A Non-colonial Power in Colonial and Postcolonial Africa

Author(s) : Sabina Widmer

Source : https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004469617_003

Abstract:

“The connections between Switzerland and Africa are not immediately obvious. After all, this small, land-locked European country has never had colonies abroad. Nevertheless, there were and are numerous ties between Swiss and African people, organisations, and states. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, some Swiss citizens and companies were involved in the triangular slave trade. In the wake of the European powers, which extended their control over the continent during the last third of the nineteenth century, Swiss missionaries, farmers, and entrepreneurs settled in Africa, benefiting from the structures put in place by the colonial authorities. Swiss geographical societies launched expeditions to Africa. Back in Switzerland, missionaries and explorers contributed to the dissemination of colonial imageries and racial stereotypes. The gaining of independence by the formerly colonised territories and the departure of the European colonial powers, which started in the late 1950s, coincided and interacted with the global East–West conflict. For that reason, and due to the existence of multiple Swiss–African entanglements, Swiss foreign policymakers observed the decolonisation of sub-Saharan Africa with great interest.”