I chose in that post to highlight what he wrote about the African continent and its culture, because I could connect that to other works about music and culture I read, in line with my activities as percussion player. My focus was cultural. True, more joyous a theme, than usually politics or economics: culture we “want”, economy we “must”, I always say.. Though I notice “political animals” among humans exist, who actually enjoy political games and their study and analysis: I am not one of those. Still I think it’s good to study such “cold” themes (colonialism, politics, economics), to understand the current world I live in too.
The best-known work of Walter Rodney has indeed a more political-economical theme, which he wrote a few years later than Groundings With My Brothers, when living in Africa, working as scholar in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania (the scholar and Black Power activist Rodney had an eventful life, eventually returning to Guyana, where he was murdered by state forces in 1980): this book was ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’, first published in 1972, and I recently could read it. You guessed it: this post is more or less my review and opinion about it.
First and foremost, I conclude that How Europe Underdeveloped Africa was a “good read” (I like Rodney’s clear, attractive, at the same time somewhat humorous writing style), and to take it a step further, also a “necessary read”, a “must read”. The latter for myself, but broader for all people claiming to be Black Power - or Rastafari- adherents. Broader still, for all – what in French are called “tiersmondistes” (“Third World-ists”): mostly Left-wing, multicultural-minded Europeans with a postcolonial guilt complex, but mostly well-intending. I even argue that this book is recommendable for all people (irrespective of ideological leanings) to learn about colonial history and Africa – and therefore the world - , even though in my bitter experience closed minds (even if proved mistaken) are not easily opened, and hard hearts not easily softened..
In my personal past (also professionally), I have already studied colonial and slavery history, so not all was new to me, but professionally I was focused on the Americas, less on colonial developments in Africa. Walter Rodney’s book is precisely about that. The title, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, is rather summarizing or self-explanatory, and indeed “to the point”.
MARXIST
It is good to point out that Walter Rodney had/has a certain Marxist perspective, and definitely anti-capitalist. His focus is – at the same time – on modernization and progress. He sees state socialism as preferred direction, differing in that from anarchists, as well as from more “return to nature” and self-sufficiency answers of other anti-capitalists. Most Rastafari (though there are internal differences) tend to be the latter type of anti-capitalists, arguing that “isms” and “schisms” (capitalism, socialism, whatever) are Western, or: "Babylonian", schemes, systems to dehumanize people, in a totalitarian manner.
History has – in hindsight – proven the Rastafari movement more right than Rodney’s (albeit relatively open-minded) Marxist ideas. Capitalism is exploitation – very simply put – by capital- and means-owners, resulting in lacking freedom and dependency of the majority of the working populations. The Communist regimes that arose, however, such as the former USSR, the Eastern Bloc, now still China, Vietnam, North Korea, and Cuba, are not known as “free societies” for their populations, and not just in biased Western (“capitalist”) propaganda. Personally, I have most experience in Cuba under Fidel Castro. I have visited it several times, befriended Cubans, and speak Spanish.
Besides personal experiences some might have, also what we hear through media about Chinese repressive totalitarian policies restricting and controlling people, the treatment of minorities in China, repression in Tibet, etcetera, may put doubt in heads of even the staunchest (neo)Marxist or Communist apologist, about whether what’s called “real existing communism” actually is a success “for the people”. Older Eastern Europeans I spoke to (i.e. old enough to remember Communism before 1990) were neither positive about the restrictive Communist societies, even those with more or less socialist anti-capitalist ideas themselves. Only Croatian and Serbian people I spoke with, had some positive memories of Communism, but Yugoslavia had a mild, open variant of it (even allowing free international travel) under Tito (who for that reason came into conflict with the much stricter Stalin: they say Stalin even tried to get Tito killed).
HISTORICAL MATERIALISM
Be that as it may, Rodney’s critique of capitalism-driven colonialism in Africa by European powers, the main theme of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, seems very sensible to me, the history well-explained, using the proven, in itself valuable method of “historical materialism”. This last method is – ideally – a way of letting history speak for itself, and therefore can exclude many biases and hidden interests, cloaked falsely in scientific jargon. I appreciate that about it. Later (e.g. in dictatorial Communist regimes) historical materialism as method also got polluted with propaganda and biases, including simplistic, self-interested distortions.
Rodney is too intelligent and open-minded for the latter propaganda nonsense, rendering more neutral historical accounts, very engagingly told, of how colonialism by European powers took place in Africa, and its effects.
These negative, halting effects (overall: underdevelopment) of Africa stem, he insists, from capitalism’s inherent exploitative base, but not just that. Racism and earlier colonialism also played important roles in shaping policies in Africa, he also shows.
This book, thus, deals with this whole process, from early colonialism, and to the infamous Berlin Conference (1884/85), during which European countries subdivided Africa (further) among themselves. Africa was then largely colonized, until independence struggles gained some success since the 1950s and after.
CAPITALIST MODES
A period of less than a century, this African colonization since the Late 19-th c., but with intense economic changes, and what can be called “capitalist strengthening” in Europe itself through imperial expansion. It followed on periods of mercantilism and (earlier) British colonialism and slavery eventually financing the First industrial Revolution in Britain (Late 18th-Early 19th c.), in turn normalizing “capitalist modes of production” as Karl Marx called it, characterized by private ownership of means of production and wage labour.
He goes on to show - with many telling examples -, how all economic policies or “investments” by the European colonizers of Africa since the later 19th c., were self-interested and exploitative, even harsher than exploitation of capitalist societies in Europe itself: lower wages (relatively) for African labourers in set-up industries, only allowing a passive role as consumers of (European-made) products.. In short: an even more intense cynicism and inequality than wage labourers already faced in Europe, with not even the “modernizing” gains and opportunities that capitalism did in theory produce (despite its exploitative premise) for European economies and even workers (economic individualism).
Foreign investments meant mostly foreign dependency for Africans - Rodney summarizes these policies as "growth without development", based on exploitation for European interests, with no real long-term benefits for Africans. Regarding agriculture, it made "monoculture" dominant in African colonies, e.g.: Gold Coast centered on cocoa, Dahomey (now Benin) on palm, Uganda on cotton, etcetera. This was forced on these colonies for European demands. To quote directly from the book: "Diversified agriculture was within the African tradition. Monoculture was a colonialist invention". Also this had a lasting negative influence.
Alongside this racist “thread” of exploitation, there were of course differences within Africa, dependent on regions, as well as colonizers. Britain, France, and Germany modernized and industrialized (and became “democracies”) earlier, adapting colonial goals to human advancement, including modern patronizing philosophies of (supposed, fake) inclusion, and the “white man’s burden”, aimed (supposedly) at helping Africa and Africans to develop and modernize. Rodney convincingly shows that this was largely hypocrisy.
The tone and indirectness differed from what he calls, quite justly, then more “backward” capitalist nations exploiting Africa, notably Portugal under dictator Salazar (with a Fascist-like ideology), and (though with only small colonies in Africa) Spain under Franco, Italy under Mussolini, but also – of course – the Apartheid regime in South Africa. These did not “sugar coat”, and directly stated the preferred racial inequality and racist presumptions, reminding of equally candid Nazi-examples, especially the White regime in South Africa. Similar harsh exploitation and direct statements on African inferiority were found in Portuguese colonies, albeit mixed with patronizing Catholic missionary goals for Africans, as variants of the “white man’s burden”, hiding harsh exploitation and self-interest behind seeming benevolence and aid.
FEUDALISM
Interesting is also how Africa was developing – or would have developed – before/without European invasions and intrusions. Rodney treats this too in the earlier part of this book, pointing at “organically” developing feudalism in parts of Africa, as societies became more large-scale, hierarchical, and complex (less primitive). Several African states and nations did not need Europe for that, this modernization seemed to develop organically, although the Islamic/Arab world (also foreign, after all) influenced it in some areas. This was a learning experience for me, especially the word “feudalism” and “feudal”. I knew what capitalism and colonialism was, but “feudalism” I had to study a bit more – to define it well for myself - , as a stage in human development.
It turns out that (as stated on Wikipedia) feudalism is: “Broadly defined, .. a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour”. Of course, this dependency on nobility and “lords” owning land can be seen as serfdom of the masses. Karl Marx said that capitalism in theory enabled these masses the freedom to choose their employer, but in reality did not improve much for these masses, just bringing different, more confusing dimensions to dependency and exploitation. Centralized state/monarchy power and administration usually meant the decline of (inherently regional/local) feudalism.
According to Wikipedia, feudalism flourished in (mainly) Europe between the 9th and 15th c., not coincidentally before Columbus and the start of European colonialism, requiring centralized monarchies. Parts of Europe maintained some feudal aspects (Russia, Eastern Europe), but even pockets in Western Europe (including the South of Spain, from where Columbus sailed, ironically enough), even persisting partly as Spain was colonizing the Americas.
What we now know as “capitalism” thus followed – and came forth out of! – colonialism, especially as more developed societies as of Britain and the Netherlands began colonizing too, investing colonial gains with more foresight in their economies, starting the Industrial Revolution. Some see a link between the Protestant ethic and the rise of capitalism (like in Islam still, Catholicism then forbade “interest” on loans, Protestantism allowed it). Spanish and Portuguese colonizers- or “conquerors” as they were called - wasted a lot of those gains on “stupid” luxuries (palaces in Lisbon, Barcelona, or Seville, or even rural areas), or on limitedly successful agricultural experiments.
Capitalism was fully developed, though, when European powers started to colonize Africa mostly in a later stage in history (19th c.). This colonialism in Africa was therefore clearly capitalist (mercenary/exploitative) in nature, and Rodney – as self-declared Marxist – criticized this, but with an open mind. Of course, he was also critical of inequality or injustice in earlier or other systems (feudalism, but also primitive, closed communities with no individual freedoms), showing his open mind and true interest in humane justice. I respect that.
INDIVIDUALISM
Some economic scholars find the term “capitalism” a misnomer, preferring instead to call it “economic individualism”. Walter Rodney would not agree, and gives some good arguments for it in this book, through various examples. While he in itself appreciates that “individualism” as moral stance or ideology can have a “liberating” value in too collectivistic, strict societies, Rodney indicates how it was soon corrupted by narrow, “bourgeois” owners and elite powers - read: capitalists -, simply only claiming it for themselves (individualism became egoism) and their rights to exploit, but preferring the masses and wage labourers dependent on them.
This inequality was the case in Europe and the Western World, but even stronger and worse in Africa, during this colonial period, and the postcolonial history after it. Rodney’s book does an excellent job in showing this, as economic freedoms or progress for local Africans were deliberately excluded and discouraged from any colonial investments of European powers in Africa. "Growth without development".
Racial prejudice - or persisting assumptions of African inferiority - played a role in this, while further the proven colonial strategy of divide-and-conquer proved useful, in various ways. This could be within families and communities (European colonialism diminished the importance of female labour, relative to male “breadwinners”), and between different ethnic groups within colonies, sharpening tensions to avoid unity against the European invaders.
LEGACY
This relatively short “colonizing period” (though longer in some Portuguese colonies) of about one century (roughly between 1875 and 1975), seemed to have cemented Africa’s postcolonial dependency on foreign investments afterward. Further Western/capitalist/political machinations, and combined historical developments (end of Communism in the Soviet Union by 1990), made this foreign investment with dependency on the West part of global “neoliberalism”, the newest variant of Euro-Western capitalism, building on all previous variants, including “corporatist” (state supporting big private companies) ideas from Fascism (first used by Italian dictator Mussolini, who himself tried to “colonize” Ethiopia - then Abyssinia - in the 1930s).
More involvement of formally Communist China in Africa in economically investing in Africa in recent times, seems to point at change and other trade connections, sometimes but not always more “equal”. So does the increased cooperation between “non-Western” BRICS countries, including South Africa.
All of course – for better or worse – a “far cry” from what Walter Rodney seemed to expect as best economic policy, namely state socialism, planned economies, etcetera.
COMMUNISM
I spent a quite intense period of my life travelling to Cuba between 2001 and 2006, having friends and intimate relationships there. Due to my Spanish mother, I was fluent in Spanish, so could get to know the society in Cuba - then under Fidel Castro - well, also because of the type of relationships I had.. way beyond polite “small talk”, let’s say.
As even some (former or adapted) Communists admitted: the absence of private ownership while having to develop an entire economy and society – on that scale -, requires almost by definition an authoritarian state, operating in a totalitarian manner: the bottom up-ideal (or rhetoric) thus gets abandoned for top-down repression of people’s individual freedoms. Read: “dependency” on, well, just other type of exploiters, oppressors, and bosses, with some “party member” or “politician” now interfering with you instead of – but in the same way as - “Mr. Boss Man”.
My experiences in Cuba (also undergoing an economic crisis, called Special Period, with lost USSR support) in 2001-2006 confirmed this. The bottom was a bit less low (state services for food and shelter, education, and medical care) than in other developing countries, but much broader and firmer. The censorship, lack of free speech or movement, and the highly regulated society, mixed – as usual in dictatorships – with corruption in high and low places. This latter limited the trust between people, while the restrictions on and force used on people had more to do with a type of incarceration and Fascism under another name.
A woman in Santiago de Cuba (Eastern Cuba) who I knew well, worked as teacher but had to assist in other state-led jobs (like harvesting/rural work) when asked, or rather: “ordered”. Refusal would have consequences. She told me, sadly, that she felt as if she was a slave. She was of African descent (Afro-Cuban), making her statement, perhaps even more sad and symbolic.
My own mother – at another time – also told me she “felt she was a slave” when living - and having to work - under dictator Franco in Spain in the early 1960s, and that dictatorship was largely Fascist/Right-wing, mixed with some older reactionary (Catholic) elements. The “backward capitalist” countries of Europe, Walter Rodney referred to in his book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Portugal under Salazar had a similar Fascist ideology as Franco in Spain, and Portugal had large colonies in Africa up to 1975).
An excellent book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, in my opinion, and Walter Rodney overall an inspiring scholar and activist, but if there is a critique on him possible, it is that he overestimated the democratizing tendencies of state socialism “for the people”. Marxism seems to lack the cynical, egoistic greed and exploitation that capitalism (now neoliberalism) implies, but with a similar power inequality and dependency, on a similar scale, the masses simply are not that much better off or freer.
Marcus Garvey called Communism: “the white man’s solution to problems created by the white man”, implying interestingly also something like “two sides of the same coin”.
This is somewhat in line with the Rastafari movement, developed since the 1930s in Jamaica, influenced by Marcus Garvey, and aimed toward Haile Selassie and Africa. For Rastas, all “isms” are oppressive systems from Babylon (the Western world), calling instead for a natural living, with self-sufficiency in full equality, on a small scale. Other tenets within Rastafari thinking (such as the “I and I” concept, that the divine lives within beings), also strengthen a healthy sense of individual freedom and creativity, as well as a communal focus, make it – you might say – anarchist/anarchic, in some sense. The cultural focus on Africa, and its origin in the Black Power movement, further make the Rastafari movement less “suitable” to fit in the globally current, foreign/”White” economic systems, let alone those bluntly based on exploitation and/or control through totalitarianism, and this happens to apply to both capitalist and communist states and economies.
CONCLUSION
Despite this mild critique and caveat, Walter Rodney showed in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa from 1972 to me to be overall a sensible, perceptive analyst of colonialism in Africa and its effects, writing in a pleasant style (well readable, but also allowing humour and irony). The book is very educational regarding Africa’s development, with negative effects up to the present (as earlier colonialism, of course), somewhat broader: regarding North-South inequalities in the present world.
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa is also educational in a deeper, more philosophical sense, namely as a “bird view” – or in this digital age: “zooming out” – of world history. Earlier scholars, including Eric Williams (in his work Capitalism and Slavery), showed how slavery and colonial gains eventually helped finance the very first Industrialization in the world, in Britain (Birmingham being the first “industrial city” as such) by the Late 18th c. This industrialization – in turn – led to the development of “capitalist modes of production” or capitalism, still dominant in this world, developing via postcolonialism, to present-day (since the 1980s) “neoliberalism”, shaping global policies by Western powers and even some non-Western powers (e.g. in Asia).
We all – as present-day global citizens - live now under such an economic system, in some way. Whether we want to, or not, haha.
This has the same “capitalist exploitation” base, as more harshly exhibited (although often hidden/subtle, especially in British colonialism), due to historical racism, during the period of colonization of Africa (1875-1972), as Rodney describes in this book.
Tragically, the enslaved Africans brought to the West/the Americas (since the 16th c.) - with partly genocidal effects - during slavery and earlier European colonialism, were used and “sacrificed” for not just temporary profit of some individuals or families, but for wider Western economic progress toward wider profit for (racially, geographically) privileged, thus ensuring global inequality between the haves and have-nots.
When slavery was abolished by Britain (1836, later elsewhere), the industrialization and capitalist society was already well-established in Britain. Unfortunately, as How Europe Underdeveloped Africa shows, Africa as continent was a bit later used to “test” or even strengthen this now “capitalist” exploitation for this new, industrialized economy, based on global inequality and Western dominance.
A recommendable book for, well.., one and all.
