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Angola RISE OF AFRICAN NATIONALISM
In the 1940s and 1950s, African acquiescence to
Portuguese
colonization began to weaken, particularly in the
provinces
bordering the Belgian Congo and in Luanda, where
far-reaching
changes in world politics influenced a small number of
Africans.
The associations they formed and the aspirations they
shared paved
the way for the liberation movements of the 1960s.
The colonial system had created a dichotomy among the
African
population that corresponded to that of the Portuguese
social
structure--the elite versus the masses. Within the context
of the
burgeoning nationalist struggle, competition developed
between the
small, multiracial class of educated and semi-educated
town
inhabitants and the rural, uneducated black peasantry that
formed
the majority of Angola's population. At the same time,
black
Angolans identified strongly with their precolonial ethnic
and
regional origins. By the 1950s, the influence of class and
ethnicity had resulted in three major sources of Angolan
nationalism. The first, the Mbundu, who inhabited Luanda
and the
surrounding regions, had a predominantly urban, elite
leadership,
while the Bakongo and Ovimbundu peoples had rural, peasant
orientations. The major nationalist movements that emerged
from
these three groups--the MPLA, the FNLA, and UNITA--each
claimed to
represent the entire Angolan population. Before long,
these
movements became bitter rivals as the personal ambitions
of their
leaders, in addition to differences in political ideology
and
competition for foreign aid, added to their ethnic
differences
(see Ethnic Groups and Languages
, ch. 2).
Data as of February 1989
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