ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses wider dialectic of nationalism versus internationalism and relate it to the genesis of African self-assertion. It describes the interaction between the age of Kwame Nkrumah and the last years of Charles de Gaulle in relation to Africa’s political evolution. Nkrumah and de Gaulle came to clash in their policies in these two areas characteristic of the post-war era. They clashed on the limits of decolonization, and over the issue of nuclear status in international politics. To a certain extent the conflict between the ambition of a self-reliant Africa and the cosmopolitan ideal of ‘Eurafrica’ is part of a wider dialectic between nationalism and internationalism in the post-war world. In French-speaking Africa, the doctrine of colonialism by consent assumed concrete, realization with that de Gaulle referendum of 1958. Formal independence for the French colonies came sooner than many people expected.
