The Current Political Status and Significance of Africa South of the Sahara

Abstract

Within the past five years successful African nationalist movements have transformed the map of Africa. Out of what were the colonial dependencies of Europe have been created 23 new independent states. These new African states have been forced onto a global stage where African opinion on world problems now receives critical attention for the first time. With only a minimum of experience the African states have been required to formulate foreign policies which may vitally affect their national interests for many years to come. Independence has given Africans a new place of authority and dignity in the councils of the world but generations of colonial control did little to prepare them for coping with the complex problems of international politics. The internal political consequences of the nationalist victory have been almost as significant for the new African states as have their external manifestations. The acquisition of sovereignty has seen the break-up of such broadly based political movements as the Rassemblement Democratique Africain (RDA) in former French Africa into national parties which have in many states suddenly been called upon to assume the task of forming a govemment after independence. The bonds of a common goal of self-govemment and independence which formerly held the territorial sections of the RDA together has been gradually dissolving with the growth of the separate interests of the individual states. The disappearance of the colonial administration has been followed by the emergence of mutually opposing tribal, economic or religious interests which have made more difficult the tasks of the new governments. New patterns and combinations of international interests are only now emerging in West Africa; it is too soon to estimate precisely the shape of a future structure of alliances.