This includes 5 question approximately 100 words each.
Guinean women took to the streets of Conakry to assert their support for Ahmed Sekou Touré after his loss in the 1954 by-election. In their songs (“Guinean Women’s Songs, 1954”), these women refer to Touré as the “the elephant” and his opponent’s rural supporters as “the cows.” Why do you think that the women chose these specific animals to symbolize these politicians and their supporters? How do primary sources like these women’s songs add to our understanding of decolonization?
By the mid-1970s, “big men” led most of the independent countries in Africa. For example, Idi Amin, Mobutu, and Bokossa I were autocratic leaders of Uganda, Zaire, and the Central African Republic, respectively. How did the legacies of colonialism and the Cold War contribute to the rise of the “big men”? Why do you think that these big men stayed in power, sometimes for decades?
The African National Congress (ANC) initially relied on tactics of non-violent civil disobedience in its struggle against the apartheid South African government. But, in 1961, Nelson Mandela and other members of the ANC changed their strategy and formed the ANC’s militant wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK or “Spear of the Nation”). According to MK’s manifesto and Mandela’s speech at the Rivonia Trail, why did the ANC abandon non-violence in favor of armed uprising? Do you think that the ANC’s adoption of violence was justified?
This question refers to “Cabral on ‘National Culture.’” What was Amílcar Cabral’s concept of “culture” and how did it relate to the struggle for “national liberation”? Do you think countries need to have a single “national culture”?
What kinds of political and economic challenges have Africans and African states faced in the decades since independence? Does the new narrative of “Africa Rising” give you hope that these challenges have been overcome? Why or why not?
