African nationalism is an umbrella term referring to a group of political ideologies prevalent in most of Africa. These ideologies are based on the idea of national self-determination and the creation of nation-states. The ideology emerged under European colonial rule during the 19th and 20th centuries and was loosely inspired by nationalist ideas from Europe. Originally, African nationalism was based on demands for self-determination and played an important role in forcing the process of decolonisation of Africa (c. 1957-66).
The Genesis of African Nationalism
Nationalist ideas in Africa emerged during the mid-19th century among the emerging black middle classes in West Africa. African nationalism first emerged as a mass movement in the years after World War II as a result of wartime changes in the nature of colonial rule as well as social change in Africa itself. Nationalist political parties were established in almost all African colonies during the 1950s, and their rise was an important reason for the decolonisation of Africa between c.1957 and 1966.
According to historian Robert I. Rotberg, African nationalism would not have emerged without colonialism. Its relation to Pan-Africanism was also ambiguous, with many nationalist leaders professing Pan-African loyalties but still refusing to commit to supranational unions. African nationalism exists in an uneasy relationship with tribalism and sub-national ethnic nationalism which differ in their conceptions of political allegiance.
Early efforts to build African nationalism were led by intellectuals educated by European missionaries, who occupied the space between Africans and European powers and often wanted to take over governing themselves rather than devolving it upon the people. Some, however, envisioned a more populist style of nationalism and determined to restore local customs and heritage.
Nationalism After World War I
Nationalism began to appear in Asia and Africa after World War I. It produced such leaders as Kemal Atatürk in Turkey, Saʿd Pasha Zaghūl in Egypt, Ibn Saud in the Arabian Peninsula, Mahatma Gandhi in India, and Sun Yat-sen in China. Atatürk succeeded in replacing the medieval structure of the Islamic monarchy with a revitalized and modernized secular republic in 1923.
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The progress of nationalism in Asia and Africa is reflected in the histories of the League of Nations after World War I and of the United Nations after World War II. The Treaty of Versailles, which provided for the constitution of the League of Nations, also reduced the empires of the defeated Central Powers, mainly Germany and Turkey. The league distributed Germany’s African colonies as mandates to Great Britain, France, Belgium, and South Africa and its Pacific possessions to Japan, Australia, and New Zealand under various classifications according to their expectations of achieving independence.
Among the League’s original members, there were only five Asian countries (China, India, Japan, Thailand, and Iran) and two African countries (Liberia and South Africa), and it added only three Asian countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, and Turkey) and two African countries (Egypt and Ethiopia) before it was dissolved in 1946. Of the mandated territories under the League’s control, only Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria achieved independence during its lifetime.
Of the original 51 members of the United Nations in 1945, eight were Asian (China, India, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey) and four were African (the same as in the League). By 1980, 35 years after its founding, the United Nations had added more than 100 member nations, most of them Asian and African. Whereas Asian and African nations had never totalled even one-third of the membership in the League, they came to represent more than one-half of the membership of the United Nations.
After World War II, India, Pakistan, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Burma (Myanmar), and Malaya (Malaysia) in Asia and Ghana in Africa achieved independence peacefully from the British Empire, as did the Philippines from the United States. Other territories had to fight hard for their independence in bitter colonial wars, as in French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) and French North Africa (Tunisia, Algeria).
African Decolonisation Explained
Challenges and Complexities
As the case of Rwanda shows, ethnic and tribal differences that colonizers exploited for their own purposes could turn into violent clashes. The reality of how Europeans drew borders within Africa created a special challenge for African leaders trying to resist European domination. Not only did they have to determine how much to assimilate with the cultures of colonial powers, but how to incorporate that into an African identity that was difficult to define due to ethnic and religious differences.
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Failure has sometimes resulted in catastrophe, as it did in Rwanda in 1994. As was the case of European countries, or of the United States, African national identity was constructed over the course of time. The goal was to get the members of a larger community to identify with each other, rather than their specific tribe, clan, or family. In Africa this process started during the 20th century, and continues to this day - it is a process fraught with challenges.
The Role of Women in African Nationalism
During the late 1950s and 1960s, scholars of African nationalist struggles primarily focused on the Western-educated male elites who led the nationalist movements and assumed power after independence. The history of studies of women's involvement in African nationalist struggle, mobilization, and party politics can be traced along intellectual and political paths that initially followed, later paralleled, but have seldom deviated from or led the course of Africanist historiography. The goal of these women involved in the African nationalism movement was to recover Africa's past and to celebrate the independent emergence of independent Africa.
Anne McClintock has stressed that "all nationalisms are gendered." Undoubtedly, women played a significant role in arousing national consciousness as well as elevating their own political and social position through African nationalism. It is with this in mind, that both feminism and the research of these women become critical to the re-evaluation of the history of African nationalism.
As leaders and activists, women participated in African nationalism through national organisations. The decade of the 1950s was a landmark because of the significant number of women who were politically involved in the nationalist struggle. A minority of women were incorporated and affiliated into male-dominated national organisations.
Founded by women in 1960, The National Council of Sierra Leone was to become, in 1968, the women's section of the ruling All People's Congress and dedicated primarily to the vigorous support of head of state, President Stevens. Nancy Dolly Steele was the organizing secretary and co-founder of the Congress, and has been noted for her militant political and nationalist activities.
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South African women, for instance, emerged as primary catalysts for protests against the Apartheid regime. These women first participated in resistance movements through women's branches of the larger male-dominated liberation organizations, as through the African National Congress (ANC). Nevertheless, in 1943, the ANC adopted a new constitution which included a new position for women to become full members of the national movement. Women also formed their own national organisations, such as the Federation of South African Women in 1954, which boasted a membership of 230,000 women.
Under the inspiration of Bibi Titi Mohammed, a former singer in Dar es Salaam who became a Tanganyikan nationalist, Tanzanian women were organised into a Women's Section of the Tanganyikan African National Union. Mohammed, who was semi-illiterate, was an impressive orator and later combined her nationalist work in the 1950s with her political ambitions. She was one of the most visible Tanganyikan nationalists during the struggle against colonialism and imperialism. She was the only nationalist leader, besides Julius Nyerere, who was recognized across the country at the time of Tanzanian independence.
| Organization | Year Founded | Description |
|---|---|---|
| The National Council of Sierra Leone | 1960 | Became the women's section of the ruling All People's Congress |
| Federation of South African Women | 1954 | Boasted a membership of 230,000 women |
| Women's Section of the Tanganyikan African National Union | N/A | Organized under the inspiration of Bibi Titi Mohammed |
Whilst some female-oriented initiatives may have been conceived and presented to women by male party-leaders, others were clearly created by women themselves. These women used nationalism as a platform to address their own concerns as wives, mothers, industrial workers, peasants, and as women affiliated to the ANC.
Explicit use of sexual insult was also central to the powerful Anlu protest of the Cameroon in 1958, where women refused to implement agricultural regulations that would have undermined their farming system. In the same way, women used music, dance and informal methods to convey their solidarity for African nationalism.
‘Ordinary’ women themselves had transformed "traditional" methods for networking and expressing disapproval against individuals, into mechanisms for challenging and unsettling the local colonial administration. However, although these women contributed to African nationalist politics, they had limited impact as their strategies were concerned with shaming, retaliation, restitution and compensation, and were not directly about radical transformation.
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