070285 KU Working Skills in Global History (2014W)

Working skills in Global History will be trained in looking at "Contact Zones in Global Perspectives" (ports, trade routes, border regions, etc.)

No doubt the penetration of Africa by the European powers can be considered as the beginning of a new historical period for the continent. In fact, it generated a destabilization of the societal structures; but it wasn’t possible to erase completely the existing societies. The current African historiography confirms the existence of complexes pre-colonial societies, which precede the Atlantic trade of slavery as well as the colonialism: for example, the great empires of Ghana, Mali and Gao [between the 7. and 12. centuries] or the Kingdoms of Tekrur, Waalo and Fuuta Tooro.

The colonialism in Africa, it means the total European hegemony over the continent, has caused irreversible damages to the natural evolution of African societies. The French and English nations were such convinced [persuaded] of the superiority of the European civilization, that they started to build own colonial empires. In this regard, France had to resort to the universal ideas of the Revolution to be able to legitimate its colonial policy as well as its doctrine of assimilation. France was the only metropolis which has tried to put the concept of assimilation into practice. It leaded finally during the process of colonization to an intensive debate about two paradigms of domination: Assimilation and/or Association. The principle of Association was based on the argument, that non-European people would have own social and cultural values which, in any case, have to be recognized. Assimilation, in contrast, included the complete integration into the “grande Nation” [great nation], it means the absolute identification between colonial masters and colonized people. The logic of assimilation was based on the credo of French colonial ideologists to negate simply the specific civilization-criteria of colonized people. Those were supposed, namely through the acceptance of the metropolitan culture, to be released from their “historical stagnation” [This expression was coined by Léopold Sédar Senghor, former und first president of Senegal and also co-founder (with Aimé Césaire from Martinique and Léon-Gontran Damas from French Guyana) of the Negritude-Movement. His original formulation was: “La France a le devoir de libérer les Africains de leur stagnation historique” = “It is the duty of France to release African People from their historical stagnation”]. We see that Senghor was insofar a typical product of the doctrine of assimilation.

And now, we can get back to the assimilation-association-debate. Advocates of both concepts agreed about the opinion that neither assimilation nor association shall form an obstacle for French hegemony. The British had also an own doctrine of civilization, but they didn’t practice it so intensive like the French did it with the “Mission civilisatrice”, it means, “civilizing mission”. The British leadership claim among the European colonial nations was later confirmed, particularly, as London was able to pride itself to possess the greatest colonial empire.