This study was made possible by a grant from the Ford Foundation. It was carried on in France and in Guinea from August 1959 to November 1960.
The data were obtained chiefly by three research techniques: personal interviews, observation and examination of pertinent documents.
The last of these presented certain peculiar difficulties. While many of the materials have already been compiled and published under the sponsorship of President Touré himself, these published documents are in many ways unsatisfactory. Many events are not dated, persons involved in the events are often not named, and statements of fact are frequently contradictory.
Further difficulty was caused by the ungrammatical French in which many of the documents were written. It is the purpose of this study to analyze the events and trends which culminated in Guinea's achievement of independence and to describe the resulting changes in Guinean society.
Guinean independence was not fortuitous. Its causes were deep seated; the conditions which brought it about were of long standing. Chief among these were:
The following chapters examine these conditions and trace the chain of events leading up to independence.
Next, attention is focused on the blueprint followed by Toure and other leaders of the Parti Démocratique de Guinée in building a new nation. Attention is given to the chief problems with which Guinea was faced at the outset of her existence as a sovereign nation and to the means she chose of solving them. The formulas she followed in dealing with various groups the social system are investigated. The decolonization process caried out by the new government is discussed — the altering of Guinea's basic institutions and the attempt to transform Guinean society itself. The principal structures of present-day Guinea are examined:
The effect of each of these on life is considered.
The problems discussed in the following pages are not uniquely those of Guinea; in a very real sense they are those of all Every nation on that continent is today concerned with the problem of creating a national consciousness among its people, of reducing the tensions that rend African society. In an Africa undergoing a profound — and in some cases turbulent chenge, Guinea is a pilot state, a laboratory where Africans are experimenting with new political and social formulas.
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