African Responses to Colonialism A Study of the Peaceful...

A. Adu Boahens African Perspectives on Colonialism neatly classifies African responses to European colonialism during both phases of invasion and occupation during the 19th century with precise labels according to their nature or time period. However, the reactions can also be loosely grouped into two diametric characterizations: peaceful and violent. Although creating this dichotomy seems a gross generalization and oversimplification of the colonial African experience, it more importantly allows for a different perspective- one that exposes the overwhelming success of the typically peaceful or pacifist reaction in contrast to the little gain and large losses of the violent response. In order to analyze Boahen’s work as well as produce†¦show more content†¦These include what Boahen categorizes as submission, alliance and peaceful confrontation during the preceding period of European assault during the late 19th century. The reason these different strategies can be grouped together under peace lies in the labels aforementioned definition, which states that it includes any response clear of bloodshed or combative confrontation. Kgamas, the King of Ngwato, plea to the England is an example of a peaceful response which blatantly asks for the British Queens protection. Boahen, A. Adu. African Perspectives on Colonialism. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987) 39. This would be what Boahen considers complete submission to the colonial power; it comes with the protection of the European colonialist in exchange for concession of the state’s properties and political authority to the invading authority. He also mentions that the areas of Swaziland, Bechuanaland and Nyasaland which acquiesced â€Å"became only protectorates† while â€Å"those states whose rulers opted for confrontation became†¦full-fledged colonies.† (Boahen, 1987, 40) Therefore states with rulers who chose the peaceful route avoided bloodshed as well as enjoyed a less strained relationship with the colonial power than did their more radical neighbors who were forced into submission. Those belligerent neighbors were unsuccessful in achieving their objectives of eitherShow MoreRelatedGender theory in International Relations Essay2492 Words   |  10 Pagesissues affect the attitude toward international conflict, and how the dichotomy between feminine and masculine is reflected variously in the way war is understood, organized and conducted. A particular attention will be payed to sexual violence in wars and to the gender dimension that nationalism and political identity acquire in armed conflicts, especially in what Kaldor defined â€Å"new wars† (Chinkin and Kaldor 2013). The same dichotomies applied to the war field pertain also feminist perspective on theRead MoreRastafarian79520 Words   |  319 PagesUnited States quite an amazing thing. Those who would presage the arrival of Rastafarianism also witnessed and read about the dramatic struggle of Emperor Haile Selassie to remove the Italians from his homeland of Ethiopia, which became the ï ¬ rst African nation to effectively oust, by force, a colonial power. These were monumental times, and these men, fully steeped in the apocalyptic visions of the world, saw something important in all of these happenings. I grew up in Jamaica at a time when RastasRead MoreOne Significant Change That Has Occurred in the World Between 1900 and 2005. Explain the Impact This Change Has Made on Our Lives and Why It Is an Important Change.163893 Words   |  656 Pages however, to the weaknesses of the League, resistance to the rise of internal repression and interstate aggression in the interwar years was feeble at best. Stalinist, fascist, and Japanese militarist contempt for civil rights, much less even peaceful protest, opened the way for brutally repressive regimes that actively promoted or systematically engineered the massive episodes of rape, oppression, and genocidal killing that were major offshoots of a second global conflict in the early 1940s