Anticolonial Nationalism in French West Africa: What Made Guinea Unique?

Abstract

In a 1958 constitutional referendum, Guinea was the only French territory to reject continued colonial subordination in favor of immediate independence. Why did Guinea alone reject the constitution that laid the foundations for France's Fifth Republic? What factors stimulated political parties in other territories to accept the prolongation of French tutelage, even as activists elsewhere on the continent were agitating for independence? Focusing on the eight territories of French West Africa, this article argues that the Guinean branch of the Rassemblement Democratique Africain, which led the campaign for the "no" vote, differed from other dominant parties in French West Africa in several important ways. These differences, along with the relative power of the colonial chieftaincy, contributed to Guinea's unique stance in the 1958 referendum.

The Diaries of Barthélémy Boganda, Priest and Politician in French Equatorial Africa (1910–1959)

“…Other "fathers of independence" hardly ever dared to adopt such an openly confrontational or antagonistic posture, at least not in the semi-permanent manner as did Boganda. Men like Djibo Bakary of Niger, or even Sékou Touré of Guinea, were more cautious operators in the continually shifting minefield of 1950s politics 48 -even if in the end they fell out completely with the French. Paradoxically, the fact that Boganda could behave rhetorically so brutal partly had to do with his determination that a decolonized Oubangui-Chari (besides other AEF territories) maintain its links with the French state, thereby preventing his enemies from dubbing him as anti-French and making himself vulnerable to attack.…”

Referendums and Ethnic Conflict

“…These constitute fifty-six in total. While a relatively large number of referendums have taken place in Africa (twenty-two), half of these were the 1958 plebiscites instigated by President de Gaulle concerning the African colonies' continued membership in the Communauté française (eleven out of the twenty-two ethnonational referendums held in the continent) (Schmidt 2009). Perhaps surprising, given the presence of direct democracy at the local level there (Bowler and Donovan 1998), a very small number of ethnonational plebiscites have been held in North America.…”

Religious Motivations for Local Economic Development in Senegal

“…Under President Léopold Sédar Senghor, Senegal's newly independent state in the 1960s and 1970s relied on local contacts to manage nationalized agriculture (Diouf 1992:118), so that only a few local elites had lucrative access to state resources. This narrow chain of access eventually weakened private businesses because farmers were forced to rely on state patronage (Boone 1995;Cruise O'Brien 1971;Patterson 1999;Schmidt 2009). africatoday 58 (4) Additional obstacles-including land degradation and French withdrawal of price subsidies in 1967-contributed to economic and environmental crises of the first decades of independence.…”