Colonialism and Imperialism - What Can We Do Now?

Its fairly obvious to any scholar of development that colonialism and imperialism played an immense role in the underdevelopment of Africa. Not only did this wretched institution result in exploitation, coercion, murder and theft, its legacy has remained long after it was disbanded.

Much of Africa was well organized into tribal society prior to colonization. It has been written that the Congo had one of the most advanced civilizations, rivaling that of European states. The nation-state did not exist, but that certainly does not mean that African societies were not highly advanced. The Kingdom of Kongo - though the people of Kongo did not use the word kingdom - was vast. A ruler was chosen to preside over the kingdom by clan and tribal leaders. Despite this, due to the lack of a formalized "state" with boundaries, and the vastness of African lands, it appears that those who were unwilling to submit to the rule of this kingdom could have left - though they would have had to sever ties with their tribal community.

When Europeans arrived, they were treated as equals, and the people of Kongo were eager to learn from their white friends. However, an increasingly devastating slave trade (that was facilitated by Kongo's people and their willingness to sell slaves for European goods) resulted in the deterioration of the kingdom.

Simply by their inability to protect themselves from violent colonialism (meaning: they had no guns), Africans were destined to suffer at the ends of the west. This does not mean they were blameless - Africa had its own hierarchical structure and readily accepted many European ideas. But the Europeans came with a sense of superiority, a sense of rightness - they were justified in taking the land as their own, simply because they were "civilized." Under many banners - imperial greatness, capitalism, saving the savage natives, Christian brotherhood - marched white imperialism, but it amounted to the same thing: destroy the civilization that was there, destroy the culture, destroy the history (See Basil Davidson, the Black Man's Burden, chapter 1: African Without History).

Post colonialism, we continue to see a form of "neocolonialism" in which western states repeatedly attempt to show African states how to develop. Even the African states themselves accept western philosophy, economic theory and political theory as given; Davidson writes that tribalism and much of African history is rejected. We assume democracy is the best form of government. We've struggled between state-centered development and market-centered development, not thinking that perhaps our mere definitions of development and modernization are skewed towards western thinking, or that there was something good in the pre-nation-state society in Africa.

Whats more is that by rejecting African history, we create a self-confidence crisis among African leadership. They are consistently told to follow examples of the rest of the world, and reminded of the worthlessness of their own example. Among many other issues, this may be a primary cause for lack of competency in leadership, and may explain why so many post-independence leaders were so quick to begin "sleeping with the enemy."

What it boils down to: we cannot change colonialism. What can we do, then? I wish there was a way that we could reject the values of western civilization in Africa. I wish we could dissolve the states there and start from scratch and see what  happens then. We can't. And its not realistic to say if the west stopped trying to tell African states what to do, things would get better; those leaders are already in power.

Yep, essentially I don't know what we can do. I do not want to say Africa is hopeless. But I do think that Africa will long be held down by its colonial past, in ways we cannot articulate, because we will never know "what could have been." Is a nation-state inevitable? Would centralized governments have emerged? Or would we have seen a free and perhaps anarchical society? The tragedy of Africa is not that it is poor; it is that Africa was rich, and we have made it poor.