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Understanding African Nationalism

Understanding African Nationalism

From iOL

African Nationalism was a response of Africans to the conquest, enslavement, the subjugation, plunder, and exploitation, of Africa by the powerful nations of Europe.

Many other countries and peoples have had that similar experience in history.

There is, however, something singular, unique, about the African experience.

Because Africans had black skin color, the peoples of the entire African continent, one of the largest continents in the world, were demoted, degraded.

As the German scholar Frobenius put it, the “African was turned into a semi-animal.”

It entered the mind and consciousness of all other civilizations and peoples, across generations and centuries, to regard Africans as inferior beings.

Their cultures, their physiological features, their languages, their art and religions, were all considered inferior.

This was the case for all Africans on the continent, as well as outside the continent.

It was taken for granted that Africans were not entitled to any human, civil, or political rights that any other person, particularly the white or European person, was obligated to respect.

That is the basis of African Nationalism. African Nationalism is the response of Africans to the treatment they have received in the world that has been controlled by whites or Europeans.

It is important to stress that as the denigration of Africans has been a universal phenomenon in modern history, so African Nationalism has a universal aspect – it is Pan Africanism; it is a struggle for the entire Africa, and for all people of African descent.

 

Written by Herbert Vilakazi /Read more at iOL