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Enduring Colonial Legacies and Political-Economic Challenges in Modern Africa w/Abel Gaiya pt. 1
Unpacking Colonial Legacies: Trade, and Africa's Quest for Economic Independence
Together with development economist Abel Gaya, we confront the enduring impact of colonial legacies on post-colonial Africa. We discuss the arbitrary borders drawn during the Berlin Conference and how they continue to fuel political instability and conflict by disregarding ethnic and cultural boundaries. Abel sheds light on Africa's rich pre-colonial societal structures and how these historical dynamics still shape trade and conflict on the continent.
Our conversation ventures into the historical trade dynamics and imperial aspirations in West Africa and the Sahel. We explore the thwarted dreams of revitalising the trans-Saharan trade, revealing how colonial policies prioritised coastal routes and high customs duties led to its decline. We unpack the complex reactions of African elites to colonial cross-subsidisation and how these responses reflect resistance and adaptation strategies within the French colonial framework.
Lastly, we navigate the political fragmentation of post-colonial Africa and the ongoing neocolonial legacy. With Abel's expertise, we discuss integration efforts, the dissolution of colonial federations, and the formation of the African Union. Our discussion then examines the role of international financial institutions and foreign military presence in perpetuating neo-imperialism, and reflects on Africa's quest for economic sovereignty.
Host:
Fungai Mutsiwa
Guest:
Abel Gaiya
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Thank you for tuning in to another episode. I'd like to apologize for some of the audio, so during the recording we did experience a few technical issues, so there are times where the audio does drop out and in those moments I just ask that you be patient with us and I hope you really enjoy the discussion. I agree with you. Like you know, necessity drives the need for change. We need that catalyst to get us there. But then a part of me then thinks well, aren't we already at war? Sure, it's not labeled as such, but when you look at the presence and the activities of most of these big countries, you could make the argument that we are at war.
Speaker 2:I have a dream today. Is it too much to ask you to grant us human dignity? Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the color of your skin to such extent that you bleach?
Speaker 1:For so many, many years we were told that only white people were beautiful. You're afraid that if you give us equal ground, that we will match you and we will override you.
Speaker 2:Black is beautiful. Freehood. Say it out loud, free, Free U it, I want it free.
Speaker 1:Good Usakango ni dumbo pawakachero, which means don't forget who you are or where you came from. Welcome to Black for 30. Thank you for coming through and joining us in another discussion on Black for 30. And, of course, before the episode begins, we just need to observe 15 seconds. It's just been quiet just so you can wrap up whatever it is you're doing and then we can fully engross ourselves in this discussion to come. So the 15 seconds starts now.
Speaker 1:In this episode, we'll examine the enduring impact of colonial legacies on Africa, focusing on the comparison between pre-colonial history and the post-colonial economic and political landscapes, at least as we understand them today, economic and political landscapes, at least as we understand them today. And we'll also get to talk about the disruptions that happened, which you know, caused by colonial policies which weakened, you know, regional economies and also fueled instability across the continent. And, of course, you know this also played a part in creating the dependence that we now have on development assistance, particularly when you look at foreign debt, making it harder, of course, for us to establish our sovereignty, because, as we'll get into the discussion, because you know, as we'll get into the discussion, such mechanisms perpetuate underdevelopment within a continent, you know, from negative implications on trade policy and economic stability. So our guest is interested in development politics and the history of African economic thought. I will let him introduce himself as he feels like.
Speaker 2:Thanks, fungai. So my name is Abel Gaya and I am a development economist. I'm also at the moment a researcher not in academia at the moment, but looking to get back there soon, yeah.
Speaker 1:And for sure, you know a lot of what you do is obviously, you know, going to come out in the discussion and it's the whole point of bringing you along where you then you know, the whole point of bringing you along where you.
Speaker 1:You then, you know, get to show that an orthodox approach to you know some of those areas, because I think it's quite valuable us having some of those, like it's different, radical dynamic, you know, um perspectives on, on some of these um issues, um, and I think a good place, I guess, like for us to sort of like start as a warm-up to this conversation is, you know, just looking at how imperialists created borders within africa, right to control and exploit the continent's natural resources, you know, and a big part of this enabled them to impose colonial laws and policies.
Speaker 1:You look at the Berlin Conference, which formalized these arbitrary divisions, disregarding ethnic, cultural and linguistic boundaries, and that then became known as the Scramble for Africa and that then became known as the scramble for Africa and, of course, what this ended up doing labor to do most of this stuff anyway. And then you look at how these colonial powers also justified their presence by claiming to bring civilization, christianity and modernism. So the arbitrary borders, at least as far as I've observed, they frequently split these ethnic groups and combined others who already had historical hostilities, you know, and feeding into that whole issue of political instability and conflicts, you know, within post-colonial Africa. And I know, in one of your papers you argue that the history of development assistance should expand its focus beyond North-South economic transfers, right to include these international dynamics. So how does this then affect trade and conflict across the continent today?
Speaker 2:There are about 10,000 societies across Africa, so Africa had the most level of state fragmentation, so average territorial size for any society was lower, was the lowest compared to North America, south America, europe and Asia, and so you had about a third of these societies also being decentralized societies, which means they didn't have central authorities that had power like kings, and youth groups and age groups balancing each other, segmented lineage societies as well, as they are called in the field of anthropology, and so you had this wide range of societies. You had also permeable relations between societies as well. So even when you consider the empires say, the largest empire in sub-Saharan Africa at the time, the Sokoto Caliphate in the Western Sudan, extended into the Central Sudan, so presently Northern Nigeria and Niger and a little bit of Cameroon it was also not very the borders of the empire were not defined. So if you look at the map that the Vizier mapped out for Hugh Clapperton, the British adventurer who was sent to the Western Sudan, you will see the perception of authority was that there was a center where the sultan stayed, where the political power rested, and then radiation, circular radiations, from that center, so multiple radiations across, and so these were not borders per se and so there was a lot of fluidity and a lot of cross-interaction. Trade was also very fluid, trans-saharan trade occurring into the Maghreb through the Sahara and a lot of involvement. So you had Arabs in Gadams in southern Libya, living in Kano city at the time present. In northern Nigeria there were about 300 Arabs by the time of the European expansion and you had Tuareg nomads taking care of the camel trade which supplied the Trans-Saharan trade. So it was very fluid but also interdependent, very cosmopolitan as well.
Speaker 2:What European colonialism did was that, because there was a geopolitical competition for territory, so you had it starting along the coast. The first territories that were captured were along the coast. You had, for example, sierra Leone, captured by the British in West Africa, were along the coast. You had, for example, sierra Leone, captured by the British in West Africa, in present-day Senegal, captured by the French, eventually Lagos, so that way, and then the hinterlands were then penetrated. The French also penetrated most of the hinterland of West Africa. So you had these measures to consolidate territory because of geopolitical competition among the European powers, but then because of the level of states' fragmentation in the European mind. So the level of stateless societies, decentralized societies and then a lower population density, also the lowest population density in the world at the same time, which meant that for one colonial power to set up an administration and a machinery for rule and the limiting borders, it needed to consolidate multiple territories, multiple societies, a bigger area.
Speaker 2:Exactly For administrative convenience. So most of and this also the level of competition also influenced the size of the territory. So, for example, you had more competition for coastal territories than for interior territories, where it was more difficult to facilitate seaborne Atlantic trade or seaborne trade. So you have the coast of West Africa, for example, being fragmented into about 11 different countries, from Nigeria all the way to Senegal. So you had Ghana, liberia, sierra Leone, all over, but then you have the interior being only four countries Burkina Faso, niger, mali and Mauritania, and these are very large countries in terms of territory. And so you see, only because the French did not have competition for those territories, since the British thought they were not as prosperous as the coastal territories where trade could occur, and because Germany and Italy were not strong enough to pursue that level of broad colonization, so Germany only got Togoland and then Italy only colonized Libya and then tried to get Ethiopia as well.
Speaker 2:So you have these patterns and you have these societies coming together. And because of its largely administrative convenience, but also to cross-subsidize administration, so the richer territories were now financing. Taxes collected from richer territories were financing the poorer territories as well. So you see this in Nigeria, the south Lagos was prosperous was subsidizing the administration of northern Nigeria, the same in Ghana. The south, the Gold Coast, was subsidizing the northern territories, and the same pattern everywhere. And this was also why the French created the French West Africa Federation. So they federated all their West African territories into one federation and a major part of the reason was to cross-subsidize. So the Senegalese Senegal was subsidizing Mauritania, mali at the time, french Sudan and Niger, for example.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, this was the basic reasoning and the basic structure that, uh, that has fueled, uh, yeah, a lot of those divisions, yeah, and, and it's also like in some way then disappointing to know that, you know we haven't re-examined those divisions. You know we're still operating based off the because essentially those divisions were created based on administrative or, you know, or colonial frameworks. You know, and at this point I'm not even mad at them, because they were doing what they were meant, they were doing what they came on the continent to do, right, and so for me it's like to then think that we still have these existing boundaries and we adhere to them when we know the historical context to it, you know, kind of feels disappointing for me, and especially so with, you know, colonial French West Africa. Yeah, the French then also went ahead to dismantle this federation in the late colonial period, right, which then weakened these colonies both internally and externally.
Speaker 1:And I know in one of your articles you discussed the whole issue about malformative changes in the Sahara and Sahel, highlighting disruptions in the 19th and 20th century West Africa which led to economic crisis and the failure of regional federation efforts. And these disruptions included the collapse of Trans-Saharan trade and the shift of economic influence to coastal West Africa, and, of course, that then exacerbated the issue of fragmentation within West Africa. So can you explain a bit more about the disruptions and also the importance of regional alliances?
Speaker 2:Well, tracking back slightly first. So the the 19th century was actually three, three scrambles. So it was the european scramble that's that won out. Uh, so you hear in the literature on african economic history, the military revolution in West Africa. So this was a series of large-scale jihads for empire building, especially in West Africa, but also in the Sudan, in British Sudan, the Sudan in British Sudan. So you had the jihad of Uthman Danfudu to create the Sukhothu Caliphate, which was the largest. But you also had one of the Tukhlo Empire, al-hajj Umar Tal, you had the one of Samori Ture and you had a series of others.
Speaker 2:And this largely started from around 1776, partly in response to the frequent sale of free-born Muslims as slaves to finance or to supply the Atlantic slave trade. So they were trying to consolidate territory and stop slavers. You also had imperial aspirations by coastal West African elites. So when Liberian immigrants, american immigrants and black immigrants in general, the captives, those who were rescued from the slave trade, were repatriated to Liberia, the creation of the colony of Liberia and then Sierra Leone in a West African federation, west African empire. Hilary Teague, edward Blyden, early on also advocated for British creation of protectorates in West Africa as well, and there were perceptions of. There were some perceptions of civilizational superiority over interior Africans at the time. So this was part of the discourse of civilization, christianity and commerce. So you needed the blacks, who had learned from the whites, to advance Christianity through missions, civilization and commerce into the West African interior. So there were various visions of some imperial expansion. But anyway, that was just a tangent.
Speaker 1:It would be really dope as well, because I didn't even know about those other two. So it's very interesting to sort of see also what was happening outside of the scramble of Africa that we commonly know.
Speaker 2:Actually four. There were also Maghrebi aspirations for territory in West Africa. So Morocco wanted to obtain territory in Mauritania, part of Mali, and so Yusuf Pasha Karamanli, who was the leader, the ruler of Libya at the time, in 1820, asked for a loan from the British to conquer Borno, which is in present-day Nigeria. So these were people who were looking to conquer West Africa from the north as well, and then you had coastal West African elites trying to conquer from the south. So in terms of trans-Saharan trade, of Trans-Saharan trade were early attempts to revitalize Trans-Saharan trade in goods, because at the time slaves made up a significant share of of traffic. So a lot of slaves were brought from the Sudan into the Sahara and then into the Maghreb and transported to Istanbul and Turkey, iraq and other places. So there were earlier attempts. The British, when they were in Libya, were British when they were in Libya were having in the 1860s were trying to revitalize Trans-Saharan trade. There were also visions for a Trans-Saharan railroad, one that would go from Libya or Morocco whatever Libya or Morocco whatever or Algeria, for the French into Timbuktu, mali and into West Africa in general. There were even grand visions of creating, flooding the Sahara, so creating canals from the Mediterranean, into the Niger River or into places in the Sahara, into depressions, to create artificial lakes. So there were all these visions to do things in the Sahara and in the Sahel. But, yeah, these visions failed.
Speaker 2:So by the time in the late 1800s, colonial rule came and started coming from the coast. The first railways were built along the coast and then expanded into the immediate hinterlands of this country. So they never entered into the Sahel. So the Lagos-Kano railway only stopped in Kano, for example, which is the northernmost part of the colony of Nigeria. It did not enter into Niger. And then there were no railways from the Maghreb into West Africa, for example into Niger, and then you had the fragmentation. So the French conquered the entire Sahel. So any trade that was going from Nigeria into Niger and then into the Maghreb, for instance Libya, was cut off, since they then put customs duties and these colonial empires discouraged trade between other empires did discouraged trade between other empires. So the french discouraged, discouraged trade between french territories and british territories and uh and so on, british discouraged trade. So they put on high custom cities and there was a general policy of diverting trade from the interior to the coast rather than through the sahara. So all this contributed to the downfall of trans-saharan trade by the early, the first decade of of the the 20th century. So so around the 1910s, 1920s.
Speaker 2:So you had that when the French Federation was built and this cross-subsidization was happening was happening, there were proponents and opponents among African elites as well. So the richer territories, senegal and Cote d'Ivoire, tended to oppose cross-subsidization because they thought they were poor. So they needed these subsidies that were paid out to other colonies to stay within their own colonies At different points, especially Cote d'Ivoire. Cote d'Ivoire was the most anti-Federalists in the bloc and then eventually became the. So by the time, by the 1940s, 1950s, by the time the, the french were starting to debates whether there should be a french, a french community, so transitioning the french colonial empire into a French union where the former colonies had seats in the French National Assembly and could freely migrate into France and all that and had citizenship.
Speaker 2:During that debate, hubert Bonny, the major personality in Cote d'Ivoire, was supposed to keep the French Federation within the bloc. So Leopold Senghor of Senegal, the main personality in Senegal, was in favor of. He called it vertical and horizontal solidarity. So he wanted the Africans to come as a bloc into the French Union. He said that going into the Union without having horizontal solidarity, so coming as a bloc, would mean you are coming independently and so you have less power in the bloc and you will be subject to exploitation and continued imperialism, neo-imperialism at that point. But Hubert Bonny wanted the opposite. He wanted each country to come into the bloc independently. He wanted each country to come into the bloc independently, and so at the end, the French debates won out in favor of Hubert Bonny.
Speaker 2:So the French Federation, the French West African Federation, was broke down, and there were last ditch efforts by Senegal, newport Semgo and multiple cata of Mali, the French Sudan, to try and create a federation on their own. So they created the Mali Federation between Senegal and French Sudan as a means of keeping that value of horizontal solidarity alive and hoping that other African countries would join it and it would become an actual federation, an actual African federation eventually. But it only lasted one less than a year and, yeah, the Senegalese pulled out, exited. There was a lot of conflict between the two leaders, between Senghor and Modibo Keitar, and also the uneven development between them Senegal as a coastal country and being the former headquarters of the French West Africa Federation, all the industries, all the small level of manufacturing industries that were in French West Africa were largely in Dakar in Senegal, and you had differences of opinion. Modibo Keita, in the French Sudan, which was which was economically more disadvantaged compared to Senegal, was in favor of nationalizing the industries. So he, so he wanted, which would mean the industries in Dakar would be nationalized, and since Mali had the preponderance of population, it would mean the government would be and the bureaucracy would be controlled by Malians and by French Sudanese. And so there were also a lot of other disagreements and so at the end it broke down and that was the main experiment which went on successfully.
Speaker 2:So you had both the breakdown of the French West African Federation and also the breakdown of the last attempt to revive that Mali Federation, and right now you have the continuation of the situation where the poorest territories are in the Sahel, which contributes to today's Sahel crisis, at the moment of terrorism and human capital, development problems as well. But also more generally, even the northern regions of many of the coastal countries are the poorest in their countries as well. So northern Nigeria is poorer than southern Nigeria. Northern Benin is poorer than southern Benin, same with Togo, same with Ghana, same with Cote d'Ivoire. For Cote d'Ivoire, that contributed to its civil war. For Nigeria, it also contributed to its civil war. It was a major contributor to its civil war. For Benin and Togo, they contributed largely to their military coups as well, and generally so this has affected political stability in terms of military coups. West Africa has the highest frequency of military coups in Africa. Historically Also, civil wars fought in these countries and terrorism in the Sahel and a lot of problems.
Speaker 1:It's sad how one of the things I was recently thinking about is our failure to have supranational governance, meaning for context for people, governance which transcends national borders and involves multiple countries coming together. I used to look at the African union as an organization working to achieve this goal, you know. However, one of the things I recently learned which makes me think otherwise is how the African Union was established. You look at, so this would have been in, I think, 1963, right when you had the Casablanca bloc and Monrovia Bloc trying to come together and, again for context for people, so Monrovia Bloc was essentially Liberia and you had most of the Francophone countries and they believe that, you know, african states should cooperate without forming a political federation, or rather that deep integration right, and they emphasize the importance of states maintaining their autonomy and, you know, promoting nationalism over Pan-Africanism. And then, on the other hand, you had the Casablanca Bloc, which had countries like Algeria, egypt, guinea and Morocco as well, and they were advocating for African political unification and, you know, kind of similar to the European Union model. They wanted to build this federation so they could be able to fight colonialism, achieve peace.
Speaker 1:You know, looking at also to what you're talking about, the horizontal and vertical integration right, and how that helps garner geopolitical influence and you know, and that eventually then promotes things such as economic development. And I think it was Kwame Nkrumah who was even proposing a pan-African army. So, despite these differences between both blocs, they were able to come together to form the OAU, the Organization of African Unity. But one of the interesting things I learned about the OAU, which later then became the AU, is how the Charter emphasizes principles on independent statehood, non-interference and national sovereignty right. So if the AU is fundamentally opposed to complete integration, does it render the organization redundant when what we are pursuing are Pan-African ideals?
Speaker 2:So the whole issue is difficult because in general it is very difficult for countries, very difficult for countries, to form a larger political unit, and so this has really been the case historically. What you had, for example, in Europe, was that Europe got very fragmented in Europe was that, you know, Europe got very fragmented after the fall of the Roman Empire. So when the Roman Empire fell, 476 AD, you had the fragmentation of Europe into, specifically into a range of kingdoms, principalities, and then you did not have nation-states as such. It was only in the late medieval period and then into the early modern period that you had nation-state building. And so by 1548, for example, you still had about 500 German principalities. So there was not a German state. So there was not a German state, so just Germany alone. You had 500 different, consolidating from more than 600 different units to what you have now as 50, what 51 different European countries.
Speaker 2:And when you had the formation of the United States, for example, it was 13 colonies coming together. So when we're talking of a post-colonial context or colonial context now, 13 colonies come together, but it was under the pressure of war, so they had to come together to fight the British together, and you know, initially they did not want to give so much power to the center. They wanted to keep their rights as individual units. So you had the Articles of Confederation, so they came together as a confederation only, which was a loose federation, rather than give power to a central government, for example, and that had a lot of problems both with states putting taxes on other states and all that. So it was just a mess and you eventually needed to have a stronger federation. But also in Latin America, after the drive to decolonize the region, with leaders such as Simonon, bolivar and so on, you had the creation of several federations. You had grand columbia, the federation of central american states, but they also broke down. Uh, in the, especially in the absence of of after they had gained independence, and it's difficult, in the absence of the threat of war, to keep states together.
Speaker 2:And you see the same pattern in the African case as well. Pattern in the African case as well. The forces that debilitate against federation are so strong that it is usually that threat of an external force that needs to be heard. And even the formation of the European Union. Now it was after the experience of two world wars and the understanding that just leaving France and Germany alone, and also with substantial American aid as well, through the Marshall Plan, that the European coal and steel community was formed and which morphed into the EU absence of threat of war, which in the developments studies, scholarship has been paradoxically identified as a major reason for even the absence of developmental states.
Speaker 2:So you had Africa decolonizing at a time when the sanctity of a state became enshrined in international law, so state sovereignty, the formation of the United Nations, states being guaranteed that they would not be invaded, in contrast to, say, even in the 19th century, where if you were a weak state you did not have a strong military and a strong economy to fund that military, you would be invaded by a neighboring state or an extra-continental one. In the development literature this is one of the explanations for why, for example, east Asia was able to industrialize from the 1950s, 1960s up to the 1990s when, say, south Korea had almost the same level of GDP per capita as Ghana, for example. So in that region you still had communist insurrections happening the Vietnam War, the Korean War and efforts to stop communist insurrections in South Korea, in Hong Kong, singapore and the rest.
Speaker 1:I agree with you. Necessity drives the need for change. We need that catalyst to get us there. But then a part of me then thinks well, aren't we already at war? Sure, it's not labeled as such, right, but when you look at the presence and the activities of most of these big countries, you you could make the argument that we are at war, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the threat of war has to be salient. It has to be threat of military warfare, of life, of life exactly. Nkrumah had difficulty convincing fellow African leaders that neocolonialism was the threats that would need to be responded to by forming larger federations. So forming a regional federation in West Africa, for example, would bolster against neocolonial influence. So by having African countries being able to bargain together in the world space. Take Adam Getachew has the most, the clearest book on this topic Worldmaking in the Age of Empire. I think so that many of these anti-colonial black Atlantic thinkers had perceptions of reorganizing states, but especially Kwame Nkrumah.
Speaker 2:But neocolonialism is not as salient a threat as military warfare. So you could have political elites benefiting from neocolonialism. There's a category for that in the literature comprador elites. So these are intermediate elites who benefit from being intermediaries for foreign investors so they can bribe political elites. They can be part circuits in their own businesses, their own shares. They are given stocks in multinational or joint ventures between them and multinational organizations, and they can. They are venture elites in essence. So to convince them that neocolonialism is then a threat when it's the one benefiting them Exactly.
Speaker 2:So you actually need a physical threat to their political survival to push them to choose to go away from that, which is why I wrote the article on the republic titled Crisis, pan-africanism so I came up with this term to show that, while Nkrumah failed to convince political elites to build these Pan-African institutions in response to Pan-African institutions in response to Pan-Africanism, because of the absence of these visceral threats, the actual pattern of crisis and threats in terms of geopolitical conflicts, famines, famines, war and economic crisis have been the ones that have driven efforts towards Pan-Africanism since its death.
Speaker 2:So the formation of ECOWAS, for example, economic Committee of West African States, ecowas, for example, economic Committee of West African States, was after the Nigerian civil war, so it was led by Nigeria and Togo in an effort to stop or to reduce French influence in West Africa, since it was France that was the biggest supporter of Biafra, which was the seceding entity in the civil war. And then you had geopolitical competition between Nigeria, as the hegemon in terms of size, population size and even economy, slightly at that time, cote d'Ivoire, which was the economic hegemon in French West Africa, in Francophone Africa. And so you had the creation, the counter-creation, of Seau, the Communauté économique Afrique, the West, so the Economic Community of West Africa, and you had the creation of the first African regional, the first African military force or security force, ecomog, in response to the threat of spillover of the war in Liberia.
Speaker 1:So this was also championed by Nigeria as well. Thank you for tuning in to the first part of this discussion, where we were doing a deep dive into the pre-colonial history of Africa, specifically the political and economic landscape, and with the second part of the discussion, that's when we really delve into some of the contemporary issues that we face across the continent today. The World Bank and IMF, you know, in terms of their role, but then also the implications that then has politically and economically across the continent. We also look at the African financial community, how France uses that mechanism to retain political and economic control in West Africa. Then, lastly, we talk about the military presence of foreign countries across the continent. Yeah, that will all then tie into the discussion around these colonial legacies and, importantly, getting to understand how that has led to neocolonialism or neo-imperialism. So really look forward to you tuning in to the second part of the discussion and, as always, stay black.
