105. Neo-Colonialism the Last Stage of Imperialism by Kwame Nkrumah

Title: Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism

Author: Kwame Nkrumah

Genre: Political Non-Fiction

Publishers: PANAF

Pages: 283

Year of Publication: 1965

Country: Ghana

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CAVEAT: This review has been delayed for several reasons. First it is to afford the reader enough time to think about the subject matter deeply and present it lucidly. However, after several days, it became clear that no amount of thinking would lead to a clearer review. Thus, to understand the wealth of facts and figures, of information within this pages, kindly get a copy. What is presented here cannot even be described as a pin-prick of what the book offers. The second reason is that today is Kwame Nkrumah's birthday. He would have been 102 years.

When Kwame Nkrumah published this book in 1965, it was banned in the United States. A year after, on February 24, 1966, he was overthrown in a coup d'tat, which according to declassified files or documents, was sponsored by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. During this period several African nationalists were assassinated. And the UN's attitude, especially in the Lumumba case, is there for all to see. Thus, even then, the UN has only worked to help a handful of countries and individuals. 

Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism is a step by step guide to unveiling, exposing, denuding, the factors, individuals, countries, and corporations working against Africa's development and unity. From chapters such as Africa's Resources, Obstacles to Economic Progress, Imperialist Finance, Monopoly Capitalism and the American Dollar, The Truth Behind the Headlines, The Oppenheimer Empire, The Diamond Groups, Mining Interests in Central Africa, Union Miniere du Haut Katanga, Economic Pressures in the Congo Republic, The Mechanisms of Neo-Colonialism, among others, Nkrumah sought to make the world know the kind of forces we are facing as Africans (and non-Africans) on the path towards development (and the people that rule our world).

Corporations, which stole Africa's resources from the beginning by making chiefs sign papers they know very well they cannot read and in most cases papers which talk of a different contract only to turn out that these chiefs have signed off their resources, have come to control Africa's extractive industries, or broadly, Africa's primary resources and have enriched themselves - creating empires - through colonisation. These corporations, even after independence, had done everything necessary to keep the status quo. Through  vertical and horizontal integrations they have formed monopolies that control the production of the raw materials, its transport outside the country, its transformation or value addition, its price on the international market and the manufacture of the finished products. In effect, they control the demand and supply of products. And consequently, prices.

Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first president, did a diligent job with this book in unmasking the demons against Africa's development and unity with hard facts. Appropriately, the book opens with 'Africa's Resources', where the author shows the volume of Africa's raw materials and those who control it. The chapter opens with the paradox that even though the continent is rich its resources go to enrich, mainly, non-Africans.

Africa is a paradox which illustrates and highlights neo-colonialism. Her earth is rich, yet the products that come from above and below her soil continue to enrich, not Africans predominantly, but groups of and individuals who operate to Africa's impoverishment. (Chapter 1, Page 1)

After the second World War, most African countries began the fight for independence and colonialism became unfashionable. In places where the granting of independence was resisted, the natives took up arms. As disaffection towards the colonial government increased, independence became the only way out. However, post-war European countries have seen a boost in their economies that would fall should total (economic and political) independence be granted. The colonialists in granting the independence fashioned out a systematic method of dominance that would still keep them in control of the resources that is needed to drive their economies back home. This burden of keeping growth and development in developed countries became a burden of developing countries:

It is the less developed countries that continue to carry the burden of increasing development of the highly developed. (Chapter 4, page 66)

This new form of control meant to grant quasi-political control (in terms of the physical head and not the politics), while keeping economic-control, is what the author refers to as Neo-Colonialism. 

Neo-colonialism is based upon the principles of breaking up former large united colonial territories into a number of small non-viable States which are incapable of independent development and must rely upon the former imperial power for defence and even internal security. There economic and financial systems are linked, as in colonial days, with those of the former colonials ruler. (Introduction, page xiii)

This system was much preferred even by the French who, granting independence to Guinea removed every single-piece of investment in that country including office equipment such as light-bulbs to prevent the remaining countries from fighting for independence. This is because with Neo-Colonialism, any social and economic failings and disaffection by the people in the 'independent states' are blamed on the government of these states. And these disaffection are easily created through influencing prices.

In neo-colonialist territories, since the former colonial power has in theory relinquished political control, if the social conditions occasioned by neo-colonialism cause a revolt the local neo-colonialist government can be sacrificed and another equally subservient one substituted in its place. On the other hand, in any continent where neo-colonialism exists on a wide scale the same social pressures which can produce revolts in neo-colonial territories will also affect those States which have refused to accept the system and therefore neo-colonialist nations have a ready-made weapon with which they can threaten their opponents if they appear successfully to be challenging the system. (introduction, page xiv)

From the control of raw materials, manufacturing plants, financial capital, finished products, markets for finished and raw materials, through mergers and acquisitions these individuals and corporations have gained enormous power against which neo-colonialist countries, with their small size and little income, can hardly work against or be victorious in any bargain. Capitalism's irony is that, even though it is supposed to be a free system that breeds competition, its practitioners have sought ways to be prevent that very 'advantage' from materialising through mergers and acquisitions, with the giants in the industry swallowing one another. With their control over different industries they control the pulse of most countries, the world even. Today, monopolies have been created for almost every type of industry. So that the mining of Gold is controlled by a few (mostly two) organisations which have shares in each others organisations. And so effectively are a single unit with multifarious appendages (like an octopus). These industrial monopolies have also become the properties of a few individuals, like a pyramid. What is frequently observed is that about five directors of five major corporations would also be directors in over two hundred other corporations in different industries, serving the same interest groups. From their control of industries and new-found raw materials they seek to

...deprive rivals of their use. The manipulation of artificial scarcity is another of monopoly's tactics for maintaining profits. For three years between mid-1964 the big copper companies were running at between 80 and 85 percent of capacity to keep up prices. Steel production, too, was held back to something like 80 percent of capacity.  (Chapter 4, page 62)

In countries where nationalists fight to gain control of these resources, secession is first advocated and then war is instituted. One only needs to look at the Congo DR, a country currently managed by mining corporations, to understand how this strategy works. Where investments are made, the enormous capital flight these corporations and countries embark upon leave the producing-country crippled.

Direct private American investment in Africa increased between 1945 and 1958 from $110m. to $789m., most of it drawn from profits. Of the increase of $679m. actual new money invested during the period was only $149m., United States profits from these investments, including reinvestment of surpluses, being estimated at $704 m. As a result African countries sustained losses of $555 m. (Chapter 4, page 62)

In Chapter 5, Nkrumah showed us 'The truth behind the headlines'. This chapter is dedicated to unravelling the goings-on behind news headlines. According to Nkrumah to 'really understand what goes on in the world today, it is necessary to understand the economic influences and pressures that stand behind the political events. So that an innocuous headline such as 'Morgan Grenfell participates in new French bank (Financial Times, London, 18 December 1962) has more to say than the headline.

Morgan Grenfell & Co. acts effectively as the London end of the important American banking house J.P. Morgan & Co. which, in 1956, already owned one-third of the British company. It should not, therefore, surprise us to learn that the new 'continental' bank in which Morgan Grenfell is participating is called Morgan et Cie; more especially, since 70 percent of the capital of 10 million new francs is held by Morgan Guaranty International Finance Corporation, and 15 per cent by Morgan Grenfell. What about the remaining 15 per cent? This is divided between two Dutch banks - Hope & Co. of Amsterdam and R. Mees & Zoonen of Rotterdam - with both of which the Morgan group has had close association over many years. This association has been drawn even closer by the acquisition in March 1963 of a 14 per cent in both of them by the Morgan Guaranty International Banking Corporation, a subsidiary of Morgan Guaranty Trust. (Chapter 5, page 70)

Using different methods and strategies we are made to accept that we are incapable of doing anything for ourselves. From the Hollywood movies the covert operations of their cultural attaches/ambassadors, peace corps, information services that publishes their own bulletins, the war against united Africa and against development is fought. Not long ago, the Chinese (and even Japanese) were looked upon as we are now; fastforward to today and China and America have mutual respect for one another. It is such examples that we can point at that shows that, at least, hope exist and that is what this book seek to provide: hope.

After reading the introduction of this 283-page book, France's intervention in Cote d'Ivoire - a country it has vested interest in in terms of its resources and financial capital - and US cum NATO assault on Libya would be clearer. Readers would no longer perceive these two events as interventionists but rather a calculated attempt to keep Africa 'apart' and its resources to them. For what would the newly-supported and installed government do when businessmen from these countries troop in to ask for mining and drilling concessions? Most at times, because the powerful families and corporations behind these wars also control the media, we are presented with falsities, half-truths, staged-news and complete lies about what goes on in these countries. Obama's call for military intervention to 'protect civilians' in Libya is a veil for his real intention. However, if we use blanket names such as America, France, Britain etc. we refuse to see the bigger picture. For behind these countries are multinational corporations, the empire of a few individuals, fighting to increase their control of the world's resources. So that the problem is not unique to only Africa but to other countries as well, even in Europe. These corporations, through lobbying, election funding, control over institutions, have infiltrated governments, placed their 'men' (bootlickers) in strategic positions and so are able to influence policies.

Note that Kwame Nkrumah, in this book, did not speak against foreign investment. What it is against is exploitation and the overarching objective of these investors to make super-normal profits while impoverishing the countries in whose land the resources are.

While foreign private investment must be encouraged, it must be carefully regulated so that it is directed to important growth sectors without leaving control of such sectors in foreign hands.

Nkrumah propounds African unity as the solution. A united African would have the economy, the resources and trading amongst itself would become a force to reckon with. China's importances stems partly from the size of its economy. But it is this unity that is being fought from all sides with all manner of weapons to the extent that we have, today, African leaders who prefer to live in countries whose GDP is ten times less than a corporation working in their boundaries. Others who just want to be 'presidents'. Similarly, the Angolophone-Francophone colonialist blocks has done little to aid unity. In fact, every attempt at uniting is hampered by these blocks using baits such as aid (which only serves as a revolving credit, taking ten times more from the 'aided' country than was given), debt-cancellations, and the like. But then again, the book proffers hope and rightly so for this is their last gasp for breath.

This is a book that everyone must read. Especially so if you are an African. It aims to give facts and figures rather than dazzle you with exquisite prose; yet every topic has been painstakingly explored to its logical roots. This should be a required-reading for every African leader (Presidents, Head-of-States, Military/Rebel Leaders, Juntas etc.) and also for anyone who wants to enter into governance. Like I earlier said, this review could not do justice to the volume of information in the book's pages. Thus, it would be better for one to read the book for himself/herself to really grasp what Kwame Nkrumah is talking about. What makes this book worth the read is that the very same 'demons' unveiled as hampering Africa's development are the same problems we are grappling with. Some derided his method of solving it, yet they have come up with no better solution. Recent events on the continent and in the world at large is enough to show that nothing has changed. If anything at all, the wheels have been oiled and the spinning is faster. Would the recently-discovered oil lead to development? 

To end this incomplete review, remember that:

The change in the economic relationship between the new sovereign states and the erstwhile masters is only one of form. Colonialism has achieved a new guise. It has become neo-colonialism, the last stage of imperialism; its final bid for existence, as monopoly-capitalism or imperialism is the last stage of capitalism. And neo-colonialism is fast entrenching itself within the body of Africa today through the consortia and monopoly combinations that are the carpet-baggers of the African revolt against colonialism and the urge for continental unity.

And in order to halt this foreign interference in our affairs

... it is necessary to study, understand, expose and actively combat neo-colonialism in whatever guise it may appear. For the methods of neo-colonialism are subtle and varied. They operate not only in the economic field, but also in the political, religious, ideological and cultural spheres.

Before you become complacent of this, ask yourself what would happen to us if we should run out of these natural resources? Or if substitutes are found as they are being considered for diamond, rubber, crude oil and others? Development is now.
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Brief Bio: Kwame Nkrumah (21 September 1909 - 27 April 1972) was the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1952 to 1966. Overseeing the nation's independence from British colonial rule in 1957, Nkrumah was the first President of Ghana and the first Prime Minister of Ghana. An influential 20th century advocate of Pan-Africanism, he was a founding member of the Organization of African Unityand was the winner of the Lenin Peace Prize in 1963. (Read more here)

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Quotes for Friday from Kwame Nkrumah's Neo-Colonialism the Last Stage of Imperialism (I)
Quotes for Friday from Kwame Nkrumah's Neo-Colonialism the Last Stage of Imperialism (II)

Quotes for Friday from Kwame Nkrumah's Neo-Colonialism the Last Stage of Imperialism (II)

Capitalism contains many paradoxes, all of them based in the concept of commodity production: the few rich and the many poor; poverty and hunger amid superabundance; 'freedom from hunger' campaigns and subsidies for restriction of crop output. But perhaps the most ludicrous is the constant traffic in the same kinds of goods, products and commodities between countries. Everyone is busy, as it were, taking in other's washing. This is not done out of need, but out of the compulsion of profit-making and monopoly extension. The European Common Market has become the apotheosis of this process, as well as the dumping ground of international investment, dominated by the giant American banking concerns and their British satellites.

Present-day monopoly is highly variegated and spread out. While it draws its strength from its monopolistic position, it is on the other hand seriously exposed to the dangers that face a multiple organism that stretches its limbs to extremity in different directions. A fracture at any one point can lead to a disjunction which may unbalance the structure.

It is the burden of the less developed countries that continue to carry the burden of the increasing development of the highly developed.

Really to understand what goes on in the world today, it is necessary to understand the economic influences and pressures that stand behind the political events. The financial columns of the world's press give, in fact, 'the news behind the news'.

The neo-colonialist aim is not only to export capital but also to control the overseas market. Thus attempts are subtly made to prevent developing countries from taking any decisive steps towards industrialisation, since exploitation of the indigenous expanding market is now the prime motive.

While foreign private investment must be encouraged, it must be carefully regulated so that it is directed to important growth sectors without leaving control of such sectors in foreign hands.

In order to halt foreign interference in the affairs of developing countries it is necessary to study, understand, expose and actively combat neo-colonialism in whatever guise it may appear. For the methods of neo-colonialism are subtle and varied. They operate not only in the economic field, but also in the political, religious, ideological and cultural spheres.

Faced with the militant peoples of ex-colonial territories in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, imperialism simply switches tactics. Without a qualm it dispenses with its flags, and even with certain of its more hated expatriate officials. This means, so it claims, that it is 'giving' independence to its former subjects, to be followed by 'aid' for their development. Under cover of such phrases, however, it devises innumerable ways to accomplish objectives formerly achieved by naked colonialism. It is this sum total of these modern attempts to perpetuate colonialism while at the same time talking about 'freedom', which has come to be known as neo-colonialism.

Even the cinema stories of fabulous Hollywood are loaded. One has only to listen to the cheers of an African audience as Hollywood's heroes slaughter read Indians or Asiatics to understand the effectiveness of this weapon. For, in the developing countries, where the colonialist heritage has left a vast majority still illiterate, even the smallest child gets the message contained in the blood and thunder stories emanating from California. And along with murder and the Wild West goes an incessant barrage of anti-socialist propaganda, in which the trade union man, the revolutionary, or the man of dark skin is generally cast as the villain, while the policeman, the gum-shoe, the Federal agent - in a word, the CIA-type spy - is ever the hero. Here, truly, is the ideological under-belly of those political murders which so often use local people as their instruments.

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Quotes for Friday from Kwame Nkrumah's Neo-Colonialism the Last Stage of Imperialism (I)

Read the review

Quotes for Friday from Kwame Nkrumah's Neo-Colonialism the Last Stage of Imperialism (I)

To begin with, this book contains a lot of statements that could be quoted. That's why I keep recommending reading it in its entirety. What I seek to achieve with this is to only whet your reading appetite; this cannot and should not be taken as a substitute.

Neo-colonialism is based upon the principle of breaking up former large united colonial territories into a number of small non-viable States which are incapable of independent development and must rely upon the former imperial power for defence and even internal security. Their economic and financial systems are linked, as in colonial days, with those of the former colonial ruler.

In the neo-colonialist territories, since the former colonial power has in theory relinquished political control, if the social conditions occasioned by the neo-colonialism cause a revolt the local neo-colonialist government can be sacrificed and another equally subservient one substituted in its place. On the other hand, in any continent where neo-colonialism exist on a wide scale the same social pressures which can produce revolts in neo-colonial territories will also affect those States which have refused to accept the system and therefore neo-colonialist nations have a ready-made weapon with which they can threaten their opponents if they appear successfully to be challenging the system.

In fact neo-colonialism is the victim of its own contradictions. In order to make it attractive to those upon whom it is practised it must be shown as capable of raising their living standards, but the economic object of neo-colonialism is to keep those standards depressed in the interest of developed countries. It is only when this contradiction is understood that the failure of innumerable 'aid' programmes, many of them well intentioned, can be explained.

The less developed world will not become developed through the goodwill or generosity of the developed powers. It can only become developed through a struggle against the external forces which have a vested interest in keep it undeveloped.

Balkanisation is the major instrument of neo-colonisation and will be found wherever neo-colonialism is practised.

Fearing that the example of Guinea might be followed by other states which had decided to join the community, the French Government removed everything of value from the territory. Administrators and teachers were withdrawn. Documents and even electric light bulbs were removed from government buildings. Financial assistance, trade support and the payment of pensions to Guinean war veterans were discontinued.

Africa today is the main stamping ground of the neo-colonialist forces that seek domination of the world for the imperialism they serve. Spreading from South Africa, the Congo, the Rhodesias, Angola, Mozambique, they form a maze-like connection with the mightiest international financial monopolies in the world. These monopolies are extending their banking and industrial organisations throughout the African continent. 

Decolonisation is a word much and unctuously used by imperialist spokesmen to describe the transfer of political control from colonialist to African sovereignty. The motive spring of colonialism, however, still controls the sovereignty. The young countries are still the providers of raw materials, the old of manufactured goods. The change in economic relationship between the new sovereign states and the erstwhile masters is only one of form. Colonialism has achieved a new guise. It has become neo-colonialism, the last stage of imperialism; its final bid for existence, as monopoly-capitalism or imperialism is the last stage of capitalism. and neo-colonialism is fast entrenching itself within the body of Africa today through the consortia and monopoly combinations that are the carpet-baggers of the African revolt against colonialism and the urge for continental unity.

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Quotes for Friday from Kwame Nkrumah's Neo-Colonialism the Last Stage of Imperialism (II)

Read the review

Quotes for Friday from Kwame Nkrumah

To mark Ghana's Republic Day, which falls today, I present to you several quotes from the first president of Ghana, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah. Voted as the African of the Century, Nkrumah wrote several books espousing patriotism, communalism, nationhood, and more. He believed in the black man and believed he alone has the right to decide his own destiny. Several years after his demise, we are still struggling with the very issue he raised that led to his overthrow in a supposed CIA-sponsored coup. Today, we are now beginning to fathom, to dissect, with little success and at several places with utter failure the imports of what this man was saying.

"Common territory, language and culture may in fact be present in a nation, but the existence of a nation does not necessarily imply the presence of all three. Common territory and language alone may form the basis of a nation. Similarly, common territory plus common culture may be the basis. In some cases, only one of the three applies. A state may exist on a multi-national basis. The community of economic life is the major feature within a nation, and it is the economy which holds together the people living in a territory. It is on this basis that the new Africans recognise themselves as potentially one nation, whose domination is the entire African continent." Class Struggle in Africa"

"In the very early days of the Christian era, long before England had assumed any importance, long even before her people had united into a nation, our ancestors had attained a great empire, which lasted until the eleventh century, when it fell before the attacks of the Moors of the North. At its height that empire stretched from Timbuktu to Bamako, and even as far as to the Atlantic. It is said that lawyers and scholars were much respected in that empire and that the inhabitants of Ghana wore garments of wool, cotton, silk and velvet. There was trade in copper, gold and textile fabrics, and jewels and weapons of gold and silver were carried." Autobiography

"Besides, political independence, though worth while in itself, is still only a means to the fuller redemption and realization of a people. When independence has been gained, positive action requires a new orientation away from the sheer destruction of colonialism and towards national reconstruction It is indeed in this address to national reconstruction that positive action faces its gravest dangers. The cajolement, the wheedlings, the seductions and the Trojan horses of neocolonialism must be stoutly resisted, for neocolonialism is a latter-day harpy, a monster which entices its victims with sweet music. In order to be able to carry out this resistance to neo-colonialism at every point, Positive action requires to be armed with an ideology, an ideology which, vitalizing it, and operating through a mass party with a regenerative concept of the world and life, forge for it a strong continuing link with our past and offer to it an assured bond with our future. Under the searchlight of an ideology, every fact affecting the life of a people can be assessed and judged, and neo-colonialism's detrimental aspirations and sleights of hand will constantly stand. In order that this ideology should be comprehensive, in order that it should light up every aspect of the life of our people, in order that it should affect the total interest of our society, establishing a continuity with our past, it must be socialist in form and in content and be embraced by a mass party."Consciencism - Philosophy and Ideology for De-Colonisation

"If imperialists are faced with so many external and domestic difficulties, how then can they afford to step up their aggression in Africa? To answer this question, it is necessary to examine the internal factors which make our continent so vulnerable to attack, and particularly to look closely at the whole question of African unity. For this lies at the core of our problem. There are three conflicting conceptions of African unity which explain to a large extent, the present critical situation in Africa:"

"1. The mutual protection theory: that the OAU serves as a kind of insurance against any change in the status quo, membership providing a protection for heads of state and government against all forms of political action aimed at their overthrow. Since most of the leaders who adhere to this idea owe their position to imperialists and their agents, it is not surprising that this is the viewpoint which really serves the interests of imperialism. For the puppet states are being used both for short-term purposes of exploitation and as springboards of subversion against progressive African states."

"2. The functional conception: that African unity should be purely a matter of economic co-operation. Those who hold this view overlook the vital fact that African regional economic organizations will remain weak and subject to the same neo-colonialist pressures and domination, as long as they lack overall political cohesion. Without political unity, African states can never commit themselves to full economic integration, which is the only productive form of integration able to develop our great resources fully for the well-being of the African people as a whole. Furthermore, the lack of political unity places inter-African economic institutions at the mercy of powerful, foreign commercial interests, and sooner or later these will use such institutions as funnels through which to pour money for the continued exploitation of Africa."

"3. The political union conception: that a union government should be in charge of economic development, defence and foreign policy, while other government functions would continue to be discharged by the existing states grouped, in federal fashion, within a gigantic central political organization. Clearly, this is the strongest position Africa could adopt in its struggle against modern imperialism."