The Colonial Legacies in Africa

Paper Summary:

This paper presents the two views about whether or not Africa benefited from colonialism. The history, society, religion, and culture of Africa are analyzed to determine the impact. The writer concludes that European imperialism had no positive impact for Africa, but left a lasting legacy of political, economic, and social instability.

From the Paper:

"The negative impact of imperialism in the political terms was quite dramatic and overshadows the supposedly benefits some historians adhere to. Beginning with the partition of Africa, which according to Adu Boahen "has proved to be more of a liability than an asset to the present independent African nations." The European partition of Africa, lacked any considerations of the ethno cultural, geographical, and ecological realities of Africa, thus the territories created by imperialism produced severe predicaments. Resulting from the artificial creation of states lays the problem of nation-state building. Due to the disingenuousness of the boundaries, each independent Africa state is made up of a mass of different ethno-cultural groups and nations having different historical traditions and speaking different languages. For example: Nigeria under colonial domination contained as many as 395 ethno-linguistic groups . Nigeria's initial attempt at federation, Davidson wrote, "had gone far towards ruin through the rivalry of its constituent elites" Thus, one can only envision how enormous the dilemma of developing Nigeria into a proper nation-state."

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