Word: africanism
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...shadow he casts over Africa stretches far beyond the borders of his Oregon-sized country. As the head of the only French territory to vote against De Gaulle's constitution and thus to choose complete independence, he has been suddenly catapulted into the forefront of the African scene. Last week somnolent, picturesque Conakry was getting to know how it feels to be the capital of an independent nation. France, Britain and the U.S. were busy setting up embassies; there had been trade missions from East Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia; and last week the first ambassador arrived-from Communist Bulgaria...
Coming to power last May, Charles de Gaulle made his dramatic offer to the French African territories: they could have the choice between 1) complete independence, 2) autonomy within the French Community, or 3) the status of a department of France. Toure charged that the whole idea of a French Community-which came close, but not close enough, to the British Commonwealth-would only continue "our status of perpetual dependence, our status of indignity, our status of insubordination." When De Gaulle stopped off at Conakry on his swift tour of Africa before the referendum, Toure thundered in his presence...
Though the people of Guinea rejoiced, Touré banned all demonstrations, announced: "This is no time for dancing." More than any other African state, Guinea was on its own. The British had bequeathed to Nkrumah a prosperous Ghana. President Tubman. who runs Liberia as Boss Pendergast once ran Kansas City, has the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. as the biggest employer in his land. The Sudan, after getting its independence, is calling back British technicians. Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia has Swedes training his air force, Indians running his state bank, Americans running the airline, and French Canadian Jesuits running...
...Ghanocracy Does Not Interest." The African leaders who cry so loudly for independence have also learned that, beyond a certain point, Africa's problems become not so much those between blacks and whites as between Africans themselves. For generations French West Africans have feared the Senegalese, who were among the first to join the French in subduing them. The Senegalese in turn fear the lean, desert-dwelling Moors, who are fighting men with a long tradition of trading in slaves. In Houphouet-Boigny's Ivory Coast there have been recent race riots against African immigrants from Togoland...
...creation of the Mali Federation -loosely encompassing the four former French territories of Senegal, the Voltaic Republic and the Republics Dahomey and Sudan-seems likely to be the pattern of things to come. The tide now running in Black Africa is toward independence, regional groupings, and a sort of African authoritarianism that pays its respects to Western democratic forms but rests on older habits of strong rule...