Political Power in Africa - Assignment Example

INTRODUCTION

In the last half of the 19th century, most of the inhabitants of European countries immigrated to the Dark Continent of the world, Africa. They came to the region for the initial purpose of trading which also resulted in grasping political power over Africa (Ohaegbulam 1-150).

THESIS STATEMENT

In this context, the assignment discusses the intention of the European nations in invading Africa in terms of political and economic motives.

DISCUSSION

Economic Motive. The motive behind invading the African region by European countries is to have the optimum exploitation of the available natural resources and human resources of the Dark Continent. The natural resources comprise raw materials, minerals, and agricultural products among others. Natural resources of Africa are exploited due to the fact that it would allow industrialization in the European region to grow in an improved manner. Furthermore, human resource is exploited because of the cheap availability of labor services in Africa. Consequently, this also led to slavery, as the poor African people were forced to serve the Europeans at an extreme level of output with the minimum possible rewards. Accordingly, the European nations are facilitated with the opportunity of performing trade and other business operations with reduced cost of production, which resulted in economic growth of the same. In addition, this has resulted in the infrastructure development of European nations. The process of exploiting the resources has also simultaneously assisted in the development of roads and railways. Subsequently, the development of the economic conditions and infrastructure of the European nations has led to the creation of increased job opportunities for the people of Africa (Ohaegbulam 50-256; Inikori, n.d.).

Political Motive. With gradual success in trade by exploiting the resources of Africa, the European nations tried to gain a political advantage over the African nations. This was mainly because of the inclining of the political power balance towards the European nations. The need for political power was extremely important for each and every nation in the 19th century because of the frequent occurrence of wars in the countries. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were several wars and most notably the two world wars. These have made an extreme need for the armed force. Thus, the people of African origin were used extensively for the purpose of defense. Furthermore, most of the countries are divided into several states and thus, there was a need for political advantage. It can also be noted that the need for proper administration or even strict administration of the labor forces in Africa had assisted European nations to gain political power against the feeble African nations. The motive behind this is to have supreme authority over nations in the African regions and thereby, implement laws and policies in the African countries that are economically and politically beneficiary for the European nations (Hayes 58-83; Iliffe 125-345).

CONCLUSION

Most of the European countries have undergone expansion in Africa for the purpose of trade but later it turned out to be a political advantage over those nations. These have led to the loss of independence of the Africans. However, the constant fight for freedom by the African nations and the growing pressure from the United Nations to free those countries from the dictating governance of the European nations has aided in gaining freedom.