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(NEWZIMBABWE) The Africans won the War

The Africans won the War
by Mzilikazi Ndlovu
20/10/2009 00:00:00

WORLD War II was a great turning point in the history of modern Africa. Before the war broke out, the pace of de-colonisation since the establishment of colonial rule in the nineteenth century had been slow. Throughout Africa, the colonial regimes seemed too formidable for any opposition to challenge.

In 1939, the whole of Africa was under foreign rule. The Italians were occupying Ethiopia, British troops remained in Egypt, an American corporation -- Firestone Company -- controlled Liberia, and the Union of South Africa was a Dominion within the British Commonwealth.

By this time, every colonial territory had a military force adequate to control disobedient subjects. From Cape to Cairo, colonial rule had a firm grip.

Europeans recruited Africans into their armies as well. Over 100,000 African troops were sent to Europe (Italy in 1943 and later to France following the fall of the Vichy regime) and Britain enlisted about 200,000 African soldiers, many of whom served in Burma.

Most of these African soldiers had never been out of their native countries before. During active service, despite dangers and hardships, they were relatively well paid and most of them learnt to read newspapers, listened to the wireless bulletins, and took interest in world affairs. Perhaps more importantly, by fighting in these armies they learned something about how Europeans thought.

The attitudes of Europeans and Africans towards each other were greatly changed as a result of the war. Before the war, Europeans had been able to dominate Africans not only because of their more advanced economic system, but because the Europeans were certain that they were both invincible and superior to Africans.

Most Africans believed this to be true. However, the war shattered this myth for good. Several former colonial powers had been defeated and publicly humiliated. The British, French and Dutch empires had collapsed before the Japanese onslaught like straw huts in a storm. The Italian Empire had been defeated in Ethiopia. Later, as the tide of war changed, the Germans – themselves once a powerhouse in South West Africa – showed that they were not invincible.

In combat, African soldiers saw another side of the whites they had never seen before. Africans witnessed the civilized, sophisticated, and orderly white people mercilessly butchering one another just as their own so-called savage ancestors had done in tribal wars. The Africans perceived no difference between the so-called “primitive” and so-called “civilized men.”

In short, they saw through European pretensions that Africans were savages unable to control their own destinies. This discovery had a revolutionary impact on the African mind. The camaraderie between European and African soldiers became stronger. The relationship between the two groups of soldiers differed from that of European colonial officers and traders and African subjects: Europeans no longer appeared to be lofty, superior beings but instead were similar to the ordinary African citizen.

African soldiers saw white soldiers wounded, dying, and dead. The bullet had the same effect on black and white skin alike. After spending four years hunting other (white) soldiers, Africans never again regarded them as gods.

Through the war, the Allied Powers taught their subject peoples that it was not right for Germany to dominate other nations. They taught the subject peoples to fight and die for freedom, rather than live and be subjugated by Adolf Hitler. The subject peoples learned the lesson well and responded magnificently: they fought, endured great hardships, and died under the magic spell of “freedom.”

British officers appealed to the Africans to join the armed services, and they began extensive propaganda against the Nazis. (Not just the British, of course – practically all the Allied Powers did the same thing). But the “subject peoples” did begin to ask questions.

The following dialogue spells out the attitude of the African and other subject peoples:

‘Away with Hitler! Down with him!’ said the British officer.
‘What’s wrong with Hitler?’ asked the African.
‘He wants to rule the whole world,’ said the British officer.
‘What is wrong with that?’
‘ He’s German, you see,’ said the British officer, trying to appeal subtly to the African’s tribal consciousness.
‘What’s wrong with his being German?’
‘You see,’ began the British officer, trying to explain it in terms that would be conceivable to the African mind, ‘it is not good for one tribe to rule another. Each tribe must rule itself. That’s only fair. A German must rule Germans, an Italian, Italians and a Frenchman, French people.’

Note here that the astute British officer did not say ‘and a Brit must rule the British.’ However, what the British said nevertheless carried weight with the Africans who rallied by the thousands under the British flag. They joined the war to end the threat of Nazi domination.

Yet, after World War II, Africans began to direct their British-inspired spirit of freedom against the Allied Powers who had extensive colonial empires in Africa.

Throughout the continent, anti-colonial movements formed. “You said it was wrong for the Germans to rule the world. It is also wrong for both the English and the French to rule Africans. It is wrong for the Portuguese to rule Africans.” Thus African freedom -seekers, hungry for independence, began to articulate their innermost longings and yearnings.

The fundamental lesson that Africans learned during the war was that they fought and suffered to preserve the freedom they did not have back home. They had a collective realisation that the freedom for which so many Africans had died abroad was only enjoyed by the whites that ruled Africa and Africans.

What was the difference between Hitler and the white man who denied Africans freedom on their native land? Why should Africans be used as the instruments of white people to achieve white freedom? When were the Africans going to be free in the land of their birth? And how could that freedom be achieved?

After the war, in 1947, Britain finally ceded independence to India. The subcontinent was partitioned between India and Pakistan, which became independent states within the Commonwealth. The same thing happened with Ceylon, and, upon becoming independent, Burma did not even join the Commonwealth.

Both African soldiers and African nationals who were studying in Europe and America watched and listened carefully as Britain lost its hold on the Far East.

In 1941, before America was drawn into the war, Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met on a battleship off the Canadian coast and signed the Atlantic Charter as a statement of their hope for the future of humankind. Afterward, they declared that they would “respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they live, and that they wished to see “sovereign right and self-government restored to those who had been deprived of them.”

To both the African soldiers and nationalists, this Atlantic Charter became a great source of inspiration.

The European giants, Britain and France, came out of the war looking poorer and weaker; the USA and USSR became super-powers. Neither had an interest in strengthening the British and French colonial systems, and both had an interest in weakening British and French rule so as to expand their own trade and spheres of influence.

The colonised Africans, soldiers, nationalists and peasants all began to demand their independence. Immediately after the war, African nationalist leaders such as Albert Luthuli, Joshua M. Nkomo, Kwame Nkrumah, and Jomo Kenyatta arose and began to shout “Africa for the Africans – if freedom is good for the Europeans it must be equally good for Africans!”

In 1945, a Nigerian serviceman wrote from India to the prominent nationalist leader Herbert McAulay:

“We all overseas soldiers are coming back home with new ideas. We have been told what we fought for. That’s ‘freedom.’ In Africa we want freedom, nothing but freedom.”

At the same time, a poet from the Gold Coast had published a satirical poem in a local newspaper, The African Morning Post. The poem was a parody of Psalms 23:

“The European merchant is my shepherd, and I am in want. He made me to lie down in cocoa farms. He led me beside the waters of great need. The general managers and profiteers frighten me. Thou prepared a reduction in my salary. In the presence of my creditors thou anoint my income with taxes. My expense runs over my income and I will dwell in a rented house forever.”

Across the continent African nationalism became uncontrollable, and it became obvious that the colonial days were numbered in Africa. But those who had to achieve their independence by the barrel of the gun had to turn to the USA, the former USSR and China for military assistance. These three powerhouses of the day were interested in creating their spheres of influence in Africa and naturally they gave African leaders huge amounts of money to fight off colonialists.

In 1957, Ghana gained its independence under the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah, and other nations soon followed.

It is clear that without the catalyst of World War II, African independence would have been long delayed. Out of the war’s great evil came at least this one good – African Independence. Therefore, the Africans won the War!

Mzilikazi Ndlovu is a broadcaster and hosts Your World & Mine on CKJS 810 AM from Egypt. The program showcases the best of African and World music. You can listen to his programme at: www.ckjs.com

Labels: COLONIALISM, KWAME NKRUMAH

posted by MrK @ 6:41 PM