Africa into the 21st Century

UPDATE: Article on "who are the rebels in Goma, and what do they want."

Reading Questions for AFRICANS, Chapter 13:


Structural Adjustment

• In the 1980s, what did the IMF (define IMF) require of African countries wanting loans? 

• What is "democratic demand inflation"?

• What was the price of success in Ghana and Uganda?

• Where were the IMF's reforms least important, and where were they most damaging?

• What were the consequences for Zimbabwe?

• In 1997, the IMF switched strategies to what?

State Contraction and Cultural Change

• What happened to the education system?

• What happened to healthcare?

• What was the new focus of migration?

• What were the effects of unemployment? Informal occupations?

• What happened to the status of women?

• What created ethnic/social solidarities?

• Anything interesting going on with religion?

• What are millenarian beliefs? Radical dualism?

• What was "the most common urban disturbance"?

• Describe the phenomenon of youth cultures.

• What is an NGO?

Political Change

• What was the political situation in 1989, and what was it five years later?
• What brought about the change?
• What influence did social groups and the military play?
• What effect did the end of the Cold War have?
• How was democratization viewed by urban and rural communities?
• Why did some analysts in 1997 think that democratization had failed? Were they right?
• What is the difference between presidential and parliamentary forms of democracy?
• Where did Islamic fundamentalism originate?
• What made some guerrilla movements destructive and others less so?
• What led to the Rwanda genocide? (start with first full paragraph on p. 307)

Fertility Decline

• What was the main reason for a decline in fertility?

The AIDS Epidemic

• When and where did AIDS originate?
• FYI antenatal = prenatal
• Why did HIV spread less quickly into West Africa?
• Why were African governments slow to respond to the crisis?
• What were the two sources of hope after the mid-90s?

South Africa

Reading Questions for AFRICANS, Chapter 12:

• How did the Witwatersrand goldfield differ from the Kimberly diamond mines? 
• Why were African miners wages so low?
• How did rural economies and families adapt?
• What were "distinctive features" of South African industrialization?
• Following the Anglo-Boer War (if you don't remember what that is, look it up here), what did the British do to try to retain their supremacy over the Afrikaner South African Republic?
• What was the Group Areas Act of 1950, and what made the government so powerful then?
• Why was mass non-violent nationalism like Gandhi's not successful in South Africa?
• What was the Soweto Uprising of 1976, and why was it important?
• What was the significance of the township revolt of 1984? What were important international developments?
• At the end of the chapter, the author says that there was a deeper reality than confrontation between the races. What was it?

Contemporary African History

Reading Questions for SHORT, Chapter 7:

• What happened to the field of African history as "Africa entered a period of prolonged economic downturn and political turmoil"? 
• What is it about Africa that makes it seem like the continent is "locked in Permanent crisis"?
• Who is Waa Kamisoko, and how has he adapted his traditional role to modern circumstances? What was most controversial?
• What is the deal with the historical narratives of the Ndebele people? Heroes Day?
• What was the "first major reorientation in the field" of African history in the 1970s?
• What was the legacy of Marxist anthropology?
• Why is witchcraft now a focus of historians?
• What is your reaction to the photograph by the artist Samuel Fosso (figure 29) or the one above?
• Who is Mobutu Sese Seko? check the wiki page
• Who creates the dominant political narrative, and where can alternatives be found?
• What was the mission of African historians after the colonial period?
• What debates arose among historians and where did they mainly play out?
• Explain the issue of the relationship between history and heritage?
• How is the question relevant to the history of the slave trade and of South Africa?

Independent Africa

Reading Questions for SHORT, Chapter 6:

• What caused the collapse of colonialism after WW II? 
• Which parts of Africa were independent in 1945, in the mid-50s, in the mid-60s?
• What is the debate over the dynamics of decolonization?
• What does the book mean by the "second colonial occupation," and what was its impact?
• What were the "crucibles of change"?
• How did France handle its colonies and colonial subjects after WW II?
• Describe most African politicians of the time and their main challenges.
• What was the South African model and whom did it appeal to?
• What is significant about Algeria's independence?
• What effects did nationalism and anti-colonialism have on the field of African history in the 1950s and 1960s?
• Was the new history useful to African politicians?
• What approaches to African history were more prominent in the French-speaking world?
• How did Congo become "Africa's first Cold War battlefield"?
• What were the goals of most African leaders in the 1960s?
• What happened in the 1970's?

Check out this movie trailer.

Reading Questions for AFRICANS, Chapter 11:

Rapid population growth 

• In contrast to population growth between WW I and WW II, what was the main reason for population growth after 1940?
• Modern medicine and what else led to "the most sudden and rapid population growth the world is ever likely to see"?

Liberation

• What effect did the defeated Mau Mau insurrection have on Kenyan politics?
• Contrast the politics of Uganda and Tanganyika.
• Why was support for nationalism so strong in the poorer rural areas of colonies of white settlement?
• How did nationalism effect women? 
• How did young men profit from nationalism?

Economic development

• Before the 1970s, what three main directions had economic growth taken in Africa? 
• What was the most fundamental reason for economic crisis?
• What role did oil play? (Look at oil producing African countries, too.)
• What did most 1960s economists think was the best way to achieve development?
• What were some of the diverse economic strategies, and why did they all lead to similar crises during the 1980s?
• What replaced labor as the crucial scarce resource?
• Why did extensive drought lead to famine in some countries and not others?

Politics

• What were the three underlying political realities? What compounded the problems?
• What were the two patterns of civil war represented by Sudan and Chad on the one hand and Angola and Mozambique on the other?
• What "bred blatantly ethnic, clientelist, and corrupt politics"?
• Describe the system of ruling elites?
• What three institutions supported ruling elites?
• What did newly independent regimes do in order to dominate society?