This is just a simplified guide. The questions are not central to the discussion in this class, but rather basic starting points.

Prof. Jorge Majfud

North Africa campaigns, famines, Free French Africa, U.S. entry via bases and logistics.

1. How did World War II contribute to the rise of African nationalism and anti-colonial movements after 1945?
2. What were the main goals of Pan-Africanism, and how did figures such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Frantz Fanon, and Kwame Nkrumah influence African liberation movements?
3. Why was the Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester (1945) considered a turning point in the struggle for African independence?
4. How did Ghana’s independence in 1957 under Kwame Nkrumah influence other African nationalist movements and the development of Pan-African unity?
5. How did the Cold War shape African independence movements, and why did many African leaders seek alternatives such as African socialism and the Non-Aligned Movement?
6. Why did some African countries achieve independence through negotiation (such as Ghana), while others experienced violent conflicts (such as Algeria, Kenya, and Congo)?
7. How were the struggles of Congo and South Africa both unique and representative of broader challenges faced by postcolonial African nations?

Table of Contents

Pan-Africanism and Postcolonialism Ideology

Similar to Latin America, World War II shifted the trajectory of African history. The Soviet Union, USA, and Europe’s colonial empires might have won the war militarily, but the conflict left them economically shattered. At the same time, African veterans returned home with a completely new perspective—they had fought for global freedom and democracy, and they expected nothing less for their own people. This groundswell of energy, combined with the efforts of labor unions, student organizations, and nationalist leaders, effectively turned local anti-colonial friction into a unified, continent-wide political movement.

World War II didn’t just rebuild Europe; it set Africa’s independence movements in motion. On one side, colonial empires like Britain and France were too financially crippled by the war to keep a tight grip on their colonies. On the other side, a million African soldiers returned home with a completely new worldview. They had just fought to defeat tyranny abroad, only to return to colonial subjugation at home. That hypocrisy didn’t sit well. Veterans quickly turned into activists, using their wartime experience to challenge colonial rule and demand full independence.

The fight for African independence wasn’t just fought on the ground; it was fought with ideas. The 1941 Atlantic Charter promised self-determination to nations oppressed by war. Winston Churchill tried to argue that this didn’t apply to colonies, but African intellectuals ignored him and ran with it anyway. After the war, the newly formed United Nations doubled down on these concepts, making human rights and equality the new global standard. Suddenly, African nationalists had a massive international megaphone to blast colonial rule, backed by the UN Trusteeship Council, which was specifically designed to help territories achieve independence.

https://en.rtdoc.tv/episodes/1413-panafricanism-is-it-relevant

Postcolonial intellectuals

Post-WWII Pan-Africanism was more than a political strategy—it was a global awakening. It united Africans on the continent with the diaspora in the West, turning localized anti-colonial protests into a massive, worldwide network fighting for equality, economic freedom, and cultural pride.

This movement stood on the shoulders of giants like W.E.B. Du Bois. Decades earlier, Du Bois was already organizing Pan-African Congresses and proving that racism was simply the cover story used to justify stealing Africa’s resources. When he wrote that the great problem of the century was «the problem of the color line,» he gave the movement its defining thesis—one that heavily influenced the African leaders who finally broke the empires in the late 40s.

Then came Frantz Fanon, who looked at the fight through a psychological lens. Serving as a psychiatrist during the bloody Algerian War, Fanon realized that colonialism breaks people’s minds as well as their societies. His masterpieces, like The Wretched of the Earth, argued that true liberation meant tearing down colonial mindsets alongside colonial governments. Fanon didn’t just advocate for independence; he advocated for a total psychological rebirth, inspiring revolutionaries across the globe.

The Fifth Pan-African Congress (Manchester, 1945)

The Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester was where the talk ended and the real fight began. Held in 1945, this single event reshaped modern African history. It brought future leaders like Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta into the same room to demand immediate independence, voting rights, and an end to forced labor. The biggest shift? Earlier meetings had quietly asked European empires for reform—Manchester demanded direct political action. It provided the spark, the strategy, and the leadership that ultimately broke the back of colonial rule across the continent.

The October 1945 Pan-African Congress in Manchester was where the blueprint for modern African independence was drawn. It completely flipped the script: instead of politely asking European empires for reform like previous meetings did, Manchester demanded an immediate end to colonial rule. It took Pan-Africanism out of the university lecture halls and put it onto the streets as a practical strategy for freedom.

The guest list was historic. W.E.B. Du Bois chaired the event, anchoring a powerhouse delegation that included future leaders like Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta, alongside major labor unions from Africa and the Caribbean. This mix of intellectuals and union organizers united the African diaspora and the continent into a single, coordinated network.

Their demands were uncompromising: total independence, voting rights for all, worker protections, and a complete ban on forced labor and segregation. The delegates faced reality head-on, declaring that empires would never willingly grant freedom. If Africans wanted liberation, they had to organize mass protests and labor movements to take it. Because so many of its attendees went on to lead successful revolutions, Manchester stands as one of the most powerful and influential political gatherings of the modern era.

Kwame Nkrumah and African Nationalism

Kwame Nkrumah didn’t just participate in African nationalism—he accelerated it. After absorbing the philosophies of Pan-African mentors like W.E.B. Du Bois and George Padmore while studying in the West, he returned to the Gold Coast in 1947 with a singular focus: dismantle colonial rule. His core philosophy was simple: secure political freedom first, and use that leverage to stop economic exploitation and build a united Africa.

To do this, Nkrumah bypassed elite negotiations and went straight to the people. He organized massive strikes, street demonstrations, and civil disobedience to force the British colonial government’s hand. In 1949, he launched the Convention People’s Party (CPP), uniting workers, farmers, and everyday people around a radical new slogan: «Self-government Now!» There would be no compromise and no waiting for gradual reforms.

The strategy worked. In 1957, Ghana became the first sub-Saharan African colony to win its independence, turning the Gold Coast into the gold standard for liberation movements across the continent. Nkrumah leveraged this historic victory to become the leading voice for Pan-Africanism, arguing that African nations had to unite both economically and politically to truly survive post-colonial realities.

Ghana’s Independence (1957) and African Unity

Ghana’s breakthrough in 1957 changed the game for the entire African continent. By becoming the first sub-Saharan colony to shake off European rule after World War II, the former Gold Coast shattered the myth of colonial permanence. Led by Kwame Nkrumah and the CPP, Ghana’s victory sent a clear message to every other occupied nation: organized political action works.

Nkrumah refused to view Ghana’s freedom in a vacuum. On day one, he set the tone for the future, declaring that «the independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked with the total liberation of Africa.» Ghana immediately stepped up as the command center for African liberation, funding and inspiring anti-colonial movements across the continent.

For Nkrumah, the next enemy was division. He pointed out that colonial borders were just artificial lines drawn by Europeans to keep Africa weak. He warned that without total economic and political unity, these new nations would fall victim to «neo-colonialism»—independent on paper, but still economically enslaved by foreign powers. This warning became the driving force behind the creation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, cementing Ghana’s legacy as the birthplace of modern Pan-African solidarity.

The Bandung Conference (1955)

The 1955 Bandung Conference was the birthplace of a new global alternative. By bringing 29 newly independent and colonized Asian and African nations to Indonesia, the conference signaled a massive shift in world power. With major figures like Nehru, Nasser, Sukarno, and Zhou Enlai leading the charge, the meeting sent a definitive message: the era of European empires was over, and the new nations would not be dominated by the U.S. or the Soviet Union.

The agenda at Bandung was simple but radical for the Cold War era: promote anti-colonial unity, fight racial inequality, and foster economic independence. The leaders refused to buy into the binary choice of aligning with Washington or Moscow. Instead, they stood ground on the principle that former colonies should protect their hard-won freedom and focus on their own development.

This historic meeting became the foundation for the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961, giving Asia, Africa, and the developing world a powerful unified voice. Just as importantly, Bandung connected local African independence struggles to a global movement, giving nationalist leaders the international backing they needed to finally break colonial rule.

African Socialism and the Cold War Context

The end of colonialism left Africa stuck between two global superpowers. Needing a way to develop their economies without selling out to their former masters, many African leaders rejected both options on the table. They turned down Western capitalism because it felt too much like the empire that just left, and they bypassed Soviet communism because it was too rigid for African traditions. Instead, they invented «African socialism»—a system that combined modern economic planning with traditional community values.

The brains behind this movement—like Nyerere in Tanzania, Nkrumah in Ghana, and Senghor in Senegal—believed Africa already had a long history of sharing wealth and responsibility. They focused on building up rural areas, promoting equality, and uniting people across ethnic lines to heal the divisions left behind by colonial rule.

But the Cold War didn’t give them much breathing room. The Soviet Union rushed in with weapons and money to win over new governments, though they knew that African socialists wouldn’t stick to the Marxist script. The United States fought back, backing anti-communist dictators and using the CIA to tip the scales in strategic hotspots like the Congo.

Then came Cuba. Under Fidel Castro, Cuba didn’t just watch from the sidelines; they sent doctors, teachers, and troops to back African independence. Their biggest move was in Angola, where Cuban soldiers fought a massive proxy war from 1975 to 1991 against factions backed by Washington and South African Apartheid.

In the end, the results of African socialism were a mixed bag. It did wonders for schools, hospitals, and national pride in some places. In others, it tanked under the weight of weak economies, corruption, and constant foreign intervention. But fail or succeed, it was a bold, historic attempt by African nations to draw their own map in a world split in two.

Julius Nyerere (Tanzania) and Léopold Sédar Senghor (Senegal)

Julius Nyerere and Léopold Sédar Senghor proved there was no single way to be an African socialist. Nyerere, leading Tanzania, went all-in on grassroots, rural collectivism. His philosophy of Ujamaa («familyhood») was simple: skip Western-style industrialization and build the nation around traditional village cooperation, universal schooling, and shared farming.

Physically, Nyerere’s ideas did wonders for Tanzanian literacy and national pride. Economically, however, his massive program to move rural families into planned cooperative villages backfired. Forced relocations angered communities, disrupted farming, and dragged down the country’s agricultural economy.

Over in Senegal, Senghor took a much more moderate, intellectual approach. Instead of a hard break from the West, he maintained close ties with France, encouraged democratic political competition, and pursued gradual economic reforms.

Senghor’s secret weapon was Negritude—a global literary movement he co-founded to celebrate Black identity and push back against colonial racism. He argued that Africa could easily adapt to the modern world while keeping its cultural heritage completely intact. In short, Nyerere tried to build socialism in the fields through collective labor, while Senghor cultivated it in the mind through cultural pride and democratic politics.

The Rise of African Nationalism

The explosion of African nationalism after World War II wasn’t an accident—it was the result of a massive societal shift. It didn’t come down to a single leader or event. Instead, a powerful mix of expanding cities, higher education, worker strikes, and religious independence came together to completely shatter European colonial control.

First, cities became the new centers of gravity. As people flooded into urban areas, they built a fresh network of activists, journalists, and civil servants. These cities acted as incubation chambers where anti-colonial ideas spread rapidly through newspapers and public meetings.

Second, a new intellectual class emerged. Armed with degrees from mission schools and universities, African lawyers and teachers took Europe’s own favorite concepts—like democracy and human rights—and used them to highlight colonial hypocrisy. This educated group produced the iconic leaders of the era, including Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, and Nnamdi Azikiwe.

Third, labor unions gave the movement its teeth. By organizing major strikes against poor conditions and segregation, trade unions proved that regular citizens had immense leverage. More importantly, they united workers across different ethnic groups, creating a truly national identity.

Finally, independent African churches fought the cultural battle. They rejected European control, promoted Black dignity, and gave Africans a space to lead their own institutions long before they took over their own governments.

Together, these elements took nationalism out of the library and put it on the streets. By the mid-1950s, African nationalist groups had the mass public support, the sharp leadership, and the international network needed to end colonial rule for good.

The Cold War and African Independence Movements

The Cold War (1947–1991) heavily dictated the terms of African independence. As European empires pulled out, the United States and the Soviet Union rushed in, turning the continent into a key battleground for the survival of capitalism versus communism. The result? Local independence struggles were instantly sucked into global superpower rivalries.

The United States claimed to support freedom and democracy, but its actual foreign policy had one real priority: containing communism. Washington backed independence when it hurt old European rivals, but it easily looked the other way and funded brutal dictators as long as they were anti-communist. The obsession in Washington was preventing any left-wing revolution that might give the Soviets an opening.

On the other side, the Soviet Union used anti-imperialist rhetoric to win over African liberation movements. Moscow backed up its words with heavy hardware, providing weapons, military training, university scholarships, and economic aid to groups fighting colonial rule or Western-leaning governments. This massive influx of Soviet resources turned conflicts in Angola, Mozambique, and Ethiopia into massive, bloody proxy wars.

The crisis drew in other global players too. After its 1959 revolution, Cuba stepped onto the African stage, sending troops, advisors, and doctors to defend socialist governments, especially in Angola. Meanwhile, the CIA and Western intelligence networks fought back from the shadows, launching covert ops to crush any movement friendly to Moscow—a strategy that peaked during the disastrous Congo Crisis (1960–1965).

Despite this intense pressure to pick a side, many African leaders refused to be pawns. Heavily influenced by the 1955 Bandung Conference and the Non-Aligned Movement, leaders like Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, and Gamal Abdel Nasser pioneered a «third path.» They stood firm on the idea that new nations should focus on their own sovereignty and development rather than fighting a foreign superpower war.

In the end, the Cold War was both a blessing and a curse for African independence. It provided vital weapons and international backing to break colonial rule, but it also fueled civil wars, invited foreign meddling, and severely limited the political choices of new governments. African leaders didn’t just have to govern; they had to survive a global crossfire.

The Influence of Liberation Theology from Latin America on Africa

In the 1960s and 70s, Liberation Theology turned the religious world upside down. Born in Latin America, this radical Christian movement argued that faith couldn’t just be about personal salvation—it had to actively fight poverty, racism, and political tyranny. Backed by the updates of the Second Vatican Council and the 1968 Medellín Conference, leaders like Gustavo Gutiérrez, Leonardo Boff, and Óscar Romero pointed to the Book of Exodus to declare a «preferential option for the poor.» It didn’t stay in Latin America for long; its revolutionary blueprint quickly spread to Africa, changing the face of anti-colonial politics.

The logic fit perfectly. Newly independent African nations were facing the exact same structural nightmares as Latin America: corporate looting of resources, deep poverty, massive wealth gaps, and brutal local dictators. Liberation Theology gave African Christians the moral weapons they needed to blast the remnants of colonialism. It crushed the old lie that Christianity was the white man’s religion meant to keep people submissive, proving instead that true faith demanded absolute freedom from oppression.

This ideas blended seamlessly with African nationalism and Pan-Africanism. It focused heavily on cultural pride, self-determination, and tearing down European cultural supremacy. African intellectuals demanded the «Africanization» of the church—insisting on local leaders, traditional customs, and African interpretations of the Bible. Pioneers like John Mbiti and Desmond Tutu successfully built a style of Christianity that spoke directly to the continent’s history.

The ultimate political showdown happened in South Africa against apartheid. While several white-dominated churches chose to tolerate or bless segregation, Black theologians explicitly called it out as an abomination. Desmond Tutu became the international face of this fight, branding apartheid a moral crime while leading nonviolent protests for human rights and equality. This movement produced the explosive 1985 Kairos Document, which stated clearly that churches could not remain neutral during a crisis. In the face of tyranny, sitting on the sidelines was a sin.

Liberation Theology also aligned perfectly with African socialism, since both systems prioritized the community over the corporation. In Tanzania, Julius Nyerere’s Ujamaa system shared the exact same principles of collective responsibility and social equality, even though Nyerere approached it as a politician rather than a priest. Both tracks attacked economic systems that bred extreme inequality while ignoring the dignity of regular people.

On the ground, churches became the real command centers of the revolution. When colonial governments or local dictators banned political parties and locked up activists, the church was the only place left where people could safely organize. They didn’t just preach; they funded schools, built hospitals, ran literacy drives, and protected human rights. In South Africa, Mozambique, and Angola, religious leaders were the ones frontline-defending civilians and calling out state corruption.

By adding this intense moral dimension, Liberation Theology revolutionized the entire meaning of African nationalism. Political leaders wanted a new government; religious leaders wanted a new society. It proved that real independence wasn’t achieved just by changing the flag or the ruling party—it required completely tearing down and rebuilding unjust economic and social systems.

The movement was smart enough to adapt. While Latin American theologians focused mostly on class struggles and land ownership, African theologians focused on what hurt their people most: colonialism, systemic racism, apartheid, and cultural destruction.

This active political stance sparked huge controversy, especially within the Vatican. Critics claimed that using Marxist ideas and launching political protests ruined the spiritual nature of the church. But despite the pushback from the top, local religious communities refused to back down, keeping their focus locked on human rights and social justice.

In short, Liberation Theology redefined modern African history by making social justice a religious requirement. It turned local churches into operational bases for resistance and tied Africa’s independence struggles into a global movement for equality. Its ultimate message was simple: you cannot have true independence without economic fairness, cultural pride, and human rights.

Different Paths to Independence

The structural pathways to African decolonization varied significantly, dictated by the intersection of imperial administrative models, the demographic density of European settler populations, and the organizational sophistication of domestic nationalist movements. Broadly, two primary patterns emerged across the continent: negotiated constitutional transitions, characterized by a managed devolution of authority by colonial powers, and violent wars of national liberation, where sovereignty was extracted through protracted armed struggle.

The dividing line between a peaceful hand-off and a bloody war came down to three things: the number of white settlers, the strength of the local movement, and how stubborn the empire was. Colonies with tiny settler populations, sharp political organizing, and flexible colonial governments got their independence peacefully (like Ghana). On the flip side, places with large European settler communities, high strategic value, or empires that refused to reform collapsed into warfare (like Algeria and Kenya). Structurally, Britain moved toward negotiation fairly early, while France and Portugal fiercely resisted independence with heavy military force.

Negotiated Independence: Ghana (1957)

The transition of the Gold Coast into the independent state of Ghana in 1957 marked a watershed moment as the first sub-Saharan colony to achieve sovereignty in the post-war era. This transfer of power was executed relatively peacefully due to the robust institutional organization of Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party (CPP), highly effective mass mobilization, and a pragmatism on the part of the British Colonial Office. Furthermore, Ghana’s status as a premier global cocoa producer provided an economic incentive for both parties to ensure a stable, lucrative transition. Ghana’s independence served as an operational paradigm for contemporary African nationalist movements, demonstrating that imperial hegemony could be dismantled through systematic political agitation and constitutional negotiation.

Violent Independence: Algeria (1954–1962)

Conversely, the Algerian War of Independence represents one of the most violent and structurally transformative struggles of the decolonization era. Unlike standard colonial territories, Algeria was legally integrated into the French metropole as an overseas department and contained a politically dominant population of roughly one million European settlers, known as pieds-noirs. Following decades of systematic political disenfranchisement, agrarian dispossession, and France’s absolute refusal to entertain demands for sovereignty, the National Liberation Front (FLN) initiated an armed insurrection in 1954.

The ensuing conflict was characterized by asymmetrical guerrilla warfare, urban terrorism, institutionalized torture, and severe state repression, culminating visually and tactically in the Battle of Algiers (1956–1957). The war claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Algerians and, upon its resolution in 1962, triggered the mass exodus of nearly one million European settlers. The conflict profoundly altered the fabric of Algerian society and destabilized French domestic politics, precipitating the collapse of the Fourth Republic and forcing the total termination of French rule.

Violent Independence: Kenya (1952–1963)

In East Africa, Kenya’s decolonization crisis centered around the Mau Mau Uprising, a militant insurrection mobilized predominantly by the Kikuyu community via the Kenya Land and Freedom Army. The rebellion emerged from acute socio-economic grievances, specifically the systemic expropriation of fertile agrarian highlands by European settlers, the enforcement of migratory labor systems, institutionalized racial hierarchies, and widespread landlessness among native Africans.

The British administration countered with a draconian state of emergency, deploying comprehensive military operations, mass internment camps, and forced villagization schemes. While British forces successfully neutralized the uprising militarily, the sheer financial and political cost of the counter-insurgency convinced London that the colonial apparatus was unsustainable. Subsequent constitutional conventions facilitated a transition, culminating in Kenya’s independence in 1963 under the executive leadership of its first president, Jomo Kenyatta.

Legacy of African Independence

By the mid-1960s, the formal architecture of European colonial domination had largely collapsed, leaving a continent populated by newly sovereign states. However, formal political autonomy did not instantly eradicate deep structural colonial legacies. Post-colonial states inherited highly volatile artificial borders drawn by European cartographers, structurally dependent mono-cultural export economies, and acute domestic instability that was frequently weaponized by Cold War geopolitics. The United States and the Soviet Union actively vied for continental hegemony through strategic aid packages, military sales, and covert alliances, deeply complicating domestic African governance.

Nevertheless, the realization of African independence fundamentally altered the trajectory of modern global history. It accelerated the dissolution of global European empires, institutionalized the doctrines of racial equality and national self-determination within international law, and provided a blueprint for global liberation movements. Furthermore, the establishment of multilateral frameworks like the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 institutionalized regional cooperation, anchored continental sovereignty, and fostered a pan-African diplomatic shield.

The Case of Congo

The independence of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was a catastrophic unique case, driven by three forces: a brutal Belgian colonial legacy, massive mineral wealth, and intense Cold War paranoia. Unlike Britain or France, which slowly trained local elites for gradual self-rule, Belgium left the Congo completely unprepared. On independence day—June 30, 1960—the country had no experienced leaders, no stable government, and zero trained military officers.

The crisis exploded on week one. The army mutinied, Belgian troops invaded, and the resource-rich Katanga province tried to secede with the backing of Belgian corporations. When the UN failed to help, Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba made a desperate appeal to the Soviet Union. That move sealed his fate; Washington panicked over a potential communist stronghold in Africa, and Lumumba was quickly ousted and assassinated in 1961. He instantly became a global martyr for African independence.

Still, the Congo’s problems were shared across the continent. Many new nations faced the exact same issues: artificial borders, weak institutions, economic dependence, military coups, and Cold War meddling. Angola, Nigeria, and Ethiopia all suffered through resource wars and foreign interference. The Congo wasn’t an exception; it was just the most extreme example of the postcolonial struggle.

The lasting lesson of the Congo crisis was simple: a new flag and a national anthem don’t matter if you don’t own your own economy. Lumumba proved that political independence is an illusion without economic sovereignty and control over your natural resources. What happened in the Congo became the ultimate warning sign for the Pan-African and African socialist movements for the rest of the twentieth century.

The Case of South Africa

South Africa was a completely unique case in the story of African independence. It wasn’t a standard colony fighting a ruler thousands of miles away; it was an independent country run by a white minority settler population that ruled over the Black majority with absolute power. The system was centuries in the making, rooted in Dutch and British rule, early segregation laws, and the 1910 Union of South Africa. Then, in 1948, the National Party formalized «apartheid»—a legal system designed to deny Black citizens the vote, lock down their movement, strip them of land, and freeze economic inequality into law.

Because the enemy lived inside the country, the struggle wasn’t about colonial independence—it was about winning majority rule. The African National Congress (ANC), founded back in 1912, spent its first few decades trying to use peaceful protests, petitions, and civil disobedience. But future icons like Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo were forced to turn to armed struggle after the government met peace with bullets. The point of no return was the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, when police killed 69 peaceful protesters, proving the regime wouldn’t change without a fight.

While a colony like Ghana won its freedom through peaceful talks with London, South Africa had to endure a decades-long combination of internal uprisings, international boycotts, financial sanctions, and armed conflict. The fight against apartheid eventually became a global cause, backed by the UN, churches, unions, and civil rights movements. Religious leaders like Desmond Tutu used Liberation Theology to deliver a devastating argument: apartheid wasn’t just bad politics; it was a moral crime against God.

Even with its unique setup, South Africa faced the exact same traps as places like the Congo, Angola, and Nigeria—namely resource wars, foreign meddling, and a broken colonial economy. The Cold War also warped the global response. Western nations criticized apartheid in public but protected it in private because they feared the liberation movements were communist fronts. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union stepped in as a major ally, funding and arming the ANC.

The wall finally cracked through negotiations, not a battlefield victory. By the late 1980s, the white government was cornered by internal unrest, global economic isolation, and the end of the Cold War. In 1994, South Africa held its historic first free elections, and Mandela became president. In the end, the South African case was both an exception and a perfect example: unique because they had to defeat a domestic white minority regime, but representative because they were fighting for the same things every other African nation wanted—equality, economic justice, and true freedom.

Ronald reagan

»Can we abandon a country that has stood beside us in every war we’ve ever fought, a country that strategically is essential to the free world in its production of minerals we all must have and so forth? I just feel that, myself, that here, if we’re going to sit down at a table and negotiate with the Russians, surely we can keep the door open and continue to negotiate with a friendly nation like South Africa.»

Mr. Reagan on the Apartheid regime of South Africa. NYT, March 3, 1981