How Europe underdeveloped Africa
A book by Walter Rodney
Have you heard about shrinking populations or the baby bust?
It has become a concern in rich countries and a common news topic. Couples have fewer children. Countries are trying to fight back with tax benefits or even direct payouts for those with kids. Without immigrants, nations such as Italy, Spain, and Belgium would already be on a trajectory of population decline, as we see happening in Japan, which is strongly averse to immigration.
Those newscasts about shrinking populations are usually fear-mongering (and racist). They say fewer people mean less work, less economic growth, and a fragile social security system. Some even suggest a complete social collapse. Although they blow things out of proportion or are completely wrong, they are right about one thing: fewer people mean slower economic growth.
China, for instance, would not have become the power it has without the work of its people—the whole billion and a half of them.
Workers create, innovate, and turn natural resources into new products that generate money. More working hands, therefore, mean more economic growth.
So, one has to wonder, since more workers mean growth and development, what would happen if, in a rich country such as England or Belgium, we took away many of their young population to other countries in a span of many centuries?
An approximate example might be Ireland, which has seen its population leave the country for the past 170 years. Firstly, because of the famine caused by failed potato plantations at the end of the 19th century, when roughly one million Irish died from starvation and related causes, and at least another million were forced to leave their homeland. It then created a snowball effect, in which, because there was a lot of emigration, there were fewer people to work. This led to economic stagnation and more emigration, generating continuous negative population growth. That left the country economically far behind its European neighbors. Now, the population is finally on the rise (partly thanks to immigration) and, with it, experiencing the biggest economic growth in Europe.
This introduction gives a small idea of how impactful the slave trade was on the African continent. For over four hundred years, most African countries were left without huge chunks of their populations, especially young working-age men. Millions of them were sold to colonies on the American continent, leaving their own countries with no means to develop and grow.
And unlike Ireland, the process was violent. It was not a willful migration. It generated chaos and fear among neighbors. You could never know when someone would kidnap you or a family member to be sold into the slave trade. Those who lost battles were sold, as were members of different tribes or cities.
Because of slavery, the remaining population was incapable of fully engaging in agriculture and industry. To achieve economic development, it is essential to make maximum use of labor and natural resources. Usually, that implies peaceful conditions.
The slave trade ensured that for some groups, it was monetarily beneficial to engage in raids to capture people, cattle, and goods. Professional slave hunters and warriors were employed to destroy instead of build. Slavery left regions devastated, with conflicts, fear, and too few hands available to rebuild them.
Colonialism
But the official abolition of the slave trade didn't mean Africans could finally be left alone. Once it was over by the end of the 19th century, colonialism began. At a meeting in Berlin, the European powers literally sat down together and divided the continent.
As late as the 1870s, Europeans controlled approximately 10% of the African continent, with all their territories near the coast. Portugal held the largest colonies in Mozambique and Angola, followed by Britain, which held the Cape Colony, and France, which held Algeria. By 1914, only Ethiopia and Liberia remained independent of European control, with the latter having strong connections to the United States.
Rich and interior areas like Congo were taken. Owned by Belgium, it was where a vast amount of gold and diamonds were "discovered.” Cocoa plantations were and still are a large part of production there, with locals earning very small wages while the famous and expensive chocolate is produced and sold in Belgium. Congo was also one of the most brutal colonies; hundreds of thousands lost their lives, while others lost their hands and feet as punishment for crimes against the colonizers.
Congo made Belgium very rich, as did many British and French colonies, the two countries with the largest regions. Although there is much to explore in every country or colony, the author, Walter Rodney, has chosen brevity. He explains slavery, colonization, and more without delving too far into a particular country. Instead, he gives an overall view of the historical process and how it led to underdevelopment.
A very didactic book
Before getting my hands on How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, I tried reading probably the most famous book on colonialism on the continent, The Wretched of the Earth. The truth is that I couldn't. It isn't easy to read and is very academic.
On the other hand, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa has very simple writing. It's easy to read and understand. He starts with pretty comprehensive explanations of what we should understand about development and underdevelopment. He continues on to explain how Africa was before European arrival. Contrary to what we may think, Africa had fully developed regions and cities, some even more so than the ones found in Europe in the 16th century. This development delayed colonialism in Africa for centuries, unlike what happened in other places, such as the Americas.
It is also interesting how he answers common criticisms of the ideas he defends in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa in the book itself. This is usually quite didactic, but it also gives the impression that he is tired of explaining these things repeatedly. He cites throughout his book many authors who defend slavery as not that terrible and colonialism as actually being positive for the continent.
I do have a few remarks on the book, though. 1) It's old (1972), meaning that many countries referenced there no longer exist (e.g., Rhodesia, Tanganyika), which makes it harder to follow at times. 2) On the same note, no illustrations; you have to Google around to search for these countries, how Africa's map changed before, during, and after colonization, and things like that. 3) Because it's old, it's somewhat of a Cold War book, which is not necessarily a problem but can read weirdly at times.
Having turned 50 last year, an updated edition with maps and a few side notes would have fixed any of the issues I had with the book. I was happy with Angela Davis’ introduction in the last edition, though - she met Walter Rodney before he was murdered.
Colonialism has morphed into imperialism and is still a contentious subject in Europe. Even after 50 years, it is a relevant book for understanding power relationships in our world. I'll leave you with a citation from the book and a small Ted-Ed video related to the topic showing how this is far from being a problem that has been overcome.
When citizens of Europe own the land and the mines of Africa, this is the most direct way of sucking the African continent. Under colonialism, the ownership was complete and backed by military domination. Today, in many African countries the foreign ownership is still present, although the armies and flags of foreign powers have been removed - Walter Rodney
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney
Far from being a mere historical document, the book has contemporary relevance. Many of the issues Rodney raised and addressed in his book are still with us. The gulf of inequality between Africa and the West has widened, while poverty in Africa is more severe today than fifty years ago. Time has not diminished the ideas propounded in the book or the power of the argument. Anyone interested in the subject should read this book.
Since I live in Belgium, another book I'm interested in reading in the future is King Leopold's Ghost.
Adú (2020)
Unfortunately, all Western movies about Africa are filled with suffering and war. It also usually has a white savior as the main character or is about a white person finding themselves and improving as a person on the continent. I wouldn't say "Adú" is that much different in this sense. However, at least it's a touching dramatization of the humanitarian catastrophe that is the European borders (the deadliest one), a topic mostly left untouched by movies and TV shows.
Michaela Coel plays Kate, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, where at least 800,000 people were killed in 1994. She was rescued and adopted by a woman in the UK. As an adult, she tries to better understand what happened and bring those involved in the genocide to justice.