However despite obvious challenges to nationalism it seems that nationalist movements were indeed emerging by the late 1930’s, international developments like World War One and World War Two, and internal developments such as increasing western education undoubtedly affected the appearance of nationalist movements. Nationalist elites sought to broaden their appeal by harnessing popular discontent and creating or reinforcing national identities; however many historians still question just how much mass support many of these movements really had.
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It is also important to make the distinction between genuine ‘nationalism’ and ‘anti-colonialism’. Nationalist movements in Africa arguably faced many more obstacles than nationalism did in other localities such as India. As Iliffe notes, the majority of early twentieth-century Africans saw their immediate local area as the ‘relevant political arena’; this kind of localised attitude made the development of nationalism challenging to say the least.
Cultural and linguistic divisions within ‘territories’ arguably made forming people into one united nation a highly complex task; as Bill Freund explores, the nationalist guerrilla campaigns such as those co-ordinated by the Land Freedom Army in Kenya were weakened by a lack of unity between people. Bruce Berman and John Lonsdale also note how the various conflicting ‘ethnic nationalisms’ in Kenya resulted in violent politics and confusions of ideology.
However Enocent Msindo argues that ethnicity in some circumstances actually ‘complemented nationalism’. He claimed that not only did ethnic groups provide prominent nationalist leaders but pre-colonial ethnic histories and monuments actually ‘sparked the nationalist imagination’. Cultural and linguistic divisions arguably remained a challenge to nationalism. Iliffe highlights a common language as the ‘normal base of nationality’; in Africa a common language seldom exists to unite a whole country.
Another fundamental obstacle to the development of nationalism in Africa is arguably the fact that territorial boundaries drawn up by European colonial governments were ‘quite artificial’; they divided linguistic groups and peoples and barely took into consideration the natural geography of the continent. Hugh Seton-Watson notes that a major problem for early African nationalists came in establishing a ‘unit’ to form the base of the nationalist ideology. However despite these many obstacles to nationalism by the late 1930s various nationalist movements seemed to be emerging.
Ghana is a good example of African nationalism prior to 1960. Frederick Cooper highlights how Britain viewed the Gold Coast as the most politically advanced area in British West Africa; whilst the British official view may have claimed that elite leaders were ‘manipulating unthinking masses’ there is no point denying that nationalism certainly was a mass movement towards the middle of the twentieth century in the Gold Coast. The United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) encouraged strikes, boycotts and marches which culminated in the Accra riots in February 1948.
A breakaway party of the UGCC, the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) was later formed by Kwame Nkrumah, the man who Cooper refers to as ‘the pioneer of nationalism’. Under Nkrumah the CPP instigated a new wave of strikes in 1949 which led officials to believe the colony to be ‘on the edge of revolution’. However nationalism in Africa was greatly varied depending on locality; John Hargreaves argues that the ‘explicitly nationalist leadership’ provided by West African elites such as Nkrumah was seldom manifest in other areas of
Africa although he states that there were certainly signs of ‘increasing political consciousness’ among many Africans. Many historians have questioned just how genuinely ‘nationalist’ many of these freedom movements were beyond the visage created by elites. Whilst it is evident that in certain areas there were indeed mass movements against the colonial government before 1960 whether or not they were truly nationalist is debatable. As Freund highlights ‘nothing roused and united Africans more than their [European] advances’.
He argues that Europeans were the ‘main ingredient in the tensions and transformations’ in Africa in the early twentieth century; anti-colonial movements were therefore arguably inevitable, however that the anti-colonial movements would take on a nationalist form was not. There were a number of key developments in the first half of the twentieth century that certainly greatly influenced the growth and development of nationalism. On a global scale World War One and World War Two were clearly highly influential events; in terms of Africa the two World Wars arguably pushed the nationalist agenda to the forefront in a number of ways.
Hargreaves argues that ‘wartime hardships had increased class conscious militancy’, creating both cohesion and resentment amongst colonial subjects. Freund highlights the ‘important wave of labour unrest’ that followed World War One and foreshadowed the labour unrest that also came at the end of World War Two; as this unrest suggests the two World Wars certainly helped enforce rapid change and intense pressure in colonial Africa. As Freund notes after 1945 a ‘vacuum’ was created, greatly altering the international political sphere and provoking change.
Freund even goes so far as to suggest that it was the ‘groundswell’ following the wars that ‘transformed the ineffectual little nationalist societies of the pre-war years into dynamic political agencies contending for state power’. Iliffe also picks up on a ‘postwar innovation’ that was certainly central to the development of nationalism; electoral representation in French and British West Africa caused political elites to narrow their focus from a racial to a national one in order to succeed in territorial elections.
He argues that nationalism, in West Africa at least, ‘was chiefly a response to elections’. According to I. Henderson ‘modern mass nationalism with a central focus’ began after 1945. Another development that was fundamental in the growth of nationalism before 1960 is arguably the role of Western education. As highlighted by Freund the rise in education was key in integrating African youth into the ‘colony-wide political and social networks’. The role of the Western-educated elites in inspiring nationalism was also essential.
As Cooper notes the Western educated were at an advantage because whilst they could continue to improve their knowledge of ‘traditional myths and local histories’ in order to develop unity and national consciousness they were also being introduced to new concepts and agendas. Western education was arguably the main explanation for the growth in numbers of African elites in the early twentieth century. As outlined by Jonathan Derrick while the majority of Africans were still illiterate by the 1930s those influenced by Western culture were now numerous.
He argues that there were ‘no longer small elites’ and it is no surprise that he suggests colonial schools ‘bred many nationalists’. However it is important to note that – as Derrick puts it, ‘education did not turn out uniform products’ – plenty of well-educated Africans remained loyal to their colonial rulers at the beginning of the twentieth century. Peter Stearns suggests however that when talking about African elites we must not confuse it with European conceptions of class as the definitions are a lot more diffuse.
The ability of elite leaders of African nationalist movements to recruit ‘mass support’ helped bridge previous gaps between the elites and the masses. Kwame Nkrumah was one such nationalist leader. He was educated in the US which undoubtedly inspired his leftist, anti-imperialist, Pan-Africanist tendencies; however despite his education he still managed to remain a man of the people. However as is often the case with Africa, development varies according to locality; Freund asserts that the spread of schools was ‘not effectively universal anywhere before 1960’.
Despite this Iliffe still asserts that the ‘chief dynamic of colonial change’, alongside economic development, was education. Following these international and internal developments there came a new push for broader-based movements. Freund argues that Nkrumah ‘set the pace’ for African nationalism in the gold coast, establishing networks which crossed linguistic and religious boundaries. He states that ‘It was his [Nkrumah’s] politics which brought nationalism to the people. Hargreaves argues that Nkrumah was aware that straightforward and comprehensible demands for political freedom for Africa would appeal to ‘thousands of Africans’. Cooper also notes how Nkrumah successfully established mass support amongst urban workers and young men with low levels of education, capturing ‘the imagination of a wide range of Africans’. However this wasn’t quite so achievable everywhere; in French Africa Freund argues that due to the assimilation policy demands for national independence were ‘treasonable and suppressed’, he states that ‘mass parties’ only appeared quickly in Senegal and on the Ivory Coast.
As noted by Iliffe, the majority of nationalist parties found their mass of support in the towns; the rural populations often proved more challenging as their focus was even more localised. However one way that nationalist leaders pushed for broader-based movements was by seeking to harness popular discontent. The National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) primarily won support by appealing to the frustrated and dissatisfied people throughout the country. Prosser Gifford and Wm.
Roger Louis argue that the NCNC achieved ‘country-wide’ nationalism for the first time during World War Two. As noted by Freund a major development came when nationalist leaders began picking up on and utilising the growing ‘rural discontent’. Cooper also outlines rural mobilisation as key; addressing local problems such as low crop-prices drew the rural populations into the nationalist agendas. He emphasises the effective way that nationalist parties used the colonial state as the ‘common denominator of their grievances’.
When answering this question it is very important not to confuse nationalism with anti-colonialism; not all anti-colonial movements actually constitute nationalism. As Cooper points out social movements took on various forms; some lacked the substance and ideology of true nationalism. The concept of what nationalism actually is was certainly understood by some African elites; Iliffe notes how the Nigerian Youth movement was well aware that nationalism was not simply ‘opposition to European control’.
