Neo-Colonialism and Financial Imperialism

In the hierarchy of schemes that are driven by the intention of controlling the wealth of other nations, financial imperialism is a serious contender. It is a time-tested technique for acquiring wealth from developing or emerging countries without physically occupying their lands.

The conventional wars of the past are now out of vogue and may soon be obsolete. Violent conflicts emerge in selected regions of the world; The Middle East is one of them, struggling hard to survive the looting of petroleum. In any case, it is expensive, cumbersome and dangerous to operate in that manner. Colonialism is not an option any more. Even peacekeeping is risky, in the end.

Financial imperialism is an easy and perfect answer

While mercantilism is an innocent-looking attempt, international trading is an advanced technique which is used to achieve similar goals. Yet, both of these are passive initiatives, so to speak. Financial imperialism is certainly the behavior of an aggressive nation-state.

The term neo-colonialism was popularised by Kwame Nkrumah, president of Ghana (1960-66), to describe the socio-economic and political control that can be exercised economically, linguistically, and culturally, by multinational companies. The ideology is also discussed in the works of Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80), philosopher-writer and Noam Chomsky (1979), linguist philosopher, as well as the Argentine revolutionary Che Guevera (1928-67).

Financial imperialism is the full-time occupation of dominating weaker countries, by more powerful ones. By steering the wheel of international trade in their favor, which they do by innocuous recommendations in trade meetings or by stern directions given privately, they take the drivers’ seat of the economy of the oppressed country. It manifests itself in various domains, such as sale of high cost weapon systems, currency control, monopolistic trade practices, an artificially-low cost labour force etc.

Neo-colonialism and financial imperialism 101

Advanced nations understand that economies are best sustained by the cycle of production and destruction, and they do everything to keep this going for themselves. Products must be developed, sold, and then destroyed, before ushering in products that are more sophisticated.

They are conscious of their technological superiority, and they dedicate serious efforts to retain it by deploying wealth in the course of acquiring more of it from others. They are displeased with the attrition of their imperial and colonial strength of past decades. To sustain this supremacy, they adopt a two-pronged strategy; self-protection by innovative satellite based defense systems, and muscle-flexing by deploying mobile lethal weapon systems at strategic locations around the world.

This reincarnated form of imperialism operates through financial and political processes and uses cultural imperialism as its ally. Unlike in the physical colonization, the subjugated citizens would perhaps never awaken to demand freedom from financial imperialism; instead, they wither in its slavery.

How Markets are Prompted in the Victim Country

This mechanism operates on the economy of the victimised country by manipulating the mindset of its political leadership and citizens. It uses political acumen to exploit the greed for money and power of political leaders. Financial imperialism incorporates itself by way of three distinct mechanisms:

1. It incorporates favourable clauses in international trade agreements with the consent of the political leadership of the victim country. The local financial policies, systems, and institutions, then fall into place, automatically.

2. It conspires and contrives, to create a hostile environment with bordering countries. Different forms of conflict are introduced and fueled, using political connections in both of the countries, the victim and its neighbour. Cross-border terrorism, is the easiest of them to inculcate. This gives the politicians on both sides, a plausible excuse to vociferate on the presence of the imminent threats from across the border — and the need to acquire weapons and support systems for cutting-edge technologies. Super high-cost weapon systems are then procured surreptitiously by both countries.

3. Good use is made of cultural imperialism. Soft targets such as teenagers and homemakers, are subjected to specially prepared soap operas that highlight improvements in fashion and living style; which products are produced in the advanced countries only. Elderly audiences are barraged with media coverage that underline usefulness of health or wellness products produced only in the advanced countries. Travelogue is deployed emphasising even ordinary tourist spots. In this way, the citizens are conditioned and encouraged to shop for foreign goods and services. They are enslaved voluntarily. Only years after this exploitation, citizens may wake up from their slumber; but by then it is too late to for the domestic system to recapture its losses.

How the Environment is Created

There are many variations and options, but basic to all empire-building are the following:

• Establishing a system where money can be manipulated using power or authority. It creates the framework for corruption, money-laundering and distinct lines between the ruling and the ruled class

• Creating international forums and cliques, where favourable rules can be framed for international trade agreements

• Acquiring dominant control of a banking system that operates internationally to provide finance and ameliorate liquidity problems

• Establishing or helping to establish corporations, that operate internationally and can easily move profits and costs across the globe to avoid taxes, and keep weaker countries poor

• Establishing corporations to politically influence leaders of countries

• Colluding with at least one powerful country to provide political cover, subvert small governments, and to initiate military action when required

The textbook example of how financial imperialism is initiated and sustained, is the way the British East India Company did it in India, centuries ago. Subsequent practitioners have fine-tuned and optimised it.

Today, the Jews, who were disliked by the Germans who accused them of siphoning money from the German system, are controlling a substantial chunk of the international money pool. Have they built a financial empire and do they dictate terms to others? Probably, yes. Is the European Union attempting the same? Probably, yes.

Developing economies, blinded by their ill-founded conflicts with the neighbors, must resist — and they must help each other to resist.

The term colony comes from the Latin word colonus, meaning farmer. This root reminds us that the practice of colonialism usually involved the transfer of population to a new territory, where the arrivals lived as permanent settlers while maintaining political allegiance to their country of origin.

Colonialism is a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people to another. One of the difficulties in defining colonialism is that it is not easy to distinguish it from neocolonialism. Frequently the two concepts are treated as synonyms. Like colonialism, neocolonialism also involves political and economic control over a dependent territory. The etymology of the two terms, however, provides some clues about how they differ.

According to Longman Contemporary English Dictionary ‘colonialism’ is when a powerful country rules a weaker one and establishes its own trade and society there.

ORIGIN OF COLONIALISM

Before the abolition of the slave trade by Denmark in 1802 and Britain in 1807. The entire West African Coast witnessed trade in slaves which were need for the plantations of the then Industrialized new world. The nations involved were France, Britain, Denmark, Portugal and Germany.

About forty years later the trade changed to that of colonialism – conquest and occupation by Europeans.

The Berlin West African Conference of 1884 – 1885 gave international recognition to a situation that was already in existence.

1945 – 1960 witnessed a transformation process    tagged decolonization which change colonialism to neo-colonialism.

Below shows a chronology of dates and the sequence of events from colonialism to neocolonialism and the present day ongoing process of neocolonialism.

1. 1880 – 1885 – Proto-Colonial period

2. 1885 – 1945 – Colonial Era

Subdivision

1. 1884 – 1885 – Berlin Conference (the scramble for Africa)

2. 1885 – 1900 – Period of Conquest and occupation

3. 1900 – 1919 – Period of Penetration

4. 1919 – 1939 – Period of Colonial Rule

5. 1939 – 1945 – Decline of colonial rule

6. 1945 – 1960 – Period of decolonization

7. 1960 – Till date – Period of Neocolonialism.

MEANING OF NEOCOLONIALISM

The term “neocolonialism” was first coined by Kwame Nkrumah, the first post-independence president of Ghana, and has been discussed by a number of twentieth century scholars and philosophers, including Jean-Paul Sartre and Noam Chomsky

Neocolonialism is the practice of using capitalism, globalization, and cultural forces to control a country (usually former European colonies in Africa or Asia) in lieu of direct military or political control. Such control can be economic, cultural, or linguistic, by promoting one’s own culture, language or media in the colony, corporations embedded in that culture can then make greater headway in opening the markets in those countries. Thus, neocolonialism would be the result of business interests leading to deleterious cultural effects.

Neocolonialism as defined by Longman’s contemporary English Dictionary is “when a powerful country uses its economic and political influence to control another country”.

DEFERENCE BETWEEN COLONIALISM AND NEOCOLONIALISM

Though colonialism and neocolonialism are two sides of a coin. There are a number of differences that distinguishes the two.

COLONIALISM

1. It is not modern (between 1880 – 1960s)

2. It involves physical or territorial occupation by the colonizers

3. It has ended

4. It is the early state of capitalism or imperialism

5. It varies according to country e.g. Indirect Rule, (British) and policy of assimilation association by the French.

NEOCOLONIALISM

1. It was led by France and Britain.

2. It is a modern phenomenon

3. It is not involve direct or physical presence of the colonizer any more

4. It is ongoing i.e it is a continuous process

5. It is the highest stage of Imperialism

6. Neo-colonialism uses one methodology – agents of Globalization

7. It is now led by USA

 

Probably nothing has become as controversial a subject as the impact of Colonialism on Africa among scholars of history and political science. Scholars such as Gann, Duignan, Perham and PC Lloyd see colonialism and neocolonialism as a blessing rather than a curse while other scholars such as Kwame Nkrumah, Che Guevara, Walter Rodney, MHY Kaniki A.E. Afigbo, A. Adu, Boahen, Ali Mazrai etc. sees it as a curse rather than a blessing. To buttress this further Che Guevara’s says.

“As long as imperialism exists it will by definition exert its domination over other countries. Today that domination is called neocolonialism.

Che Guevara, Marxist revolutionary 1965

In view of this, the impact of Neo-colonialism therefore is not a lesser task to assess particularly from social, economic and political perspectives in Nigeria. To be frank, though there were positive effects but every greater were the negative ones.

Below is my assessment of the impact of neocolonialism on the social, economic and political life of Nigeria.

(A) AN ASSESSMENT SOCIAL-CULTURAL IMPACT OF NEO-COLONIALISM AFRICA (Nigeria etc)

(1) Provision of a lingua franca.

This is a negative impact of Neo-colonialism in Africa. The provision of a lingua franca (different official language) for Africa can now be seen as a curse due to the marriage of inconvenience which brought the numerous linguistic groups that constitutes the neo colonial states to easily adopt different colonial languges based on the side of colonial line they fall into while remain indgeiously same people For instance The yorubas in nigeria are trainned to be english speaking people while the yoruba the are in benin republic are trainned as french men.

Neo-colonialism through globalization has further consolidated the use of English language as the business and official language not only Nigeria but across the Anglophone neo colonial states as French done that across francophone neo colonial states

(2) Cultural Dominance

According to Ali-Mazrui: “African are not necessarily the most brutalized of peoples, but they are almost certainly the most humiliated.”

Using the agents of a globalization e.g. the Mass Media, Internet Western Movies etc. Nigerian culture like other African countries is evidently being subjugated and dominated by the western culture. Many Nigerians today seem to have imbibed the European way of life at the expense of our rich African culture (colonial mentality). This is gradually leading to a loss of cultural identity.

(3) Western Education

This is an indispensable effect that Neo-colonialism has also used as a tool for Nigerian continuous reliance on the west for inadequate, lopsided and wrongly oriented education which was bequeathed by colonialism and consolidated by Neo-colonialism. This is evident from the fact that our acquisition of western education has helped in a neglect of technological and industrial education rather than that of a technological advancement.

(4) Environment Degradation

Oil spillages due to the exploitation of oil by some multinational companies such as Shell, Exxon Mobil etc. has to a large extent polluted Nigeria’s water and land resources particularly in the oil producing areas of the Niger Delta. Consequently this has affected the eco-system, the habitat and the cultural occupation of the people of that area.

(B) AN ASSESSMENT OF ECONOMIC IMPACT OF NEO-COLONIALISM IN AFRICA (Nigeria etc)

The negative economic impacts outweigh the positive impacts. some of the negative economic impacts includes:

(1) Economic Dependency

International Organizations accused of participating in neo-colonialism are the World Bank, World Trade Organizations, the Group of Eight the Paris Club, the World economic forum, IMF etc. have been used by the first world countries to subject Nigeria into some structural adjustments which will increase rather than alleviate poverty . These Organizations are neocolonial agents used to ensure a perpetual economic failure and dependence of Nigeria as evident in the high rate of underdevelopment, poverty, debt burden etc. which has characterized our economy.

(2) Economic Subjugation by Multi-national Corporations

Critics of neocolonialism has also argued that investment by multinational corporations enriches few in under-developed countries and causes humanitarian, environmental and ecological devastation to the population which inhabits the colonies. These corporations such as Shell, Exxon Mobil etc. are responsible for a continuous flow of natural resources (oil) which unduly benefits the neo-colonial states.

(3) Economic Brain Drain

Today modern slavery exists through visa lotteries used to siphon not only Nigeria’s but ultimately the human resources of the developing countries. This is an economic brain drain strategy to subject the third world into a continuous technological hostage.

(C) AN ASSESSMENT OF THE POLITICAL IMPACTS OF NEO-COLONIALISM IN AFRICA (Nigeria etc)

(1) Consolidation of Democracy in Nigeria

Though Nigeria’s political history has been characterized by the Military versus the Civilians. Recently democracy seems to have been fully entrenched in Nigeria through neo-colonial agent, such as the U.N. and other similar organizations.

(2) Political Dependency

Neo-Colonial states’s membership of the United Nations and other International organisation immediately after Independence provided reasons why we have always been politically dependent on neo-colonial states like the USA and Britain. Consequently, membership in Pan-African Movement like, NEPAD, the Non-Aligned Movements, the African Union, the ECOWAS have not liberated us from this unending political grip of dependency.

(3) Political Instability and Regime Change

Apparently, government either Military or Civilian which poses no threat to the neo-colonial states in Nigeria seem to last longer than the ‘unfriendly’ ones. In my opinion, no other reason can be tendered as why the Murtala Seven Months Regime (July 1975 – February 1976) and the Buhari regime (December 1983 – August 1985) were very short lived. Nigerian leaders who refuse to be stooges or puppets of the Neo-colonial powers are usually forcefully removed so as leaders of the colonial state who refuse to follow script like Lumuba Sankara.

(4) Loss of Independence and Sovereignty

Neo-colonialism, as a continuation of colonialism have of course eroded the independence or sovereignty which Africans  claimed to have gotten.

(5) New – Colonialism

Finally, Neo-colonialism is the tool which has helped the Neo-colonial states to continue the colonial process which started around 1880 and Interrupted by decolonization or so-called “Independence” of in 1960s

In conclusion, whatever colonialism and Neo-colonialism did or is doing for Africans in Africa , given its opportunities, it resources and the power and influence it is wielding till date it could and should have done far more than it has done. It is precisely because the Neo-colonial states not only did not see the development of Africans as their first priority but did not see it as a priority at all that they stand criticized. The continuous existence of the tools of Neo-colonialism therefore poses an existential threat to the development of  Africa.