HOW EUROPE UNDERDEVELOPED AFRICA, A COMPLETE ANALYSIS

DUE DATE:  13/10/2014 how european domination lead to underdevelopment in africa Name: Kofiya Willie Student ID: 201105385 Course Code: POL 406  Table of Contents Contents Introduction 2 General African development issues 2 How Africa was Underdeveloped by Europeans (key issues) 4 Trade and domination 4 African resistance and independence 5 Ongoing exploitation 6 Economic instability 6 Conclusion 7 Bibliography 8 Introduction Born in George Town, Guyana in March 23rd of 1942, Walter Rodney makes a detailed analysis of the contention that European domination lead to the underdevelopment of the African continent. To be more direct and specific, this writing seeks to derive and analyse the validity of the notion put forward by Rodney in his analysis and study of the African continent and the case of Europeans in Africa; “European domination lead to the development of underdevelopment; gradual impoverishment of the African continent as previous African development was blunted, halted and turned back”, (Rodney, 1982). The above statement made by Rodney shall be the primary focus of this text. In doing so, the paper shall make a clear indication of how European arrival in the African continent contributed to their way of life style, did it better it or worsen it? Moreover, the writing shall make note of various development that came with the European people and how such developments were of benefit to the majority of the African population as studied by various African writers such as Mongo Beti, Ferdinand Oyono and the likes of Chinua Achebe and many others that wrote pieces on African domination and exploitation by the Europeans. General African development issues In his book, Rodney analyzes the colonial relations of production and the economic and political contradictions that produced Africa´s underdevelopment and continue to plague Africa today. Rodney, who describes colonialism as a "one-armed bandit," claims that colonialism, more than anything else, underdeveloped Africa. According to him, colonialism laid the roots of neocolonialism in Africa by creating Africa´s economic dependency on the international capitalist system. The introduction of capitalist relations of production and distribution. He exemplifies this view by the International Trade Commodity (ITC) exchange systems and values that created such dependency. As previously stated in this text, according to Rodney, previous African development was blunted, halved and turned back" by colonialism without offering anything of compensatory value (Rodney, 1981). What this entails as accorded by Walter Rodney is that, in their so-called race to development of the African continent, the Europeans left nothing that could have been of more benefit to inhabitants in Africa but instead benefited themselves and stood in the way of African development. In addition, Rodney contends that "roads were built to make business possible" and makes a chilling argues that "any catering to African interests was purely accidental." Rodney, in his analysis of the African continent is of the view that, the little developments made by the Europeans were not necessarily for the benefit of the Black continent but rather to benefit the European traders across the African region. For instance, in Mongo Beti´s Remember Reuben, the colonial road in Ekoudom is a symbolic means of the oppressive exploitation of the African. The narrator says that "the road was a world apart from ours, and it was chance alone which had made it brush against our city; it was certainly not by any wish of ours . . . " (1980).According to the writer, developments that prevailed during the colonial era were not at any time in point the interests of the Africans but rather a representation of the Europeans and their trading welfare practice; such roads were built to advance trade for the Europeans but not necessarily African traders. Similarly, in Ferdinand Oyono´s “The Old Man and the Medal”, the road constructed by forced black labor, symbolizes the visible exploitative means linking Africa to Europe. Rodney notes also that the social services in colonial Africa reflected the pattern of domination and exploitation geared toward the well-being of the settlers. For instance, in Mayombe the narrator says: “You earn twenty escudos a day, for chopping down trees with an axe . . . And how much does the boss earn for each tree? A pile. What does the boss do to earn this money? Nothing, nothing . . . So, how can he earn many thousands a day and give you twenty escudos? What right has he? This is colonialist exploitation”, (Pepetela: 1983) According to Rodney’s analysis of the above statement, this is what resulted in the underdevelopment of Africa. Rodney observes that the African dependency upon the European also ultimately produced neocolonial class stratification and Africans who manipulated the colonial economic structures for their own benefit. On the issue of the development of education in the African continent, Rodney is of the view that colonial education did more than corrupt the thinking and sensibilities of the African, it filled them with abnormal complexes which de-Africanized and alienated them from the needs of their environment. It is thus in Rodney’s view, colonial education has thus dispossessed and put out the control of the African intellectual the necessary forces for directing the life and development of his/her society. Moreover, as accorded by Rodney, the transatlantic slave trade caused the forced removal of the African people from their countries across European countries. This number included a large percentage of skilled tradesmen and women from a range of occupations and professions who were making their contribution to African societies. Without them, African societies themselves were weakened. Also, Africa had trading systems which had developed over hundreds of years well before Europeans arrived in Africa. Europeans destroyed these systems in large areas of Africa when they developed the trade in enslaved Africans. Local systems were badly affected and overwhelmed by the demands of the new trade in enslaved Africans, a trade imposed by the better developed guns and ships of the Europeans. How Africa was Underdeveloped by Europeans (key issues) Trade and domination Slave trading undermined the ‘Gold Coast’ economy of West Africa. It destroyed the gold trade. Slave raiding and kidnapping made it unsafe to mine the land or to travel with gold. The Europeans’ demand for slaves made raiding for captives more profitable than gold mining. The transatlantic slave trade encouraged Africans to wage war against one another and conduct raids, instead of building more peaceful links. Europeans used their superior shipping and skills and military power (primarily their guns) to dominate trade to and from Africa. Europeans became the leading traders of Asian and African consumer goods. This was particularly striking in the early centuries of trade. Europeans relied heavily on Indian clothes for resale in Africa. They also purchased clothes from several parts of the West African coast for resale elsewhere. Morocco, Mauritania, Senegambia, Ivory Coast, Benin, Yoruba land and Loango were all exporters to other parts of Africa – through European middlemen. By the time that Africa had escaped the shackles of the slave trade and entered the colonial era, its main export was raw cotton i.e. Zimbabwe was the biggest exporter of cotton in the Southern African region. This remarkable irony points not only to technological advance in Europe but also, and most importantly, to the stagnation of technology in Africa owing to the trade with Europe. Europeans did not want African states to develop their own technology. They did not want them to be able to make their own manufactured goods. African resistance and independence Exploitation did not end with the ending of the transatlantic slave trade. Britain began to ban the trade in slaves from 1807, and it was not until 1957 that the Gold Coast, now Ghana finally became the first African country south of the Sahara to become independent from European rulers. This period of time was filled with long, bitter colonial conflicts. These conflicts were not always wars in the usual way with armies and guns. For 150 years after 1807, Europe tried to control Africa and its wealth. They used brutal massacres as well as treachery, for example involving the bribing of African chiefs, and betrayal of their treaties and agreements, such as with Queen Nzinga of the area now called Angola, in their attempts to do this. Africans would use all their available resources to defend their people and territories. They would fight back against the Europeans with guerrilla tactics, sabotage, and non-cooperation and by the destruction of those crops and businesses based in Africa that benefited the Europeans. Many Africans fought and worked to gain political independence from Europe, often inspired by the 5th Pan African Congress held in Manchester in 1945. African countries did eventually gain formal political independence from the Europeans. However, Europeans still exerted a huge amount of influence on how African countries developed. Their natural resources were still mainly owned and managed by European investors. Europeans still owned much African land, for instance in Zimbabwe and South Africa are most affected victims of such domination and exploitation in Southern Africa, with a large chunk of South Africa’s land still white owned even at post colonialism. Europeans were still the main buyers of African crops and minerals. Africans had to cope with these issues as well as many other legacies of the European controlling presence in Africa. In addition to all of these developments, Africa also had to deal with some key events including the dividing up of Africa into distinct countries by the European powers that took place at the Berlin Africa Conference (1884-1885), and the impact of two world wars. Ongoing exploitation Some would argue that Africa has never freed itself from domination by the west. In the late twentieth century and in the twenty first century, the relationship between the west and Africa has been primarily one of exploitation. International trading agreements with Africa have been unfair on African countries. These agreements have been overly influenced by western big businesses. Such unfair agreements and relationships have allowed individual African officials to get rich while the region sells itself cheaply and develops no infrastructure. This relationship of exploitation has been a common feature of the European intervention in Africa. It started with the arrival of the missionaries, and continued with the arrival of European merchants and mercenaries, and most lately, with the western multinational corporations. Economic instability When economists look at African countries they generally find their economies are weak. There are regularly many economic signs of this, including weak Gross Domestic Product (GDP, which measures the value of local production and its growth), the exports of primary products and agricultural products getting smaller, a low level of using modern industrial machines, a terrible national debt to richer countries and the gap between rich and poor getting bigger and bigger. On top of this, many multinational corporations do not even sell African products using prices established by the laws of supply and demand in a free market. Increased costs of production are not passed onto the consumers who buy the produce, instead they are sold from the source in Africa at a lower rate which means less income for African workers and business. The global market also sets a price on most of Africa’s exports and so the higher production cost cannot be recouped. At the same time, a rise in productivity will not necessarily lower world prices by an increase in supply, because the demand may remain fairly small. Africa has mostly been caught in this economic cycle. This is a fundamental inequality in international trade and once this has been set up it is difficult to change. Conclusion To sum up, we can say that an unequal trading system has been imposed on Africa by Europe from the mid fifteenth century onwards. This unequal trading system, in one form or another, continues today. It has meant that African countries have never built up sufficient national wealth to invest in their infrastructure (in things such as roads and electricity supply) and industry (economic development) so that they can develop as countries properly. Bibliography Anon., 1987. Decolonizing the Mind; The Politics of Language in African Literature, Harare: s.n. Chinweizu, 1975. The West and The Rest of Us. New York: Vintage Books. F, O. & John, R., 1967. The Old Man And The Medal. London: Heinemann. O, C. J. & I, M., 1983. Toward The Decolonization Of African Literature. African Fiction and Poetry and Their Critics; Howard University Press, Volume 1. Rodney, W., 1981. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Harare: ZPH. Wolfers, M., 1983. Pepetela.. In: Mayombe. Harare: ZPH. Page | 9