Emanuel Konde. African Nationalism in Cold War Politics: 1952-1954, Cameroons' Um Nyobe Presents The Upc Program For Authentic Independence At The United Nations. Xlibris, Corp. (January 20, 2012), 226 pages. Available on amazon.com. ($19.99)
One of the greatest chapters in the annals of African anti-colonial nationalism would have been a chronicle of the political achievements of Cameroon’s Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC). From its inception in 1948 to the French assassination of its leader Ruben Um Nyobe in 1958, the UPC sought the reunification and unconditional independence of British and French Cameroons. But the wartime suspicions between the East and West, occasioned by the contest over spheres of influence, the infusion of contending and mutually destructive ideologies into international relations, and the need of European colonialists to continually exploit Africa in their efforts to rebuild their war-torn countries, all these factors comingled and converged into a powerful force against the UPC and other African nationalist political parties.
This convergence of ideology, geopolitical strategy, and economic interests made it very difficult for the United States to acknowledge objectively the political aspirations of the colonized Africans in the Cameroons. The need to support its allies against Communism, coupled with adherence to the then prevailing ideology of racial superiority that judged colonized Africans as incapable of self-governance influenced American policy-makers not to pay heed to the UPC plea for unification and independence of the Cameroons, delivered before the Fourth Committee of the Trusteeship Council by Um Nyobe in 1952, 1953, and 1954. Ideology, during the Cold War era, prevailed over reason, logic, and common sense.
This book casts Um Nyobe’s presentations at the United Nations within the context of Cold War rivalry and posits that the UPC’s program was unraveled and its leaders assassinated by France, the colonizing power, with the outwardly passive complicity of the West primarily because of the Cold War. Arguing that decolonization is not independence because it is granted by the colonizer—and that independence can only be won by the colonized themselves, this work asserts that despite the assassination of the leadership of the UPC the nationalist party’s program for Cameroon to attain authentic independence is still potent today.
this is one of the books we need to use in teaching children when it comes to the cruel contact of africa with europe and the consequences.we have been brainwashed for so long by satanic european historians trying minimize europes responsibility.the inslavement and occupation of africa was pre madidated by europe.a ground breacking work.
Posted by: BAH ACHO | Sunday, 29 January 2012 at 09:21 AM