The Impacts Of Dehumanization In Africa During The 20th Century

Dehumanization is the best way to describe colonialism that took place in Africa from the 19th and into the 20th century. It has a long history of oppression and effects, and Africa proved to have been shaped by imperialistic powers that ruled over them during the 19th and into the 20th century. This era left ideological, political, social, economic, and psychological impacts of colonialism on the African continent, and the people living within it shows the byproduct of what foreign authorities manipulated during their time of rule. Firstly, to look at different impacts of colonialism upon the continent, there were many different colonial systems present in Africa. One of the most significant aspects of Africa’s changed economic system included
However, this resulted in a vast number of deaths due to starvation and diseases during travels, and it was a form of oppression towards the African people. Another aspect of colonialism was how the ideology of Christianity led to the different ways in which Africans started to change. It was around the turn of the nineteenth century, when Christianity started to spread to the African coast. By the late nineteenth century, religion gained enough momentum to affect the people on a large scale. Some results of this European influence included, “… preaching the gospel, converting people to Christianity, and translating the Bible into various African languages.”2 This shows how European ideological systems were starting to be ingrained within the minds of the African people. Other results in Christianity not only changed the belief systems of the people, but it also “taught such skills as carpentry, printing, and tailoring; and promoted trade, literacy, and Western education.”3 Their lifestyles were changing and being influenced by European standards of living. Religion reinforced the concept of having certain jobs,
There were no instances in which these “developments” empowered Africans. In fact, there were many countries that suffered from post-colonialism due to high-ranking laws and policies. During the mid-20th century, colonialism started to fade out, but certain restrictions on jobs and other factors explain how Europeans created another way of agonizing the African people. A country that suffered and changed from post-colonialism was Southern Rhodesia. In this region, educated Western elites were the ones who ruled over the people in the 1940s and 1950s. Certain restrictions allowed the government to trip rural Africans of their land as well as having the police closely watch over urban Africans. At that time, the people already had struggles such as “issues of family life, wages, and housing for a male worker to support a family were at the fore.”11 These were disempowering entities that Africans had to live with, but it was not over. Along with these issues, the state made efforts to “limit the presence of women in town [and] had the unintended effect of defining an illegal and unrespectable female element set apart from respectable city-dwellers.”12 Not only was race an issue in South Africa, but also the Western-dominated government was imposing gender limitations specifically on women. This was clearly a negative change that heavily impacted the people of Rhodesia. Some of the most shocking effects of