COLONIALISM and NEO-COLONIALISM

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COLONIALISM

Colonialism: the extension of sovereignty of a nation beyond its borders, to colonies or administrative dependencies.

What actually took place: exploitation of resources, labour and markets of the territories occupied, with the outcome of creating also social, cultural and linguistic ties. N.P.

COLONIALISM

This political trend has often been justified on the basis of a pre-supposed inferiority of the colonised people, thus conveying the idea of a moral mission carried out by the colonisers.

Example: Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) in The White Man’s Burden. N.P.

COLONIALISM

The White Man’s Burden (1899):“Take up the White Man’s burden – Send forth the best ye breed – Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captive’s need; … Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half devil and half child.…To seek another’s profit, And work another’s gain. N.P.

COLONIALISM

[…] Take up the White Man’s burden – The savage wars of peace – […] The ports ye shall not enter, The roads ye shall not tread, Go make them with your living, And mark them with your dead!” […] N.P.

COLINIALISM

Edward Morgan Forster (1879-1970); in Passage to India (1924):

Aziz (an Indian doctor, gradually becoming anti-English);

Fielding (inspector in schools, more and more intolerant towards India): N.P.

COLONIALISM

Aziz: “India shall be a nation! No foreigners of any sort! […] We may hate one another but we hate you most! If I don’t make you go, Asmed will, Karim will, if it’s fifty or five hundred years we shall get rid of you, yes, […] and then, you and I will be friends.”

Fielding: “Why can’t we be friends now?”

Aziz [...]: “No, not yet.” N.P.

COLONIALISM

Colonialism was also highly influenced by the ideas introduced by human sciences about the description of racial and cultural differences among different peoples. Victorian Imperialism even exploited Darwin’s theories about the mutability of species. N.P.

COLONIALISM

Advocates of Imperialism/Colonialism: they maintain that the colonisers provided the

colonised with the infrastructure necessary for modernization.

Critics of Imperialism: colonialism only allowed “a movement of wealth

from the colonised to the colonisers, which hindered any possibility of economic development” (Arundhati Roy, Pros and Cons of Rape). N.P.

COLONIALISM and Neo-Colonialism

Most critics refer to the present condition of developing countries as a sort of neo-colonialism, as a prolonged exploitation and subjugation of former colonies, only through different means.

Tunde Obadina, director of Africa Business Information Service, in his essay The Myth of Neo-Colonialism distinguishes between apologists and critics of colonialism: N.P.

COLONIALISM

Apologists of colonialism :

Colonialism laid the seeds of the intellectual and material development in Africa:

- it brought enlightenment where there was ignorance;

- it suppressed slavery and other barbaric practices (i.e. cannibalism);

- it brought formal education and modern medicine;

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COLONIALISM

- the introduction of modern communication, exportable agriculture crops and some new industries provided a foundation for economic development.

Apologists maintain that Africa is in political and economic turmoil today because it failed to take advantage of its inheritance from the colonial rule. N.P.

COLONIALISM

Critics of colonialism maintain that: N.P.

a)colonial rule left Africans poorer than they were before;

b)African labour and resources were super-exploited;

c)African capacities to develop were undermined;

COLONIALISM

-d) economies were adjusted to be permanently dependent on Western nations. They were consigned the role of producers of primary products for processing in the West. N.P.

COLONIALISM

e) colonialism:- imposition of alien rule;- dictatorial regime that denied people’s right of self determination. It brought pain, death and humilation. The notion that it was a civilised mission is a myth: the system was propelled by Europe’s economic and political self-interest.

Some infrastructure were built but countries like Nigeria and Ghana were left with only a few rail lines and a few thousand graduates. N.P.

Colonialism and Modernization

More reflections: (by Tunde Obadina): “it is a presumption that modernization is

desirable. The fact that Western society is more complex than traditional African society does not necessarily mean that it is better. Complexity does not equal human progress (Africans were no less happy or felt less accomplished than Europeans).

Who is to say whether people living in agrarian societies are less developed as human beings than inhabitants of industrial ones?” N.P.

Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism

African nations are said to be currently in a phase of neo-colonialism, i.e. a new form of imperial rule stage managed by the colonial powers to give the colonised the illusion of freedom. N.P.

Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism

The prime legacy of colonialism was the integration of colonies into the international capitalist economy.

The main force keeping economies in the global system and sustaining imperialism is the market itself (it enables African elites to consume products of Western civilization without having to go through the difficult and long-term process of building industries themselves). N.P.

Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism

Africa’s poor gained little or nothing from colonialism, while its elites bloomed as as a result of it.

The market is an alluring, even corrupting force that requires strong ideological or moral commitment to resist.

It was its appeal that eventually subverted socialist regimes in the former Eastern Bloc and is now transforming China. Much of the trouble in Africa today stems from a struggle to climb the global pyramid. N.P.

Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism

Discussion:

1) Do you share the opinion that former colonies are in a state of ‘neo-colonialism’?

2) What could Western countries do in order to improve their conditions?

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