Africa World War II And Its Aftermath Analysis

The focus for week seven of the course is on ‘Africa, World War II, and its Aftermath’, which is another debated topic between African historians. In class two main arguments stood out, the first being that one outcome of World War II was a revitalisation and strengthening of the colonial states. In comparison, there is no denying that nationalism expanded and became more violent following the war supporting the second argument that World War II began the end of colonialism in Africa. With many different perspectives on the matter one can argue for either side, which this reflection will do with the use of lecture material, chapter 13 of Reid’s textbook and the Atlantic Charter primary source.
First, in class we discussed the World War II brought
This argument is that events and situation during World War II brought about the rise of nationalism within Africa that would later lead to a fight for independence. During the war Africans began realising that their colonizers were not as powerful as they seemed. This is especially true of France who felt to Germany and was forced to rely on their colonies for aid. This builds off the idea of the ‘White Man’s Burden’ as the savage image of Africans was being erased, with the realisation that they could provide assistance as well. Furthermore, with an increased reliance on the colonies there was an implementation of boards, which gave many Africans an opportunity to have leadership roles that they were not willing to give up when the war came to an end. Therefore, while the Africans were subjected to helping Europe fight for their freedom from their enemies this led to many questioning their own role. If they could help their colonist fight for their freedom why could they not fight for their
For instance, North Africa was were the majority of the battles on the continent took place as the chapter indicated. Egypt was particularly a point of conflict as the British held back enemy forces to protect the Suez Canal, an important water way. As a result this is generally where people started becoming restless with colonialism sooner. By this I mean, nationalism began rising as a consequence of the war as mentioned in the above paragraph. Similarly, however, in West Africa many men joined the war efforts and in seeing the situations going on (there were a number who did fight in Egypt) started coming to the same conclusions in that they wanted to fight for their own freedoms and become independent