1950s (Part 3)
The growing colonial unrest in Africa was very real by the 1950s. The independence of Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia and Ethiopia in the early 1950s had resulted in a major movement to move Africa to independence in the 1950s and 1960s. Some powers, like Britain, were willing to negotiate ends to colonialism by peaceful means, but France and Portugal in particular just would not budge. The Belgians, though they technically still controlled the Congo, were largely leaving it to the locals to run it - and with the help of the African powers, they were doing it quite competently.
But perhaps more importantly was the immigrants and their movement. Seeking a better life outside of the devastated remains of Europe, immigrants from across Europe moved to Africa in numbers in the 1950s. This was openly encouraged by the four powers and the Congo, and after Madagascar became independent in 1957 they began wanting French-speaking immigrants, too. Many of the poor of 1950s Europe would very much find Africa appealing, and as such the number of whites living on the African continent soared to nearly 32 million by 1960, including 5.8 million in South Africa, 10.1 million in East Africa, over two million in Rhodesia and South West Africa and nearly a million and a half in the Congo. Madagascar gave full civil rights to its French-born citizens in 1957 after its independence and asked them to stay, and despite some early skirmishes where the new Madagascar Army had to keep violence against whites from happening, the government kept its word. In the still-held colonies, however, racism and racial paternalism still persisted. It also continued to persist in Rhodesia, though many of its newer and younger politicians openly ripped racist politicians or policies. In Salisbury, Huggins' appointed successor, Roy Welensky, fought the 1955 elections, but could not win a majority, and the Rhodesia Party could not make a unity government with him running it, despite his best intentions in negotiations with the National Democratic Party and the Indian African Congress. Welensky found himself under fire from arch-rival Garfield Todd, who wanted Welensky's job. Deals with Welensky and Kaunda allowed Todd to ascend to the Prime Minister of Rhodesia position in September 1955, while Welensky became the Governor-General and Kaunda became the deputy Prime Minister, a position that also gave him substantial duties, like Britain's Home Secretary. Kaunda proved to be up to the task of these duties, and despite his avowed belief in socialism, he got on very well with the business community and even many of the whites. He very much impressed Queen Elizabeth II when she met him while on her tour of the four powers in 1958, who called him a "very charming man". The Rhodesia Party-NDP alliance held on for years, and the Todd-Kaunda era in Rhodesian politics would prove to be just as important, maybe more so, than the Huggins era.
The time after the Korean War saw the retirement of Mordechai Anielewitz and Maurice Rose, and PM Raymond appointed General Thomas Ngovu to lead the East African Armed Forces, replacing the retiring Rose. Ngovu held for only one term, but he was the first black leader of the independent African militaries. He held that position for five years, retiring from the East African Army as a four-star general in 1957. Appointed that same year to be East Africa's ambassador to Japan, Ngovu would go on to the unofficial African ambassador to Japan for more than two decades. During this time, Ngovu would help establish major trade deals between Japan and the African countries, deals which would prove to be highly beneficial for all involved in the decades to come, as Japan's rapid 1960s and 1970s economic growth led to its demand for raw materials soaring, thus providing lots of fuel to the African national economies.
Ngovu's term saw the establishment of the African Federation's Intervention forces. An idea thought up originally by Renaldo Vaurren and supported by Raymond and Todd (though less so by Lettow-Vorbeck) and several other members of the AF, the idea was to organize and move a military force to intervene in any AF member or any state that threatened the AF's peace and stability. The idea was aimed at the unstable colonies in Africa, particularly Nigeria and Algeria, both of whom were torn up by civil wars and badly-managed foreign occupation, a problem that made for major headaches with Algeria. By this time, the Soviet Union was only too happy to be funding and supporting many nationalist groups in Africa, but the four powers were staunchly anti-communist, which meant they and the Soviets often butted heads on this issue. Even people like Mandela and Kaunda, despite their own beliefs in socialism, were very much anti-communism.
1955 saw the independence of the nation of Ghana, created by the union of the Gold Coast and British Togo. Led by African nationalist Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana gained independence and promptly entered the African Federation. Nkrumah would be one of the most vocal proponents of pan-Africa movements and projects, and promptly began soliticing aid for major projects in his country.
The following year, trouble brewed in Egypt. Young nationalist military officer Gamal Abdel Nasser took over power from the corrupt King Farouk. Nasser's initial rise was not unwelcome, as he immediately began to substantially solicit aid for building projects in Egypt, especially the Aswan High Dam on the Nile. But following his decision to take weapons from Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, aid for the project dried up from the African nations, as well as from Europe and America. Nasser decided to raise funds by nationalizing the Suez Canal, which set off a roar across Africa and Europe. The Europeans were soon planning to intervene, but as East Africa needed the Cape to Cairo railway to keep exports moving to Europe, East Africa and the others elected to stay out of it. But in October, Britain and France sent paratroopers to take back the Suez anyways, backed up by the Jordanians, who were only too happy to take the Sinai from Egypt. The USSR then got into the picture, threatening to intervene on the side of Egypt, and directly threatening attacks on Britain and France. American President Eisenhower demanded that Britain and France pull out. They did, but begrudingly, and both of them openly furious at losing such an asset to the Egyptians. Nasser's crowing led to him demanding the nationalization of the Cape to Cairo's Egyptian terminus and portions, which he started planning in January 1957. Nasser laid out his ideas of uniting the Arab world and Africa behind him, which drew nothing but disgust from the African powers. Vaurren commented to Hertzog about Nasser "That bastard thinks of himself as Julius Ceasar and Ramses rolled into one, and if we allow him to get what he wants, we'll face the same problem we had with the Germans twenty years ago." Nasser's demands were forcefully turned down, and Ngovu organized the East African Army in northern Uganda. Sudan, also fearful of Nasser's increasingly-belligerent rhetoric, allowed Ngovu's army to move to the Egyptian border. East Africa's commitment was followed by that of South Africa and Ethiopia, followed by several other nations. Once again, the USSR said that they would intervene to support Egypt. This led to the Canadian Ambassador to the UN, Lester Pearson, gathering Nasser, Raymond and Khrushchev in New York to work out their differences. The final request was that the railroad route be bought by Egypt, for a fair price, and operated by the East Africans for 50 years until January 2008, while Egypt would collect a toll for using the line through its territory. This was accepted by Raymond because it was his only option, but others within his party called it a sellout, and in September 1957, Raymond's party shoved him out of the PM's office in favor of their first Jewish leader since Trumpledor, David Ben-Gurion. Ben-Gurion was unable to prevent a liberalizing trend in East Africa, and his leadership of East Africa lasted just ten months, losing the PM position to Jonas Kariuki and the East African Labor Party in the July 1958 elections.
In August 1958, Queen Elizabeth II made a tour of the African powers, including her personally christening missile cruiser HMSAS Drakensberg, which would be primarily crewed by English-descent whites and black Africans, and gaining the nickname "The Queen's Own Cruiser". This included her first attending of the African Federation meeting in Salisbury, Rhodesia, where she met most of the African leaders. Kariuki, Mandela, Lembede and Kaunda were genuine shocks to the British media following the trip, and the Queen would speak quite highly of all of the leaders at the Conference, including Ethiopian leader Halie Selassie and Kwame Nkrumah. The meeting was also the first AF Conference attended by Madagascar's President, Maria Ranovalo, at the one one of the very few female heads of state on the planet. Having been educated in Britain during WWII, she also got along well with the others at the meeting.
France in 1959 fully integrated much of its mineral-rich West African colonies of Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea and Sierra Leone into France, but this didn't go down any better than their integration of Algeria had. The main goal here was the iron ore reserves of Mauritania, the bauxite of Guinea and the phosphate mines of Senegal, not to mention Sierra Leone's diamonds. Relations between them and Liberia were not smooth, either. Liberia was a member of the AF but was not well liked, due to the massive biases between the Americo-Liberian elites and the tribes who lived in Liberia. Despite this, France was not particularly in the AF's good books, either.
In 1959, East Africa made the courageous decision to go to universal suffrage, eliminating all property and education requirements and granting the vote to all East Africans over the age of 18. This decision, ratified by the government in June 1960, was made knowing that literacy in East Africa was around 98% and over 3/4 of the adult population was already qualified under the country's rules for voting.
That same year, several leading members of the American civil rights movement, including Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, visited South Africa, Rhodesia and East Africa. Initially they did on their own, but it didn't take long for the media to catch on to this and with it the politicians. Mandela and ANC Youth League founder Anton Lembede deeply impressed him, particularly the latter's speeches and policies aimed at South African youth. Kenneth Kaunda also impressed, while he also called Dr. King and Mrs. Parks "inspirational people" and "fighting racism, and doing so in the best way possible, by fighting prejudice with intelligence and consideration." Both Kaunda and Kariuki offered direct financial support to the NAACP in the United States, but King turned it down, fearing that this would allow their opponents in the US South to cast them as outsiders hurting America. Kaunda and Kariuki both understood that reasoning fully, knowing that the USSR was funding such efforts in many parts of Africa.
In April 1960, Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck retired from his position as the President of South West Africa, having led the country to its independence and having lead it for 22 years after that. He was the last of the old guard of leaders to retire, but he retired to vast public support in South West Africa. But if anything, Lettow-Vorbeck's retirement signaled that the new leadership in Africa was of all races and all ideas and political slants, and they quite ably led Africa into the 1960s......
