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: etc. We are left with no choice but to fall on either the east or west, or indeed, on both of them." What Kaunda does not state is that the weaknesses that he speaks of were, first and foremost, products of European colonial strategies and, second, the failure of all but a few of his colleagues in other independent African nations to fully serve the interests of their people through brave and innovative development programs. When decolonization began, there were reasons for optimism. The year 1960 was heralded throughout Africa and the West as "the Year of Africa" for the inspiring change that swept the continent. During that year, the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa shook the world to awaken to the horrors of white minority rule as South African police fired into a crowd of peaceful black protesters, killing sixty-nine in full view of photographers and reporters. Also in 1960, seventeen African territories gained independence from the strong arm of European colonial rule. These seventeen nations joined the United Nation's General Assembly and gave greater voice to the non-Western world. Fully recognizing the potential for the remarkable change that African independence could bring to global politics, on February 3, 1960, Harold Macmillan, prime minister of Great Britain from 1957 to 1963, delivered his famous speech, "Wind of Change," to the South African parliament. " The growth of national consciousness in Africa is a political fact," Macmillan said, "and we must accept it as such. …