Page 209 - Afrika Must Unite

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A F R I C A I N W O R L D A F F A I R S

I t is impossible to separate the affairs of Africa from the affairs
of the world as a whole. Not only has the history of Africa been
too closely involved with Europe and the Western hemisphere,
but that very involvement has been the driving force in bringing
about major wars and international conflicts for which Africans
have not been responsible. Africa has too long been the victim of
disruptive aggression, which still attempts to make a hunting
ground of our continent.
O ur interest, therefore, in the maintenance of peace and the
elimination of the forces which daily threaten it, is very real
indeed. Hence, our co-operation in any living organism that can
be counted on effectively to promote international peace,
provided it does not invade our independence of action, is
assured. At the moment there exists only the United Nations
Organization which offers, with all its defects, the possibility of
working towards a peaceful world.
W hen the United Nations Organization was founded in 1945,
Asian and African nationalism was of little consequence. Since
then, however, so many former colonies have achieved in­
dependence that Afro-Asian countries now form the most
influential single group within the United Nations.
At the end of 1961, African states occupied more than a
quarter of the seats. The proportion might rise to almost a third
as the entire African continent becomes free. This possibility was
certainly in the minds of those at the Lagos conference when they
passed a resolution calling for a specifically African group at the
United Nations.
But the dram atic increase in the international importance of
independent Africa, though it may at first sight appear to