No Landline, No Problem; Africa's Cell Phone Market

No landline, No problem; if you live in Africa. MTN, Glo Mobile, Virgin Mobile, and Vodcaom are among the companies presently in Africa. Regulations have relaxed, making way for the poor to have access to technology to help educate the people including those who have cell phones. 96 percent of the mobile phone services are pre-paid. Pre-paid cell phone use, is similar to that of what Americans might come by with scratch off cards that you can purchase to add minutes to your cell phone, are a service and benefit to lower income cell phone users. Africa is now the second largest market in the world with over 600 million subscribers, quickly rising up in the ranks, thanks to the poor. 

This new craze has taken Africa to a whole new level, moving from fewer than four million in 1998 to four hundred million- over half the population of the continent. This was not even the most interesting facts that I found; was the people of Africa can charge their cell phones.  I found that that was very innovative and just like in our mall here in Waterloo, Iowa; you have a low battery at U.S. cellular you can go in and swap it out. In Africa, you drop off you cell phone at a shop, you get a ticket in return, and with the power of a generator you can come back later to pick up your full powered cell phone. Without landlines, Cell phone proves to be an amazing tool for the people to use in all aspects to keep up with the rest of the world.

Colonialism Impacts Africans

When Europeans made their conquest of African Territory, into the heart of Africa, was not only frantic, unexpected but appeared as an unseemly scramble for African territory. Due to the structure of Africa, the British conquest in West and East Africa were swift, those of the French in the western Sudan proved to be long and painful. The continued advancements of Africa were not fought by the white continental troops but the black African solider. This impacted the society of African cultures moving forward because of the colonialism that took place as a result of the invasion.

Colonialism affected Africans in many ways. Since European conquest of Africa was carried out without any preparations, planning or even an ideology by which to establish the governance of colonies has resulted in an administrative structure that’s  ill equipped to handle the unexpected challenges of controlling the vast regions of Africa. The governments were set up by very small number of European officials who held all the principal political administrative positions and most of the military ranks above captain, there-fore this affected the dependency on Africans to act in a variety of jobs in colonial service. An example would be police officers, clerks, typists, interpreters with low pay. The upside was that beside the long hours, low pay, and mental physiological contractions these people where taught skills that set them apart from the remainder of their people.

The civil servants couldn’t hold high ranking positions, and often political Europeans need to seek the resources of traditional or accepted African leaders to carry out political agendas. This was often done by bribes, rewards, gifts and flattery. The control political European need was to influence the people of Africa toward their “way” of civilization. European influence affected how people lived, worked, identified themselves, relationships between men and women, and even what kind of crops that they could grow.

Europeans wanted to control African labor and the way it want to do that was to build an infrastructure in political and military control.  They used the African people to help exploit their land for resources they wanted without regards for building up the people, land or resources to financially sustain itself but used force if necessary  to achieve the use of African labor supplied cheaply to help export oriented industries and settler farms.  The way men functions in African traditional society changed due to new domestic service work that often kept male workers engaged in wage labor, especially young men. This allowed the young men to go outside normal traditional way of life and the authority of the elders to acquire capital and social advancement.

Colonization impacted the African women to be more like the European women who lived a life that had a greater importance on being a housewife, but at the same time expected them to be responsible for the increased responsibility of agricultural production. This reminded me of the “second” shift ideology we use in the United Stated for working mothers, who when they come home now start their “second” shift in performing their roles as a mother and wife, doing her motherly and wifely duties after working all day at a wage labor job.

The way African people identified themselves changed, from having ties to their family, clan, to being ruled by a census that stated they all had to belong to a “tribe”. European also influenced the role religion played on the people, disregarding traditional African cultures and religious beliefs and replacing it with Christianity and Islam. In search of revenue to support itself, Europeans changed the focus of revenue to cash crops to boost the economy and feed the European industry these colonies needed. 

Europeans felt that they were both racially and morally superior to others, particularly Africans. Europeans invaded Africa at first with the purpose of instilling Christianity into natives but then with the abolition of slavery went by force to seek a way to control at the same time  introduce western ideas of civilization in areas like education, medicine, hygiene, and monogamous marriage. It completely disregarded traditional African cultures and forced integrated European beliefs onto the African people. While we can’t erase the past, we are unclear of what the future will hold. The dominant role that Europeans powers, The United States, and international institutions have tried to create new opportunities for Africa. The European nations thought that they would come in and rule the "savages" that inhabited the land.  While they thought they were bigger and more important than Africa, it wasn’t complete "dominance" and rule over the foreign land, but the influence regarded as “recolonization” of Africa still remains to this day.  

Technologies Impacts The Movement of European Nations

 If European nations, had not had the Enlightenment period and the Industrial Revolution to improve, invent, and make advancements, then they would have never been able to conquest Africa like they did. Prior to those stages in European nations, African’s way of life and technology was superior in their ability to sustain themselves without national societies changing them.

Some technologies that influenced the redistribution of power, authority, and success of European nations was the steamboat, railways, telegraph, and repeating rifles that allowed the Europeans to impose unprecedented degree of communication, coercion, and centralization of African countries. The Steamboat allowed a more efficient way to transport goods, and transport faster. It influenced the European countries to want to seek control over the water ways, that way they could avoid conflict over water or being in places that other nations didn’t want them to be.

Railways allowed goods to be transported faster, longer distances, and over land. Railways opened up new routes to places that couldn’t be accessed by water or made it easier to get closer access to those places. With people moving away from the coast lines back in to the interior of Africa, where waterways were not present and could be accessed by steamboats it became an efficient way to transport goods by land.  The Telegraph improved communications so that people could connect though African countries including all the way back to European nations. It was an improved faster method of getting information to people and thus leading to people always being connected.

Firearms another advancement that impacted and contributed to the conquest of the continent, they were a major technological advancement that made the difference in conquering Africa. The people of Africa didn’t have firearms, due to it was already difficult for them to smelt iron core let alone the technology to mold it into useable things like guns. Africans soon learned that going up against someone who has a gun when you don’t is similar to that of a death sentence.  The inventions of the maxim gun, made the invasion of Africa easier to defeat the African fighters.

Medicine to me was the most important factor when it came to the different tools needed to invade successfully in African and maintain a strong presence there. Diseases had and have a history of affecting people when the visit or in this case invaded Africa. The diseases where numerous, but some deadly like malaria that is still today one of Africa’s biggest killers of its people. Other diseases varied but ranged from sleeping sickness, yaws, endemic syphilis, leprosy, yellow fever and all of these impacted visitors like missionaries, merchants, and soldiers.

When Europeans first went to Africa there were many diseases that often killed them. Without the prophylactic quinine used to stop disease, the conquest of African might have taken longer or never would have happened. Out of all the advancement in technology, inventions, and power behind the moving force to take Africa, none of them where nowhere near the importance that I feel that quinine made possible by its presence and use. With

The New European Nationalism accompanied with all the technology, new self-confidence and persistent power that Europeans used to gain control over the continents of Africa, commanding millions of people and harnessing the knowledge they felt would lead to prosperity, progress, and prestige. All of these factors characterized the changed that would impact the culture of the African people, and impact how they viewed norms, values, ethics, morals, and equality among ethnic groups.

The New European Nationalism made their own significant contributions to Africa with their self-rightness attitude that they felt it was their right, privilege, and duty to bring to the continent of Africa with them the enlightenment of European way of life, including the promotion of the advancement of Europeans civilization; new better way of life onto the people. This new better way of life was explained as a form of humanity, but at the same time was worth the sacrifice if needed of anyone that challenged, refused or denied acceptance of this extension of the empires of European culture and civilizations that remains still today in Africa just in different forms of compelling appeals for humanitarian assistance to continue our influence of our form of what we feel is our duty to enlighten others to our way of what we consider civilized.

European Nations race to Africa

Europeans, who had been on the West Coast of Africa trading, usually didn’t travel past their ships or coastal trading posts. Europeans did not encourage any exploration into the interior of Africa due to the high rate of mortality from African diseases such as malaria, small pox, and tuberculosis. It wasn’t until the first half of the nineteenth century when the core of Africa was opened up by European explorers who were mostly from Britain, France, and Germany. Initially, they all possessed a great curiosity of the unknown, which at that time was the interior of Africa that had not yet been opened up to them. Some of the explorers such as Dr. David Livingstone and Henry Mortons Stanley were focused on the humanitarian view point when exploring Africa. 

They were looking to put an end to the African slave trade and to open up Africa to Christianity, commerce, and civilization, which came to be referred to as “Livingstone’s 3 C’s.” In return the Europeans hoped to reap the rewards and fame for their discoveries of the exotic landscapes, flora, animal life, and of course the, what they believed to be, “savage” Africans. But, that changed with the abolition of Slavery.

Great Britain, France, and Belgium all had an interest in raw materials found in Africa for their industrialization.  They sought such items as peanuts, palm oil, cocoa, rubber, copper, and tin. They not only sought raw material, but cheap labor and a market ready to purchase their products. With the abolition of Slavery, they chose to abandon the trade and sought to extend what was known as “legitimate” commerce. To do that Europeans would need to follow the explorer and missionaries into the interior of Africa so they could exploit the commercial goods they now needed due to the Enlightenment period followed by the Industrial Revolution, which made way to new advancements of scientific and technical inventions. The Enlightenment period and the Industrial Revolution paved the path that transformed European status, society, and power and changed its authority in the world.

Europe, Germany, Italy, France, and Great Britain all experienced confirmation of national greatness because of new technology and a new self-confidence brought on by new accomplishments.  It wasn’t until the 1880’s when the discovery of diamonds and gold also became a motive and lead to the “Scramble for Africa.”  With incentives, approval and authority backed by technology and medication; In 1884-5, the European imperial powers, Great Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Belgium and others gather to discuss their rightful place in Africa.

Great Britain was more interested in the biblical motive of colonizing Africa. They were following “Livingstone’s 3 C’s,” and wanted to end slavery, convert them to Christianity, and civilize the continent all for the bettering of the continent as a whole. Great Britain saw themselves as the most “advanced” and took it upon themselves as their job to “enlighten” to continent.  

The European nations like Europe, Germany, Italy, France, and Great Britain were able to  follow the path left previously by other humanitarian missions from explorers and evangelical missionaries that traveled inward to bring faith to the people of Africa.  But, I don’t think that the explorer and evangelical missionaries that were driven to abolish slavery by ending the African Slave trade, would realized that they helped open Africa to commerce, Christianity and civilization.

Men like Dr. David Livingstone and journalist henry Morton Stanley took what they had seen, learned, and explored writing for Europeans to read. Working toward trying to end slavery, abolitionist focused on drawing attention to the Africa, especially the West Coast demanding the presence of the Royal Naval Squadron, which resulted in leading to the intervention and conquest of the interior of the continent.

Protestant missionaries contributed along with other missionaries that organized societies to financially support trips to bring around the foundation of the evangelical movement. When the missionaries worked with the people of Africa, the people felt unmoved by the message but where intrigued by the skills, talents, and goods that were available if they accepted the missionaries’ Christian faith.

Some of the other ideas that came along with Livingstone’s were the western ideas of hygiene, medicine, education, and monogamous marriage.  This continued to be part of the colonization that the outside super powers of the world worked toward when they moved forward, with no real plan of success to take by force their piece of the “cake” from the people of Africa.

Slavery roots in Africa

Slavery that had been part of African for over 2,000 years transformed several times and impacted the people of Africa and those thought the world. It plays a factor in the impact Africa had on outside continents. Slavery changed from when it started in African to when it was abolished in the New World, so the nature of Slavery would depend on the period in timeframe that you looked at in African History.

 Slavery had existed in Africa before it came to the New World. To relate it to our studies, Baqt was unique to the Muslim world because it recognized that Christian Nubia was sovereign and exempt from the land of faith and land of the enemy. The Baqt bought peace and stability to the Christian Kingdoms of Nubia. But, it came with a price. Each year, Nubia was to deliver 360 slaves, men or women no children or old to the Baqt.  This ended, due to Islam and the Nile River limited access affected the contract.

Slaves had been exported from East Africa for 2,000 years. Slaves were part of trade; considered merchandise to be traded for money or to satisfy debts owed or Labor.  Salt production was in the Sudan, and was managed by the demand of Salt consumption. Slavery was a natural part of agriculture, iron, trade, religion, and ethnicity.  Kings controlled the sale of slaves, as he did ivory and gold.

Slavery took flight to new heights when the Indian and Atlantic Ocean worlds evolved by the nature of the oceanic trade into city-states not smaller patches of land.  Trade and Commerce kept the lifestyle of these city-states inhabitants being a dominated form of life; being supplied goods and slaves; left profits. Swahili Society was a big producer to support the ocean trading of slaves.

Swahili’s had profited hugely by slave trading. They had a system. Slaves shipped overseas were treated as chattel and thought of use like animals. Slaves kept on the coast, were divided into recognized categories of servitude from labors to trusted retainer.  Females were used as concubines, field hands, and domestic use for owners.  Former Slaves could never become full members of society.

In Africa, you had slave owners and slaves mostly were black, even though they were from different ethnic groups. They were thought of as means to enhance the status of the slave owner. Many African societies believed and practiced those children of slave owners by their slaves could not be sold or killed. The outlawing of slavery did not erase the pain and stigma of having been a slave due to society viewing them as not being a full part of that society. Many descendants of slaves were affected by this stigma for generations after slavery was abolished.

Since slaves were property of their masters they were the means to production and reproduction. The slaves had to carry out any request of their master no matter the demand or be punished in dehumanizing ways if necessary. The tasks that slaves performed really depended on what the slave owner needed. They controlled reproduction, physical and mental aspects of the salves lives.

 African slave women could be used for sex and could bear children they had a higher price than males. Women of course were more desirable than men; men slave owners had more use for them. They were able to perform more functions such as cook, cultivate, bear children, provide sex, and carry our business. Another sought after person that was most desired to be a slave more than women was a man that had his genitals removes. The survival rate after the removal was only 5% post-surgery, they could manage the house in the same manner his master did, but the man didn’t have to worry about the slave using himself as means to reproduce, and seduce or other means with women in the man’s house.

Slaves in Africa were captives often criminals, kidnapped, prisoners of war, or sold into slavery. In Africa, when you had slave owners and slaves mostly were black, even though they were from different ethnic groups. They were thought of as means to enhance the status of the slave owner. The status of the slave owner was shown by the size of their group. So the larger your group of followers determined power, wealth, and position in society. Women were prefer to men by 2:1. Women worked as the primary field producer working in the fields; also they could tend to domestic affairs within the household especially providing children.

The Swahili would divide up slaves into different classes. Exported slaves that were to be shipped where treated like animals, and this carried over to the New World, affecting how the New World citizens viewed, treated, and acted toward slaves.  Slaves that were kept on the coast were divided into subgroups. The slave could be recognized by their category depending on what activity they performed, the range was from lowest labor to trusted retainer.  Females were mainly used as field hands and concubines for their owner. But, a slave could never be a full member of society and when you died you were discarded in the same manner as an animal status by being thrown into a pit.

In the New World, Slavery was different. It was racial and for economic gain.  Slaves were considered property but not similar to that of Africa; dehumanization and cruel treatment was different than slavery in Africa. The furthered dehumanizing effects of chattel slavery made people view Africans slaves less than a complete person. Also, it allowed slaveholders more influence in Congress while still alienating black people throughout the United States.

The focus was men due to the labor that men provided, but usually they focused on boys about to turn into men because they could be bought cheaper. This was due to the intensive labor requirements of the people that provided the labor needed to harvest sugar cane. Then, when cotton became a staple good with high demand it pushed the slave demand higher due to how difficult cotton was to process before the cotton gin.

Slavery is when someone owns you, and you have no control over your own life. While African Slavery was not pleasant, it was neither a racial nor an economic institution.  The main focus of slavery was to increase the size of the group like family, clan, village, kingdom or empire. This is why women were favored over men. A slave women’s child was not always considered a slave in every situation. Children could be considered not a slave but part of the group in which their parents where bought into to, also children stayed with their parent and weren’t separated or sold. Slavery in Africa was not based on economics, so their treatment tended to be superior.

Slavery had existed for over 2,000 years and was fairly insignificant in Africa. When the trade routes in the 1400 did include slaves, it was nowhere near the amount that took place in the 1700s. Even in the 1500s, slavery was still a small part of society, but when the demand for slaves by Europeans raised so did slavery in Africa supply this new big industry. My personal opinion is that when we looked at the way the Swahili’s had profited hugely by slave trading and there system of how they treated Slaves by shipping them overseas as they are chattel; I think this carried over into the New World and started the first treatments of Slavery in dividing people by color of skin.

Chattel is Property; Personal property, movable or immovable, which is less than a freehold; for example, a book, a coat, a pencil, growing corn, a lease. But, the New World took it as a form as not a book or coat but animals; In fact, animals were treated better than slaves. America, slaves were not treated equal. Unlike Africa, children and old could be sold, murdered or dehumanized in various forms of cruelty. They didn’t have the rights to marry and faced separation from family. They had no rights as a citizen or could move to obtain that status after rights were revoked in Jameson; stating that after 7 years slaves would be considered free.

In the New World, slavery was an economic and racial institution. The main focus of slave ownership was due to strength and the ability to do heavy intense labor. The slave labor in the New World was crucial to the economic life of that on the colonies. The treatment of Slaves transformed Africans practices of slavery. Slavery in Africa became a more central, organizational component of African life. Also, slave-owners derived financial profits from the labor of one’s slaves. When working on plantations, slaves would be worked until they died to make sure the maximized the amount of profit they could acquire from the slave’s work, especially in plantations that produced sugar or cotton.

Slavery was also racial, in the means that your identity was paced on your skin color. Solely based on the color of your skin meant whether or not you were a free man or a slave and your children were not counted on to increase the size of your group or not considered a slave like in Africa, but also, were a slave. Slavery not just decided your fate, but your children’s too. Your children’s identity would be carried down through generations and be judged based on the color of their skin. Children in the New World were also separated from their parents, and couple from each other to be sold for a profit.

Unlike in Africa, the focus of slavery was due to the strength and ability to do intense labor. Slaves had no rights, and where subjected to dehumanization by being beaten or whipped by their masters.  The slave labor in the New World was crucial to the economic life of that on the colonies. The treatment of Slaves in the New World transformed Africans practices of slavery. Slavery in Africa became a more central, organizational component of African life. My personal opinion is that when we looked at the way the Swahili’s had profited hugely by slave trading and there system of how they treated Slaves shipped overseas as chattel; I think this carried over into the New World and started the first treatments of Slavery in dividing people by color of skin.

Slavery impacted the lives of Africans due to the large number in size of the people that got caught up in the Asian Slave trade. Some historians believe that there were approximately 12,580,000 slaves exported during the Asia slave trade. Between 1600 and 1900 alone there was an estimated 5,510,000 slaves involved in the Asian slave trade. Until the seventeenth century, the evidence of the number of slaves is derived mainly from literary sources, and maximum and minimum numbers must be estimated because there was hardly any direct data.

What happened next in the history of African that impacted the people there started the chain of events the led to the European nations seeking conquest and colonization over the African people. Due to religion and it influence over people started the humanitarian movement. Humanitarians like Dr. David Livingstone pushed with others, toward the abolition movement and change African life and culture. Abolition has historical roots that lay all the way back in black resistance to slavery in the 15th century as Africans were enslaved by Europeans.

Portuguese to Africa in the 1400s

It began with Prince Henry of Portuguese (1394-1460) when he learned that the gold and slaves of West Africa carried by camels and marched across the Sahara by Muslims Berbers and Arabs could be diverted to Portuguese traders and merchants reaching the West African coast by Sea. The Portuguese wanted to enrich their monarchy by exploring Africa and promoting Christianity. Another reason, was due to the labor need to make sugar that was in high demand by Europeans, Africans would supply the labor through slaves to make sugar.

Other reasons motivated the Portuguese to explore Africa in the 1400s. A large factor was the gold that the Portuguese hoped to use to defend itself from its neighbor Spain. The gold would also finance other expeditions. Portuguese was able to support the African trade because it retained 20% of the profits that merchants would make when the involved themselves in commercial exploration.  Their merchants and traders would provide cloth, silver, hardware, corn, horse and in return Africa would supply in return hides, beeswax, fish, ostrich eggs, and most importantly gold and slaves.

 Religion also motivated the Portuguese. They hoped to convert the non-Muslims of West Africa to Christianity. Once they had converted traditional Africans over to Christianity they had hoped that they would help battle against the Muslims.  Then, there was the monarch of Prester John, who with his followers had defended their religion from Islam while living mythically in Ethiopia. The Portuguese felt a religious responsibility to come to the aid of Prester John and their fellow Christians.

Food that came to Africa from the era of Portuguese that became important to Africa is seed and root crops that do not grow naturally in Africa. The two main crops that impacted the most in Africa that I thought was Maize or Corn that took the place of sorghum as the preferred grain. The other being Cassava, a tuber food took the place of yams. Corn was introduced by the Portuguese in Africa in the 1600s. Corn was the preferred grain due to its ability to grow well in humid, sunny climates and yields where produces higher than previously used grains. In Africa, it was easier to protect it from birds, store it in cribs, and not only was it higher in calories but superior in taste. Cassava was originally from Peru and was cultivated in Mexico before it reached Portuguese, who then transported it to Africa. Tuber food was preferred due to its ability to grow in dense population and survive drought to become insurances against famine.

The crops brought from the New World contributed to the increase in population in Africa. Beans were also a food brought over, but not just one type several. Beans came over with the Atlantic Slave trade, like Lima, Navy, and Kidney beans that all grow well in water. Potatoes came from Florida, Peanuts from Brazil, Tomato from South America; and Peas, Sesame, and sugarcane came from Asia and Europeans that followed the Portuguese in the globalization of international trade supported by the discovery from voyages like that of what Prince Henry set out to do in the 1400’s but all of these where introduce to Africa by the 1600’s. These foods that came to Africa have allowed the population of Africa to grow and the land to be filled with people and food more so than ever before.

Great Zimbabwe History,The Capitial of Zimbabwe

The Great Zimbabwe state was the capital of Zimbabwe.  It was the center of an expansive economic and political network of lesser enclosures on the Zimbabwe plateau making it the core of the Zimbabwe empire.  Its economy was built on gold and cattle.

Swahili would acquire good from Arab traders, which they would trade with Zimbabwe for their gold. Arabs would sail and travel, while doing so they could pick up Chinese porcelain, cloves from Java, cinnamon from Ceylon, cotton and pepper from India, coffee from Arabia, then travel southwest along the African coast trading with the city-states along the way. Gold from Zimbabwe was a good that was in high demand. The Swahili had connection of networks spanning the Indian Ocean and could easily trade the Great Zimbabwe’s gold. It is noted in the text how Gold and Islam played an important role that continued to bond Africa to the world.