'Portuguese' Africa: the struggle for independence
'Portuguese' Africa: the struggle for independence
Africa's problems of today are sometimes described as being those of the transition from ways and ideas of the more or less distant past to ways and ideas of the modern world. This idea of transition is a useful one, at least so long as one keeps in mind that the ways and ideas of Africa's more or less distant past were valid forms of civilization, in their day and age, and not some kind of hopeless barbarism. But there may be a better definition for Africa's problems of today, especially in those large regions that are still under foreign rule, whether colonial or racist.
On December 10th, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To mark this anniversary, the Unesco Courier has this year already devoted two Issues to the international defence of human rights: "The Threat to Privacy" (July 1973) and "40 Million Child-workers in the World Today" (October 1973). This number looks at the struggle for independence of the African people in the Portuguese administered territories of Africa