Like much of the study of history, a study of colonialism in Africa in the postwar period is incredibly complicated. Over the years, we have been given many different, and yet predominantly monolithic, lenses with which to view this phenomenon. Modern scholarship, however, calls the reader of history to reevaluate what we thought that we knew about the history of colonialism in Africa. Brought into this discussion is the reality that even some of the people living in the time were actively trying to rethink the way that they were perceiving colonialism.
Professor Emeritus Dr. Elizabeth Schmidt argues that “the wartime burden of military conscription, forced labor, and crop requisitions, compounded by extreme shortages and inflation, generated immense popular hostility toward the colonial state” (“Popular Resistance and Anticolonial Mobilization,” p. 444). She puts forward the argument by providing a case study of French Guinea. The major focus of her argument is to reframe our understanding of colonial resistance. She argues that the war, for the African population, was not confined to the timeline that popular study gives it as well as reevaluating who had the greatest influence on anticolonial mobilization. She argues that the West African veterans, while important, were not as important as is commonly believed in popular resistance to colonialism.
Historian Frederick Cooper enters into this argument making the same claim as Schmidt. He argues that “out of differing but overlapping agendas at war’s end came a dynamic of politics more diverse and uncertain than national narratives today allow us to see” (“Reconstructing Empire in British and French Africa,” p. 210). Cooper calls into question the very notion of African colonialism. He suggests that the colonies of Britain and France (an argument which adds the presence of the British to the argument made by Schmidt) were not homogeneous, even within the colonies. Societies existed independent of one another, which made anti-colonialism a bit more challenging to organize. He provides a much broader analysis of the situation in Africa in the postwar period, whereas Schmidt argues in the context of one primary location.
This goal of reframing the way that we look at colonialism in Africa is not unique to the more recent decades. The rethinking of the system is something that has been going on since colonialism first began to change and decline. This can be seen in the writings of the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. Being an existentialist, he argues that we are what our world makes us to be unless we deliberately act against it. Despite the similarity in his willingness to reframe the concept of colonial resistance, he spends far more time focusing on the idea of torture as it was fresh on the minds of the French rather than looking at what the Africans did to loose themselves from colonial domination. He pulls in his existential philosophy to argue that, because no one has deliberately acted against it, “torture has established itself there: it was prompted by circumstances and required by racist hatred” (“Colonialism and Neocolonialism,” p. 38). This forces the reader to reevaluate the understanding that the French were innocent and, on the other side, doing something novel and unique. The French were a product of the lack of rebellion against the way the world was pushing them.
The common theme in modern scholarship around colonialism in Africa is that the way that our understanding has formed is insufficient. Likewise, it is necessary to understand that this is not entirely modern. People during the era were also working to reframe the way that their contemporaries were viewing the system.
References
Frederick Cooper, Reconstructing Empire in British and French Africa, Past & Present, Volume 210, Issue suppl_6, 2011, Pages 196–210, https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtq047
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Colonialism and Neocolonialism. Translated by Azzedine Hadour, Steve Brewer, and Terry McWilliams. New York: Routledge, 2001.
Schmidt, Elizabeth. “Popular Resistance and Anticolonial Mobilization: The War Effort in French Guinea.” Chapter. In Africa and World War II, edited by Judith A. Byfield, Carolyn A. Brown, Timothy Parsons, and Ahmad Alawad Sikainga, 441–61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. doi:10.1017/CBO9781107282018.024.
I agree, that the authors do help to provide us with less-known information about what attempts were made by European empires to try to prevent colonial collapse. Also, it is important that you discussed about how colonies were not homogeneous, and this reality prevented a more organized anti-colonial movement from forming throughout all of the African colonies. “The French were a product of the lack of rebellion against the way the world was pushing them.” I think this quote captures the essence of why certain mistakes were made by the French government, and also helps us to think about what “normalcy” would have been for European colonial strategies during the transformations of the French Union.
The use of philosophy was helpful here. The idea of why the French did what they did and why it was eventually changed due to deliberate rebellion is interesting. This idea is also reminiscent of Newton’s first law, which is interesting to me. I think that a focus on how western countries continued to maintain their colonial power even while fighting a war against fascism and for freedom is contradictory. However, this is also similar to how African Americans were used to fight in the war only to be reminded that their country had not granted them rights.
Your take on the views of these authors is very different that what I have seen in the past. You bring to light many of their arguments pushing towards changing the views we have on French African colonialism, which that it was the veterans of these nations who fought during WW2 who played a large part in the push for independence in many colonies.
I agree with your conclusion that scholarship about decolonization in Africa has been lacking. As was pointed out by Schmidt, there is a huge amount of diversity in politics, culture, religion, etc. within former African colonies and it is important to take this into consideration. I also found it interesting the way you discussed the framework used to understand these topics.