African Dilemmas
Article Summary and Author Biography
CORNELIS W. DE KIEWIET, President of the University of Rochester; formerly Professor of Modern European History at Cornell University; author of "A History of South Africa, Social and Economic" and other works
AFRICA is headed for great political changes. The trend of events is inexorably towards an adjustment of relations between the native population and its European rulers. The manner and the framework in which these changes take place will be of considerable interest to American foreign policy.
The Central African Federation, which came into being in 1953, precipitated a controversy over the wisdom and justice of federating or consolidating a number of hitherto separate political units. In my opinion all such movements in Africa deserve to be viewed with sympathy since they reduce the menace of separatism and fragmentation in the continent of the future. We have all the historical evidence that is needed of the wisdom of creating, however imperfectly and artificially in the beginning, the largest reasonable political and economic areas.
In Asia, history has already imposed an almost complete veto on the continuance of the traditional colonial relationships. In Africa, it has approved a more rapid modification of them than even very keen observers thought possible a short generation ago. On both sides of the Iron Curtain there is agreement that the nineteenth century is dead and a new chapter has been opened in the traditional areas of colonial and imperial activities. Both Soviet Russia and the United States have deep-seated objections to the traditional colonial systems, even though the historical causes of such objections are different and the two national policies pursue widely different goals. Political aspirations in Africa are consistent with modern forces so powerful that thoughtful men throughout the West know that it will be wise to give them discriminating coöperation. It is not too late to create larger and economically more viable areas in order to accommodate the new order towards which various parts of Africa are reaching.
Americans are trying today to assess the strategic place of the African continent in the great international crisis in which they are involved. It is very easy to see that access to Africa would be absolutely vital in the deployment of American offensive power in another world war. American power has lost strategic access to Asia as a result of the rise of Russia, the hostility of China and
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