Africa, 1946–1991

After the Second World War the national liberation movement strengthened in Africa: in 1945 the Fifth Pan-African Congress was held in Manchester. Libya became independent in 1951, Sudan, Morocco and Tunisia in 1956, and in 1957 Ghana (under Kwame Nkrumah, the first independent former colony south of the Sahara); in Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser came to power after the revolution of 1952, and the Suez crisis occurred in 1956. In Algeria the war for independence lasted from 1954 to 1962 and France recognised independence in 1962. The year 1960 is called the “Year of Africa”: in that single year 17 colonies (Nigeria, Congo, Senegal and others) became independent. In 1963 the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was created in Addis Ababa and adopted the principle of not changing the borders inherited from colonialism. After the revolution in Portugal in 1974 its colonies became independent: Guinea-Bissau (recognised in 1974), Angola and Mozambique (1975); Zimbabwe became independent in 1980 and Namibia in 1990. The new states faced political instability, artificial borders, ethnic tensions, poverty, military coups and Cold War interference. In South Africa apartheid, in force from 1948, was a system of racial segregation condemned by the UN and most states; Nelson Mandela was released on 11 February 1990 and by 1991 the main apartheid laws were repealed.