Title: The Challenge of Decolonization in Africa
Headings: The Challenge of Decolonization in Africa
The Challenge of Decolonization in Africa
Benjamin Talton – Temple University
The Year of Africa
The Cold War
Neo Colonialism
Pan-Africanism and Socialism
Tragedy in Congo
Proxy War in Angola
Bibliography
Image Gallery

Content: Naïvely, most African leaders believed that they could navigate the political land mines of the Cold War through political neutrality. Along these lines, in his speech on the occasion of Kenya's independence from Britain in 1963, Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta (in power from 1964 to 1978) declared: The aim of my government which starts today is not to be pro-left or pro-right. We shall pursue the task of national building in friendship with the rest of the world. Nobody will ever be allowed to tell us, to tell me: you must be friendly to so-and-so. We shall remain free and whoever wants friendship with us must be a real friend. Nonetheless, as Africans declared themselves nonaligned, pro-West, or Marxist sympathizers, Cold War politics deprived them of the freedom to truly shape their political paths. Combined with the strong residue of the colonial political structure, African leaders designed their internal and external politics mindful of the Western powers' vigilance against socialist or communist influences. Although Western European powers granted aid to African nations, they also coerced governments to support their agendas and instigated and aided coups against democratically elected governments.