Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
and the
Scramble
For Africa
By Ismail Ahmed
Siad
Africa, the oldest of the continents, containing the earliest re-mains of man, and the birthplace
of the European civilization,(Jan, 1889, p. 42). As Africa was mostly unexplored since late
nineteenth century, and the most the people in this continent were categorized into hundreds of
ethnic groups with different languages, they were also less developed and usually depended
much on manual ways of production other than using technically advanced machines as that of
the western societies.
In mid eighteenth century, after the industrial revolution, the world has changed a lot,
especially in the western part. Most countries in Europe were undergoing an industrial based
system of production, while people in Africa were still on their way of manual production. In
the history of imperialism, the Scramble for Africa was an important event. Historians of
different kinds have figured out it was because of the poor and the lingering development of the
African societies, (as cited in Turner, 2007).
In Africa it was the tribesman, hunted and gathered, as the people were dependent on the
changes in the environment, they were always on the move in search for better living conditions
(as cited in Denny, 2003). Compared to that of Europe, where people were able to produce their
foods through machines and factories. Moreover, in Europe, there were rapid development in
clothing, agriculture and most importantly the production of weapons and transportation
supplies.
Also Africa has an important geographical location, as there are some places with a highly
strategic importance for sustaining trade routes to Asia and other means. These areas include the
Causes:
As the world was experiencing rapid evolution in economic and technological perspectives, yet
some parts of the world were under very slow development. In European countries, industries
produce lots of products and in return they need row materials, cheap labor and market places
especially overseas markets to export their products, so that the process goes on to the aim of
profit making.
After the end of the Slave trade European countries started competing in the availability of
markets for their readymade products. As cited in Hargreaves, Commercial access to Africa
was the common objective", (1985, p. 21). This was one of the main causes of the Europeans to
expand their overseas markets, which will enable them for their production to continue without
the afraid of overproduction. Furthermore, naturally when there is a market for a product, the
only thing someone waits is that they can make profit for selling their products, and that the
Europeans were of the same kind. They were producing and sending them directly to Africa to
make a vast profit return from Africa.
The second thing which was important in the expansion of the European empires to Africa was
getting cheap labor. After the industrial revolution, Europe had experienced a transformation in
every aspect of life. There were lots of workers coming to the big cities to find a job, and as they
were working under extremely bad and severe working conditions and in order to make the
Another important factor in the top of the list of the causes of the Scramble for Africa was that
Africa was seen as it can be the source of raw materials, as its people were not involving in
production or exploitation of their natural resources. There are scholars who have adapted this
perspective to the scramble for Africa by stressing the importance of those economic factors
which can be readily documented from the sources, such as the need for new markets or, at a
later stage, for sources of raw materials ( Koponen, 1993, p. 119). This meant that European
states with the their blooming economic, technological and military capabilities and at that time
eager to develop more can go to Africa and take the resources back to Europe with the idea of
that Africa was no mans land.
One more factor which is worth mentioning is the idea that the Europeans were in the time of
the rise of nationalist sentiments or racialist ideologies ( Koponen, 1993, p. 119). At that time
the idea in the main stream was that Europeans were eager to expand their empires to the other
parts of the world especially Africa and also introducing their culture, religion to the people over
there. In this part we can include or mention that the motive behind the expansion of the
European empires to the other parts of the world was that the white man especially the
Europeans are when it comes to the rationality, better, wiser and also more intelligent that the
other men in the rest of the world.
Somalia:
Somalia, in the very east Africa (consisting of the former British Somaliland and Italian
Somaliland) is the only one country that has said no to the imperialist drown borders and also the
legacies of the imperialism. Its people take neither the religion, culture nor the language of the
imperialist Europeans. This country in east Africa, -with relatively a population of less than six
million at that time, as it has approximately 12 million population right now after 54 years of
Finally, when it comes to my personal thoughts about the Scramble for Africa, it seems to have
effects of different levels and poses threats of different intensities throughout the whole African
continent.
The perspectives of the people may differ from person to person or from place to place, but as an
African, it was unfortunate event in the human history. In that period, it was recorded the worst
genocides in the history of the mind kind. When I am saying in the human history, I mean like
when to societies of the same power, same level of technologies fight and one of them wins,
even if one of them massacres the other society it will sound like that society lost in the war and
it was massacred by the other, but when it comes to massacring innocent people living peacefully
and exploit the people they have formerly weakened and most importantly keeping them up until
today from developing on their own way.
In addition to that, keeping them from deciding on their own and also keeping them from coming
to the stage so that they can speak of themselves and make it clear for the world who they really
are, not with the image blindly drown by the imperialist thinkers.
Lastly, it is even more painful that the domination is still out there; weather it is any means of
humiliation, or embarrassing people by writing their own history from the wrong perspective,
labeling them with bad stereotypes and so on.
References:
Jane. (1889). Africa, Its Past and Future. Science, 13, 42-50. Retrieved December 10, 2013,
from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1763687
Turner, M. (2007). Scramble for Africa . The Gaurdian, p. 1.
Denny, C. (2003). Scramble for Africa. The Gaurdian, p. 1.
Hargreaves, J. D. (1985b). The making of the bound- aries focus on West Africa. In A. I.
ASIWAJU (ed.) Partitioned Africans. London.
Koponen, J. (1993). The Partition of Africa: A Scrambel for a Mirage? Nordic Journal of African
Studies, (1): 117135.
Griffiths, I. (1986). The Scramble for Africa: Inherited Political Boundaries. The Geographical
Journal, 152, p. 204-2016.
Tangie, N. F. (2006). The state and development in Africa
Pakenham, T. (1991). The scramble for Africa: white mans conquest of the Dark Continent.
1876-1912. New York: Avon Books.