Page 86 - A People Called Afrika

A PEOPLE CALLED AFRIKA

“The Times in an article titled “The Commercial Value of
Africa” endorsed the commercial motives of colonialism: The
fact is that up to within the past few years Africa has hardly
been needed by the rest of the world except as a slave mar-
ket. But her turn has come, and the need for her coopera-
tion in the general economy of the world will become greater
and greater as population increases, as industry expands, as
commerce develops, as states grow ambitious as civilization
spreads: it is discreditable anomaly that at this advanced stage
in the progress of the race nearly a whole continent should
still be given over to savagery… (qtd in Uzoigwe, 1978: 27).

The predetermined objective of European colonial enterprise
in Africa was also stated point-blank in the Pall Mall Gazatte
[sic] of 1899: Nor have we gone to the equatorial regions from
religious or humanitarian motives… still less have we sought
out the African in order to endow him with the vices (and vir-
tues) of western civilization… the dominating force which has
taken us to Equatorial Africa is the desire for trade. We are in
these tropical countries for our own advantage and only inci-
dentally for the good of the African (qtd in Uzoigwe, 1978:28).”

It was clear, no matter what fancy garments they dressed
it up in, what their real agenda for invading Afri-
ka was. To subdue her and control her and take from
her whatever they wanted, for as long as they wanted.

The basis that the Europeans used to justify their colonial dom-
ination over Afrikans was that those that they were sub-human.
European ‘thinking’ had for many years before colonialism
characterized the Afrikan as a bi-product of the reproductive
act between humans and animals; their preferred theory ap-

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