The Anti-Colonial Economy
One would expect that after the
exit of the colonial powers, a new sovereign nation would chart a path for
itself unlike the one which was set by the colonial overlords, but that did not
end up being the case. It is argued in this piece that, the post-colonial
economies of independent African nations were exactly like the colonial ones
and in-fact exploited fellow Africans a lot like the metropole.
Firstly, once the colonial elites
exited the country, the country was to be run by the local elites, the local bourgeoisie.
This new economy was just a continuation of the old economy and not a re-structuring
of the old one into a truly ‘post’-colonial one. What does this mean? Basically,
the western educated elites from these societies who were mostly detached from
their origins ended up charting the economic policies of these new nations, while
they may be idealistic people but they knew of no other way to run economies or
systems other than the ones that were run by the colonial powers. The local
elites replaced the gora sahib as the landowner and bureaucracy. Fanon claims
that the post-colonial force was mostly for the elites in these economies to
have the opportunity to exploit and accumulate wealth in ways which the
colonial power restricted them from. This is not only limited to Africa, but
very much true closer to home – when the subcontinent was partitioned, Muslims
in Sindh occupied lands of Hindu Sindhis as they felt that this was their post-colonial
right. These countries continued to operate the same economies, producing the
same thing (raw materials) which catered to the west and this was profitable by
exploiting labor, the same one which was always exploited, but now they were ‘independent.’
The continuous exploitation to
such a scale would mobilize the masses to eventually overcome this order and
finally become a truly anti-colonial force, but not quite. These ‘post’-colonial
governments, then Fanon says start to borrow money from the IMF and the World
Bank, they align themselves with the old colonial powers which continue to prop
up their regimes of exploitation because they acquire benefit from you. The
United States supported Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe for decades despite being ‘opposed
to dictatorial regimes’ in general.
Finally, these anti-colonial
movements did not end up living up to the dreams of African unity and ended being
fundamentally divisive. The racism of the regent was replaced by the discrimination
between nations. Once a sovereign nation was formed, those who were of the ‘other’
African nation were driven out of that country so that the local could occupy
those resources.
The post-colonial economy ended
up as an image of the past, one which still worked only for some in society and
for the western powers. It pit up one African against another, even today many
African nations are embroiled in conflict with one another an rely on support
from western allies to fight their enemy (another African power). African unity
is a long-forgotten dream, forgotten for finding your individuality, your national
origins, this line from the wretched of the earth sums it up aptly:
“There is a constant pendulum motion between African unity, which sinks deeper and deeper into oblivion, and a depressing return to the most nous and virulent type of chauvinism.”
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