HISTORY NOTES FOR ADVANCED LEVEL

Click the links below to view the notes:

FORM FIVE

FORM SIX

..

..

THE MOST POWERFUL COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD

1. United States of America

The
findings suggest the United States as the ‘dominant global force,’ and the
country has retained its top position in the power rankings. The publication
highlighted the USA’s leading status as the world’s largest economy, boasting a
GDP of $25.5 trillion, and its distinction as the ‘most technologically
advanced’ nation.

Additionally,
the report acknowledged the US as the primary producer of oil and natural gas
globally, with the largest coal reserves. Plus, it has been found that the
country’s extensive media industry has far-reaching influence, along with its
pivotal roles within international organizations including the United Nations
and NATO.

2. China

As per
the study, China is the world’s second-largest country by landmass and economy.
While China’s rapid economic growth since 1978 has lifted millions from
poverty, it has also caused issues like inequality and pollution. Tensions with
countries like the United States, due to human rights concerns, persist, the
report added. Also, China’s nuclear capabilities and membership in influential
international organizations bolster its power ranking.

3. Russia

Russia
plays a significant role in global geopolitics, leveraging its vast natural
resources and military capabilities. The country also focuses on its space
program, with plans to launch several missions in the coming years, namely the
Venera-D Venus lander. These missions aim to explore the moon and other
celestial bodies, contributing to our understanding of the universe.

Its
extensive borders, vast size, key industries like energy and manufacturing,
cultural contributions, and history in space exploration bolster its standing.
Russia also holds memberships in significant international organizations like
the G20 and the United Nations Security Council.

4. Germany

Germany
is leading the way in the European Union’s green energy initiatives. The
country focuses on transitioning to renewable energy sources and reducing
carbon emissions. Germany also focuses on digital transformation in various
sectors, including manufacturing and healthcare, aiming to improve efficiency
and productivity.

5. United Kingdom:

The UK
focuses on post-Brexit trade deals and negotiations, aiming to establish new
economic partnerships. The country is also making strides in the tech industry,
with London being a central hub for start-ups. These start-ups work on
innovative solutions in various fields, contributing to the UK’s economic
growth.

6. South Korea

South
Korea continues to be a global leader in technology and innovation. The country
is home to several leading tech companies, contributing to its strong position
in the global economy.

South
Korea has 1,602 military aircraft, according to Global Firepower. This includes
402 fighter/interceptor aircraft, 41 transport aircraft, and 98 dedicated
attack aircraft.

In
addition to reducing carbon emissions, South Korea is also adopting renewable
energy sources to promote green energy initiatives.

7. France

US
News noted France’s economy ranks among the strongest in the world, with
tourism playing a key role. It also said France is one of the most-visited
countries on earth and is one of the world’s top exporters of weapons. “France
is one of the world’s oldest countries, and its reach extends around the globe
through science, politics, economics and perhaps above all, culture,” US
News said. Its strong international alliances and economic influence were key
to its power ranking, which was the same as in 2022.

8. Japan

US
News described Japan as one of the world’s “most literate and technically
advanced nations. “It noted the country has the third-largest economy in the
world, and is among the world’s largest producers of vehicles, electronic
equipment, and steel. Japan’s economic influence was the fourth highest in the
world, according to those surveyed. Its ranking hasn’t changed from last year.

9. Saudi Arabia

Saudi
Arabia is the world’s largest oil supplier, accounting for an estimated quarter
of global oil supplies, US News noted. It added that the country is an OPEC founding
member and a member of the World Trade Organization, as well as other
international bodies. Every year, millions of faithful Muslims from all over
the world make the pilgrimage to Mecca, which is believed to be the birthplace
of the Muslim prophet Mohammed and the cradle of Islam, it noted. Saudi Arabia
moved up two spots compared to last year, when it ranked 11th, with particular
attention paid to its economic and political influence.

..

FROM COLONIALISM TO THE FIRST WORLD WAR 1880s -1914

Colonialism is a political-economic phenomenon whereby a powerful nation explores, conquers, settle, and exploit a weak nation.

Or. Colonialism is defined as “control by one power over a dependent area or people.” It occurs when one nation subjugates another, conquering its population and exploiting it, often while forcing its own language and cultural values upon its people.

By 1840, businessmen from Europe had established small trading posts along the coast, but they seldom moved inland, preferring to stay near the sea. They primarily traded with locals. Large parts of the continent were essentially uninhabitable for Europeans because of their high mortality rates from tropical diseases such as malaria. In the middle decades of the 19th century, European explorers mapped much of East Africa and Central Africa.

Even as late as the 1870s, Europeans controlled only ten percent of the African continent, with all their territories located near the coast. The most important holdings were Angola and Mozambique, held by Portugal; the Cape Colony, held by Great Britain ; and Algeria, held by France. By 1914, only Ethiopia and Liberia remained independent of European control, and Liberia had strong connections to the United States.

Technological advances facilitated European expansion overseas. Industrialization brought about rapid advancements in transportation and communication, especially in the forms of steamships, railways and telegraphs. Medical advances also played an important role, especially medicines for tropical diseases, which helped control their adverse effects. The development of quinine, an effective treatment for malaria, made vast expanses of the tropics more accessible for Europeans.

The Berlin Conference of 1884, which regulated European colonization and trade in Africa, is usually referred to as the starting point of the Scramble for Africa. There were considerable political rivalries among the European empires in the last quarter of the 19th century. Partitioning Africa was effected without wars between European nations. In the later years of the 19th century, the European nations transitioned from “informal imperialism” — i.e., exercising military influence and economic dominance — to direct rule, bringing about colonial imperialism.

To large extent the scramble in Africa initially it was a straight the French and the British. Denmark and Holland had withdrawn from Africa in the period when colonial possession were not very much in favor with other European nations in Africa, therefore showed little interest in the expansion there.

It was only the Germany that made the colonization of Africa a three cornered fight. In 1880 Germany interests in Africa were very negligible.

Colonial possessions in Africa;

1. Belgium; the Belgium Congo (present day Democratic Republic of Congo), Ruanda- Urundi (mandated to Belgium after the first world war)
   1. Britain; Lesotho, British South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Zanzibar, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia, Egypt, Sudan and the British Somaliland (northern Somalia) and Togoland, British Cameroon, Namibia and Tanganyika mandated to her after the First World War.
   1. France; Benin, Albreda (in Gambia) Algeria, Chad, French, Congo), French Guinea (Guinea), Upper Volta, Burkina Faso, French Somaliland (Djibouti), Mali, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Central African Republic, Tunisia and the French Cameroon and French Togo mandated to France after the First World War.
   1. Germany; Tanganyika, Ruanda-Urundi, Namibia, Cameroon, Togoland, and Wituland.
   1. Italy; Eritrea, Libya and Italian Somaliland.
   1. Portugal; Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Sao Tome and Principe.
   1. Spain; Spanish Morocco, and Western Sahara.

SKETCH MAP OF COLONIAL AFRICA ON THE EVE OF WORLD WAR I

THE COLONIAL STATE

Colonial State was an imperialistic administration established in the colonies to ensure smooth occupation and exploitation. In simple terms, it was an extension of the metropolitan state to the colony and so the colonial state was an imposed administration. It worked on a “remote system” implementing orders from the Metropolitan State for the fulfillment of the imperialist master plan of exploiting the resources in the colony to enrich the imperialist Metropolitan State. The administrative structure of the colony was composed of both European and African bureaucrats working in partnership, with the Africans serving at lower ranks, as minor functionaries.

General function of the colonial state

The cardinal objective of the colonial state was to safeguard the interests of imperialism in the colony. In response to that, all initiatives undertaken by the colonial state were geared towards creating conducive environment for exploitation of the colonies. What should be recalled is that the interest of the coloniser was to serve the coloniser and never the colonised and thus whatever was done by colonialists in Africa was to serve immediate (colonial) and future (neo-colonial) metropolitan master plan of exploitation of Africa’s human and physical resources. The functions of the colonial state included the following;

1. To maintain law and order. The coercive instruments (military) were mandated to keep law and order and implement colonial directives. African resistances such as the Maji- Maji (1905-07) in Tanganyika and Chimurenga (1896) in Zimbabwe aimed at restoration of African independence and ending exploitation were brutally quelled to consolidate colonial hegemony and smooth exploitation.
2. Linking the colonies to metropolitan states. The colony was an appendage to the metropolitan state and so, was significant in creating and maintaining the metropolitan- colony relations through systematic flow of information to and from the metropolitan state and implanting of orders from metropolitan state in colonies.
3. Establish and enforce capitalist relations of production in the colonies. The Colonial State was to guarantee smooth exploitation of the colony to attain the objective of colonisation. Forceful measures were applied like forceful cash crop cultivation, forceful labour, land alienation and taxation were put under the supervision of the military.
4. Implementation of colonial policies and laws. This meant carrying out administrative functions that focused on effective occupation and exploitation. Among others they included land and labour ordinances which ensured massive land annexation and African cheap labour. To show a few examples, the 1902 and 1904 land ordinance in Kenya legalised the appropriation of land for white settlers in central Kenya.
5. To defend the colonies from outside attacks. It was a duty of a colonial state by use of its military to guard the colony from attacks particularly from rival powers. During World War I for instance, the Colonial State in Kenya worked well in repulsing German invasion from Tanganyika.
6. Ensuring the colony was self-sufficient. The colony was supposed to meet its own administration costs so as to relieve the Metropolitan State from that financial burden. The colonial state was entrusted with the duty of maximising production to be in position to man its own running costs like paying administrators and construction of infrastructures.
7. To foster western culture. The Colonial State had the duty of imposing western culture to the colonial subjects for easy exploitation. The most significant tools used to alienate African culture were religion and education. These gave birth to brainwashed Africans who by dressing, speaking and worshiping like Europeans believed were as well Europeans and superior to fellow Africans and thus allied with the colonialist.
8. To protect colonial interests in the colony from competition. The colonial state sabotaged all possible competitors to safeguard metropolitan monopolistic positions in the colonies. For example highly demanded cash crops were reserved for only settlers; Asian and African middlemen were eliminated so as to give Europeans monopoly rights in production of certain goods and trade for maximum colonial exploitation. Also traders and investors from rival
9. European nations were restricted. Of all, the colonial states were functionally to create a basis for exploitation of the colonies. Colonial economy was therefore established as the basis of colonialism to meet the capitalist agenda of; acquiring cheap raw materials, reliable market for manufactured goods from Europe, new areas for surplus capital investment, cheap labour and settle European idle and poor excess population. This however, could not be maximally attained if African pre-capitalist self-sufficient economies like barter trade and subsistence agriculture were left to compete with European capitalist oriented economies hence African economies had to be crushed.

Steps taken to destroy pre-capitalism production relations in the colonies

1. Monetisation of colonial economies. This was the major strategy of all others applied to destroy African’s self-sufficient economies. Introduction of money discarded traditional subsistence production. As money became medium of exchange, subsistence agriculture and barter trade were replaced by cash crop production and wage labour as means to acquire money to spend on goods and service.
2. Destruction of local industrial sector. Superior quality manufactured goods from Europe were flooded into the colonies to deny local industries market. Yet also force was applied as manufacturing of certain items was illegalised and punitive punishments such as flogging and amputation were administered on those caught producing and using such items.
3. Liquidation of African trading system. Before colonisation. African merchants monopolised trade in the interior exchanging items with foreign merchants at the coast. Colonialism however, destroyed that trend by bringing in European companies like Royal Niger Company that were given exclusive rights to control trade in the colonies. It also crushed prominent African traders like Nana Olumu of Itsekeli, Jaja of Opobo and Samori Toure of Mandika who were substituted with European traders.
4. Taxation. A notorious taxation system was imposed on Africans who had to pay high taxes such as poll and house or face brutal punishments like flogging and imprisonment with hard labour in case of tax defaulting. To acquire money for taxes, Africans had to offer cheap labour to European ran economies like plantations and mines or cultivate the needed cash crops.
5. Denying African their means of production. The means by which Africans maintained their livelihood, land and cattle in particular were confiscated from them by the colonial authorities. Losing such means conditioned many to surrender their will for the service of colonialists as cheap labourers, working for low wages.
6. Establishment of cash crop economy. This substituted traditional self-sufficient subsistence agriculture for commercial agriculture. Africans were compelled to grow cash crops for money at the expense of food crops. Due to overconcentration on cash crop growing, sometimes colonies suffered from food insufficiency and had to import food.
7. Encouraging wage labour. Colonial subjects were encouraged to abandon their traditional occupations like subsistence farming and animal keeping in favour of the selling their labour for money. They were moved from their homes to work in plantations and mines ran by European capital investors.
8. Distortion of African culture. Alienation of Africans from their traditional cultural values tied them to European “remote control” By embracing western culture, many Africans adopted European lifestyle including consumption and production styles. They became dependent on wage labour and European manufactured goods like clothes. In so doing they provided cheap labour to colonial production and market to manufactured goods from Europe.
9. Monetization of the economies in the colonies turned Africans into money slaves. African had to abandon their traditional economies in seeking for work from the European economies like plantations and mines or produce cash crops. It meant that people could not depend on their own without the colonial master hence Africans lost their self- dependency.

Role of the colonial state in the colonial exploitation

The main preoccupation of the Colonial State was to create and maintain effective conditions for an orderly running of economic activities of the colony. The colonial state undertook the following initiatives for easy exploitation human and material resources in the colonies;

1. Constructing transport infrastructure. Transport lines; railways and roads and shipping services were availed by colonial states to open the colonies for smooth exploitation. The lines projected to productive regions to connect them to the coast to ferry raw materials from the colonies and manufactured goods from Europe. Also labour was moved to unproductive zones. For example, the Uganda railway opened Uganda to the coast while the central line in Tanganyika tapped labour from Kigoma to Morogoro, Tanga and Kilimanjaro.
2. Quelling resistances. The colonial state’s coercive instruments such as colonial army, police and prison ensured peace and security in the colonies alongside enforcing production. They quelled resistances to colonial rule and exploitation, conducted land annexation, and forceful labour recruiting.
3. Effecting of taxation. Various taxes such as poll and hut taxes were imposed on colonial subjects to compel them to provide cheap labour to colonial economies like plantations and settler farms or to produce cash crops so as to get money to pay for the taxes.
4. Creation and implementation of laws. The laws were put in force to help in exploitation of the colonies. The laws were for example land and labour Acts. In Kenya the Master- Servant Ordinance of 1906 pushed Africans to squatters and obliged all adult Africans to provide cheap labour in settler farms for 90 days. Such laws eased land occupation and availed cheap labour to plantations and settler farms.
5. Colonial State linked the colony to the Metropolitan State. The type of economy that the colony had to develop was decided by the metropolitan state. The role of the colonial state then was to implement the directives given from the Colonial office in Europe. It could however, suggest or advise the metropolitan state on some matters.
6. Destruction of pre-capitalist economic system. Pre-colonial self-sufficient economic systems like barter trade, subsistence agriculture and industries were destroyed and replaced by economic systems of forced and waged labour and cash crop production.
7. It introduced cash crops and ensured constant raw material production. The Colonial State ensured cash crop production by providing seeds and the needed education and skills on production to African peasants who then were supervised to produce the required quantity of cash crops.
8. Land appropriation. The colonial state alienated arable land from the Africans and offered to settlers, plantation farmers, miners and to lay infrastructures to promote production in the colonies. Land was acquired forcefully by direct eviction or Land Acts. Such Acts included the 1915 Crown Land Ordinance in Kenya that provided land ownership to the settlers.
9. Provision of social services. Education, health, housing and other social services were provided in production areas to propel production. For instance, education provided necessary skills for production while health and housing maintained good health of European administrators and African labour. As these services were not provided free of charge, Africans had to sell labour or produce cash crops to earn money to get to the services.

The Nature and character of the colonial state

By nature, colonial state was;

1. Coercive and violent. Principally, foreign rule are always violent due their illegitimacy. The Colonial State employed maximum force from its imposition to its end when Africans fought for independence. It entirely relied on the military to implement its repressive policies. Cruel measures like flogging and imprisonment with hard labour and amputation were administered on those who went against colonial directives.

How the colonial state was violent (and Coercive)?

1. Establishment of Colonial State; the Colonial State in Africa was implanted by forceful measures, involving compelling African societies into submission to colonial rule. By this, African resistances such the Hehe (1891-98), Shona-Ndebele (1896-97), Nandi (1895-1906) and Mandika (1882-89) resistances were brutally crushed.
   1. Establishment of colonial economy and enforcement of production; this involved application of forceful taxation, labour conscription and forceful cash crop production. In this view, because colonial economic system was exploitative, force had to be employed.
   1. Force was used to destroy pre-colonial African economies; traditional industries and barter trade for example were banned and victims were brutally punished. In the Belgian Congo, African artisans who were caught engaging in tool making after the prohibition, had their hands chopped off.
   1. Imposition of western culture; Africans were forcefully conditioned to abandon their culture to be assimilated into European ways. African bureaucrats and Christian converts were the main victims of culture distortion. Bureaucrats were compelled to adopt western dressing styles, and speak the languages of the colonial masters.
   1. Construction of colonial infrastructure; forced labour and land alienation was employed in the construction of transport lines, BOMAS, prisons and social infrastructure like schools and hospitals.
   1. Suppression of nationalists struggles; heavy arms confrontations were employed against nationalist movements such as the Mau-Mau in Kenya. National Liberation Front (FLN) in Algeria and Zimbabwe African National Union/Patriotic Front (ZANU/PF). In the same way, political parties were suppressed and nationalists detained and tortured.
   1. In ensuring peace and order; the colonial repressive organs i.e. the military observed the maintenance of law and order. Brutal punishments that included public flogging, unwarranted detention and amputation were administered on law breakers.

Colonial state established coercive instruments such as police, army, court and prison which were used to ensure smooth fulfillment of its exploitation agenda.

• Exploitative in nature. The colonial state was to ensure the attainment of capitalist interest in the colony, so all possible measures were directed towards that. The agenda was only one, to exploit the colony’s physical (land) and human resources to the maximum and nothing else. Untold exploitation was done to the colonies through a number of ways;
  • Forced Labour. Africans were obligated to offer free labour to the colonial authorities. For example, in the Belgium Congo, an Act was passed in 1923 demanding an obligatory labour service of 60 days a year for all adult males, and even some had to work for 90 days. Similar laws were passed in other colonies like Master-Servant Act of 1902 in Kenya directed Africans to offer labour to colonial economies for at least 90 days a year.
  • Low wages. Despite of hard labour tasks and long hours of work, Africans received meagre payments. The wages were such low that African labour could hardly sustain their lives with, yet a large part of it had to be spent on tax payment. German colonial authority in Tanganyika fixed the wage of cotton planters at only 3 rupees per month.
  • Annexation of Africans’ means of production. The major means of productions were land and cattle. These were confiscated by the colonialist to impoverish Africans and compel them to offer cheap labour to colonial economies like mines, plantations and settler farms which had grabbed their fertile lands. Land ordinances were passed to lease land to European authorities. The 1915 Crown Land Ordinance in Kenya that leased land to the settlers for 999 years give a reference to that explanation.
  • Taxation. Numerous taxes like hat tax, gun tax, poll tax, and many others were imposed on Africans. Taxes were forcefully collected from Africans or directly cut from their wages. Defaulters were heavily punished by subjection to forceful free labour. Taxes were mainly to compel Africans for labour and to raise funds for colonial administration.
  • Forceful cash crop production. Africans were coerced to cultivate the needed cash