What forms did african nationalism take down to the 1960's - Essay Example

?African Nationalism African nationalism can be defined as unity among African s so as get enough strength to stop all forms of colonialism fromforeigners who had control of their nations. According to Okoth (2006), African nationalism was the resistance of the owners of the nations to foreigners so that they could exercise their rights and freedom. There were many types of African nationalism such as the African National Congress in South Africa and The Convection People Party in Ghana lead by Kwame Nkrumah. Other examples include The West African National Congress which was formed in 1920 and the WAFD Party of Egypt formed to remove the indirect rule of the British in Egypt. One of the factors that led to the rise of African nationalism was the rise of superpower nations such as The United State of America and the Soviet Union who were against colonialism since they had different Ideologies. For example, the US was capitalist while the Soviet Union wanted to spread communism, which in turn lead to colonialists such as the British and French withdrawing from African countries. The colonial rulers had also taken a big share of African resources such as land and were encroaching in large numbers and displacing Africans to unproductive land, which encouraged the Africans to form movements to oppose such kinds of oppression. Additionally, the United Nations also discouraged colonial rule, hence it came with the idea that the countries under colonial rule should be decolonized and left to rule themselves (Okoth 2006). The African National Congress The formation of The African National Congress started in 1912 and was referred to as South Africa’s National Liberation Movement but in the year 1923 was renamed to The African National Congress (Mckenna 2011). The movement was formed with the main aim of liberating South Africans from colonialists and for South Africans to exercise their rights. Additionally, policies formed by the colonialists such as apartheid pushed educated people in South Africa to seek redemption. Apartheid was the act of segregation of Black people from the White people in many forms like education, walking pathways and so forth. The movement which was formed tried to engage the colonialist in forms like organization of strikes to remove such policies and give freedom to Africans. The ANC’s other main aim was to fight for South Africans’ socio-cultural and economic issues so as to encourage Africans and save them from becoming poor. This was due to the fact that the colonialist had taken away most of their resources such as fertile land. The ANC went through different stages to liberate the South Africans from the colonial rulers. Mckenna (2011) shows that the party was destabilized in the year 1920 due to disagreements with communist members who wanted to join them. The party lost its activeness between the year 1930 and 1940, but become active again in the year 1940 after members like Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu reformed the party so as to fight against apartheid which was seen as the biggest form of oppression to the South Africans. The reformers were also known as the ANC Youth League due to the fact that most of the leaders who reformed the party in 1940 were young (Mckenna 2011). Strikes were organized in 1946 by gold miners who were protesting against the hardships they were going through, which they saw that the colonies were the main contributor. For example they had to protest against the Witwatersrand bus company who contributed to their hardships by raising transport fare. The movement, ANC, went on with the fight against the segregation with the use of other forms of fight like protests and strikes. In the year 1952, they encouraged strikes and protests though they never engaged the government which was in power by then. This made the party popular and encouraged many Black people to join them. In the year 1955, the leaders of the ANC and the communist congress were arrested and put on trial after they demanded for the rights of Black people and resisted against the policies like the Bantu authorities act. The strike by the ANC followers continued peacefully, but in1960 high numbers of the protesters were killed, a period which indicated a turning point in that they started fighting back using violent means. Subsequently, the ANC and other movements like the Pan Africanist Congress were declared dangerous and illegal by the Government. Malawi Labor Movements The labor movements in Malawi were formed in protest to the working conditions faced by Malawian workers. The Blantyre movement as one of the examples of the movements was formed with aim of liberating workers from their bad working conditions and the distant locations from their place of work. Most of the workers in Malawi had to trek to their working place most of the time and their living conditions were questionable due to the fact that their wages were low in comparison to the jobs they were doing. There were other forms of restrictions by the colonialists which lead to formation of such movements, for example, most of the Malawians were not allowed to build houses near town and others were not allowed to vote. Such restriction could only be removed on fulfillment of some conditions like if one had property worth more than ?100 by then. In addition, most Africans were not allowed to buy anything from Europeans Shops (Mccracken 1998). Labor unions are indicated to have been established after the living conditions in the urban center stated being hard for Malawians. The cost of living was high prompting the Malawians to start the movements to negotiate for more wages. According to Dzimbiri (2008), the strikes by the union workers were aiming for liberation from the colonialism, which is evidenced by the fact that some of the movements like the General Workers Union were supporting the Malawi Congress Party which wanted the liberation of Africans from colonialists. There were continued strikes by the workers union who were demanding for better pay, for example, in 1947 railway workers went on strike and achieved their aims since their demands were met. Discussion One of the main similarities between the ANC and the labor movements in Malawi is that both movements were fighting for freedom from their colonialist and better living conditions. Another similarity is that they used means of protest like strikes to demand their rights which lead to agreements by their colonialist to increase their salaries. In addition, they formed movements so as to act as intermediaries between them and the White settlers, like the ANC for South Africa and the General Workers Union in Malawian. Furthermore, the strikes which were organized in one place spread to many other parts in both countries, for example, protests organized by in Malawi spread to different parts of the country (Dzimbiri 2008). From a study of the two movements, it can be seen that the main difference was that the ANC was formed by combinations of Christians and peoples representatives while the labor movements were formed by the workers to demand for wage increases. The ANC was formed by leaders who were educated by the colonists, for example, the ANC Youth League leaders like Nelson Mandela, while the labor unions were formed by the different workers with different literacy levels. The ANC was formed to stop the policies created by the colonialist like apartheid while the workers’ unions in Malawi was formed to demand good working conditions and wage increases. One other big difference is that the protests by the ANC lead to deaths and arrests of many of its followers while the workers union in Malawi had little causalities. Conclusion From the study, it is clear that many of the victims suffered from colonialist rule which lead to some of them dying and other being arrested. It can be seen that the Africans had no other choice but to demand for their rights and try their best to liberate themselves from the colonists. To achieve this aim, they resorted to all means of protests and demands which to make their oppressors respond and give in to their demands. The protests and other forms of agitation eventually got the African nationalists their freedom, but the cost in terms of lives lost was high. For example, the colonialists reacted by arresting those who were protesting or killing them. From the study it can be seen that the Africans continued demanding their right despite the resistance that they meet from the colonialists until at last they liberated themselves from their rulers. Furthermore, it is also seen that the colonialist powers themselves helped Africans liberate themselves indirectly by providing them with education and thus informing them of the power that they had. This made the African come to understand that they could liberate themselves and improve their living conditions. The Africans also benefited from the industries which were built by their colonists which later helped them to develop. Conversely, it is seen that rulers contributed a lot to rural-urban migration which lead to an increase in slums and shanties in the urban centers, hence leading to worse living conditions, some of which persist to the present day. References Dzimbiri, L, B, 2008, Industrial Relations in a Developing Society: The Case of Colonial, Independent One-party and Multiparty Malawi, Verlag Publishing, Gottingen. McCracken, J, 1998, ‘Blantyre Transformed: Class, Conflict and Nationalism in Urban Malawi’, Journal of African History, Vol. 39, pp. 247-269. Mckenna, A, 2011, The History of Southern Africa, Britannica Educational Publishing, New York. Okoth, A, 2006, A History of Africa: African nationalism and the De-Colonization, East Africa Educational Publishers, Nairobi. Read More