The Biden administration is holding a summit with some 40 leaders of African countries. The New York Times headline of its reporting on the summit is revealing:
Biden Is Bringing Africa’s Leaders to Washington, Hoping to Impress
Millions died of hunger in British-ruled India, where ‘free trade’ took precedence over famine relief.by Jag Bhalla
Jag Bhalla blogs at Evonomics, where this essay was first published.
What role should greed play in how we run the world? Should it rule us and shape all that we do?
The CIA committed many crimes in the early days of post-independence Africa. But is it fair to call their interference “recolonization”?
Woman walks by the rather large vibrant mural dedicated to Patrice Lumumba, political leader who brought freedom to the Congo, in L.A.’s Leimert Park. Photo credit Joey Zanotti via Flickr CC BY 2.0.In 1958, a year after it achieved independence from colonial rule, Ghana hosted a conference of African leaders, the first such gathering to ever take place on the continent. At the invitation of Ghana’s newly elected prime minister, Kwame Nkrumah, more than 300 leaders from 28 territories across Africa attended, including Patrice Lumumba of the still-Belgian Congo and Frantz Fanon, who was then living in still-French Algeria. It was a time of unlimited potential for a group of people determined to chart a new course for their homelands. But the host wanted his guests not to forget the dangers ahead of them. “Do not let us also forget that colonialism and imperialism may come to us yet in a different guise—not necessarily from Europe.”
Tailors busy stitching Russian flags to meet rising demand in Bamako, the capital of Mali, December 26, 2021On Friday, Mali’s transitional government has clarified that it is engaged with Russian military trainers even as French troops are drawing down. So, it is official that Russian security personnel are deployed to Mali.
5 July 2021 — Tricontinental
Some of AFRICOM’s known permanent and semi-permanent military bases on the African continent, 2019.
The images in this dossier map some of AFRICOM’s military bases on the African continent – both ‘enduring’ and ‘non-enduring’, as they are officially called. The satellite photos were gathered by data artist Josh Begley, who led a mapping project to answer the question: ‘how do you measure a military footprint?’
8 April 2021 — Internationalist 360°
Ajamu Baraka, the former Green Party vice presidential candidate and current national organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace – a member of the Black is Back Coalition — says Europe must be “de-centered” from discussions of fascism. African people need to “reject the assumption that fascism was something new and unique to Europe in the early 20th century,” said Baraka. In fact, “the fascism that emerged in Europe did not break from the totalitarian logic and practice of European colonialism. Practices that were applied in the colonies” were now “applied in Europe.”
4 December 2020 — Internationalist 360°
Hunger is still the biggest killer in Africa and it has a lot to do with colonialism. Redfish worked with filmmakers in Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya and Zimbabwe to tell local stories of food and hunger, but also the growing resistance to the continued influence of former colonial powers, their corporations and institutions. Economic sanctions from the Global North, debt and loans from the IMF, aid dependency, and enforced capitalism have all played a central role in Africa’s manufactured food crisis.
18 June 2020 — Global Research
Many industries and service companies are failing or shrinking due to the lockdown and subsequent crisis. Instead, there are those who have gained from all this. Facebook, Google (YouTube owner), Microsoft, Apple and Amazon – writes The New York Times – “are aggressively placing new bets, as the coronavirus pandemic has made them nearessential services.” All these “Tech Giants” are from the United States.26 July 2019 — WSWS
Although Donald Trump can barely place a single country in Africa, his few utterances on the continent have yielded what can only be described as a nostalgia for the 1960s. It was a decade that saw three white minority-ruled governments ruling in South Africa, Rhodesia, and the South African territory of South-West Africa. All three white-ruled entities practiced varying degrees of apartheid. This was accomplished through economic, social, and political means.
2 June 2019 — Voltaire Network
Italy has just launched a magnificent military ship, the Trieste, in the presence of the political, military and religious authorities. So why did Manlio Dinucci have to ruin the celebrations by revealing certain uncomfortable truths ?
10 February 2019 — New Eastern Outlook
The Anglo-European monopolization of Africa as a cash cow may soon be at an end. Until then, however, Africans will have to stomach the never-ending distortions of truth, on top of watching their legacy evaporate like a mirage over the sands of the Sahara. I’ve covered the disinformation on neo-colonialism many times, but today I want to deconstruct, line-by-line, the latest Russophobia propaganda about Putin’s role with African nations.
14 January 2019 — Voltaire Network
For Thierry Meyssan, one of the consequences of the successive ends of the bipolar and unipolar world is the re-establishment of colonial projects. One after the other, the French, Turkish and English have publicly declared the return of their colonial ambitions. We still need to know what form they will adopt in the 21st century.
4 January 2019 — Voltaire Network
The British Government has chosen its post Brexit strategy. On 30 December 2018, the Defence Minister, Gavin Williamson gave an interview to the Sunday Telegraph, in which he denounced what has been the policy since 1956.
24 October 2017 — TRNN
After the killings of U.S. soldiers in Niger and a potential U.S. link to the Mogadishu attack, author Bill Fletcher says that an increased American military role in Africa threatens even more violence Continue reading
28 July 2016 — Colin Todhunter
Africa is facing a new and devastating colonial invasion driven by a determination to plunder the natural resources of the continent, especially its strategic energy and mineral resources. That’s the message from a damning new report from War On Want ‘The New Colonialism: Britain’sscramble for Africa’s energy and mineral resources’ that highlights the role of the British government in aiding and abetting the process.
5 March 2014 — RT
Estonian foreign ministry has confirmed the recording of his conversation with EU foreign policy chief is authentic. Urmas Paet said that snipers who shot at protesters and police in Kiev were hired by Maidan leaders. Continue reading
9 December 2013 — Global Research
When one thinks of the word ’agenda’ a few obvious meanings may come to mind – a list of things to do, a plan for a meeting, a goal to achieve or perhaps even an ideology. In the context of international development aid an agenda often means something altogether very different – a plan or goal that guides someone’s behaviour and is often not explicitly stated. Development aid agendas do not always reflect the needs and desires of the people they propose to serve. More often than not development agendas serve those who institute and organise them. Be it international development donors or governments who receive billions in aid subsidies, development aid and assistance is hardly ever free from condition or expectation on either the donor or receiver side.
24 June 2006 — The New Dark Age
“You know why you’re here, Smith. And I want you to know that all your worst fears and suspicions are absolutely correct … I am telling you this because I want you to know how much trouble you are in … Smith, I want you to know that I personally gave the orders regarding the elections to which you objected … If you will keep your mouth shut, I can promise rapid promotion and a most distinguished career elsewhere … but you will not be allowed to work in the UK. You must understand that you know too much for your own good. If you don’t give me your word, means will be found to shut you up. No one will believe your story and the press will not be allowed to print it.” – Sir James Robertson, the then governor-general of Nigeria to Harold Smith in 1960.
Y’know it astounds me (though I know it shouldn’t) that ‘our’ governments have gotten away with so many lies over so many decades and we’re not talking about little fibs here, we’re talking about events that determine the lives-and deaths-of millions of people. Indeed, the fate of entire continents hinged on the engineering of massive lies about events and their causes.
18 October 2015
I’m a big fan of history. Ever since I was a kid, history fascinated me and perhaps in another life I might well have become a historian. And in an age where history gets rewritten by the corporate media hour by hour, day by day, understanding where we come from and how we got here is a critical issue.
The New Dark Age 