The Congo, South Africa and the Consequences of Nationalism – The Rise of African Nationalism (Senior 6 History) | Ganzaa

The Rise of African Nationalism

Lessons

Senior 6 · History

The Rise of African Nationalism

5 lessons

Lesson 5 of 5

The Congo, South Africa and the Consequences of Nationalism

25 min

Two independence days that did not end the story

On 30 June 1960 the Belgian Congo became independent; within two weeks its army had mutinied and its richest province had seceded, and within seven months its first prime minister had been murdered. South Africa, by contrast, had been independent of Britain since the early twentieth century, yet most of its people could not vote until 27 April 1994. These two cases test the definition of independence itself: is a country free when the flag changes, or when its people govern it?

Definition

Évolués ("the evolved"): the small class of Western-educated Congolese whom the Belgian administration recognised as "civilised", the group from which most Congolese nationalist leaders came.

Secession: the breaking away of a region to form a separate state. Example: Katanga's declaration of independence from the Congo on 11 July 1960.

Apartheid ("separateness" in Afrikaans): the system of laws, introduced by the National Party government from 1948, that classified South Africans by race and kept the races apart and unequal.

Internal colonialism: rule by a settler minority over the majority inside an already independent state, as in South Africa; for the majority, ending it was a struggle for liberation like the others in this unit.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo: independence in a hurry

Belgian paternalism. Belgium ruled the Congo from 1908, after the scandals of King Leopold II's Congo Free State. Its policy was paternalism: primary schools, mission hospitals and jobs in mines and towns, but almost no secondary or university education and no political rights. In 1955 a Belgian professor, A. A. J. van Bilsen, proposed a "thirty-year plan" for independence; many Belgians thought even that too fast.

The nationalist surge (1956–1959). In 1956 ABAKO, an association of the Bakongo people led by Joseph Kasa-Vubu, rejected the thirty-year plan and demanded immediate independence. In October 1958 Patrice Lumumba helped to found the Congolese National Movement (MNC), which aimed at a united Congo across ethnic lines; in December he attended the All-African People's Conference in Accra. On 4 January 1959 the banning of an ABAKO meeting led to riots in Léopoldville (now Kinshasa), in which many Africans were killed by the security forces. Nine days later King Baudouin promised independence.

The Round Table and independence (1960). At a Round Table Conference in Brussels in January–February 1960, Congolese leaders forced Belgium to agree to independence on 30 June 1960, only five months later. The MNC won the most seats in the May elections; Lumumba became prime minister and Kasa-Vubu president.

The Congo crisis (1960–1965). Belgian officers stayed in command of the army, and on 5 July 1960 the soldiers mutinied. Belgium sent troops. On 11 July Moïse Tshombe declared the mineral-rich province of Katanga independent, with Belgian support; South Kasai followed in August. Lumumba asked the United Nations for help, and the UN sent a peacekeeping force, but when it would not crush Katanga's secession he turned to the Soviet Union. That made him an enemy of Belgium and the United States in the Cold War. In September 1960 Kasa-Vubu dismissed him and the army chief, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, seized power. Lumumba was handed over to his enemies in Katanga and murdered on 17 January 1961. A Belgian parliamentary inquiry concluded in 2001 that some Belgian ministers bore "moral responsibility" for his death, and Belgium apologised in 2002. The UN ended Katanga's secession in 1963; in November 1965 Mobutu took power again and ruled until 1997.

Analysis. The Congo shows what happens when a colonial power leaves a country unprepared and then interferes: independence came quickly, but without trained administrators, a national army or national parties strong enough to hold the state together, and outside powers exploited the gaps.

South Africa: the long struggle against apartheid, 1912–1994

Date	Event
1910–1913	The Union of South Africa is formed under white minority rule; the Natives Land Act (1913) restricts Africans to a small fraction of the land
1912	The South African Native National Congress, later the African National Congress (ANC), is founded
1948	The National Party wins the white election and builds apartheid: race classification, separate residential areas, pass laws and Bantu Education
1952–1955	The Defiance Campaign; on 26 June 1955 the Congress of the People at Kliptown adopts the Freedom Charter
21 March 1960	Police kill 69 people protesting against the pass laws at Sharpeville; the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) are banned
1961–1964	The ANC turns to armed struggle through Umkhonto we Sizwe; at the Rivonia Trial, Nelson Mandela and others are sentenced to life imprisonment (June 1964)
16 June 1976	The Soweto uprising: students protest against compulsory teaching in Afrikaans
1977–1989	A UN arms embargo, sports boycotts, economic sanctions and mass protest inside the country isolate the regime
February 1990	President F. W. de Klerk lifts the ban on the ANC; Mandela is released on 11 February after 27 years in prison
27 April 1994	The first election in which all adult South Africans can vote; Mandela becomes president on 10 May

Analysis. South Africa combined every means and channel in this unit: a party (the ANC), trade unions, churches, students, armed struggle, mass action and international pressure through the UN, the OAU and the Front Line States. It ended, like Kenya and Algeria, in negotiation.

The consequences of African nationalism

Positive consequences	Negative consequences and problems
almost every African state won independence between 1951 and 1994, ending white minority rule in 1994	wars of liberation cost many lives, in Algeria, Kenya, the Portuguese colonies, Zimbabwe and Namibia
Africans took over government, the civil service and the army (Africanisation)	many new states lacked trained staff, as in the Congo, and some collapsed into civil war
the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was founded in Addis Ababa on 25 May 1963 and supported the remaining liberation movements	colonial borders were kept (the OAU accepted them in 1964), leaving divided peoples and border disputes
African states gained a voice at the UN and in the Non-Aligned Movement	Cold War powers interfered, supporting coups and rebel movements (the Congo from 1960)
schools, universities and health services expanded rapidly	many governments became one-party states or military regimes; Nkrumah himself was overthrown in a coup in February 1966
a cultural revival restored pride in African history, languages and arts	economies stayed dependent on exporting raw materials to former colonial powers: neo-colonialism (Unit 9)

A Rwandan note. In Rwanda, the politics of division that the Belgian administration encouraged on the road to independence (Lesson 2) meant that independence brought exclusion and repeated violence against Tutsi, and left many Rwandans as refugees for three decades. This is why historians judge the consequences of nationalism by asking not only whether a country became independent, but how and for whom.

Warning

South Africa was not a colony in 1960. It became a self-governing Union in 1910 and a republic in 1961, so do not write that it "gained independence in 1994". Write that in 1994 the majority won political power, ending minority rule.

Tip

"Assess the consequences" questions. Organise your answer by category (political, economic, social, cultural, international), give positive and negative effects in each, and finish with a judgement: for example, that independence achieved political freedom but not economic freedom, which leads straight to Unit 9.

Important

Discuss. Lumumba wanted a united Congo free of foreign control; within seven months he was dead. Was the Congo crisis caused mainly by Belgium's colonial policy, by Congolese divisions, or by the Cold War? Defend one answer, but use evidence from all three.

DW History and Culture: "South Africa: How apartheid came to an end" (History Stories, about 12 minutes). Follow the steps from Mandela's release in 1990 to the 1994 election, and note the role of negotiation. It includes news footage of the political violence of the early 1990s, so teachers should preview it.

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Practice

Who were the évolués in the Belgian Congo?
Name the leader of the MNC and the leader of ABAKO.
Give three events of the Congo crisis between July 1960 and January 1961, in order.
What was the Freedom Charter, and when and where was it adopted?
Explain why the Sharpeville killings of 1960 were a turning point in the struggle against apartheid.
Explain two positive and two negative consequences of African nationalism.
"Independence came too soon for the Congo." Assess this view.
Compare the struggle against apartheid with the road to independence in Ghana. Which was harder, and why?

Show answersHide answers

The small group of Western-educated Congolese recognised by the Belgian administration as "civilised"; most nationalist leaders came from them.
Patrice Lumumba (MNC) and Joseph Kasa-Vubu (ABAKO).
The army mutiny (5 July 1960); Katanga's secession (11 July 1960); Lumumba's dismissal and Mobutu's seizure of power (September 1960); Lumumba's murder (17 January 1961). Any three, in that order.
A statement of the aims of the Congress Alliance, including "The People Shall Govern!" and equal rights for all national groups; adopted at Kliptown on 26 June 1955.
Police killed 69 people at a peaceful protest; the government then banned the ANC and PAC, which convinced their leaders that non-violent protest alone would not work, leading to armed struggle from 1961; it also turned world opinion against apartheid.
Positive (any two): independence and majority rule; Africanisation; the OAU; a voice at the UN; the growth of education; cultural revival. Negative (any two): wars and loss of life; weak states and civil wars; colonial borders kept; Cold War interference; one-party states and coups; economic dependence.
For: Belgium gave five months' notice after decades without higher education or political rights; there were few trained Congolese administrators and officers; the army mutinied within a week. Against: Congolese had demanded independence and would have resisted delay; the crisis was made worse by Belgian support for Katanga and Cold War interference, not only by speed. A good answer concludes that the problem was less the date than Belgium's failure to prepare and its later interference.
Apartheid was harder to end: it lasted until 1994 because a large, armed settler minority controlled an independent state with a strong economy and army, so there was no colonial power to negotiate with in London; it took armed struggle, mass resistance and decades of international sanctions. Ghana had almost no settlers and Britain was willing to negotiate with the CPP within a few years.

1Two independence days that did not end the story

2The Democratic Republic of the Congo: independence in a hurry

3South Africa: the long struggle against apartheid, 1912–1994

4The consequences of African nationalism

Two independence days that did not end the story

The Democratic Republic of the Congo: independence in a hurry

South Africa: the long struggle against apartheid, 1912–1994

The consequences of African nationalism