ABSTRACT
The first wave of postwar, anti-colonial nationalisms in Africa was marked by what we could call the literality of implicit belief: a strong faith in the actual existence of the nation. This may seem an obvious statement to make about nationalism, which to a great measure involves some form of belief in the national entity, and in attitudes of loyalty to that entity. Yet the obviousness here is part of the point. In post-independence Africa, as in other formerly colonized countries, the nation as a group defined by particular observable traits and/or a distinctive ascertainable history was believed to exist as a geopolitical and historical entity, and, crucially, to provide a means through which identities detached from European stereotypes might be formed.
