There was a debate in the British media, a while ago, about whether colonialism was beneficial to colonised peoples or not. Some dismissed the idea for various reasons; others lauded its benefits. These were mainly members or supporters of the Conservative party. The party’s leader, Nigerian-born Kemi Badenoch, was one of those who supported the idea that it was primarily beneficial to colonised peoples. But such a position is basically imperial nonsense. As Walter Rodney underscored in that his great book; How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, colonialism.
But it is not only British Tory politicians that have a favourable view of colonisation. A good number of Nigerians do as well. And a sizeable number of the people that believe this are very intelligent people, including university graduates. This is problematic not just because it is not true, but because this idea consolidates mental enslavement and cultural imperialism that still exists in the neocolonial society we live in today.
Now, before I debunk the perspective that colonialisation was a good thing, let us talk about why it happened in the first place. Why did Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Italy have colonies? The supporters of colonisation, as a good thing would say it was to spread European Christian or enlightenment values or to spread development.
The colonisers did spread some values and some think these were Western and good. But the reality is more complex. A lot of what are today considered as Western values emerged from capitalist development in the West and not as something intrinsic to Western society. And the spreading of these values was not universal. Colonial powers spreading of these “good values” were used to subjugate the working masses in colonised societies. In places with already strong hierarchical power structures like the feudalist caliphate in northern Nigeria or the caste system in India, the colonialist simply fine-tuned these oppressive structures to enable colonial domination.
Colonisation happened because of the increasing concentration of capital and the need for capital export for the expansion of capital. As Lenin notes in his book Imperialism The Highest Stage Of Capitalism: “Tens of thousands of huge enterprises are everything, millions of small ones are nothing”.
In secondary school economics, we were taught about Adam Smith and we were told that he was the father of economics. His most important work, The Wealth of Nations, was published in 1776. In parts of the book, he describes and praises capitalist competition. But what our teachers and other promoters of Smith fail to point out is that capitalist competition drives the process of concentrating wealth into a few hands. At the beginning of the industrial revolution, there were various companies and business in industries competing for resources and markets. But quarter by quarter and recession after recession the winners emerged and the losers closed shop until there were fewer capitalist players in the industry. Later, mergers and acquisitions led to the establishment of cartels and trusts. This resulted in monopolies and the system of monopoly capitalism where a few giant firms, corporations and cartels wield so much power and have so much money. To maintain that status, power and money, they have to be interested in politically shaping the legal and social framework of society, nationally and globally. In their countries of origin with advanced capitalist economies, they contribute to campaign funds of candidates who are then indebted to them when they win, and they also lobby for favourable legislation. In developing countries in the global South, they bribe state officials as well, or coerce the state to bend to their will or risk capital strikes.carry They have also been known to be behind coups to overthrow governments which pose problems to them and bring governments beneficial to them into power.
Now let us talk about capital exports. Capital exports are now usually called foreign direct investment. This is when a company invests in a region outside the home country. So why did companies need to expand beyond their national borders at the dawn of colonialism? They were searching for raw materials, cheap labour and new markets to sell goods they had produced in their countries, for profit. The underlying logic for all these reasons is the need for expansion of their capital and the growth of capitalism. In the capitalist system, when new ways to grow or new markets to enter cannot be found, the system enters an economic crisis.
Having examined why colonisation occurred, we must also ask ourselves what happened during that period. Some youths advocating recolonisation argue that the era, while flawed, spurred progress in development and education. But did it do that? To answer this, let us start from the beginning. British colonisation kicked off with the establishment of the East India Company in 1600. The governments of different imperialist European countries formed more companies like this in that early period of capitalist imperialism.
The company at the heart of the colonisation of Nigeria was the Royal Niger Company. It carried out natural resource extraction on a brutal scale. Companies like this could do so with the military might they put together. They also carried out massive land dispossession, heavy taxation, and unfair trade practices which destroyed local industries. For example, before the East India Company set foot in India, India occupied a leading role in global trade with very vibrant local industries and a well-educated population. All these were gone after a 100 years of the company’s presence and became replaced with massive poverty, massive underdevelopment, massive illiteracy and massive famines which the exploitative practices of the East India Company exacerbated, and in some instances caused.
British colonisation of Nigeria involved taking over the lands of our forebears. Lands that were communally owned by the indigenous people were expropriated by the British colonial state and declared as “public land” just to give favourable leases or sell them for cheap to British capitalists. One example of this was the Land Proclamation decree of 1900 in Southern Nigeria, which enabled British companies to acquire large swaths of land in the Niger Delta Region for the extraction of Palm Oil. This involved the displacement of native farmers and severe acts of suppression of local resistance by the British State.
This is all bad enough, but someone still attempting to defend colonisation can claim that it still fostered development and increased education. But I want to counter this claim. There was little or no industrial development to turn the raw materials into finished products in that period and where there was, they were mostly staffed by the skilled workers from the colonising countries. This was in stark contrast to the indigenous workforce that were low paid and at best semi-skilled workers in the mines, railways, harbours and famers of cash crops in the rural areas. There was also little to no investment in science and technology in the schools established by the colonial state or missionaries. The aim of colonial education was not to facilitate development.
A cursory study of our history shows that colonisation did not drive development for the colonised. It is extremely worrisome that some young people today think that it was good and even call for recolonisation. We also face the problem that the structures of imperialism that enabled colonisation remain largely intact. Centralisation of capital and foreign investments (capital exports) are higher than they were a 100 years ago, at the height of colonialism. The legal framework for sustaining imperialist extraction of resources and wealth from neo-colonies have been perfected with Structural Adjustment Programmes and free trade agreements. These bilateral agreements have essentially given foreign companies immense power over developing countries with the ability of companies to sue the governments of these countries at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).
An example of this was a foreign company which sued the post-apartheid government of South Africa for implementing the Black Economic Empowerment mining regulations, which required transfer of ownership of mining operations to historically disadvantaged South Africans. South Africa is not a member of the ICSID but the court still had jurisdiction, as South Africa had Free Trade Agreements with the home nations of the European Companies.
Such lawsuits as these can result in poor countries paying foreign capitalists substantial amounts of money. These are monies they could have used for their populations. An example of this is the case of Zhongshan Fucheng Industrial Investment Co. Ltd vs Federal Republic of Nigeria, which resulted in the Nigerian government making payouts of $55.7 million. Another pending case, Honduras Prospera Inc, St. John Bay Development Company LLC, and Prospera Arbitration Centre LLC v Republic of Honduras; a case that was brought to the court by Prospera, a libertarian Utopia project by a bunch of libertarian economists and Silicon Valley tech billionaires when the Honduras government tried to kick them out. Prospera and its associates are seeking a $10.8 billion settlement payment. That is more than a quarter of Honduras’s yearly GDP.
We need to learn our history and understand how we arrived at our current situation. If we do, we will not have a positive view of the colonial period. Even if you still think the colonial period brought “some benefits” that were lost at the end of colonisation do you not realise that if we liberate ourselves, we can develop our society much more and do this as free people? Imperialism, which includes both colonialism and neocolonialism, are integral parts of how the global capitalist system extracts value from subjugated or dominated countries, like those in Africa. Resisting imperialism requires both local and international socialist resistance of the working class. It is only with our unity and struggle that we will end capitalism, defeat neocolonialism in Nigeria and other developing countries and build socialism as a worldwide system.
Emmanuel IRO-OKORO
