The trend toward decolonization continued in the 1950s with British-controlled areas of Africa gaining their independence. By the early 1960s only a handful of territories remained under British rule.
In The Golden Notebook, Anna, a white British woman living in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), recollects her years in Africa during its colonial period. Anna's memories are filled with discomfort over the colonial system and the related problems of white racism in southern Africa. "[World War II] was presented to us as a crusade against the evil doctrines of Hitler, against racialism, etc.," Anna writes in her black notebook. "Yet... about half the total area of Africa, was conducted on precisely Hitler's assumption-that some human beings are better than others because of their race" (Lessing, The Golden Notebook, p. 61).
Rhodesia. For many years the official name of this south central African country was the British Colony of Southern Rhodesia. In 1888 a man named Cecil Rhodes had founded the British South Africa Company there, with the intention of exploiting the region's mineral resources. White settlers from the Republic of South Africa soon followed. In 1923 Rhodesia became a selfgoverning British colony, with Britain taking over the British South Africa Company and placing control of the country in the hands of the white minority.
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