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This year marks the 100th anniversary of the First World War and the 75th anniversary of the Second World War. Mauya Omauya, a media editor and lecturer in international affairs at Kenya's Moi University, believes that from slavery to colonialism and neocolonialism, Africa has been a victim of wars started far from its shores. His views follow:
The two world wars elucidated what Thomas Hobbes described as an anarchical world of chaos where life is nasty, brutish and short. Africa as a continent was not spared this mesh of anarchy. From slavery to colonialism and neo-colonialism, Africa has been a victim of wars started far from its shores.
August 2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the First World War, while June marked the 75th anniversary of the Second World War. Both of these wars occurred at a time when Africa was under the pestilent chains of colonialism. While the First World War was to be a war to end all wars, it was followed by a second, which gave birth to the Cold War. At the junction where colonialism met the Cold War, Africa came face to face with an even uglier monster that has continued to haunt the continent - neo-colonialism.
The socio-political and economic landscape of many African countries is largely a reflection of the taints and hallmarks of colonialism and the Cold War. But the Cold War is a vestige of the two world wars.
Adolf Hitler's dream was to have a German Empire, with Russia as his armrest, France as his footstool, England as his manufacturing hub and the colonies as laborers to work in his Nazi vineyard. Though dashed, the impacts of his dream went on to affect Africa negatively.
More than half a million Africans fought in the Second World War, on the side of their colonial masters, France and Britain. Germany had lost most of its colonies after the First World War. Africa was both a tool and a theater in the chaos and the continent paid heavily, although having no say, neither in the two world wars nor in the Cold War that followed.
However, the wars had a positive streak - African fighters in far away places such as Burma, brought home a message that smashed European superiority and hastened decolonization. The Second World War was the fulcrum upon which colonization came to its end. The colonizing empires were war fatigued, broke and were unable to run colonies.
The Cold War, however, opened the vaults of exploitation that haunt Africa to this day. If colonization sowed the seeds of imperialism in Africa, the Cold War opened the phase where the two blocs executed their extractive power over Africa, its resources and political energies.
The bipolar international structure, a tug of war between the former USSR and the United States shed off the credibility of multilateral institutions such as the United Nations to constructively engage in the so-called third world in which Africa was classified. The Cold War and colonialism left indelible scars on African countries in the form of political and economic ruin. Neo-colonialism set the stage for the exploitation of the continent by being remote controlled by outside powers. This implanted in the international system the image of an Africa, helpless to speak for itself and too inconsequential on the global stage.
The Cold War gave Africa its tyrants, whose ruthlessness will take scores of years to overturn. The West and its allies, under the guise of warding off Soviet Communism, gave Africa the callous Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire (nowthe Democratic Republic of the Congo) and assassinated Patrice Lumumba (a Congolese independence leader). For 32 years, Mobutu Sese Seko, furnished with military aid from his masters, butchered the country and left it in tatters. TheDemocratic Republic of theCongo is yet to recover from conflict.
As a playground for alien powers during the Cold War, Africa is still the favorite destination for small arms used to destabilize, maim and displace citizens, while ravenous individuals and foreign companies wipe out its precious minerals like diamonds, gold and other lucrative gems. The case of the infamous blood diamonds in the Liberia-Sierra Leone conflict is an unforgettable illustration.
The wars, the Cold War and the unipolar moment after the collapse of the USSR, crystallized political realism in the international landscape. A distorted view of the pursuit of power has given Africa its share of ruthless dictators, who have hoarded raw political power and elevated personal interest to the extreme, to the detriment of their nations and people.
Beyond the world wars and the Cold War, the narrative for Africa in international affairs has not changed a lot. The Cold War's legacy solidified the dichotomy of Africa being at the periphery of world affairs, leaving ugly scars dotted across the continent, the impacts of which continue to hurt the continent to this day | 
