Vernon McKay

Too Slow or Too Fast? Political Change in African Trust Territories

C ARTOGRAPHERS who attempt to keep the political map of Africa up to date during the next decade will find it a busy and frustrating task. Four new nations-Libya, the Sudan, Morocco and Tunisia-have already appeared across the northern belt of Africa, and the former Italian colony of Eri trea is now federated with independent Ethiopia. Next in line for similar changes is the middle belt of tropical Africa which includes not only the Gold Coast, Nigeria and Uganda but also the seven diverse trust territories administered by the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and Italy under United Nations supervision. The speed of this political transformation provides new per spective on a wide range of problems, and it raises anew the ques tion of whether Africa is going too slow or too fast. Too slow or too fast for what? Too slow to satisfy African aspirations? Or too fast to create economically viable and politically stable states? How can the principle of self-determination be effectively applied in a continent so varied that its peoples speak 8oo languages? To what extent will irredentist and expansionist movements arise among peoples separated from their kinsmen by arbitrary boun dary lines? How far will Communist influence spread when the restraining power of colonial governments is no longer available to curtail it? And what can the West do to ease the transition from the old Africa to the new? Questions like these reveal the need for a United States policy that looks ahead and beyond the end of colonialism in Africa.