The Third World War

Few of us in this country have as yet comprehended the pace of events in Africa. Even in our dizzying epoch of wars, revolutions and supersonic travel, there has never been anything quite like it. Within a twenty-year period, along which we are now at midway, the political, economic and social structure of the earth’s second largest continent will have been transformed. I have been trying to lighten somewhat the darkness of my ignorance concerning the Dark Continent, and I here note a few of the tentative generalizations toward which the data I have encountered seem to lead.

1.The platitude that “the era of colonialism has ended” is indeed true. The principal colonial powers—Britain and France, and Belgium also, though with a slower planned tempo—accept this as an axiom. They seek to retain an interest and influence in Africa not by preserving the colonial ties but by converting them into the new political forms of Commonwealth (British) or Union (France) and by maintaining close economic links. “All that the British government can do,” comments the London Times, “is to try to ensure that transfer of power is not merely a negative act, like evacuation of an occupied territory, but also a positive act in the sense that a potentially viable society is left behind.”

JB

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James Burnham

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Few of us in this country have as yet comprehended the pace of events in Africa. Even in our dizzying epoch of wars, revolutions and supersonic travel, there has never been anything quite like it. Within a twenty-year period, along which we are now at midway, the political, economic and social structure of the earth’s second largest continent will have been transformed. I have been trying to lighten somewhat the darkness of my ignorance concerning the Dark Continent, and I here note a few of the tentative generalizations toward which the data I have encountered seem to lead.

1.The platitude that “the era of colonialism has ended” is indeed true. The principal colonial powers—Britain and France, and Belgium also, though with a slower planned tempo—accept this as an axiom. They seek to retain an interest and influence in Africa not by preserving the colonial ties but by converting them into the new political forms of Commonwealth (British) or Union (France) and by maintaining close economic links. “All that the British government can do,” comments the London Times, “is to try to ensure that transfer of power is not merely a negative act, like evacuation of an occupied territory, but also a positive act in the sense that a potentially viable society is left behind.”