Page 173 - Afrika Must Unite

158 AFRICA MUST UNITE

the middle ’eighties. In the first decade of the twentieth century,
German capitalism attained the stage of commercial and
financial monopoly whose expansionist needs impelled her into
the 1914 war.
The German example illustrates the advantages of uniting
parts into a more effective whole. This German development
took place within the typical national exclusivism of the nine­
teenth century, which reached its apotheosis under the Wil­
sonian doctrine of self-determination after the end of the First
W orld W ar, when the countries of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire assumed sovereignty behind boundaries whose inter­
necine possibilities were subsequently exploited by the great
powers. M otivated by the ambitions of rising bourgeoisies for
political control as the means to capitalist development, the
leaders of the European nationalist movements, once they
assumed power, discovered that they were too weak to stand by
themselves. But instead of coalescing into a wider fraternity of
nations which would have strengthened their economies and
provided a defence against big-power encroachments, they
hugged their exclusivism and made pacts with the stronger
states, which in the end underm ined their self-confidence and
failed to save them from imperialist expansion.
Today, the major European powrers, confronted with the
deepening competitiveness of acquisitive production, intensified
by the new scientific inventions, shrinking empires and the
enlargement of the socialist conclave of nations, are forming their
associations of strength, both economic, political and military.
It seems, then, curiously paradoxical that in this period when
national exclusivism in Europe is making concessions to super­
national organizations, many of the new African states should
cling to their new-found sovereignty as something more precious
than the total well-being of Africa and seek alliances with the
states that are combining to balkanize our continent in neo­
colonialist interests.
Some of these states are aligning themselves with the European
associations in the mistaken belief that they will profit sufficiently
to prosper their economies. It is true that the overseas members
of the European Common M arket are enjoying at the present
time certain benefits from the European Development Fund.