Everyone must have heard about colonisation in Africa unless they live in a world of indigenes like the Amazon or some other far-flung area yet to be ‘discovered’.
For some history that may come in handy, colours can help us identify who colonised which country and how well those countries fared.
If you’ve heard of Francophone, Anglophone and other ‘phone’ Africa, you may not be badly off in your history as far as the continent is concerned.
For colours shared on the map, it is easier to see and tell who held on to what land mass.
To start off, we pride in green as a country but you know what, that had nothing to do with the colonisers. They did not choose the green for us. Our founding fathers did that… I guess.
On the 1913 map, European colonies in Africa were identified by the colours with the French taking the largest part of the continent.
Britain was keeping up and they are identified by pink. German colony is highlighted by light green while dark green is Italy. Light purple was Spanish colony while dark purple was Portugal.
Belgium controlled all that land mass in yellow while shows counties that could not be conquered. Guess which those countries were…?
Well, the running legends of Africa, Ethiopia, could have ‘outrun’ the colonisers but not entirely.
Ethiopia was colonised only very briefly arguably from 1935-1936. This was during the second Italo-Abyssinian War.
The Italians successfully conquered the Ethiopian Empire then and incorporated its territory into Italian East Africa. This colony lasted until 1941, when the Italians were kicked out - although Italian guerrilla efforts kept going until 1943.
The other country that managed to maintain its independence during the Scramble for Africa was Liberia.
This country which lies on the west coast of Africa had been colonised in the 1820's but it declared independence twenty years later. It was already effectively a US protectorate when the Scramble for Africa began in the 1880's.
It is also the first country in Africa to have a woman president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.
Despite this liberation in Africa though, in Kenya the mind is still colonised by the big man syndrome which is wreaking havoc in several sectors of the economy.
We’re bleeding but that is a story for another.