Colonialization of Africa

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Details on Effects of Colonialisation in Africa

As previously discussed, in solution 362172, the effects of colonialization in Africa are far-reaching. There were immediate effects such as loss of land and property and break up of families and communities as populations were sold to slavery. But as Africa was carved up for the interest of and to be the territory of European powers, the local population left experienced something else entirely - centuries of subjugation and becoming subject to the control and direction of another culture. This has far reaching effects that today still influence the political, cultural, economic and religious affairs of African nations with deadly consequences. African national identities are subject to the effects of colonialization in all its forms and the political rhetoric in most former colonies include colonial identity in defining who they are as a people.

Slavery & Identity

Now, let us for a moment think of the effects of slavery upon the transported African peoples to Europe and the colonies in both North and South America. Today, we see that the populations of Brazil, Chile, Argentina and the Caribbean islands formerly held by colonial powers include in their diverse population descendants of these people. Transplanted from their former homelands, they call membership to other nations now, identities that is other from that of their slave ancestors. In the US it is the same thing. Centuries of slavery and persecution culminated in the Civil Rights movement that 'made equal' all Americans whatever the ethnicity. Can descendants of slaves and emancipated slaves truly call Africa and the ancestral homeland of their slave-ancestors their own? In the modern definition of identity, they can only recall the origins of their ancestors but identify fully to the modern American culture. The notion of African-American or American Blacks is fully entrenched as a unique and very American identity that the 'Africaness' of that identity in relation to ties with African tribes and ethnicities is gone. The modern African-American is miles apart and culturally different from their ancestral relatives whose own ...