Response to Henry from Kat (too long for comment, whoops!)
Hi Henry! I really like this post and want to consider another case study with a different justification for neo colonialism/imperialism beyond feudal combination and its impacts. Namely, I want to consider America’s imperial action in the Congo around 1960. I want to analyze the extent to which in the post-colonial era tenets of Táíwò’s analysis fits within modern patterns of injustice and exploitation and how it illustrates the emergence of a new facade to justify neo colonial acts: asserting democracy. Táíwò discusses the anti-colonial movement post 1950 and how former colonizers urged newly independent states to implement democratic policies. But, many African nations faced political tension since the autocratic actions of colonial governors built political and economic institutions that were meant to benefit colonial elites (54). But, I here want to consider whether MDC (more developed countries) intervention into LDCs (less developed countries) on the basis of ideological support can exist without an ulterior economic motivation – and The Congo is a great case study.
The Belgian colonization of the Congo spanned from 1908 to 1960 and utilized paternalistic strategies, institutionalized racism through colonization, and severe exploitation, a colonial pattern which Táíwò discusses on page 23. After the Belgian occupation and internal Congolese political strife, in 1958 riots broke out in Leopoldville (named after the brutal colonizer of the same name) led by Patrice Lumumba, a leftist politician, who claimed autonomous sovereignty over the Congo. But, Lumumba also possessed heavy ties to Communism and the Soviet Union. Tensions soon escalated and Lumumba appealed to the USSR while the remaining Congolese government appealed to the United States. Soon, America soon established a military intervention in the Congo, as sanctioned by the United Nations, all in the name of preserving democracy and stopping the spread of Soviet ideologies. If the Congo established a Communist regime under Lumumba, American leaders worried, the eight or so newly independent countries surrounding the Congo would additionally couple with the Soviet ideology. So, preserving democracy (and by proxy hindering Soviet Communism) became the primary justification for American intervention.
But, in the spirit of Táíwò’s analysis, I want to look at the bigger picture of American military intervention in 1960 and the Congo. I argue that many MDCs justify intervention in LDCs under the guise of preserving or establishing democracy while they really intervene to access or maintain access to a material good or connection. In reality, most of America’s Congolese occupation occurred to protect the nation’s material interest in the Congo. America received 80% of their cobalt from Congolese mines – mines which also produced the uranium America used in the Manhattan project and in Little Boy (the bomb dropped on Hiroshima to end WWII). America possessed a severe economic and political interest in the Congo beyond the guise of establishing a democratic regime and political institutions. Without American intervention and overt control over the Congo (considering the economic importance of cobalt for American industry), the US supply chain would be in shambles. And, allowing nuclear material to enter Soviet control. Understanding neocolonialism in the context of preserving democracy, like the case with America and the Congo, often ignores the material basis for intervention which accompanies a facade of ideological justification for neocolonial action. And, this pattern continues to this day with most modern proxy wars which have a large goal of protecting America’s values at home and abroad while they have an underbelly of preserving elite interest through these conflicts.
So, considering the Congo, and other more modern forms of neocolonialist action justified by preserving democracy, I argue that it is difficult to find a neo-colonized nation where there was no material or economic motivation for imperialism – a process which contributes the the LDC accumulation of disadvantages and a MDC accumulation of advantages (25). Furthermore, this tendency to justify intervention through democracy only furthers what Táíwò outlines as “the extraction of wealth from ‘former’ colonies for the benefit of [which] has continued unabated, this time facilitated… between governments and multinational institutions, rather than specific colonial management.” Specifically considering the Congo, the neocolonialist economic exploitation happened through on the terms of Soviet, American, and United Nations elite interests, not in the spirit of true democracy.
Hi Kat!
ReplyDeleteI think you raise a great point here about how the motivation for so many of our global interactions is economic, even when intervention is performed under the guise of supporting democracy/other ideologies. While this reality might seem disheartening, it is somewhat helpful to think of all imperialism as the pursuit of material or economic gain, because I think that makes the issue of racial capitalism somewhat easier to address. When we view global racism as an economic problem, it gives us concrete material channels for solving it, rather than forcing us to create impossible ideological shifts.
For example, in chapter 2, Taiwo asserts that Europeans in the American colonies had previously employed labor of other white Europeans, and would have continued to do so if not for the unmanageable costs of it. Colonists transitioned over to the use of enslaved Africans due to the economic ease of it, not necessarily because of any racial prejudices they held towards that group. With this example, Taiwo makes an assertion similar to that of Marx: material production precedes mental production. In other words, our physical circumstances create our ideas, not the other way around. Thus, drive for wealth and power effectively created racism; if there was no economic benefit to racism, it wouldn’t exist.
Subsequently, Taiwo suggests that the best way to deal with our present circumstances is through material change, which can address “the compounding inertia of the unequal and uneven trajectories of accumulation it initiated” (39). By redirecting channels of wealth and capital, we can equalize the distribution of wealth, political power, knowledge, and rights in our global society. Once material change is established, change in less tangible things (like racial or gender inequality) will follow.
I wonder how we can apply this idea of material change preceding ideological change to our understanding of international intervention/aid. Marx argues that people can only achieve freedom from enslavement when they own the means and products of their own labor. It seems that this principle should apply to countries as well: when a colonial or international power owns resources in a foreign country, it violates the autonomy of that country. As you pointed out, Kat, American got 80% of its Cobalt from Congolese mines, which incentivized continued colonial occupation in the area. Perhaps the first step to the equalizing of international power is national ownership of domestic resources. Thus, international economic intervention should never include resource ownership as a stipulation of trade, if we hope to live in an economically equal and free global society.