Despite the
anachronism of the colonial enterprise as
alluded to earlier, some colonial powers still refused to grant
independence to their possessions thereby necessitating revolutionary or liberation struggles by the
colonized people to attain independence and sovereign existence.
The case of the lusophone territories in Africa
has already been made reference to. Angola,
Mozambique, guinea Bissau and
cape verde could only gain their independence between 1973 and 75
after a bitter and protracted struggle with their colonial hegemony-
Portugal. The case of Zimbabwe, Namibia and south Africa is
also well known. These territories could
attain independent sovereignty in 1980,
1989, and 1994 respectively, only after
a “long and bloody” war of liberation.
In the same vein, France did not see it fit to grant independence to its
Algerian possession until many years of
a bitter war of independence forced its
hands in 1962.
Outside the
African continent, the thirteen British
colonies in north America had to wage its own war of independence against
the British crown before it could
be recognized as the independent and sovereign state
that came to be known as the Untied
State of
America in 1776