EU-US NEO-COLONIALISM in AFRICA

History’s most destructive holocaust may unfold in the next three years as one billion poor fight just to be fed unless the richest nations that control most of the wealth act fast to lessen the crisis. Although international organizations and even some heads of state have been waning about this issue almost on a daily basis, there is yet no concerted action by the G-8 in cooperation with other nations, especially oil producers to bring the poverty crisis under control. 

Meanwhile, there is no shortage of PR-type events warning about the rise in global poverty owing to everything from speculation on energy to the $1 trillion US credit crisis. The poverty holocaust will have social and political implications and cause instability and further weaken the world economy as the UN has warned to the shrugs of the richest nations responsible the crisis. To deflect attention from the impending poverty holocaust that may worsen if nothing is done, the EU is accusing China of neo-colonialism in Africa. 

I have no doubt that Africans are amused at blatant European hypocrisy at a time that food, water, and medicine are the key issues for hundreds of millions. The former European colonial masters that ravaged the Dark Continent for centuries, the neo-colonial exploiters since de-colonization now claim they are genuinely concerned about the long-term consequences of Africa-China commercial ties impacting ‘human rights’. After all, look at China’s behavior in Tibet and the way they’re handling the Olympics! 

Never mind China’s monstrous deals with most EU and US multinational corporations that have been exploiting workers, EU is now seriously concerned about African workers. While it is true that the EU has high standards on human rights in comparison with China and the US for that matter, such standards apply to its members and prospective members only, although EU human rights record is not exactly free of blemishes given how African and Muslim immigrants are treated. Moreover, Europe has the worst human rights record in the history of the modern world and it is mainly responsible for Africa’s structural underdevelopment and chronic poverty. 

Along with the US after WWII, Europe (England and France the worst among imperialists) has been exploiting Africa’s rich raw materials and cheap labor, thus perpetuating poverty and underdevelopment in the continent and the ensuing social and political instability. EU hypocrisy is made worse by the fact that it is currently following the US lead amid this global economic crisis in having the working class of its own member states pay for finance capitalism’s speculative practices. 

EU members continue to demand that workers take smaller pay raises, lower welfare and social security benefits and increase in retirement age, less job security and more part time and limited contract work, greater privatization of public enterprises to the private sector that ‘economizes’ by cutting jobs and paying fewer benefits. In short, Europeans as well as the US practice neo-colonialism against their own workers. Yet, with a straight face they are now complaining that China is trying to play their game of neo-colonialism in the Third World. How dare China not be content as the beneficiary of EU-US-Japan neocolonial exploitation, how dare China emulate the masters of neo-colonialism at a time that western finance capitalism is in trouble? 

Africa's natural resources, everything from mining and agriculture to drinking water and fisheries is exploited by non-continental, mostly Western, interests. While the West boasts about 'aiding' Africa through the UN and other institutions or through philanthropic organizations, it does not mention that the cause of the 'aid' provided is neo-colonialism.