Walter Rodney 1973
“How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”
Published
by: Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications, London
and Tanzanian Publishing House, Dar-Es-Salaam 1973, Transcript from 6th
reprint, 1983
Reviewer: JOHNSON Sesan Michael
BA (OAU Ile Ife), PDS (UI, Ibadan)
Review Date: Sunday,
April 15, 2012
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney is an expository book
on Africa. The author exposes Africa within the contexts of Africa’s
developments in the Pre-colonial Era, its experiences and underdevelopments
during the period of European imperialism and colonialism in Africa and its
present level of underdevelopments.
It is observed that the central thesis of
this book is that - it is necessary to follow not only the development of
Europe and the underdevelopment of Africa, but also to understand how those two
combined in a single system of capitalist imperialism and that there are still
some bourgeois propagandists who assert that colonialism was not a paying
concern for Europeans, just as there are those who say that the slave trade was
not profitable to Europeans.
Thus Walter Rodney disagrees pointedly
with this apology for the underdevelopments pervading Africa. To succinctly
review this book attempts shall be made to approach it on a chapter-by-chapter
review in order to harvest the aims of this book.
From chapter one Walter Rodney deals with
the fundamentals that are crucial to the thesis of the book. In the first chapter Walter Rodney defines the concept of development and
underdevelopment. According to the Author, underdevelopment is characterized by
a number of things; hence he calls attention to the comparative nature of the
concept of development. Therefore, he pointed out that Africa, Asia, and Latin
America are only underdeveloped premised upon comparison with Europe, North
America, and the few other industrialized nations of the world. Also, the
chapter clearly states that underdevelopment does not simply describe the
relative economic inequality of different countries or continents; but it also
implies a relationship of economic exploitation between two or more countries,
the exploiter becoming developed and the exploited becoming underdeveloped and
in this instance, Europe with its imperialism and colonialism is the exploiter
while the other parts of the world particularly Africa is the exploited.
In addition, in this first
chapter, Rodney harangues about the dichotomy between development and
underdevelopment and also makes comparison with what these
two concepts means to Europeans and Africans. In his scrutiny he basically
points out the two levels of developments, that is, individual level and social
group level. Walter Rodney’s argument about development is that all phases of
development are provisional or transitory and are designed sooner or later to
give way to something else.
In chapter two Walter Rodney focuses on
the nature of development attained by Africa before the coming of the Europeans
up to the 15th century and he shows the unique characterization of African
civilization. In doing this the author expressly gives details of developments
achieved by African states such as Benin, Kanem-Borno, Egypt,
Fante, Axum, Ashante, Kush, Mali, Songhai, Mutapa, Zimbabwe, Kongo, Oyo
etc. Generally, the chapter details the
following: reconstruction of the nature of development in Africa
before the coming of Europeans, reconstruction of the nature of development
which took place in Europe before expansion abroad, analysis of Africa’s
contribution to Europe’s present developed state, and analysis of Europe’s
contribution to Africa’s present
underdeveloped nature.
The chapter four focuses on Europe and
the Roots of African underdevelopment to 1885. It ascertains that the European
Slave Trade played a dominant factor in African underdevelopment, all in the
interest of European capitalism. Walter Rodney further argues that Europe
advanced technologically and industrially to the detriment of development of
industrial and technological sector of Africa which was attainable due to the
fact that most active, inventive and able young men and women of Africa were
carted away to Europe and the New World as slaves. Hence, this resulted into technological stagnation and distortion of
the African economy in the pre-colonial epoch. In other words, what Africa experienced in the early centuries of trade with
the Europeans was exactly a loss of development opportunity, and this is
of the greatest importance. Indeed, Europe discouraged Africa
industrialization by not encouraging skill transfer. In addition, there were Continuing politico-military developments in Africa from 1500 to 1885 as a result of the European
trade.
Chapter five
focuses on Africa’s contribution to the capitalist development of Europe in the
colonial period. Walter Rodney enumerates how colonial Africa became intertwined with the international
imperialist economy. The author shows how Africa’s resources was drawn to feed
the metropolitan sector, hence, this chapter depicts the colonial administration as economic exploiter and the roles of
the financiers, bankers, capitalists, Marketing Boards, introduction of
taxation and the currency that the colonial government as part of the
manipulations to ensure that Africa’s wealth was stashed away in the coffers of
the metropolitan state
Furthermore, the author hypothesizes that
Africa’s contribution to European capitalism was far greater than mere monetary
returns. In other words, the colonial system permitted the rapid development of
technology and skills within the metropolitan sectors of imperial Europe. Coupled with this is the fact that the
international division of labour
brought about by imperialism and colonialism ensured that there would be the
maximum increase in the level of skills in the capitalist nations.
Chapter six
deals with colonialism as a system that precipitated underdevelopment in
Africa, this it did within the contextual framework of the supposed benefits that colonialism was
said to have brought to Africa; also the negative character of the social,
political and economic consequences; education for underdevelopment, and
development by contradiction. Also, the chapter demystifies the authenticity of some
of the reasons given as the rationale behind the incursion of European
imperialism to other parts of the world, Africa in particular. The chapter
resists the various strands of Eurocentric outlooks about imperialism as
presented by European writers, bourgeois scholars and advocates of imperialism.
Not surprisingly, Walter Rodney with a Marxist’s lens argues that this pretext
is categorically untenable.
In this book “How
Europe Underdeveloped Africa” Walter Rodney no doubt has done a meticulous
job. He did his best by writing this comprehensive, experiential and
decipherable book with rich historical, political and economic perspectives and
I observed also that he widely consulted other peoples’ writings in his analysis
and interpretations.
However, Walter Rodney unrepentantly
wrote this piece with Marxist’s lens. He did this without considering any
positive sides of imperialism or colonialism. Supposedly, the author is not
aware of any benefits of imperialism and may be too he has not given any
serious thought to why Africa has refused to develop since the decades that
have followed the period of decolonization. No doubt, the author is filled with
disparagement for imperialism or colonialism. Also, I disagree with some of
Walter Rodney’s positions especially on his positions on the Soviet
Union. Arguably, Walter Rodney needs to be informed that it could
be said that the Soviets too could not be exonerated from imperialism. History
teaches also about how Moscow imposed her hegemony upon its satellite states.
Fundamentally, taking a censorious look
into Africa’s position in the contemporary international economic relations it
is evident that Africa is still being traumatized with economic imperialism
which many have tagged neo-imperialism or neo-colonialism. The current global
economic amity between Africa and the Global
North is highly exploitative and this is being accentuated by globalization
with its attending unequal consequences.
In
conclusion, I recommend this book “How
Europe Underdeveloped Africa” to human kind especially to those who want to
study Africa’s development and underdevelopment. This book is a must to read
for all students and scholars of History, Political Science, Economics and the
Social Sciences.
