ultimate colonization of Africa in the 19th Century, the process of decolonization started by 1945. Africans of whom some had collaborated and assisted the Europeans to subdue fellow Africans developed a national feeling and got a radically changed consciousness.
The awakening can be credited to African elites who had undergone through  the elementary missionary education and managed to mobilize and unite Africans against colonial oppression. Another group of people that shouldn’t go unrecognized is World Wars Ex soldiers.

At the onset of World War II, both the Allied forces and the Axis powers rushed to mobilize soldiers from their colonies in Africa to reinforce their armies in different parts of the world. As the Germans formed the Afrika Korps, the British responded by bringing in the King’s African Rifles to contain the German and Italian advancement in North Africa. In West Africa, the British Royal Air force recruited 10, 000 Africans for ground duties. The African Battalions were also distributed in Burma, Ceylon, Israel, England, Somalia and Abyssinia (now Ethiopia).

By the end of WW II, the African soldiers went back to their countries with not only military experience but also nationalistic feelings that steered the countries towards self rule.

First, the ex servicemen awakened their countrymen on the myth of white ascendancy, predomination and whip hand and the black inferiority, subordination and subjugation, a mentality created by the Christianity. ( Christianity made Africans docile, compliant and submissive to the whites).

The ex servicemen managed to convince fellow countrymen on their ability against their colonial masters. This was after they saw fellow Africans command battalions, just like whites and African soldiers killing and maiming white soldiers during the war. “So the white man can die too from a bullet!” As Danda Kafanchan – a former infantry man from Nigeria recounts, “ Initially, I saw the white man as someone better than me. But after the war, I considered him equal.” The journey was on course.
The ex soldiers also went ahead to extend their military prowess from the world wars to the forests in their countries. As the elites engaged the white man on the table and Legco, the soldiers engaged the whites in the bush through guerilla wars. This was how Mau Mau movement of Kenya came to  fore. The Mau Mau leader – Field Marshal Dedan Waciuri was once a soldier with King’s African Rifles (KAR). On return however, he could not withstand the massive land alienation taking place around Mount Kenya for white settlement and settler farming. (This was the main grievance of the Mau Mau anyway). Above all, the soldiers never received the much perceived guerdon after the world wars. This agitated them and made them to join the radicals to fully decolonize the country.

African involvement in the world wars (though not by choice) ended up being an eye opener to Africans and a shot on the whites’ own feet. They trained guerillas who finally ejected them by early 1960s.

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