Suchergebnisse

Unlike existing studies that examined each of the two World Wars and Africans separately, this study explores African participation and experiences in the First and Second World Wars in Northern Rhodesia (colonial Zambia) together during the period, 1914–1948. A lot has been written on the history of the World Wars in colonial Africa. However, there is not much literature that focuses on African participation and experiences during the two world wars. This study is focused on the core theme, that is, the role played by Africans in both World Wars. This is the main theme that informs the study. The core theme is sub-divided into the following three sub-themes: the making of the Northern Rhodesia Police under the British South African Company, BSACo, a Chartered Company that prohibited by law from housing a standing; recruitment of personnel for the Northern Rhodesia Regiment; the role played by traditional authorities in the recruitment of 'Askari' – the Foot Soldiers and the 'Tenga-Tenga' War Carriers and the role of government propaganda while bringing to the fore African agency during both Wars. Also discussed in the study is the demobilisation process in which African servicemen – the Foot Soldiers and the 'Tenga-Tenga' War Carriers – felt cheated by an Empire-wide system of racial discrimination and hierarchy. Although an expanded government propaganda machinery contributed to the growth of an African political voice in Northern Rhodesia during the period, 1914–1948, that political voice neither included nor translated to much debate or discussion about the concerns of African ex-servicemen and their personal affairs. The study equally examines how their state of affairs affected the relationship between the ex-servicemen and their traditional leaders who were active in the recruitment process that brought them into the Wars in the first place. The study concludes with the re-examination of the older arguments that African servicemen did not play an active role in nationalist politics after the World Wars, and submits otherwise, that is, that they actually did.

From the late 1980s, culminating in 1990, Zambia experienced a sustained call to end the one-party political system. This wave of a fresh wind of change resulted from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, which aroused the Democratic Wind of change, first in Eastern Europe and later in Africa in the early 1990s. It is also important to note that this was more powerful and contagious than perhaps the wind of change in the 1960s, which saw the end of colonial rule in Africa. Almost all in Zambia embraced it. In 1990, President Kenneth David Kaunda, whose United National Independence Party (UNIP) ruled Zambia for over 27 years, amended the constitution to facilitate the registration of opposition political parties. The re-introduction of multiparty democracy in 1990 after 18 years of one-party rule was heralded as a milestone in the political history of Zambia. Thus, several political parties participated when the first multiparty elections were held in October 1991. The newly created Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) won the elections. The founders were men and women from different backgrounds whose only shared vision was to remove the UNIP regime from power and introduce liberal democracy in the country. Consequently, the MMD began to crack and splinter political parties emerged from it. This paper examines the failure of democratic consolidation and why the democratisation process was still weak 30 years since the reintroduction of liberal democracy. The paper attempts to answer the following question: What lessons were missed in the historical institutionalisation that underpinned other democratising nations that succeeded. The seventh tripartite elections were held on 12th August 2021, marking 30 years of liberal democracy. Yet, liberal democracy appears weaker than ever before: What is the root cause of this situation?