Neocolonialism

Neocolonialism is a complex system of economic domination of a politically independent country by a former colonial power and/or the capitalist world. It operates not only in the economic field but also in the political, religious, ideological, and cultural spheres. The word neo is Greek for “new” or “modern.” Thus, neocolonialism is new colonialism. A neocolonial state is a client-state, meaning the entrapment of a state in the claws of a former colonial power or imperialist powers. Thus the necessary condition exists for the establishment of client-states by imperialist nations for the continual hegemony of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (including the Caribbean region). Neocolonialism, therefore, is the highest stage of imperialism.

Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of the Republic of Ghana, coined the term neocolonialism[Page 373] during the All African Peoples Conference in Ghana in 1958. But it was in Cairo in 1961, during the Third All African Peoples Conference, that the term gained international currency. At this conference, speaker after speaker denounced neocolonialism. They saw neocolonialism as posing the greatest danger to the political and economic independence of the African countries. One such danger is the policy of balkanization of African states for manipulation by the capitalist world. This can be more insidious with regard to the legitimate aspirations of African states for political stability and economic freedom than is the outright political control of colonialism. Neocolonialism was similarly denounced at the first Tri-Continental Conference of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, which took place in Cuba from December of 1965 to January of 1966. The delegates at this conference set out the characteristics of neocolonialism and the necessity to struggle against it; they also endorsed a comprehensive resolution to fight neocolonialism.

During the colonial epoch, the nature of economic and political domination of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (including the Caribbean region) was transparent. In Africa, there were colonial governors, officials, police, and missionary schools. Colonialism permitted the European colonial powers to exploit African peoples in a variety of ways. They settled and/or seized fertile lands, controlled natural resources, and secured cheap labor. They imposed a system of low-priced payments for the peasants' cash crops and established a monopoly-controlled market for the importation of the manufactured goods from the metropolis, thus securing profits through investment. The result of the imposition of unfavorable terms of trade on the colonies is that it obliged the peasants to sell their cash crops cheaply and pay higher prices for the manufactured goods imported from the capitalist world. Also, the colonies were turned into bases for producing primary products such as minerals and single agricultural products for export. Often an entire country was turned into a oneor two-commodity producer country. For example, Ghana concentrated on cocoa, India on cotton, Tanzania on sisal and coffee, Zambia on copper, Senegal on peanuts, Jamaica on sugar and bananas, and Chad on cotton.

This unbalanced, monoeconomic culture was to serve as a colonial legacy in the newly independent countries. In postindependence Africa, the former colonial rulers and the capitalist world sought to secure favorable political and economic policies via remote control. This was accomplished by various means, such as the propping up of puppet governments, systematic propaganda, and psychological warfare against or physical assassination of independent-minded political leaders like Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Walter Rodney of Guyana, and Almicar Cabral of Guinea-Bissau. In some cases, it was attained by sponsoring military overthrow of governments pursuing noncapitalist paths of economic development, as was the case of Kwame Nkrumah's government in Ghana.

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