Over the last few days, I have received, on
different WhatsApp groups, a document titled “Secrets of Developed Nations”,
the thrust of which is that citizens of the wealthy Western countries have a
lofty work ethic and outstanding levels of personal integrity. However, a sober
look at history indicates that the account of the economic advantage of Western
countries given in that article is clearly misleading.
In
his celebrated book, How Europe
Underdeveloped Africa, Walter Rodney singled out three historical facts
that have resulted in Africa’s gross economic disadvantage in our day, namely,
the slave trade, colonialism, and neo-colonialism. It is important to emphasise
at the outset that in Rodney’s usage, “Europe” includes the European-dominated North
America.
Rodney
points out that about six hundred years ago, Europe and Africa were at an equal
footing economically – they were both agrarian, and both only had cottage
factories. Then Europe began to conduct exploratory expeditions to other
continents and to trade with them, but the trade was imbalanced in Europe’s favour.
In that trade, Europe took away valuable African natural resources in exchange
for largely valueless items whose allure for Africans was simply their “foreignness”.
To
make matters worse, Europe embarked on a trade more virulent than the HIV/AIDS
pandemic – the slave trade. For several generations, Europe robbed Africa of
its most resourceful segment of the population – the youth – leaving behind the
elderly and the very young. Europe also made sure that the African youth she took
away were those who had already contracted and recovered from small pox. All this
negatively affected Africa’s productivity, because the elderly and the very
young could not engage in significant economic activity. Furthermore, the loss
of Africa’s youth meant that inter-generational transfer of technology from the
aging to the youth was interrupted. Consequently, new generations of Africans emerged
without receiving the benefit of centuries of experience from their elders,
resulting in economic regression. Thus while for several centuries Africa’s
youth worked European plantations, African populations back home continued to
slide into greater and greater poverty.
With
the advent of the Western industrial revolution, Europe no longer needed
African slaves to work her plantations. Instead, she needed much more raw
materials from Africa to feed her factories. That is when it suddenly “dawned
on” Europe that slave trade was inhuman, culminating in the official abolition
of slave trade and slavery. Yet that was certainly not the end of the story;
for Europe realised that to maximise her acquisition of Africa’s raw materials,
she needed to have political control over Africa, giving rise to the advent of
colonialism. Thus Africa, which had been grossly weakened by centuries of slave
trade, was relatively easy to subjugate
politically in the advent of colonialism. Indeed, “colonialism” is simply a
euphemism for “robbery with violence at a politico-cultural level”. Europe
forced Africans into the European monetary economy by imposing taxes on Africans,
knowing very well that the only way Africans could get money to pay the taxes
was by working for the colonialists, first in their forcefully acquired farms,
and later also in government offices.
Once
the structures of Western domination were firmly in place in the forcefully
created African countries (numerous ethnic groups forcibly lumped together into
single states that were later to be misleadingly referred to as “nations”),
Europe was ready to “grant independence” to these political units, knowing full
well that she would continue to control their economies and politics. Indeed,
the “national flags”, “national anthems”, written constitutions, and other symbols
of power in post-colonial African states were all copied from Europe. Thus “independence”
was simply the transition from colonialism to neo-colonialism – a situation in
which Europe no longer controls Africa through open brute force embodied in the
colonial administration, but rather by puppeteering post-colonial states to do
her bidding. In this way, Europe continues to ensure that trade between her and
African states is imbalanced in her favour.
In
sum, the real secrets of wealthy Western states, misleadingly referred to as “developed
nations”, is oppression and manipulation for the purpose of exploitation. This
is why, contrary to the poisonous message of the article “Secrets of Developed
Nations”, Africans must not succumb to the temptation to hate themselves
because of their economic disadvantage. Instead, they must realise that they
are where they are because of a vicious foreign invader who has oppressed and
exploited them for more than four hundred years. They must therefore decolonise
their minds and embark on serious planning for the welfare of future
generations.
That the majority of African youth today
are unaware of Rodney's timeless analysis is evidence of the precarious
condition of future generations that are being denied the opportunity to know
their true history. In this regard, the words of Steve Biko continue to ring in
my mind: “The most powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of
the oppressed.”
Reginald
M.J. Oduor, Ph.D.
