Mutiny of the Bounties Trivia Quiz

Answer: Libya

Liberia and Ethiopia had not been caught up in the scramble for Africa that saw European nations carve up the continent into spheres of influence in the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Though Ethiopia had brief periods in which its lands were occupied and its emperor exiled, by the end of World War II it had wrested control of its interests back into its own hands.

Liberia had never been colonised by a European nation. Formed by freed US slaves in 1847, not only did it remain independent but it was ruled for more than 100 years by a single political party, whose elected leader came from one of just three families throughout the entire period.

South Africa gained semi-independence from the United Kingdom in 1909 as the Union of South Africa. It was granted dominion status at this time but in 1931, without a change in its official status, an Act of Parliament in the UK handed total control over legislation to the Union, effectively making South Africa an independent nation.

Egypt was also nominally independent at the end of World War II, although its monarchy could not have survived without significant British support and so could not be deemed to be fully independent.

Answer: Gamar Abdel Nasser

Nasser was a thorn in the UK's side, inspiring particular loathing from Prime Minister Anthony Eden, who saw the Egyptian as his personal nemesis. Eden's personal distaste for the man clouded his judgment and led to some serious tactical errors that eventually laid his own head on Nasser's platter.

Though Egypt was not a British colony, Britain had propped up the Egyptian monarchy for several decades. The strategic reason for this was the presence of the Suez canal in the country. The canal was the major conduit for crucial oil supplies journeying from the Middle East to the UK. When the Society of Free Officers, including Colonel Nasser, overthrew the monarchy in 1952, the UK initially viewed the move as beneficial to their position in the Middle East as they believed it strengthened their hold on Egypt. However, Nasser's rise to the head of the Society and to the head of the country changed that perspective.

Nasser viewed the Suez canal as central to his plans for taking full control of Egypt's affairs. In 1956, he nationalised it, expelling the British company that had been running it. Eden was infuriated and, instead of negotiating with Nasser, he chose to connive with the Israeli and French governments to engineer a situation whereby British troops would be "obligated" to intervene in Egypt and seize back control of the canal.

The plan was for Israel to invade and Britain to defend Egypt's strategic interests. Unfortunately, the key player in the game turned out to be not the UK, France, Israel or Egypt, but the US. When President Eisenhower discovered the secret plans, he withdrew financial aid to Britain and instructed US ships to act as a block to British invasion forces. With a sterling crisis developing at home, within two days Eden was forced to conduct a humiliating withdrawal. Months later, when the true nature of British involvement in the Suez Crisis and Eden's lies to the British parliament about it, became known, the Prime Minister was forced to fall on his sword, citing ill health. Nasser's position was significantly strengthened, allowing him to act as an icon for change in the region, providing inspiration to rebel leaders throughout Africa and the Middle East.

Answer: Ghana

Known as the Gold Coast during its time under British rule, Ghana took its independent name from an ancient West African kingdom that had prospered to the north of the country in the late medieval period.

The Gold Coast, rich in mineral resources, had been under the control of Portugal, the Netherlands and Sweden before Britain assumed dominion over the area. The success of its economy under British rule saw it championed as the model for African governance. With a sizeable and educated middle class, it was deemed as the country best prepared for self-government.

Britain's plan was to slowly withdraw its mandarins and share power with native administrators, who it could train over a number of years before granting full independence in 1974. However, Kwame Nkrumah, the former political prisoner who, by 1952, had risen to become Prime Minister, was impatient for more rapid change.

Through a series of meetings with the UK's Governor General, he advocated immediate change. The pressure paid off when, after what it deemed a fair election, in 1957 Britain decided that Ghana was ready to be set free. Nkrumah became the first President of Ghana three years later when, despite his personal affection for Queen Elizabeth II, he declared Ghana a republic. His success in leading Ghana to independence and his Pan-African outlook made him a hugely popular and admired figure throughout the continent. In 2000, a BBC World Service poll saw him voted as African Man of the Millennium.

Answer: Guinea

France's offers of independence came with considerable caveats. The French declared that they would abide by the decision of each of the countries but warned that a yes vote for secession would mean an immediate removal of all support for the country, financially and administratively, support that was vital to all the nations.

While this was enough to cow eleven of the nations into voting for the continuation of French rule, it held no fear for the Guinean prime minister, Ahmed Sekou Touré. De Gaulle clearly anticipated Guinea's vote. In an official visit a month prior to the vote, he was greeted by well-organised protests against French rule and had to sit through a speech given by Touré in which the French colonial administration was vehemently attacked. Touré finished the speech with the words, "better to be free in poverty than a slave in riches". De Gaulle walked from the stage at the end of the event and uttered to his aides that Toure was "a man who we can never work with."

The French began their withdrawal from Guinea the day after the referendum, taking with them every piece of the apparatus of their administration that they could carry and destroying all that they couldn't.

Answer: Ethiopia

Eritrea took its name from the Latin name for the Red Sea and it was a port on this sea, Massawa, that was the reason for Ethiopia's interest in the territory. Like Ethiopia, Eritrea had come under Italian occupation between the two world wars. In 1941, when the Italians were forced out, control of Eritrea came up for grabs. Britain assumed immediate control but without ambitions to prolong it. After the end of World War II, its fate was handed over to the United Nations.

The two main options on the table were to join the Ethiopian empire, which was supported by Eritrea's Christian population, or independence, which was supported by the Muslim population and advocated for by the Arab nations. Ethiopia's claim to the territory lay in its declaration that Eritrea had formerly been part of Ethiopia in ancient times, although it was truer to say that only part of it had been. However, this was the argument that held sway with the UN and in 1951 it was declared that Eritrea would join in federation with Ethiopia, with the larger nation controlling foreign affairs, finance and trade and Eritrea running its own local affairs.

Emperor Haile Selassie had bigger plans. Over the following decade he slowly whittled away at the federation, abolishing the Eritrean flag in 1958 and applying the Ethiopian code of laws to the territory a year later. In 1962, the final nail in the federation's coffin was hammered home when the Eritrean assembly was persuaded to vote for its own demise and that of the federation itself. Eritrea became part of the Ethiopian nation and did not revive as an independent nation until 1991, long after Selassie's death.

Answer: Leopoldville

Congo's colonial existence was very different to that of all other African nations. At first it was not a colony but the personal territory of the King of Belgium, Leopold II. The area that he possessed, which he described as his 'magnficent slice of the African cake', was explored and claimed for him by the British explorer Henry Stanley. Leopold used it to expand his influence and, more particularly, his personal wealth. To this end, he treated the occupants of his newly acquired land as his personal slave labour that he handed over to concession companies to gather the ivory and rubber that would make his fortune. The punishments for falling out of line with these companies were severe. Many workers were killed, many more mutilated to set an example to others.

Given this history, for King Baudouin I, Leopold's grandson, to laud the genius of his predecessor was possibly unwise. With the fuse lit, Lumumba exploded, telling Baudouin, "we are not your monkeys any more". His rage during the independence ceremony was matched by the Belgian contingent, who delayed the celebratory lunch for two hours while they deliberated over whether to boycott or not. Eventually they sat down and ate the meal in stony silence.

After independence, Leopoldville was renamed as Kinshasa.

Answer: Somalia

In the scramble for Africa, the common practice had been to create national identities by grouping disparate peoples together through the drawing of arbitrary lines on maps. In the case of Somalia, the opposite had been the case; a people with a strong national identity were divided into separate territories under the control of different nations. Northern Somalia was divided into French Somaliland (later to become the nation of Djibouti) and British Somaliland. Southern Somalia became Italian Somaliland. Other peoples were included in territories that became part of Kenya and Ethiopia.

When independence came to Somalia in 1960, the primary objective of the new government was to bring the five groups of what they termed Greater Somalia back together as one nation. The problem that Somalia had was that as well as five territories, the Somali people had allegiance to one of five clan families, each of which was ahead of the nation in their personal priorities. Whilst the objective of re-building Greater Somalia was still realistic, the rivalries between the clans remained in check. However, as the project began to fail, the rivalries rose to the surface.

In 1969, Somali leader Siyan Barre declared Somalia a Marxist state and allied itself with the Soviet Union. The Soviets began to supply Somalia with arms in the early 1970s but the when, in 1977, the newly-sponsored army was sent in to reclaim the Ogadon territory in Ethiopia, another Soviet-allied country, it created a significant conflict of interest. After considering its diplomatic priorities for several months, the Soviets finally decided to give its full backing to Ethiopia in the dispute. Within weeks, the Somali army suffered a defeat in Ethiopia that was swiftly followed by an attempted coup in Mogadishu, the Somali capital. Though the coup was defeated, it signalled the beginning of a number of clan-based civil wars in the country that would ultimately leave Somalia without a central government at all by 1991.

Answer: Portugal

Portugal, under the leadership of long-term dictator Antonio Salazar, had, like France, viewed its African territories not as colonies but as extended parts of a greater Portugal. Therefore, allowing independence had never been considered an option. Even after Salazar relinquished the presidency, his successor Marcello Caetano decided to continue this policy in the face of significant armed rebellions against Portuguese rule. Caetano's generals expressed the view that defeat by the rebels was preferable to voluntarily relinquishing power.

However, as the battles escalated and showed signs of becoming significantly prolonged, a growing element of the military began their own rebellion. In 1974, Caetano's government was overthrown in a coup. The change of leadership brought an immediate change of policy towards Africa. Within five months, Guinea-Bissau was declared independent and progress was made towards achieving the same in Mozambique and Angola.

The transformation of Portugal's southern African territories caused consternation among several other interested parties. The US were drawn into the fight for succession in Angola, fearing Soviet and Cuban influence was holding sway. South Africa also, surreptitiously, joined the fray, looking to protect the "white" buffer zone that Angola, Mozambique and Rhodesia had provided between it and black Africa. When South Africa's involvement with the rebel movements in these countries became known, the rest of Africa withdrew their support from the rebels that they had been involved with, allowing for the Marxist rebels in the Portuguese territories to seize power.

With friendly nations either side of it, the black rebel leaders of Rhodesia were able to build up strength outside of their own country's borders, eventually ousting the white government of Ian Smith in 1980 after years of war. South Africa was left totally isolated as a white-controlled nation.

Answer: Namibia

Namibia's history in the 20th century was heavily defined by multi-national organisations. In the scramble for Africa, Germany took control of the territory as a bulwark against British dominance of southern Africa. However, with German defeat in World War I, the future of Namibia was placed in the hands of the newly-formed League of Nations. The decision they made was to grant control of the country, then known as South West Africa, to the Union of South Africa.

When the United Nations was established in 1946, it attempted to bring all of Germany's former colonies under its own control. However, South Africa refused to relinquish its hold on South West Africa. 20 years later, the International Court of Justice revoked South Africa's mandate in the country, but South Africa again refused to abide by the ruling. This prompted SWAPO (The South-West Africa People's Organisation) to begin a war of independence that was to last for 22 years.

Finally, in 1988, the South African government agreed to begin the process of granting full independence to South West Africa. On March 21st, 1990, Sam Nujoma, the President of SWAPO, was sworn in as the newly-renamed Namibia's first president.

Answer: None

Yes, that's right, precisely none. The first African leader who had to accept the will of the people as expressed via the ballot box was Mathieu Kerekou of Benin in 1991. There had been elections in Africa prior to this time, dozens of them. However, most of these had had only one name on the ballot paper or had been conducted alongside campaigns of severe intimidation that made the result a foregone conclusion. There had been the very occasional fair election, in countries such as Senegal and Botswana where multi-party politics was not illegal, but the incumbents had always retained their positions of power.

In the days when it had significant Soviet support, Benin had had no laws allowing opposition parties and Kerekou had shown no desire to relinquish power. However, the changing political scene in eastern Europe meant that the Soviet Union lacked the desire or the funds to support corrupt regimes in Africa. Consequently, the Western nations saw no need to offer support either, as the need for friendly anti-communist governments had diminished.

Having emptied Benin's coffers to line his cronies' pockets, Kerekou was turned down by the West when he attempted to secure aid to pay disgruntled civil servants. This failure led to public protests and fatally undermined Kerekou's government. A national assembly, convened by Kerekou to re-establish his authority, turned on him, declared the constitution invalid and dissolved itself.

Elections followed and Kerekou was defeated by a margin of two votes to one, bringing his 19-year reign to a swift end. To be fair to him, Kerekou stood aside graciously, asking for forgiveness for his abuses of power and wishing the incoming president good luck in his attempts to bring change to the country. Four years later Kerekou was voted back into power.