WHAT IF AFRICA WAS NEVER COLONIZED?

There is always that desire to know if Africa would have turned out different if the influence of the Europeans were factored out. So, what if Africa was never colonized?

😋 Thank you for checking out our content, please do like and share our content.
😀 Please do subscribe to our channel - Splash! Splash! and turn on the notifications, it shows you love Africa and are proud of our great heritage

WHAT IF AFRICA WAS NEVER COLONIZED?

The conquest of Africa was as a result of the European process to reach all continents of the world. In the late 19th century, only about 10% of the continent was under the control of the Europeans but it quickly graduated to about 90% by the early 20th century. The Europeans were simply interested in what Africa had to offer in terms of labor and resources. They also had political and religious reasons and this scramble, definitely had a big impact on Africa of today.

The Continent after;

The scale of Africa being colonized by the Europeans tilts upward but assuming the continent was never stirred up by colonization, what would life in Africa look like? Would it be an ambitious continent without the chaos brought by Europe or would it be backwards with no substantial improvement? Well, the answers aren’t quite clear cut but here are different possibilities on how the continent would have turned out;

Regional groupings.

Africa may be resource-rich but not all regions are booming with resources. There is the possibility of certain regions like Southern and Western Africa dominating the continent. There is also the factor of lack of education and industrialization in Africa which will definitely determine just what is done with the natural resources the continent has been blessed with. Africans may not be able to transform the resources into something worth exporting except they adopt European practices along the way which raises even more questions. How would the processed products be exported to other continents without possession of adequate infrastructure? Would Europe be willing to engage in fair trade of products from Africa?

Unbalanced Scale of Africa

Africa would most likely be able to trade its resources to other continents as equals and possibly make the most money off of it but there is no saying that all countries in Africa would benefit from this trade. Considering the fact that the continent without colonization isn’t sure to practice socialism, there is likely not to be a fair distribution to lesser countries. This could lead to domination by certain economically capable and stable regions over lesser regions which will eventually draw up an unbalanced scale of living in the continent.

Religion would be present but different.

Christianity probably wouldn’t have eaten deep into the roots of Africa and would’ve been the minority religion if at all it was recognized in the continent. Critics of Colonialism targeted Christianity, claiming the colonialists supposedly used the religion to cover up their selfish personal agenda. Missionaries were first viewed as righteous saints and devout martyrs but this view took a complete 360 turn by the middle of the twentieth century during the era of anti-colonialism where they were now regarded as arrogant and greedy Imperialists. Traditional religion and Islam would, without any doubt, be the dominant religious practices in Africa.

Technology

The idea of Technology could be either of two ways— advanced or behind. It could be more advanced but this is not certain considering the idea of applied science is mainly an European one. Africa could, perchance, have adopted European technology not by buying their high-tech products but rather learning how to make theirs and this is a large possibility considering the laborious skills of the people.

Racism would be alien to Africa.

Racism? Wouldn’t be an issue! The conditions that birthed Racial discrimination would not be present if Africa was never colonized. Africans would never have been taken for slaves and there would never have been the issue of a marginalized race! The continent would be able to hold its own amongst other continents as equals but there would most likely be issues of internal discrimination based on the imbalance of regions in Africa.

Dispute over borders.

The Europeans may have done the continent a favor when it comes to settling the issue of ill-defined borderlines even though it had led to improper division of African natives. The Europeans, during the colonial era, mapped out their areas of influence across borders in each region with metes (borderlines). Supposing these lines were not properly defined, the story would be different. The maps would have a different outline than the present one and there would be real border disputes among African regions which may even result in full-blown border wars as seen in some parts of Asia.