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Ensnared by economic dependency

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Toward the African Revolution
By Frantz Fanon translated from French by Haakon Chevalier
Published by Grove Press (1967)
ISBN 978-0-8021-3090-7

MAGHREB (North Africa) is cited as a region which has become a breeding ground for a number of terrorist groups.
Although they might be different in ideology and organisation, one common aspect is that the groups are against the dominance and influence of France in their countries
France, just like other former colonisers, still controls its former colonies and this is clearly visible in economic, political and social lives of Africans in the Maghreb region.
Africans living in the Maghreb region experience a high rate of terrorism influenced by a clash of civilisation in which society is separated from each other through a religion imposed on them from outside, a history replete with memories of brutality of the French and traditions that have been diluted by Western culture.
It is through France’s imperialism that one can conclude that her dominance has played a hand in the terrorist attacks that she frequently experiences.
Toward the African Revolution, a book by the late philosopher Frantz Fanon, clearly highlights a number of issues pertaining to Africa and its former colonisers.
Written in the form of articles, essays and letters, Fanon intelligently ‘foretells’ and analyses issues that need to be addressed for Africa to be completely liberated.
With his major focus on Algeria, Fanon likens and links the Algerian revolution to the African continent as a whole.
Through a world systems point of view, the great revolutionary Fanon reflects that the world is divided by the existence of the Occident and Orient, while Africans remain in the periphery.
In his book, Fanon clearly warns Africans of the hypocrisy that exists between relations that were built by former colonisers to their former colonies.
France is a clear example, it cannot survive on its own and its former colonies remain the producers of supplies that sustain its development.
From a dependency perspective, one can say France continues to enrich herself with the resources exploited from its former colonies which are still in the periphery.
“All the colonial countries that are waging the struggle today must know that the political independence that they will wring from the enemy in exchange for the maintenance of an economic dependency is only a snare and a delusion,” writes Fanon.
The author clearly highlights the unfair relationship that exists between developed and developing countries in the global village.
Divided into five parts, Toward the African Revolution is a book that reminds Africans that unity among ourselves is critical to achieving our desired goal of prosperity.
The first part, ‘The problem of the colonised’, is an attack on West Indians who saw themselves as better and superior to Africans.
Fanon cunningly brings to the fore how blacks who have achieved their ‘emancipation’ are quick to forget that fellow blacks need help to complete the revolution.
“The West Indian was a black man, but the Negro was in Africa,” writes Fanon as he highlights the differences between West Indians and Africans coined by those who had achieved independence.
Toward the African Revolution reveals a cynical attitude which points out how those once colonised, like West Indians, begin to see fellow blacks (Africans) through the eyes of the white person.
“The African, on the other hand, apart from a few rare ‘developed’ individuals, was looked down upon, despised, confined within the labyrinth of his epiderm,” Fanon writes.
“The Negro, in short, was a man who inhabited Africa.”
Fanon also addresses the issue of ‘racism and culture’.
He clearly puts it that through racism, Africans are exploited and continue to work as labourers in companies owned by the West.
“Racism is not the whole, but the most visible, the most day-to-day and not to mince, the crudest element of a given structure,” writes Fanon.
His message, though written some time back, directly speaks to the situation Africa is in right now.
The African that Fanon talks about still suffers due to the dominance of former colonisers in the world economy and politics.
Organisations such as the United Nations and World Trade Organisation, among others, are a reflection of how Africa remains in the periphery while major decisions and the world are controlled by the West.
Such difference between the North and South, from a dependency point of view, highlights the continuation of exploitation of African resources, while it remains underdeveloped.
Today, the Maghreb region remains a breeding ground for terrorism as a result of Africans who despise the dominance by France.
Fanon highlights that Africans must not think that the coloniser can change because you have fought for your freedom.
His goal remains the same and this remains the reason Africans are perpetual borrowers of money which was made through the resources looted and exploited from Africa.
Economic partnerships such as America’s African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), European Union’s Economic Partnership Agreement (EPAs) and China’s Forum on China–Africa Co-operation (FOCAC) are examples of how Africa remains the source of making money and advancing development of other nations while it remains holding a begging bowl.

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