A. A chain of reaction

The significant portion of our social milieu begins with the expansion of the markets founded by the rising commercial capital of Western Europe at the turn of the fifteenth century. Succeeding years witnessed the ‘discovery’ of new lands by the Europeans, the Papal award of the whole of Africa to the Portuguese, increased European slave raids on Africa that denuded Africa of Africans and led to the establishment in the Americas of the greatest mass chattel slavery that the world had ever known. Africa had been successfully robbed of Africans. It was this chattel slavery that contributed substantially to the initiation of the European industrial revolution which in turn resulted in the unleashing of the forces of reaction which culminated in the rape of Africa at the close of the last century.

B. Land robbery and political subjugation

Early European settlement of Africa, especially of its southern tip, was a direct result of the rise of European commercial capital. Wave upon wave of European settlers came to Africa and their penetration of the interior involved the loss of sovereignty by the indigenous peoples and the alienation of more and more portions of their land. With the rise of the industrial capital of Europe and its increased search for raw materials and more markets, the partition of Africa went apace and the doctrine of ‘effective occupation’ was enunciated, a theory calculated to ‘sugar coat’ the bitter pills of land robbery and political subjugation. More and more settlers came into the country until today there are 5,000,000 Europeans who up to the dawn of African liberation had constituted themselves as a ruling class over the 250,000,000 indigenous peoples. Africans had been successfully robbed of Africa.

C. Established by the sword

The advent of European imperialism and colonialism to Africa brought in its wake the phenomenon of white domination, whether visible or invisible, which is characterised by the political oppression, economic exploitation and social degradation of the indigenous African masses. Throughout this historical epoch, the age of white domination, whenever the spokesmen or representatives of white domination have sprouted a conscience, they have referred to the phenomenon as the ‘spread of Western civilisation’ or ‘the extension of Christian trusteeship’.