Africa in the Cage of Exploitation: Is There a Way Out?

Africa is probably the poorest continent on the face of the Earth if not one of the poorest. It has always had a bad reputation thanks to your local indoctrination cent... I mean, news station. Over the past few centuries, Africa was host to tens of Empires occupying its lands, enslaving its people and plundering its wealth. Because of its substantial dependence on Western economies to keep it surviving, much of Africa has grown into a haven for third-world countries to exist, let alone develop thanks to the political, tribal and fanatical pressures that have squeezed Africa almost devoid of any progress. Nowadays, almost anything that has to do with Africa is exploited, even, believe it or not, charity; on that note, this post promises to be not a Bono speech about "saving Africa".

Let's take a look first at what made Africa what it is today, starting with one of the most famous and yet most understudied accounts by modern men, that of the 2 explorers Henry Morton Stanley (1) and Dr. David Livingstone (2). Contrary to popular belief, the two weren't just explorers. Livingstone was a missionary, and had a rather humane outlook due to his piety. Stanley, however, was a hardened white supremacist who hated anyone who was not Caucasian. According to Jacob Crawfurd,

On November 10, 1871 Stanley approached Livingstone in the village of Ujiji. The village is on the eastern coast of Lake Tanganyika in what we today know as Tanzania. Stanley had found the only other white man in this remote part of the "dark continent". He greeted him with the famous words: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Livingstone was old and troubled by diseases, but with help from Stanley he came back on his feet and continued his search for the source of the Nile. In the next four months they explored the northern part of Lake Tanganyika together. While Livingstone continued his search, Stanley returned to London to tell his story about how the two explorers became friends. It is important to notice that the only source to these events are Stanley himself, as Livingstone did not return from Africa alive.

Stanley wrote a book about their meeting and he was present when the remains of Livingstone was buried a few years later. He probably enjoyed seeing how the British said goodbye to a hero, but did he really understand what Livingstone had done to deserve this honor? Livingstone cleared the way for many years of brutal exploitation of Africa - but his aim was different. He was loved by his African followers when he preached his way through the jungle. He shared his knowledge of medicine and wanted progress for Africa. First all he hoped to stop the inhumane slave trade once and for all. Stanley, on the other hand, clearly despised the black Africans (and any other non-caucasian). Stanley was hard on his helpers and often whipped or chained them as punishment for being "lazy".

In the following years Stanley returned to Africa exploring deeper into today's D.R. Congo and Uganda. This expedition was different. Stanley traveled with several hundred men, modern equipment, a ship(!) and plenty of weapons. He was still in competition with Cameron and other explorers, so he used guns to force his men forward at high pace. Livingstone didn't kill anyone on his expeditions, but Stanley destroyed everything in his way and fought wars with the local tribes. He managed to navigate on Lake Victoria and finally followed the Congo River all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. He became the first European to map these areas. In 1878 he went back to Europe loaded with Ivory and eager to tell of his findings.

It's kind of ironic: Stanley was sent to scope out the resources they can find in the continent, and it wasn't a surprise that he further agreed to a request from Belgium's King Leopold when the latter ordered Stanley to embark on a campaign that would hand over several regions in Africa into the hands of the Belgian colonialists. Believe it or not, almost every country in Europe had vested interests in colonizing Africa and exploiting its resources.

King Leopold II of Belgium wanted his own colony abroad more than anything else. He probably already owned everything else and his only aim was to increase his own personal wealth and power. The small country of Belgium had no fleet and was relative isolated in the middle of Europe. Neither the Belgium government nor the other European countries would give the King what he wanted, so he decided to take it himself. He heard about Stanley's discoveries in Congo and was intrigued by the promises of this rich country far away. The King hired Stanley as his personal head of a colonization project with almost unlimited resources. The official story was that the King had formed the "African International Association for development in Central Africa" - and Stanley was expected to make local contacts on his expedition. Stanley had become famous from his meeting with Livingstone, and this story probably gave the expedition some credibility. But compared to Livingstone, Stanley suffered from a complete lack of moral.

Stanley was in Africa once again. This time he started his expedition from the Atlantic coast and he brought with him hundreds of workers. He struggled his way into Congo, put ships in Congo River, constructed roads and railways at an amazing speed. Stanley cleared all obstacles for the greedy ambitions of the Belgian King. When moving forward, he was very efficient in cheating or forcing the local chiefs to sell their land and submit to horrible conditions of the new owner. Stanley became more and more brutal in his methods and did not hesitate to shoot the Africans. Soon he had conquered the country and King Leopold had complete control with what was now called the "Congo Free State". Free trade of course, certainly not free for the people living there. The horrors and tragedies in Africa during colonialism are endless, but it is probably safe to assume that no place were as evil a place as the huge Belgian colony.

The King personally owned Congo! The colony was not the property of the Belgian state. The King earned a giant fortune from selling concessions for rubber and mining in the Free State. By taking women and children as hostages, men were forced to work for king Leopold. The King's soldiers also used torture, killing and started a horrible tradition of cutting off hands to prove that their bullets were spent well. The navigator and author Joseph Conrad wrote his famous novel Heart of Darkness after seeing with his own eyes what Leopold II were doing to Congo.

In 1908 the colony was finally turned over to the Belgian government and became "Belgian Congo". Some reforms were made, but at very slow pace and for Congo it was just a new chapter in the tragedy.

Stanley did an outstanding job for King Leopold II. When he had finished his deeds in Africa, he went to London and was offered a seat in the Parliament. He died in 1904.

Amazing. Not only did he essentially scout around to see what "treasures" lay before him in Africa, but he also went back just to subjugate the populace and steal from their resources. This attitude was pretty much reflected in the early colonialist nations, among them Belgium and Britian, who, as much as Stanley, considered themselves to be supreme nations and more deserving of the land and its resources, and rekindled Social Darwinist theories in their "justifications". In effect, they were able to drain Africa of much resources and were able to enslave the local "savages" and "sub-humans" (mind my completely pissed-off cynicism) for their dirty work.

But you're probably thinking, why the heck am I writing about this NOW? I mean, surely, colonialist interests in Africa have ceased to exist? Not likely. If anything, several nations, in particular the former and new colonial powers (I think you might know who I'm referring to), are investing in Africa for their own political (i.e. selfish) interests. The bulk of the money is going to sellout governments like those of Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Liberia, etc., who are known for their horrible human rights records and their participation in untold yet unspeakable atrocities. But now, this Neo-Imperialism is on a whole new level, one that does not require the colonial power to physically occupy the subdued nation. Instead, this is largely done through funding corrupt governments (somehow, I'm starting to think that "corrupt governments" is a repitition) and extracting resources via "privatized" (Halliburton, anyone?) TNC's (trans-national companies, or cronies, whichever way you see it). For example, in Zimbabwe, foreign seafood companies had common interests in Lake Zimbabwe's fauna, but were also keen in acquiring a breeding ground for a produce that was soon to become their chief export as well as a national export of Zimbabwe, the Nile Perch (3). However, the natives of Zimbabwe have been unable to make use of this perch, as they don't have the means of purchasing this variation of seafood, while it is sold for the same jacked-up prices overseas in the developed nations.

That's just scratching the surface. Foreigners present in the area have made use of local females as prostitutes, thereby encouraging the spread of H.I.V., a disease that is plaguing Africa and, which I will discuss soon, is being used as a tool of exploiting Africa. Even worse is that the same planes that are being used to distribute much needed supplies are also being used to further disrupt the nations of Africa, and that includes anything from munitions which would drive conflict to aid money that buys dignity for compliance and subservience to colonial interests. As Herbert Sauper, Australian filmaker and director of "Darwin's Nightmare" (which deals with the topic at hand), this neo-colonialism is about making the "so-called civilized nations" rich and at the same time maintaining rich resources in the nations that are being exploited. And the natives? Well, they still live in misery, unable to acquire the resources themselves, instead being forced to abject poverty. But what really got me was Chelala's rather tear-jerking remark... tear-jerking, because it defies all possibilities at this point in time that there will ever be stability in Africa:

Until local African leaders place the interests of their people before their own, their countries will continue to be prey to the rapaciousness of outsiders.

Please, mind my pessimism. I'm not the most hopeful person around. Sure, I can pray and hope for better, but the real solution is intangible at my end, but I will try to find one nevertheless.

Another angering fact is that no (former) colonial power has sought to ammend the damage it has done to the African continent. Granted, no nationalist government these days would want to apologize for previous wrongdoings against other nations let alone its own people altogether for all the wrong reasons, including the failure to hold accountability for the government's actions. Britian is one stark example amongst many today as it has to its name the widest expansion campaign amongst all colonial powers (4). Tony Blair, whose hands "are wet with Iraqi blood", continues to justify his overall position as British P.M. by making use of the G-8 Summit as a platform for his propaganda, in "helping Africa". What's even more ironic and pathetic is that the G-8 leaders, more prominently Tony Blair and his master, George Bush Jr., have advocated for a method of "paying off the debt" that African nations supposedly owe to the Western nations in terms of contemporary economic and industrial transactions. Richard Dreyton, a senior lecturer at Cambridge University, makes a rather astounding and shocking remark in response to such a sinister proposal:

No one considered that Africa's debt was trivial compared to what the west really owes Africa.

It makes sense, since present-day Africa carries the symptoms of 20th Century colonialism, and has to be amended by those governments that placed it in this desperate situation.

Dreyton also alleges that the major obstacles to Britian, or any other colonial power, apologizing or amending the situation are threefold. One is the notion that we can easily blame the harsh and inhospitable conditions in Africa - disease, drought, famine, bad economies, authoritarian governments, poverty, etc. - to the leadership that sprung in Africa through a number of revolutions in the early 1960's. However, these movements themselves were in turn supported by colonial powers, or involved colonial influence on third-world rulers. While it is noted by myself that in poor and underdeveloped nations it is easy for autocratic and aggressive nationalist groups to gain power, rebellion and tribalism was too common to account for any one tribe as a lone possibility for attaining that power, thus meaning that it could have been any tribe or group that could attain power. But the fact that the powers that attained power served colonial interests over the interests attests to the argument that the colonial powers had a hand in their rise to the governmental seats. Testimony are some of Africa's most notorious dictators, amongst them Idi Amin, Nigeria's generals, Ian Smith (the separatist who claimed independence for a white Zimbabwean apartheid nation state called Rhodesia), Robert Mugabe (largely through support and inspiration to this very day), and others who have had covert British help in their rise to power. There are clearly no illusions to this, as a government that serves itself and other colonial powers will definitely be what caused today's problems in Africa.

Another is the idea that one can't account the present government for actions in the past, nor can we look to the past in order to find a solution for the here, now and later. This defies all logic, as the events of the past, whether immediate or distant, are clear determinants of present events. To extend the argument further, present events might be used to predict the future. It follows, however, that there might be a racist undertone in this, possibly linked to a deep form of colonial supremacy that has become too ingrained, yet itself has marginally manifested as an expression that is given off rather than an expression that itself is given. In short, it is not spoken in an outright manner, but kept well hidden under seemingly acceptable speech; this is to say because people don't feel obliged to help people who they might think as originally and inherently helpless or, God forgive me, "stupid". We can easily deny the link of the past and deny all the colonial violence that fell on Africa, and can find no other blame in the present but the Africans themselves. It is almost too easy, in the modern world, to blame the victims for the present rather than blame the conquerors of the past and, in a lesser sense, the present. Of course, I can't judge anyone who may hold a similar opinion but base his/her intentions on humanitarian grounds, even though I may personally find that impossible.

The third obstacle to colonial powers apologizing for their actions is nationalism itself, which itself is full of all the ills responsible for today's miseries: racism, colonialism, servitude of man to his fellow man, and the like (5). Nationalism, I have alleged countless times in my posts, is an irrational and immature sentiment that sees one nation as superior to all others. At its worst, it is blind worship of one's nation as an impeccable and infallible force that would be a legitimate successor to global hegemony. As thus, it can't be held accountable for what the government has done. Gordon Brown and Tony Blair exemplified British nationalism when they denied and continue to deny that Britian should apologize for its colonial crimes and amend the situation by getting the Africans to stand up on their feet again... for the least part. However, as mentioned in Dreyton's piece, Britian hasn't even "faced up" to its colonial past, "let alone begun to apologize". This statement serves no purpose but to further support the assessment that British Nationalism, as a form of colonial and imperial nationalism, is what's blinding rightwing British MP's and supporters alike from looking towards a better future and a more peaceful alternative to colonialism.

Another part of this neo-imperialism, which a friend of mine brought up in one discussion, is something I'd like to rephrase as "Conditional Philanthropy", or, as my friend put in simpler terms, providing aid and getting something in return, regardless of the harmful effects that "something" has on the people living there, which is indeed promoting political interests. Case in point: GM crops (not that I have something against them 100%, but what the U.S. government is doing in the case that I'm about to present is hypocritical; 5). According to journalist Jim Lobe, the U.S. government refused to provide $15 billion in aid to fight AIDS unless the receiving end cooperated in allowing for GMO breeding (kinda funny, considering the government's stance on Stem Cell Research). From the perspective of a student of Biology (me), the arguments against implementing GMO's in Africa are numerous, among them the unpredictable nature of the genetic engineering process, the lack of safety testing on these GMO crops, the nature of the GMO's competence against other crops, and the reliability and nutriotional value of the GMO's relative to the native crops. Even if these conditions didn't apply, it still doesn't deny that the U.S. government, as Lobe and those he quoted in his article put it, is using aid as a marketing tool to expand the GMO industry, which is rather unethical for business.

And then there are guys like Bono, U2's lead vocalist. Nothing against the guy, but I don't think that he and others are providing a positive message. Why is that? Their charity comes across to me not only as a form of exploitation, but when they come out with "We are the ones who are gonna rescue Africa?" ... whatever happened to African independence and development? It's like they're committed to forcing Africa into dependence on aid for the rest of their lives. Indeed, Mukoma Wa Ngugi, a BBC columnist claimed that long-term development prospects have been exchanged for short-lived monetary gains that, which I may add, could continue into long-term dependence rather than provide the fuel for independence (6).

But what should we do about Africa? It's not like we have a moral obligation now, do we? Well, if the colonial powers refuse to at least provide unconditional amends, as a form of retribution that they owe to Africa after all the years of colonialism, that could lead towards dependence, then it wouldn't be up to us, either. It is up to the Africans, though, to get their country going. What I would suggest, as a solution, is to stop all forms of conditional aid, and instead encourage all private charities worldwide to donate to helping Africa at least getting back on their feet. What I'm talking about isn't just about providing material goods, but also about education and creation of educational institutions that promote national independence and sovereignty, as well as working for the good of the people, and not the governments. Employment programs can also be encouraged with more generous salaries that will keep people going. A boycott of such authoritarian governments would reduce their power, and allow for more free movements to rise. We don't need warlike intervention, but we can provide help. However, it is up to the African people to get up, and I know they will if they can just get that boost.

Well, that's my spiel on the issue. I know that this is a very sensitive topic, but I'm not saying that I am going to change Africa. Change must ultimately come from within Africa, not without. This topic requires a lot more careful research and implementation... definitely more than what I have provided, which is merely one man's opinion on an extremely complex issue that depends on so many political, cultural and social factors, and can't be oversimplified. All I can say is that, as a libertarian, any exploitation of African nation and all nations in general should cease, and all direct subservience to elitism should end in such a manner.

But what do you think? Do you think charities should be continued? Do you think the colonial powers should abandon their old ways and implement plans similar to the ones I have described? If anything, more interest should be promoted for this issue. That would possibly provide more focus into what Africa needs over the long run rather than what it immediately needs.

Salaam, from Saracen