Sub -Saharan Africa After the Major Wars

Topics: Africa, World War II, Nation Pages: 3 (1045 words) Published: November 9, 2008
After the Cold War and World War II many changes took place all across the world. The catalyst for Sub-Saharan Africa reshaping its national identity was Ghana becoming emancipated from British rule in 1957. The national identity for a country or even a region is tied in with that particular area’s overall success. Ghana and Kenya were greatly impacted by this new forming identity. In order to make Sub-Saharan Africa a better place some things were required to change and others were allowed to continue on. A series of things helped reshape Africa such as new found equality, nationalism, and the transition from a series of distressed countries to one unified nation.

At no point before 1957 were the citizens of the Sub-Saharan Africa region considered to be equal to their supreme Caucasian counterparts. It was especially hard because there was a strong British and French influence and most of the colonies were controlled by one of the two. The attitudes of the citizens began to change when Ghana received its independence from British rule in 1857. The first example of this new found equality came when Queen Elizabeth II came to visit Ghana. “The citizens erected huge side-by-side posters of the queen and their new leader, Nkrumah. This public exposure showed the new beginnings that were starting to transform the region. Kwame Nkrumah became the poster child for this new move of independence and he is responsible for inspiring other prominent leaders to lead their countries into independence in a peaceful way. However, all the countries in the region did not follow his peaceful ways specifically Kenya. They were not able to experience the new found equality because they were occupied by the constant friction between the white settlers and these settlers saw the Africans that lived there “traitorous”.

New found equality was not the only transition the Sub-Saharan Africa region experienced; they also experienced a strong wave of nationalism. “Before and...
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