ABSTRACT
Colonialism in Africa was a vicious obliteration of local custom and practice, and a robbery of mineral resources. The law, land tenure, education and religion were all skewed in favour of whites and male elites, and the inferiority of blacks rammed into consciousness. Some countries fared worse than others; others, especially in West Africa, managed to keep a lively sense of tradition. Oil and gas wealth have made the country much richer, and Kazakhstan is now in line for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development membership. Mongolia was at the far end of the Soviet Union, a satellite country, nominally an independent state, rather than a part of the Soviet Union. Ninety per cent of children in Sofia, the capital, once attended generously equipped kindergartens, with dance halls and swimming pools. There were dozens of pieces of legislation governing the kindergartens, mostly referring to compliance with regulations inherited from Soviet times and reinforced by presidential decree.
