African independence — impact
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Flip to reveal answersWhat was the political impact of independence across Ghana, Algeria, Angola and Namibia?
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Question
What was the political impact of independence across Ghana, Algeria, Angola and Namibia?
Answer
New Indigenous leaders (Nkrumah, Ben Bella, Nujoma) replaced colonial administrators, but building stable institutions afterward proved difficult (e.g. Ghana's 1966 coup, Angola's civil war).
Question
FLN
Answer
Front de Libération Nationale — the Algerian nationalist movement that led the 1954–1962 war of independence against France.
Question
Why did Ghana's independence movement succeed through non-violence?
Answer
Post-WWII Britain was economically weakened and reform-minded, and negotiated a phased transfer of power after Nkrumah's strikes and boycotts (Positive Action, from 1949).
Question
Why did Algeria's independence require armed struggle?
Answer
France governed Algeria as sovereign French territory with over a million settlers and refused to negotiate away sovereignty, so peaceful pressure achieved nothing before 1954.
Question
Compare Ghana's and Angola's transitions to independence.
Answer
Ghana (1957): negotiated, institutions intact, but a 1966 coup followed. Angola (1975): three rival armed movements (MPLA/FNLA/UNITA) all fought Portugal, and independence collapsed straight into a 27-year civil war.
Question
How did Algerian women contribute to the War of Independence, and what happened after?
Answer
Women like Djamila Bouhired served as FLN combatants, bomb-carriers and nurses, but after independence many returned to domestic roles and the 1984 Family Code reduced women's legal rights.
Question
PLAN
Answer
People's Liberation Army of Namibia — SWAPO's armed wing, which fought South African occupation from 1966 until the 1990 settlement.
Question
Why did Tanganyika avoid the ethnic fracturing seen in Angola?
Answer
Nyerere's party TANU deliberately built a cross-ethnic national identity, helped by Swahili as a shared language, unlike Angola's parties which were rooted in specific ethnic/regional bases.
Question
What determined whether a colony achieved independence through negotiation or armed struggle?
Answer
The colonial power's own willingness to reform — Britain negotiated in Ghana, while France (Algeria) and Portugal (Angola) refused to decolonize peacefully, forcing armed struggle.
Question
How should 'effectiveness' of an independence method be judged, according to this micro?
Answer
Not just by the date independence was declared, but by the human cost of the struggle and by political stability, economic health and social inclusion in the decades that followed.
Question
Name the three rival Angolan independence movements and their main ethnic/regional bases.
Answer
MPLA (urban, Kimbundu/mixed-race base), FNLA (Bakongo base), and UNITA (Ovimbundu base) — their divisions hardened into a 27-year civil war after 1975.
Question
What happened in Namibia in 1990?
Answer
SWAPO won UN-supervised elections and Sam Nujoma became Namibia's first president, ending South Africa's decades-long illegal occupation.
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Topic 10.10 hub
Independence movements in Algeria, Angola, Ghana, Guinea, Namibia and Tanganyika (c.1900–2000)
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