The Soldiers in the Shadows
Since 1918, November 11th is the day the world remembers the atrocities of the World Wars and stands in solidarity with the men and women that lost their lives in the name of European liberation. However, what seems to be lost in our collective memory and erased from our history books are the contributions made by Africans on the continent and in the diaspora. What is particularly interesting are the nuances highlighted by Africa’s involvement in safeguarding Europe, as they relate to European hypocrisy and anti-colonial nationalism.
The erasure of the African perspective serves to simplify narratives and hide Western inability, awkwardness and shame in facing and discussing the duplicitous realities of the wars. Better put, despite World War I (WWI) culminating in the breaking up of Austria-Hungary and reinforcing self-determination in Europe, European powers sunk their colonial claws deeper into Africa. Similarly, despite fighting Nazi anti-Semitism in World War II (WWII), the US and Europe displayed an inability and unwillingness to confront their own racism.
“Writing Mein Kampf in the 1920s, Adolf Hitler would describe African soldiers on German soil as a Jewish conspiracy aimed to topple white people “from their cultural and political heights”. The Nazis, who were inspired by American innovations in racial hygiene, would in 1937 forcibly sterilise hundreds of children fathered by African soldiers”- Panjak Mishra
In WWI, around two million Africanswere conscripted into the army and it is estimated that over one million African soldiers fought on behalf of the colonial powers in WWII, with 55,000 losing their lives between 1939 and 1945.
African war efforts did not end there. On the civilian front, inhabitants in the colonies were charged with managing and providing food and military supplies for Europe. For example, ships bound for India and the east, unable to use the Suez Canal, had to sail via the Cape, and were serviced and victualled at African ports. Additionally, in true colonial panache, raw materials (palm oil, nuts, rubber, tin, bauxite, sisal and food stuffs) were exported by European companies, who exploited African labour whilst simultaneously increasing their profits due to global supply constraints.
“Today on the Western Front, there stands a dross of African and Asiatic savages and all the world’s rabble of thieves and lumpens.”- Max Weber, 1917
The iconic picture of Allied troops marching into Paris (above) was a deliberate attempt at white washing history by France, US and Britain. In 2009, papersunearthed by the BBC revealed that Allied commanders ensured that the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944 was seen as a "whites only" victory. In reality, black soldiers made around 65% of the Free France forces but they were removedfrom the units that advanced into the French capital.
"For decades these African fighters did not have the glory and the esteem they deserved for their bravery," adding that through their spilled blood, "France has a part of Africa in it." - Emmanuel Macron, August2019
Despite shedding their blood for the same cause, the failureof European soldiers to include and accept their black counterparts as their equals, allowed for Africans and colonial subjects more broadly to form their own identity. This identity resulting from the European mentality of ‘we are not the same’ nurtured the perfect breeding ground for ideas about African self-determination. For example, in Gregory Mann’s book, ‘Native Sons’, he talks about these separations in his description of the military hospitals, where rooms and corridors were allocated by race and colony of origin, and through his discussion with veterans who described their experience with white military officers as being charged with “racism, paternalism and occasional violence”.
Le Camp de Thiaroye (1987) is a movie by Senegalese director Ousmane Sembène about the 1944 massacre of Senegalese troops by French forces, after they mutinied over poor pay and working conditions
“The massacre itself symbolised the unfilled promises, both material and ideological, of the French towards their colonial troops, as well as the fear amongst the French officers of the supposedly savage and untamed tirailleur, the very myth created by colonial propaganda”- Fell and Wardleworth (2016)
During both World Wars, Europe incurred large losses in terms of lives and infrastructure, which eroded the image of European powers having any superiority over the rest of the world, as they, too, were equally vulnerable.This coupled with the idea of ‘debt and reciprocity’ for the contributions Africans had made to European war effort began spurring calls for independence or greater rights for Africans within the colonial structure. In the case of Senegal, Blaise Daigne, a representative in the French National Assembly, used conscription into the French army as tool to extend political rights to people inside the Four Communes of Senegal.
The Senegalese example should be regarded as the exception rather than the rule. Many post-war demands were ignored and very little changed in terms of living standards in the colonies. France evencapped its military pensions for African World War veterans in 1959 and only reinstated equal pensions for veterans regardless of nationality and country of residence in 2010, after decades of outcry.
Africans were also denied their request for representation at the Treaty of Versailles. So, advocating on their behalf and the behalf of black people globally was W.E.B Du Bois, as a delegate of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP). Du Bois urged the Allied Powers to set up Germany's ‘colonial possessions’ as free independent states and establish a legal code of treatment for black Africans.
The request was unanswered and Germany’s African colonies were divided up between the Allied Powers. A division which had a ripple effect for decades to come, most apparent in Rwanda – where the barbaric Belgian rule is said to have used the growing eugenics movement in Europe to manipulate and intensify the divide between the Hutus and the Tutsis.
The lack of recognition and gratitude for non-white soldiers continues to animate the political relationships between Europe and its former colonies especially regarding immigration, citizenship and national identity. In the UK we have seen this manifested in the 2018 Windrush Scandal, where the UK government was wrongfully detaining and deporting people of West Indian descent, whose families had been granted UK citizenship due to war and post-war contributions.
The socio-economic implications of post-war immigration to Europe deserves its own conversation but what I will leave you with is that: