The European colonies have played an important role in moulding the African social, economic and cultural existence. Imperialism is considered as the source of colonization and post colonialism in the history of the African nations. Imperialism emerges out as a strong hold in most the colonized nations before Europeans has come to the colonized countries. Imperialism, Colonialism and Post colonialism are the most frequently used terminology of the last centuries. The task of the writers is to present the realistic approach of the ruler and exploitation of the native black African
Isabella Draack Hour 2 World History William Kvebak The Conquest Of Africa As the world came upon the start of a new century, more and more powers grew desperate and hungry for land and more control. As more and more people wanted more land, Africa became available. Between 1450 and 1750 the Europeans traded with Africa. By the 19th century, the Europeans began exploring the lands of Africa, looking at all Africa had to offer. Henry Stanley, a journalist, is one of the people that sparked an interest in Africa.
For example, the official language of many former colonies is that of the mother country. In general, colonialism had long-term economic, political, and social effects.”(Kicza, “Colonialism”). All in all this shows due to European colonization, African culture has never returned to how it originally was before colonization. Not only was the official language changed, but many new technologies were introduced. For example, “The colonial powers built new communications and transportation systems, established universities, and introduced modern medical practices.”(Vontz, “Imperialism”).
The following aspects will be the main discussion points: Colonialism and its effect on Africa, Geographical location, the cultural difference between Africa and Europe, Human capital formation in both Countries and the institutional development in each continent. Colonialism and its effect on Africa: In order to discuss colonialism it is necessary to define what colonialism is, according to dictionary.com: “colonialism is the control or governing influence of a nation over a dependant country, territory or group”. The main exploration countries, mainly: Spain, Britain, Portugal and the Netherlands, colonised numerous other countries in their travels and for the expansion of their nations (Cameron, 1993). A major aspect of income for the colonialists was slavery, the colonialists took only citizens of economic value as slaves. This left Africa with less citizens of working age and caused an influx of slave labour in European countries.
Since the late nineteenth century, the rapid expansion of trade and colonial rule in tropical Africa has intensified the creative writers ' ambition to focus on not just isolated black figures but also on the entire African race. One sees a link here with the European sense of power, imperialistic adventure, and hostility towards Africans and the Red Indians beyond the Age of Discovery which may have inevitably brought about some polarised racial attitudes in Shakespeare 's Titus Andronicus, Othello, and The Tempest. All these Elizabethan English plays for a Eurocentric audience depict an image of Africans as ignoble slaves, paupers, and victims in exile far away from their original homeland. Thus literary creativity for the sake of entertainment seems to be relegated for political and racist causes by Shakespeare, Defoe, and others. The Polish-born writer, Joseph Conrad, in early twentieth century continued to do more or less the same thing.
This paper will explore the effects that colonialism had on Africa and the tribalism that exist to this day. Berlin West African Act of 1885 set rules on how the major Western European countries behaved in the scramble for Africa. This treaty set the stage for the subsequent parting out of territories among the European countries. Tribalism had existed in Africa prior to the invasion of the Europeans but exploded after the end of the colonialism system employed. The aftershocks of colonist demise paved way to the extreme tribalism that we see on the continent today.
The explorers of Africa played a fundamental role in the discovery of Africa for Europe. This essay will investigate the motivation behind these explorations, the results of the discoveries and how hey led to imperialism and colonialism in Africa. This will be proved by discussing firstly the prominent explores in both the fifteenth and the nineteenth century. Secondly, it will be proved by indicating how the discoveries of some of the last and greatest explorers of the new age of exploration provoked and accelerated the Scramble for Africa. The emergence of the European explorers in the west coast of Africa during the fifteenth century signified the dawn of a new era: the Age of Discovery in Africa.
TYPES OF COLONIALISM THE DEMISE OF COLONIALISM Formations and analyses of colonialism in Africa have been affected quite significantly by how the death of colonialism is understood Jean (2002). This in turn has placed on how two procedures are observed specifically, decolonization and African nationalism or resistance and the connections between the two. THE AMBIVALENCES OF COLONIAL SOCIETY The pluralist method was extensively applied by communal anthropologies to clarify several other African foreign civilizations, which were portrayed as plural civilizations in which different cultural groups and races lived in close proximity, foreign group change was credited to culture contact and acculturation Mary
Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of language in African Literature, London: Heinemann, talked about colonial impact,” colonialism imposed its control of the social production of the wealth through military conquest and subsequent political dictatorship. But its most important area of domination was the mental universe of the colonized the control through culture, of how people perceived them selves and their relation to the world.” To break free from this control, Ngugoi set an example by first writing in his own language, Gikuyu, and then translating them into English. His novels present pictures of Kenya from the 1930s to the contemporary days, the struggle against western domination, and the Mau Mau rebellion. One of the issues Ngugi discussed in his novels is struggle for land. In his first novel, Weep Not, Child, Ngugi describes a Kikuku family and this family has been drawn to the Mau Mau
In order to represent the ‘othering’ and stereotypes two highly acclaimed white South African writers have been chosen; Olive Schreiner and John Maxwell Cootzee. Schreiner’s Thoughts on South Africa and Cooztee’s Foe are briefly analyzed in the context of colonialism and post colonialism. The legacy of the apartheid has had a strong influence on the South African literature promoting a one-eye form of consciousness in the early history of literature. The two literary works represent the South African identity crisis as well as changes in representation of identity in literature. Identity entails qualities of repeatability, sameness and continuity; in addition to that it suggests otherness and difference.