Page 25 - Afrika Must Unite

10 AFRICA MUST UNITE

‘W hat was French administration like in practice?’ I asked a
M oroccan friend when I visited the country some years ago.
He shrugged his shoulders, and proceeded to tell me how the
French had never allowed a national election in Morocco, or
indeed any form of democratic assembly. No Moroccan sat in
the French Assembly or Senate. There was no question of train­
ing Africans to manage their own affairs, even in the field of
government. There was no freedom of the press. Patriotic
organizations, like Istiqlal, were driven underground.
‘It was practically impossible for a M oroccan child to get a
decent education,’ he said. ‘As for economic matters, the wealth
of the country was almost entirely in French hands.’
But French policy can perhaps best be studied in Algeria.
There the French really tried to make the country an integral
part of France. The Departments of Algiers, Constantine and
O ran had the same status as Departments inside France itself;
and the African inhabitants of Algeria had, if they renounced
M uslim law, the same rights as citizens of France. Yet the utter
failure of French policy in Algeria is apparent to the world.
The reason is simple. Algeria forms part of the African continent.
It could never be part of France. It was just self-deceit to talk of
French Algeria; for there is only one Algeria, and that is Algerian.
I have publicly stated G hana’s position towards Algeria. We
supported the Algerian nationalists publicly. The argument
that the European settlers had made Algeria their home and
regarded themselves as Algerians, is irrelevant. If they had
been truly patriotic Algerians, they would not have opposed
the Algerian nationalists: they would not have killed and
terrorized, and broken the provisions of the Franco-Algerian
peace agreements. To the African, the European settler,
whether living in South Africa, Kenya, Angola, or anywhere else
in Africa, is an intruder, an alien who has seized African land.
No amount of arguing about the so-called benefits of European
rule can alter the fundamental right of Africans to order their
own affairs.
In the areas of settlement, the Europeans, in order to buttress
their domination and entrench their economic hold, alienated
the land from the Africans and then raised poll and other taxes
upon them in order to drive them out to work for starvation