Africa Post Colonialism

Improved Essays
Africa has a long and complicated history so its evident that the issues surrounding Sub-Sahara African countries are dialectical, it is without a doubt that determining the cause of civil war and other violent conflicts issues would be just as complicated. Africa’s history with European Colonialism caused serious implications for the future of the countries both on the mainland and the islands. Politics following the post-colonialism period had also adverse affects on the future of African nations with the rise and fall of the cold war and also the subsequent political powers to come. Emphatically, colonial and post-colonial factors have contributed to the rise of civil wars in African countries. However, in the case of most Sub-Sahara African …show more content…
Colonialism exploited resources and the people of sub-Saharan Africa countries by enslaving and subjugating the indigenous populations. The absolute goal of colonialism was to exploit humans and whatever resources the land had to offer for specific gain to the colonizing nation (Settles, 1996, pg1). Various countries such as the Portuguese, French, British, Belgium, Spanish and others dominated different states for those purposes and this caused other issues to arise such as cultural displacement and landlocked countries as they fought for ownership over land. Joshua Settles explains in his thesis The Impact of Colonialism on Economic Development on page 5:
The economic goals of colonialism were simple: to provide maximum economic benefit to the colonizing power at the lowest possible price. As the effects of the Berlin Conference which establish the "rules" of the partition game became clear, those areas of Africa which had previously been developing significant trade and economies of their own were brought under the control of European economic
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In the case of post-colonial Sierra Leone, a civil war due to political and economic instability lasted 11 years from 1991 to 2002 killing 75,000 and forcing about 500,000 others to take refuge in other countries (Kanu, 2007, pg 67). These systems acted in their own self-interest and entitled to complete control. Ultimately, this complete control led to the discrimination of various ethnic groups fuelling other civil wars. Ethnicity divides are often a cause to civil war and violent conflicts and were a result of colonialism. Due to Africa being very diverse in terms of cultures, religions, languages and dialects it provides room for ethnic groups to want dominance over that particular state (Moss 2011, pg 65). Regarding this, European colonialism in Africa created more divides in terms of introduction to European ways of living, also different colonialist countries claiming land and creating land locked nations, then displacing ethnic groups with boundaries that were not established by Africans themselves. It is societies with a few main ethnic groups that are more at risk for a war. In the case of a lot of African countries, especially throughout early

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