1. Posted on Monday 30 July 2012 - 10:00

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   FRAZER POTANI

   

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   Frazer Potani, AfricaNews reporter in Lilongwe, Malawi

   The scramble for Africa: Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 to Divide Africa Meeting at the Berlin residence of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in 1884, the foreign ministers of 14 European powers and the United States established ground rules for the future exploitation of the "dark continent." Africans were not invited or made privy to their decisions.

   

   The French dominated most of West Africa, and the British East and Southern Africa. The Belgians acquired the vast territory that became The Congo. The Germans held four colonies, one in each of the realm's regions. The Portuguese held a small colony in West Africa and two large ones in Southern Africa.
   
   After colonial rule was firmly established in Africa, the only change in possessions came later after the World War 1. Germany's four colonies were placed under the League of Nations, which established a mandate system for other colonizers to administer the territories.
   
   The Congo Free State, conceived as a "neutral" zone to be run by an international association in the interest of bringing science, civilization, and Christianity to the indigenes, received the Berlin Conference's blessings.
   
   The European colonial powers shared one objective in their African colonies: exploitation. But in the way they governed their dependencies, they reflected their differences. Some colonial powers were themselves democracies (the United Kingdom and France); others were dictatorships (Portugal, Spain).
   
   The British set up a system of indirect rule over much of their domain, leaving indigenous power structure in place and making local rulers representatives of the British Crown. This was unthinkable in the Portuguese colonies, where brutal, direct control was the rule.
   
   The French on the other hand sought to create culturally assimilated elites what would represent French ideals in the colonies.
   
   However, in the Belgian Congo, King Leopold II, who had financed the expeditions that staked Belgium's claim in Berlin, embarked on a campaign of ruthless exploitation.
   
   His enforcers mobilized almost the entire Congolese populations to gather rubber, kill elephants for their ivory, and build public works to improve export routes. For failing to meet production quotas, entire communities were massacred.
   
   “Killing and maiming became routine in a colony in which horror was the only common denominator. After the impact of the slave trade, King Leopold's reign of terror was Africa's most severe demographic disaster. By the time it ended, after a growing outcry around the world, as many as 10 million Congolese had been murdered,” said Adam Horchschild teaching writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California Berkeley and in 1997-98 was a Fulbright Lecturer in India now based in San Francisco, USA.
   
   He added that in 1908 the Belgium government administrators and the Roman Catholic Church each pursued their sometimes competing interest.
   But no one thought to change the name of the colonial capital.
   
   “It was Leopoldville until the Belgian Congo achieved independence in 1960. In the second half of the nineteenth century, after more than four centuries of contact, the European powers finally laid claim to virtually all of Africa. Parts of the continent had been "explored," but now representatives of European governments and rulers arrived to create or expand African spheres of influence for their patrons,” said Horchschild adding that competition was intense.
   
   Spheres of influence began to crowd each other. Bismarck wanted not only to expand German spheres of influence in Africa but also to play off Germany's colonial rivals against one another to the Germans' advantage.
   
   “The Berlin Conference was Africa's undoing in more ways than one. The colonial powers superimposed their domains on the African Continent. By the time Africa regained its independence after the late 1950s, the realm had acquired a legacy of political fragmentation that could neither be eliminated nor made to operate satisfactorily,” said Horchschild.
   
   He added: “The African politico-geographical map is thus a permanent liability that resulted from the three months of ignorant, greedy acquisitiveness during a period when Europe's search for minerals and markets had become insatiable.”
   
   The former Ghanaian diplomat C.O.C Amate said one of the major reasons why the pioneers of African Union (AU) [then Organization of African Unity (OAU)] Sylvester Williams, E.W. Burghardt DuBois, William Marcus Garvey and leaders of African descent domiciled in the West Indies and the USA was to break Africa from chains of colonialism.
   
   “During a congress in 1900 in London Burghardt DuBois introduced the topic of Independence calling on Britain and other colonial powers to give the right of responsible government to the black colonies of Africa and the West Indies as soon as possible,” he said adding that Sylvester Williams died shortly after the congress.
   
   “But the work he had begun did not die with him. DuBois took over from where Sylvester Williams left off and organized a series of five Pan-African Congresses, which earned him the name ‘Father of Pan-Africanism.’ DuBois was a journalist,”said Amate.
   
   He disclosed that with his journalism skills DuBois established and ran a chain of newspapers in which he persistently called for the granting of what would today be described as basic human rights to the black people in the Americas, the West Indies and Africa.
   
   “The best-known of the [news] papers was the Crises,” said Amate.
   
   During the AU Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia earlier this year [before the recent meeting which was shifted from Lilongwe to Addis Ababa after President Joyce Banda and her government announced that it was not ready to host Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir a wanted man by the Hague (Netherlands) International Criminal Court on humanrights violations] late president Bingu wa Mutharika emphasized the need for Africa to do away with all forms of colonialism and start believing in herself if the continent is to achieve sound social-economic developments at all levels to overcome rampant poverty currently outweighing its people.
   
   “Africa should forget about achieving its goals unless the continent decides to wake up and stop eating, thinking, dressing and even smiling the colonial way. It would for example be senseless to promote ‘Boosting Intra-African Trade if Africans continue to be jealousy of each other and promote a wrong perception that only good things come
   from Europe,” he charged.
   
   Late Mutharika gave an example that even his own village of Kamoto in the tea growing ditrict of Thyolo in southern Malawi was heavily infested by colonial ideologies whereby a mother of two would describe one of her own children who grows fat that ‘akukula chizungu’ (growing in a European way while another one in the same family who is thin and slim will be described as ‘akukula chikuda’ (growing in an African way).
   
   “This is very unfair and detrimental to our social-economic development to eradicate poverty on the continent and we have to change this mindset if we are to be serious on the continent’s development agenda,” he said.
   
   Peter Henriot, a Catholic born in Tacoma Washington, is a member of the Zambia-Malawi Province Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and one of the few great thinkers in southern Africa.
   
   He has since 1990, worked at the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection (JCTR) in Lusaka, Zambia.
   
   The JCTR is a project of the Zambia-Malawi Province of the Society of Jesus, founded in 1987 to assist the local church and other groups in matters of political, economic and social justice concerns, through research, education, advocacy and consultation.
   
   Their work includes studies on constitutional reform, good governance, poverty eradication, debt cancellation, education for justice and theological reflection.
   
   Henriot said although African states attained Independence from Western countries there are to date some forms of colonialism still taking place that have been contributing to the continent’s snail pace social-economic development including fuelling poverty.
   
   “In order to understand the significance of globalisation in the African context, there are two premises that I believe focusing the debate more realistically,” he said.
   
   Henriot added that the first premise is that it is important to understand that today's "globalisation" is actually the fourth stage of outside penetration of Africa by forces which have negative social consequences for the African people's integral development.
   
   “This outside penetration has occurred over the past five hundred years in a variety of forms. The first stage was the period of slavery, during which the continent's most precious resources, African women and men, were stolen away by global traders, slavers, working for the benefit of Arab, European and North American countries,” he said.
   
   The priest disclosed that estimates vary from two to ten million slaves extracted from the continent, with disastrous economic, social and psychological effects.
   
   “I come originally from a country, the United States of America, whose industrial progress in the north during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries depended upon agricultural progress built unjustly, inhumanly on the backs of African slaves who toiled in the fields of the south,” said Henriot.
   
   He further explained that the second stage was the period of the actual colonialism itself when British, French, Belgium, Portuguese, Italian and German interests dictated the way that map boundaries were drawn, transportation and communication lines established, agricultural and mineral resources exploited, religious and cultural patterns introduced.
   
   “Whatever minimal benefits might have come to Africans because of colonialism were far outweighed by the many negative consequences of economic exploitation, environmental degradation, and social dependencies. Indeed, many of today's ethnic conflicts which attract international attention trace their origins back to colonial stratagems,” said Henriot.
   
   The Catholic priest further said the third stage has been described as "neo-colonialism," what the late Pope Paul VI also called "the form of political pressures and economic suzerainty aimed at maintaining or acquiring dominance."
   
   “The independence struggles begun in the late 1950's may have brought local governmental rule to the many nations of the continent but did not break the ties -- subtle and not so subtle -- that bound Africa's future to outside influences,” said Henriot.
   
   He added that trade patterns, investment policies, debt arrangements, just but mentioning a few all reinforced earlier conditions that were not beneficial to Africans.
   
   “Another striking example was the political manipulation of African states as bargaining pawns during the Cold War, with the resulting legacies of armed conflicts, for example, in the Horn of Africa and in southern Africa,” said Henriot.
   
   He also expounded that presently we have entered the fourth stage, the period of globalisation, characterised by an integration of the economies of the world through trade and financial flows, technology and information exchanges, and movement of people.
   
   “The dominant actor in this stage is the free market. The globe is conceived as one market directed by profit motivations of private enterprises that know neither national boundaries nor local allegiances. In this stage, Africa experiences both minimal influence and maximum consequence,” said Henriot.
   
   He explained that the second premise is simply the statement of an obvious but not always acknowledged fact: globalisation is not working for the benefit of the majority of Africans today.
   
   “While globalisation has increased opportunities for economic growth and development in some areas, there has been an increase in the disparities, and inequalities experienced especially in Africa,” said Henriot.
   
   He added that apart from some elements of colonialism blocking Africa’s development the continent has also among other things been struggling to achieve social-economic development due to mal-administration including limited fundamental freedoms and unending conflicts.
   
   Henriot said for instance, the majority people within countries in Africa continue to suffer from pangs of poverty because African leaders have been enriching themselves through corruption using resources meant for development.

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Reactions

1. Posted on Thursday 14 February 2013 17:43

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   sisyphus101

   

   
   2 berichten
   Lid sinds February 2013

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   This is a great article, albeit with few solutions to the problems raised. Nonetheless, I do agree in part that mental slavery is a contributing factor in the woes currently facing Africa. Although the premises presented in this article might be true, this does not explain how other third world nations have prospered despite them also being colonised-notably China and Latin American countries. These countries were also former colonies of European states yet Brazil has the 6th largest economy and with China positioned at number two in the world. In fact the Latin American region has seen a surprising turn-around in terms of economic and political conditions. In the case of the African context it might be argued that the socio-political dynamics are vastly different. Yet, if we are to argue on the basis of mental slavery alone, we miss the fact that, not only Africa was colonised; perhaps not to the extent and manner as other third world nations. However, one has to acknowledge that the problems facing Africa are multi-faceted and multi-layered, suggesting that we cannot point to only one cause as the major influence to these struggles. Nevertheless, this is not to deny the impact of colonialism or the continuing onslaught of African economies by globalisation. But as cited above, Africa is not exceptional when we are talking about its colonial past. What we cannot excuse is the corrupt nature of our leaders and governments. Corruption is corruption and we should not mask it under some mental condition, perceived or real. The lack of moral leadership and the constant interference by western governments, who systematically endorse corrupt African leaders as part of their foreign policy, should not be dismissed. Personally, I do not believe that mental slavery is the driving factor behind the problems facing Africa; rather, this harking back to past wrongs can easily become a scapegoat for blatant corruption. In my own opinion, a UNITED AFRICA is a possible solution, in the same way Latin American countries are trying to create more unity in their region (certainly in the area of economics and foreign policy). But the in-effectiveness of AU is staggering. It has practically killed Pan-Africanism, in relation to economic and political unity. Our leaders no longer speak with one voice or desire a single vision or goal for Africa. Most of them are too concerned about lining their pockets or are being funded by foreign donors to be trusted. Whereas in the past, our leaders wanted a liberated Africa, this dream definitely died with them (including those like Patrice Lumumba who were killed by foreign agents). In conclusion, Africa is faced with a crisis of moral leadership and a lack of Unity built around common goals and visions. We should forget about this idea of going back to something we think of purely as African. We are a modern Africa living in the 21st century, were there is rapid change and unprecedented technological advances and challenges. China embraced capitalism and so as Latin America. The notion that we can some isolate ourselves whilst we attempt to recover a bygone Africa is ludicrous at best.

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