Word: africanism
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...offer a fourth choice-independence-and the absence of this magic word set off predictable outcries among some African politicos. "France," said French West Africa Deputy Hammadoun Dicko, "must recognize our independence and not only our right to independence." After hearing a nationalist pep talk by Ghana's Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah ("Make first for independence, and you will get the rest!"), a meeting of African party leaders in Dahomey called upon France to help her territories form a "United States of Africa." De Gaulle apparently would have the West African territories separate states affiliated with France...
...African woman's position in society may be hard to equate with Catholicism, the delegates felt, but for one thing she can be thankful. "She is regarded by her society not only as fertile in producing children," summed up one delegate, "but as being bestowed with supernatural powers that make seeds and all work that passes through her hands germinate and prosper." Nevertheless, the delegates were gravely concerned about the African family system. "It is beautiful," said one woman. ''But no Christian life is possible without equality in the home...
...Main African inequalities...
...betting on a girl, the engagement takes place before the bride-to-be is even born. The baby girl gets her engagement ring in her first bath. Disturbed enough by prepuberty engagements, the delegates were shocked at the Guinea custom. "Alas, we cannot change," said one, "until the African man realizes that a woman is not just the daughter of her father, to be disposed of as he likes, or the property of her husband, to be treated as he pleases...
Concluded the delegates, in a final resolution that some observers called a new Magna Carta for African women: "We regret that in Africa marriage is considered a contract between two family groups rather than two people." Main calls to action: a complete end to prepuberty engagements, a change in the bride-buying custom to make the money only symbolic, suppression of polygamy, "which gravely prejudices the dignity and the rights of woman...