by Guy Arnold
This was not the end of the story. Haile Selassie reluctantly agreed that a ‘reserved area’, a stretch of country adjacent to the French Somali Protectorate (the Territory of the Afars and Issas – later Djibouti) which was then under Vichy rule, should remain under British military administration, as well as another stretch of land along the line of the Addis Ababa–Djibouti railway, and the Ogaden region, which had been Ethiopian until 1936 when the Italians annexed it to Italian Somaliland. At the time of these negotiations the British were organizing the Ethiopian Army and police on modern lines. British reluctance to quit Ethiopia continued after the end of the war and the British occupation was bitterly resented after 1946 when wartime strategic considerations no longer applied. In that year the British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, proposed that the British occupied areas except for the line of rail should be severed from Ethiopia and joined to British Somaliland and to former Italian Somaliland, then a trusteeship territory under British control. Only on 24 July 1948 did Britain at last agree to withdraw from the Ogaden, although withdrawal from the other reserved areas did not take place until November 1954.
An independent republic of Liberia was proclaimed in 1847; its creation as a state had been the work of American philanthropists who wished to assist freed slaves of the American south find a home in Africa. Although it was never to be an American colony, for most of its existence Liberia remained an economic colony of US interests and was to be deeply influenced by the American connection. Finally, of these four independent African countries, South Africa under white rule had become fully independent in international law with the passing of the Statute of Westminster in 1931 although it remained a Dominion of the British Empire and Commonwealth. From 1910 (the Act of Union) through to 1990 the whites demonstrated their determination to hold onto power exclusively and in the process created the apartheid state which became the focus of bitter and long intractable problems in Southern Africa.
PAN-AFRICANISM: THE MANCHESTER CONGRESS 1945
The concept of pan-Africanism was born at the beginning of the twentieth century when the first Pan-African Congress, sponsored by the Trinidad barrister H. Sylvester Williams, was held in London during 1900. A second congress was held in the immediate aftermath of World War I at Paris in 1919; this Congress called upon the Allied and Associated Powers to establish a code of law for the international protection of the natives of Africa. Independence at this time was simply not on the agenda. There were three more congresses between the wars – in 1921, 1923 and 1927. Then, in October 1945, just after the end of the war, the Sixth Pan-African Congress was held in Manchester, England, and was attended by such notable leaders-in-waiting as Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya and Kwame Nkrumah of the Gold Coast. The atmosphere had changed markedly since 1919 and the scent of independence was in the air. The Congress was to call for an end to colonialism, its members declaring in their manifesto, ‘We are determined to be free.’ The Congress became a landmark, a starting point for the coming independence struggles. The Congress rejected colonialism in all its forms, its participants equating economic with political imperialism and determining to crush both forms of alleged exploitation so as to achieve their independence. As the leading African participants were to discover when they returned home, they had achieved considerable prestige by taking part in the event.
A number of African and black leaders visited Britain at the end of the war to take part in a world trade union conference and some of them agreed to organize a Pan-African Congress: they included George Padmore, C. L. R. James, Peter Abrahams, Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta. The latter spent much of the summer of 1945 in Manchester helping the joint secretaries, Padmore and Nkrumah, to organize the Congress. In the end 200 delegates attended the Congress, which was opened by the Lord Mayor of Manchester. The Congress chairman was the American Negro, Dr W. E. B. duBois. Kenyatta attended in his capacity as General Secretary of the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA), although this was still banned in Kenya. Kenyatta was chairman of the credentials committee and rapporteur of the East African section. The Congress was not militantly anti-European and recognized the value of European contributions in Africa. Although duBois, an icon of the Negro struggle in America, was there, the Congress was dominated for the first time by African leaders and not American Negroes. Kenyatta was elected President of the Congress, and in this role he was described as ‘sane, humorous and intelligent’. The congress convinced Kenyatta that it no longer made sense to struggle for piecemeal reforms: ‘He firmly decided, therefore, even at this time, that the paramount design must be to unite all the people of Kenya, and the purpose must be nothing short of independence.’16 Later, when he returned to East Africa, ‘Like Nkrumah, who returned to the Gold Coast in 1947, Kenyatta found a fertile field for his activities. In both of these British territories there was much post-war discontent. From both, men had gone to serve in the Army. In service overseas they had become aware of the aspirations of the nationalist movements in Asia. But their horizons had been widened in another way: they had learned simple skills such as driving and hoped to maintain the higher standard of living they had in the Army.’17
The Congress was as important to Nkrumah as it was to Kenyatta. Nkrumah had gone to the United States in 1936 and taken a degree in economics and sociology at Lincoln University in 1939. In June 1945 he arrived in London. Almost at once he became involved in the forthcoming Pan-African Congress. George Padmore from Trinidad was then the leading figure in the Pan-African movement and Nkrumah became joint organizing secretary for the Congress with him. Although the West Indian figures, led by W. E. B. duBois, then aged 73, Padmore and James, were veterans of such events they did not dominate the proceedings at Manchester; rather, a younger more dynamic African contingent of men, who would shortly rise to fame as nationalist leaders in their own countries, took the lead. The list of participants (in hindsight) was impressive: from the Gold Coast came Joe Appiah and Ako Adjei; from Sierra Leone Wallace Johnson; from Nigeria Obafemi Awolowo, later to be the leader of the Action Group, Premier of Nigeria’s Western Region and a towering political figure in his country; from Kenya Jomo Kenyatta; from Nyasaland Hastings Banda; the black novelist Peter Abrahams from South Africa; and Amy Garvey, the widow of Marcus Garvey. The previous Pan-African Congresses had been dominated by middle-class intellectuals but at Manchester there were workers, trade unionists, a radical student element and no representation from Christian organizations. The emphasis was on African nationalism.18 The Congress argued for Positive Action à la Gandhi, preferably without violence. There were demands for economic independence to prevent imperialist exploitation and hopes were expressed for an African and Asian resurgence to end colonialism and resist both imperialism and communism. The conference called on Africans everywhere to organize themselves into political parties, trade unions, co-operatives and other groups to work towards independence and political advance. DuBois proposed the first resolution: that colonial peoples should determine to struggle for their freedom, if necessary by force. Nkrumah proposed the second resolution: a demand for independence for all colonial peoples to put an end to imperialist exploitation, this to be backed up by strikes and boycotts if needed. It was Nkrumah who coined the final phrase: ‘Colonial and Subject peoples of the World Unite.’ The Congress was a success: it brought together Africans who would change the face of the African continent over the next 20 years and it called on Africans everywhere to prepare themselves for political change. Nkrumah was to remain in London for two years, and became deeply involved in pan-African and West African causes. He became secretary of the West African National Secretariat (WANS), which had been established in 1945 to co-ordinate plans for the independence of British, French, Portuguese and Belgian territories. Then, in November 1947, he returned to the Gold Coast to become secretary of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) and so began the political career that would make him the first leader of an independent Ghana.
West Africa, then as later the journal
of the politics of the region, gave the Manchester Congress a cool reception, questioning the wisdom of the programme and wondering whether their radical ideas would receive support back in Africa. It asked whether nationalist leaders would be ‘more likely to get redress of grievances by agitation at large or by concentrating effort on particular areas which are under one government, perhaps even individual matters within such areas’. Later, the same editorial suggested that ‘Calling for national independence, in its old sense of unfettered freedom of action, is unreal. It is now a meaningless term. This Kingdom has not got it. Really no country has. Far more to the point is the proposal of a central secretariat to link and organize reform movements in various countries.’ An accompanying article covering the main activities of the conference referred to the conditions of ‘coloured’ people resident in Britain. ‘Speaker after speaker protested against the operation of a colour bar against Africans. Mr J. Kenyatta (Kikuyu Central Association) proposed a resolution, which was carried unanimously, “that the pan-African Federation should take all practicable steps to press the British Government to pass an Act of Parliament making racial discrimination illegal”.’ Many speakers appealed for unity and co-operation among Africans. ‘Mr. W. Johnson (Sierra Leone) said: “African students in Britain should not go back to their homes in Africa assuming a role of superiority, but should co-operate with the workers’ movements for the advantage of all coloured peoples.”’ The largest African contingent came from West Africa and many grievances were aired, especially the problem of illiteracy. ‘Mr. W. Johnson dwelt on what he stated as the main problems of Sierra Leone. The first was mass illiteracy. After 157 years of British rule only five per cent of the people were literate, and he estimated that the average number of children each school is expected to serve is 5,000… He described the medical facilities of the Colony as almost nil.’19 Many of these concerns would remain at the centre of Africa’s development problems to the end of the century. In their manifesto at the end the delegates said: ‘We are determined to be free… Therefore, we shall complain, appeal and arraign. We will make the world listen to the facts of our conditions. We will fight in every way we can for freedom, democracy, and social betterment.’
The participants in the Manchester Congress were in the vanguard while the policy makers of the Metropolitan powers still hankered for a return to the status quo ante 1939. The euphoria of the peace was succeeded all too quickly by the rising tensions of the Cold War that would soon become the all-absorbing priority of the United States and Europe. Indian independence in 1947 acted as the spur to independence demands everywhere else. And as Britain and France, the greatest of the colonial powers, at once discovered in the new world climate, the Americans were either hostile to or uncomprehending of European imperialism and the arguments to justify it. The Soviet Union was even more hostile to colonialism in all its forms (except its own) and was to gain considerable mileage in the years that followed championing liberation movements. The Cold War accelerated nationalist trends while the hostility of the two superpowers to European imperialism put extra and unwelcome pressures upon London and Paris.
THE UNITED NATIONS
An additional pressure for change came from the newly created United Nations which was to play a vital role in bringing about African independence, though it is unlikely that its founding fathers, the victorious Allied leaders, saw this as one of its principal justifications. Winston Churchill, Britain’s wartime leader, who had crafted the Atlantic Charter that became the model for the United Nations Charter, certainly did not. As he had famously said shortly after the American entry into the war, with US President Franklin D. Roosevelt as his prime target: ‘I did not become his Majesty’s first minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.’ Nonetheless, the liquidation was to come quickly enough. African nationalists were quick to see the importance of the new world body: as a court of appeal in their struggles; as a positive ally in dismantling imperial controls; and as a link to the two superpowers that were both, for their own realpolitik reasons, opposed to the old European empires. Although the primary emphasis of the United Nations in 1945 was upon the maintenance of world peace and this is reflected in its Charter, Clause 2 of Article 1 (chapter one), Purposes and Principles, was crucial to nationalists seeking independence: ‘To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace.’ However, it is Chapter XI, Declaration Regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories, Article 73, which was to prove crucial to the independence process:
Members of the United Nations which have or assume responsibilities for the administration of territories whose peoples have not yet attained a full measure of self-government recognize the principle that the interests of the inhabitants of these territories are paramount, and accept as a sacred trust the obligation to promote to the utmost, within the system of international peace and security established by the present Charter, the well-being of the inhabitants of these territories…
After this preamble, five clauses cover actions promoting self-government and require the colonial powers to ‘transmit regularly to the Secretary-General for information purposes’ details of progress under these heads. Chapter XII, International Trusteeship Council, deals with the status of the former mandates of the League of Nations, and Chapter XIII sets up The Trusteeship Council. In the years after 1945 the United Nations would be appealed to again and again by African nationalists as they escalated their pressures and demands for independence from the colonial powers and saw the United Nations as their most important ally in this regard.
In British Africa much was expected of the new Labour government that came to power in 1945. Its prime minister, Clement Attlee, was committed to Indian independence, which was achieved in 1947. What would his government do about Africa? It ended the system of indirect rule when it called for efficient democratic local government in the colonies and encouraged the formation of trade unions and co-operative societies. In 1946 new constitutions were introduced in the Gold Coast and Nigeria. As Lord Hailey commented: ‘The Constitutions ordained for the Gold Coast and Nigeria in 1946 were the most typical expressions of [the] attempt to effect a reconciliation between the underlying principles of Indirect Rule and that growing body of African opinion in West Africa which saw the attainment of self-government based on parliamentary institutions as the objective of Colonial rule.’20 In Nigeria Nnamdi Azikiwe had founded the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) in August 1944 and in 1946 he launched an all-out campaign against the new (Richards) Constitutions (which he claimed would move the country towards independence too slowly) even before they came into force. In August 1947 J. B. Danquah and other professional and businessmen launched the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) party in the Gold Coast Colony with the slogan ‘Self-Government in the shortest possible time’. In 1949 the UGCC was to be superseded by Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party (CPP) with the even shorter slogan: ‘Self-Government now’. On the other side of the continent Jomo Kenyatta, who had greatly enhanced his prestige by his prominent role in the Manchester Congress, returned to Kenya in 1946 to take the Manchester ideas back to Africa and work out the political struggle there.
BELGIUM AND PORTUGAL
In the Belgian Congo the official policy in the 1940s and 1950s was to gear the évolués (Africans considered to have achieved minimal European standards) to be accepted by Belgians and initiated into European ways. Progress was slow and as the colonial lawyer, M. Piron wrote of évolués in a paper submitted to the Colonial Congress of 1947: ‘Although they daily apply themselves to drawing nearer to the European, the latter often snubs them, pokes fun at their efforts or at the very least, is unaware of them’. Slowly, Belgian attitudes began to change with the end of the war. ‘The provisions of the United Nations Charter on dependent territories jolted official thinking in Belgium, as elsewh
ere. It was decided that something must be done for the évolués.’ Not a great deal was done, however, while the patronising tone in which évolués were addressed could only have given offence. Thus, in 1949, the provincial commissioner of Equateur addressed a cercle des évolués in the following terms: ‘Have no illusions; it is not you who will profit from the true civilization… Your children will attain a higher degree of civilization than you, but will still not profit integrally from it. Only your children’s children will be (truly) civilized.’21
Portugal’s approach to its African Empire in the 1930s and 1940s took little account of Africans. They were there to perform a task. In its plainest terms this policy ‘meant the perpetuation of Portugal in Africa – the prolonged presence of a culturally superior Christian community in a backward, if not barbaric, land. Certainly the African population had no place in the practical policies Lisbon wanted to implement in Africa.’22 Over this period the number of Portuguese settlers in Angola and Mozambique was increased rapidly: in Angola from 30,000 in 1930, to 44,000 in 1940, to 78,000 in 1950, and 170,000 in 1960; and in Mozambique from 18,000 in 1930, to 27,500 in 1940, to 48,000 in 1950, and 85,000 in 1960. Even as the leading colonial powers were coming to terms with nationalist demands for independence, the Portuguese were moving in the opposite direction. Overpopulation and poverty in Portugal, the promise of financial success in Africa, and the government’s subsidies had their effect at last. ‘In the 1950s Angola and Mozambique took on more and more the aspect of white colonies.’ More Portuguese women came to make their homes in Africa. The preamble to the second Overseas Development Plan of 1958 stated: ‘We must people Africa with Europeans who can assure the stability of sovereignty and promote the “Portuguesation” of the native population.’ No item in the budgets for the development plan had direct relevance to African interests or necessities. The regime do indigenato was fundamentally neither to encourage nor to suppress: it was to maintain. ‘The African world in Angola and Mozambique was to exist in a kind of limbo while the Portuguese got on with their job of making a success of white colonial development. Under the regime Africans had few rights but many responsibilities, the most important being to pay taxes, to farm as directed, and to supply Portuguese private and state enterprises with cheap labour.’23
