Africa and the Race to the Moon: Press Reports and Memories of the 1969 Manned Moon Landing

How did people in Africa experience the manned moon landing? What connection did they make on different levels between this event and their own life circumstances? Based on memories and press reports from Ethiopia, Egypt, Tanzania and South Africa about the landing of the first men on the moon, the article gives an insight into the tension between scientific-technical progress, the Cold War and the positioning of African states with different political orientations. Ethiopia under Emperor Haile Selassie I sought close cooperation with the United States, which manifested itself, among other things, in a U.S. army base near Asmara, but also cooperated with the USSR. The moon landing thus generated a journalistic balancing act. Egypt, which had leaned heavily on the Soviet Union under Gamal Abdel Nasser, found itself in one of the most serious conflicts with Israel in July 1969 partly because of its Soviet advisers. Accordingly, a pro-Soviet stance could not be expected from the outset. Tanzania had begun to build an egalitarian, anti-imperialist society under the leadership of its charismatic president, Julius Kambarage Nyerere. The press took the moon landing as an opportunity to publish harsh criticism of the American foreign policy, especially the war in Vietnam. In South Africa,which tried to maintain its apartheid system through a strict policy of isolation from the outside world, the manned moon landing led to an initial overcoming of the information blackout.