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2.2 Internal factors

  1. The impact of Western culture was very profound and produced a series of socioeconomic transformations in the colonies .
    1. Construction of communication networks (roads, railways, ports, telegraph and telephone lines, etc.). .
    2. Urban development.
    3. Demographic growth.
    4. Alteration of the social structure.
    5. Emergence of an indigenous bourgeoisie.
    6. Cultural progress, although with clashes between old native cultures and Western culture.
    7. Extension of education based on Western culture
  2. The collective consciousness that claimed independence was manifested in nationalism through the activity of intellectuals, student movements, trade unions and political parties. The following elements were involved in the formation of the nationalist movement:
    1. The contradiction of the colonizing countries, which claimed for themselves full political and economic sovereignty, but they refused it to their colonies.
    2. The diffusion of the European democratic ideology and the change of mindset into colonised countries. The natives who studied at the European universities assimilated the concepts of freedom, sovereignty and independence, which they then tried to implant in the colonized territories. Likewise, the soldiers returned to their countries drenched with new ideas.
    3. The limelight reached by the colonies during the World War and the rejection of the exploitation to which they were subjected by the metropolises.
    4. Hatred of European targets and the denunciation of capitalism and imperialism.
    5. The recovery of the national identity and the affirmation of the political Europeans values as democracy or socialism .
    6. The attempt by the metropolises to consolidate European culture, language and customs to the detriment of indigenous peoples provoked the vindication of indigenous African Customs, indigenous culture and Africanness. In this context arose the concept of blackness or negrity, which is linked to the exaltation of traditional African values, whose main representatives were Léopold Sédar Senghor (Senegal) and Sékou Touré (Guinea). Other leaders and ideologues, such as J. Nyerere or K. Nkrumah, found affinities between Africanism and socialism, and elaborated the doctrine called African Socialism.
      The main objectives of nationalism were:
      1. The unification of the country,
      2. National independence-social reform.