Much more than in the First World War, Africa came into contact with the whole world. Partly this was due to the fact that the whole of northern Africa, from Morocco to Egypt, and from Senegal to Somalia, was a theatre of war. Largely, however, it was due to the use of African soldiers in European armies outside Africa itself, notably in eastern Asia.

African soldiers travelled widely, saw many lands and peoples, and gained many new experiences, ideas and perspectives. They learnt new technical skills in handling advanced weaponry and driving military vehicles. Yet more important were the new mental skills they began to exercise, once they saw the imperial mask stripped away. They had seen whites working with their own hands, especially in Europe. They had met thousands of uneducated whites, such as private soldiers and prostitutes. The myths of the 'great white bwana' and of the formidable 'memsahib' were shattered.

More positively, African soldiers met white men who opposed colonialism, and who were very different from the whites in colonial Africa. Above all, though, they personally witnessed the vincibility of the white man. Those who fought in Burma, like Waruhiu Itote, later the Mau Mau 'General China' in Kenya, saw that Japanese soldiers were at least equal to European ones, and that African soldiers were better able to fight in forest conditions than whites were. The African soldiers who fought in Africa saw Europeans fighting each other. In the Maghrib there was an intense civil war between Frenchmen, between Vichy and Free France. White disunity was a powerful factor in helping the black soldier look at the colonial master race realistically.

African soldiers developed a deeper political consciousness as a result of their participation in the war. Their new experiences included, in many cases, contact with Indian nationalists, especially on the Burma campaign. Many received instruction in European languages, French or English, and learnt both to read newspapers and listen to wireless bulletins. It was difficult for many of them just to slip back into their subordinate roles in colonial society after the war.

The returning ex-servicemen were particularly embittered by the slow political advance of colonial territories in the late 1940s, by the stark fact of unemployment after demobilization, by the lower standard of living they embraced when leaving the army for civilian life, and by a feeling that their service had not been rewarded. In Kenya, for example, the late 1940s saw the emergence of a politically militant organization made up of ex-soldiers, the Forty Group, out of which grew the Land Freedom Army (or Mau Mau).

Many of the Africans who fought in European armies in the war were conscripted, especially after the first few months when volunteers stopped coming forward. One who volunteered was a Kenyan, Bildad Kaggia. A profound Christian, he joined the British army in the hope of doing garrison work in the Middle East and seeing the Holy Land. Kaggia was a man with primary school education and powerful organizing ability, which rapidly brought him promotion to the rank of staff-sergeant clerk. He was stationed in Egypt and managed to get to Jerusalem on leave, and attain his heart's desire. But his war service politicized him, and turned him into a radical nationalist.

He was greatly influenced by a black American army doctor he worked with in Egypt. In his autobiography Kaggia writes: 'We could not believe our eyes when we saw a black man wearing three pips on his shoulder.'8 This doctor also was a radical, and helped Kaggia to think more deeply about colonialism and racism. The racialism in the British army had a deep effect on him. When, as a sergeant, he reprimanded an untidy European corporal, he was reprimanded himself for reprimanding a white man. The African soldiers had inferior rations and much lower pay than white soldiers. There was not a single African commissioned officer in the British army.

When Kaggia was sent to do duty in the United Kingdom itself, he was impressed by the absence of an overt colour bar. He easily made friends with ordinary working-class English families, who had no servants and treated him naturally in sharp contrast to the Kenya settlers. He made contacts with English Christians who, unlike the missionaries in Kenya, did not try to impress or lecture to Africans and did not support colonialism. Indeed, in England Kaggia became so politically awakened that he campaigned for a Labour candidate in the 1945 General Election and addressed meetings.

 

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8 Bildad Kaggia, Roots of Freedom 1921-1963, East African Publishing House. Nairobi, p. 26.

 

9 lbid,,p, 54.