Fifty years ago the decolonisation of Africa began. The next half-century may see the continent recolonised. But the new imperialism will be less benign. Great powers aren't interested in administering wild places any more, still less in settling them: just raping them. Black gangster governments sponsored by self-interested Asian or Western powers could become the central story in 21st-century African history.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Take Zimbabwe. In the Western news media the clichés about Robert Mugabe's “despotism” roll, but this is a despotism crippled by monumental incompetence. The BBC's audience must have been bemused in recent weeks by John Simpson's reports from within a country where, as we are always being reminded, the BBC is banned. I yield to none in my respect for Mr Simpson's courage and ingenuity but only modest quantities of either will have been required to enter the country, move within it or broadcast from it.
Our own correspondent, Jonathan Clayton, was unluckier, but there are journalists in Zimbabwe reporting what Mugabe would stop them reporting if he could. It is chance whom his thugs stumble upon. They may be easily capable of beating to a pulp those poor, anonymous Zimbabweans who cross them, but when it comes to the apparatus of a modern state - effective policing, surveillance, restriction of movement, or censorship which works - the regime in Harare has plainly lost what control it ever had.
Zimbabwe is not Iraq. Any great power could pick a leader in Zimbabwe today, send in a modest military support force to sustain him in power, and follow this up with ten jumbo jets filled with economic, technical and political advisers and half-a-billion-pound's-worth of reconstruction aid. Within a couple of years the intervening power would be sponsoring something tantamount to a puppet government there. In modern management-speak, there exist bunches of low-hanging fruit, overlooked, on the African continent.
If Zimbabwe had oil the Americans would be plucking this fruit already. If the country's mineral resources were greater, if the persistence of white settlers there were not throwing an international spotlight on the news, and if China were not embarrassed by Tibet and the forthcoming Olympics, I think the argument in Bejing for sponsoring either Mugabe or the most amenable available opposition leader would be strong.
It may yet prevail. I had just left school in Africa when Maoist China tried something similar in the early 1970s, constructing a 1,160-mile railway from Zambia to Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania to transport copper to the Indian Ocean port. But Tanzania's Julius Nyerere was wily, the construction proved fraught with difficulty, and Chinese advisers and workers did not make themselves popular with local people. China never recovered a decent return on that economic and political investment. China may well yet do so, however. Meanwhile, China's support for a vicious Sudanese regime in Khartoum has been too widely commented on to need rehearsing. Hydrocarbons are the prize.
But enough of China: simply a little hungrier, a little more opportunistic and a little less scrupulous than some of its competitors. This is not about China, but about vacuums into which, if Beijing does not move, then someone else surely will. If modern British governments still had the stomach for this kind of thing we could be more or less in charge of Sierra Leone today, and accept northern Somaliland as a client state tomorrow.
The American neocons were unlucky in the pilot projects they chose. For those seeking the creation of biddable states, Iraq and Afghanistan proved among the least amenable places to pick. But there is something more than the awful bloody nose received in both these Asian interventions, and America's earlier disaster in Vietnam, that may have temporarily blocked Western minds from thinking about neo-imperialist opportunities in sub-Saharan Africa. It is the myth that black liberation movements were formidable. They were not. They were no Vietcong or Algerian FLN. The lesson from 20th- century sub-Saharan Africa is not how irresistible were the forces faced by European imperialism, but how easily, and for how long, they were resisted.
Remember that America was on the other side in this conflict, fanning the flames of African nationalism and undermining the European powers. Yet Belgium - Belgium - managed to hold on to a colony 76 times its size, the Congo, from 1908 (after its rapine private ownership by King Leopold II) until 1960. Contrary to widespread belief, Britain was never beaten by the Mau Mau in Kenya, and in most of the African colonies and protectorates relinquished between 1957 (Ghana) and 1968 (Swaziland) we had been meeting little if any armed resistance. Britain was not drummed but shouted out of Africa.
Portugal, meanwhile, hung on to two territories (now Angola and Mozambique) the first twice the size of Texas, the second twice the size of California, until 1975. For years an impoverished and virtually Third World European tinpot dictatorship sustained two wars simultaneously against nationalist insurgencies in both countries without going under. Meanwhile. a tiny force of white renegades denied victory to Mugabe's Patriotic Front for nearly eight years until 1980: yet there were 20 times as many blacks as whites in Rhodesia, and the breakaway regime of Ian Smith was under international economic siege throughout.
Why then did the great (and lesser) powers of the day turn their backs on empire in Africa in the 20th century, and why in the 21st might their successors return to an interest in acquiring political grip?
European imperial powers lost the will rather than the capacity to own and govern overseas resources. A world in which all could buy and sell on the global market was arriving. It is a world, however, which is now feeling the pinch in the natural resources with which Africa is richly endowed. Meanwhile, the continent is in many places run by outfits that resemble gangs rather than governments. At their most dysfunctional (as in Congo) this disintegration seriously impedes the extraction of resources, because security, communications and infrastructure break down.
But a solution beckons: buy your own gang. You hardly need visit and are certainly not required to administer the gang's territory. You simply give it support, munitions, bribes and protection to keep the roads and airports open; and it pays you with access to resources. You dress up the arrangement as helping Africans to help themselves. The French, who have been doing this in their former African possessions for years, lead the way. But it is when China, then America, and perhaps even Russia or India follow, that the scramble for Africa will truly be resumed.
Hypocrisy, they say, is the homage that vice pays to virtue. During the last scramble for Africa, colonial administration was the homage greed paid to responsibility. But greed may be less sentimental during the next. From a resource-starved industrialised world in the 21st Century, reponsibility for Africa will get no more than a passing nod.
The IMF, the world Bank crippled Africa with debt, to prevent them from developing. All of which was by design by a bunch of racist former colonialist. When the world saw the result of the crippling debts some wavered the debts to sell the debt to countries such as America,Countries still owe Money.
Daphne Kenward, Cambridge, UK
Nil novi sub sole - read The Dogs of War, by Frederick Forsyth. As long as the Africans are unable to create modern, democratic, efficient, just and non-violent states they will continue to be the victims of themselves and imperialist states.
Hein Maassen, Leidschendam, The Netherlands
Youforget that as Africans we also have a say.
Whilst we have been as meek as lambs most of the time - in time we will arise and rule ourselves. Our natural resources have been a curse but we have begun to take pride in our nations and this may be the motivation needed to take charge of our future
Stella , Gaborone, Botswana
Sharing the resources of the world will restore balance. What is necessary is a change in our social structure.
Jaap den Haan, Namen,
reply to the late log in. how true its all about the land and all the resources the mother Africa has to offer.
sis. london
slaine, london,
An interesting and provocative article. But why not take your argument to its logical conclusion, Mr Parris, and advocate a renewal of the British Empire?
History will show whether or not Chinese colonialism is more or less rapacious than the western variety. Is our involvement in Iraq more virtuous than China's in Sudan? I doubt it. Colonialism old and new comes down to national interests - strategic and economic.
We have entered a new phase of realpolitik in which the liberal and internationalist homilies of the west will increasingly come to seem like quaint anachronisms. There is little hope for Africa in this new climate, and given the current squeeze on resources and the food crisis, development is a busted flush
Alistair, Birmingham ,
Matthew have you not heard of the IMF and World Bank Structural Adjustment Programmes? I'm afraid the current system of external rule and constraint on African governments in economic policy (to say it lightly) has been in place since the early 1980s (see the economist John Williamson's seminal paper in which he coined the term Washington Consensus: http://www.iie.com/publications/papers/paper.cfm?researchid=486), let alone all its forerunners after decolonization. Your article is nothing new, but it certainly obscures a key element of Africa's position in international relations - imperialism or otherwise.
Alex, Fareham, UK
I have to say I am appalled by some comments I have read. As an African I have to say I don't look at the West as being successful. To me you are a bunch of thieves who got all your wealth from tricking good hearted Africans who just wanted to hear more about your religion.
I am surrounded by very many educated Africans and it is sad to see that people still think Africans are so stupid we cannot think for ourselves. Do some research and find out who are the most educated immigrants in the USA a Country with the best schools on earth you will be surprised to find Africans at the top.
Wake up!!! Even with a black man running for president in the USA, some of you still think blacks are stupid. There is never gonna be a re-colonization in Africa. We are no longer naive, at least once we build our Countries our Countries will be successful from our hard labor and not theft. Give us time we will get there we are still recovering from all the theft.
kani, washington, DC
My feeling is that this is all wrong. In the modern era resources have become less important rather than more. Real wealth and real power are located between the ears not on or under the land.
That's why it really doesn't matter that 90 percent of the world's oil is brought to market by tin-pot national oil companies. Let them have their silly OPEC; we still get the oil.
Notice that the US, thoroughly modern Millie of an empire, invests in its conquests--German, Japanese, and Iraqi--rather than raping them. You actually make more money that way in the medium and long term.
Someone will go to the trouble of getting the resources out of Africa. But once extracted, they will be offered on the global market for anyone to buy. No need to get your hands dirty.
I worry about another thing. There's this crazed cult popping up all over the place these days. Its prophets say that the world is coming to an end and prophesy a new Flood, a new fiery Hell unless we repent.
Any ideas?
Christopher Chantrill, Seattle, USA
Our greatest "crime" in Africa was to fill the heads of their future leaders with left wing nonsense.
Just as indeed we did in India with the Nehru clan. Fortunately the Indians had the good sense to ditch the selfish Socialism as taught to them in the UK.. Hence the huge expansion now taking place.
If anyone should apologise to Africa it is The London School of Economics and Oxbridge.
Peter Bolt, Redditch, UK
A strangely accented article for a wild colonial boy. I am sure you are right in suggesting the opportunist environment that Africa may prove to be, but thanks to the British media I know very little about Africa and my ignorance is only accented by current reports from Zimbabwe. I think it is worth recalling that about 80 per cent of the property in this country is owned by about 5 per cent of the population, so that it doesn t really differ from the type of colonial profile you are insinuating for Africa. That would suggest that, whatever the Africans do, they make a big effort to create a basic indigenous interest in their country that is largely unassailable, however it may include black or white, and will enable a reasonably stable growth.
Henry Percy, London, UK
This article clearly explains what Britain is trying to do in imposing their puppet Tsivangirai on the Zimbabwean people. This imposition will NEVER happen and Mugabe will NEVER be pushed by Britain.
I do not see the scramble, as you dream it happening. It can only conceivably proceed over a lot of dead bodies! The honour of Africa will never be disrespected as in times past!
Gilbert Phiri, Swindon, UK
Tim, RSA is making the assumption that I do not know Zimbabwe and the issues surrounding the present impasse. For his information, General Walls who was very much involved in Smith's Army admitted that as early as 1976, they knew that they had lost the war to the black liberation fighters.
chenzira, London,
Chenzira in London hasn't got his facts right. He's obviously too young to remember what really went on.
Smith was defeated only when USA (Kissinger) persuaded South Africa to close the borders so that Harold Wilson's pathetic desire to hand everything over to Mugabe could be realised.
Smith handed over a country that was described by Margaret Thatcher as the 'jewel of Africa'. He handed it to Mugabe who has systematically destroyed it right from the start.
Ian Smith was wrong on many counts and should have found a middle way, but he was dead right when he predicted the chaos and current farce that's being played out in Zimbabwe. His only comment, if he were still alive, would be: "I told you so"
Tim, Centurion, RSA
Someone once said to me that the only person who could organize a black power movement in any African country would be a white man. How true ..!!
Nige, Isle of Man,
The new scramble for Africa: please spare us the missionary high ground, civilising savages, saving souls, the White man's god-given role, etc. I think the Africans know exactly what they want & who they would like to deal with. And who can blame them?
Ian cheese, London,
The majority of Zimbaweans appreciate and understand that the demonisation of the country is really about who controls Zimbabwean resources. All this bleating upon human rights abuses, starvation of the people is simply codswallop. Parris has it bang right about the new scramble for Africa. But he has it all wrong when he claims that Smith resisted the guerilla war for eight years. Smith was resoundly defeated as early as the early seventies. Check your history facts Parris.
Let Zimbabweans decide their own fate. They have faced worse during the liberation struggle. Just as they self helped then so will they today.
chenzira, London,
All peoples basic needs are food followed by shelter and that comes before anything else including one man one vote. Given a choice between food, shelter, medicine and white rule compared to Mubabes style of 'democracy' with starvation and early death, its a pretty sure bet what most in Zimbabwe would choose. The liberal Labour apologists like Peter Hain would have us believe that a vote at the ballot box is better than food in our bellies but these sanctimonious politicians never experience first hand the suffering that most Zimbabweans are now going through. The immediate solution for all of Africa's basket cases is for the west to take them over and run them as a business in return for ensuring everyone gets food, medicine and shelter. The only losers would be the likes of Mugabe and his hench men which the world can well do without.
Mike, Alicante, Spain
This Parris piece and comments are perceptive about past and future in Africa
but a bit behind the current curve
Chinese troops are said to be in Harare hotels toting revolvers
and a ship of arms for Zimbabwe off radar looking for a place to unload
owned by a company that allegedly supported Al Gore for President
Now who can explain that?
alimac, Cambridge, UK
It is interesting to hear the voices of African's on this forum. Their position is 'give us time' and we will succeed. Time is often called the great healer and it may well remain that this could be true in this instance.
Equally, given the fact that many African states have been handed over to their indigenous population in a reasonable state, they have chosen to descend into a morass of human tragedies of differing proportions and not 'progress'. I generalise, but comparably the Asian nations whom have shrugged of the colonnial yoke and progressed on their own terms.
Time is against Africa, while it continues to waste and fritter away it's natural resources the rest of the world moves on, and the demand for these resources increases. Chances are that a time may come when patience with Africa's profligacy will come to an end. This is not a threat, it is more pragmatism. Filipino's are struggling with a shortage of rice now, but a country like Zimbabwe wastes it's land!
Duncan, Wokingham, Berkshire
Well what can one say really?
It's a frank article written by someone that thinks they have a pretty good understating of problems facing Africa just because they went to school there and therefore they feel qualified to claim to understand Africa.
Africa or lets say 'Black Africa' will prevail in this mad world of ever hungry imperialist. It’s not like we have not withstood the worst of your brutality. The difference the author clearly states is that 'Black Africa' never won any conflicts with the white. It was never about winning any wars but to gain our natural god given right to exist as independent people. And now that we have had it I am sure will someday we will find a way to resolve our own problems. You speak as if Europe generally just happened out of peace the Romans left! We all know that it took Europe a good part of 200 years to go from warring corrupt monarchies what you today. Africa has had only less than 100 yrs from the horrors of your sick slavery.
Killion Mokwete, London, UK
The aritcle is uncomfortably close to the truth for our current political leaders.
Having worked in Africa for 16 years all told I'd be a rich man today if I had a ten pound note for every time an African told me "Bwana, things were far better when you white men ran this country".
To exert control a country like Zimbabwe would not be difficult at this present time, the presence of large groups of fromer "freedom fighters" notwithstanding. To me it would revolve around a few basics.
Make the infrastructure work. Get agriculture and industry back on it's feet. Put food in the shops and give the people meaningful jobs.
With the current situtation in the country doing those few things well would guarantee no-one would oppose you. The majority who you had helped would see to that.
Quite frankly the rest of Africa would respond identically to the same stimuli, it might take a bit longer in cases of countries that have not yet sunk to the depths to which Zimbabwe has.
Nige, Isle of Man,
It's tempting to think Matthew Parris is right. I made a similar analysis several years ago. But I hope Parris is wrong. Yes, the risk is there that Africans may never enjoy democracy for several hundreds more years. But there is hope in the young generations who are clamouring for democracy. If they can somehow emerge victorious in the political power struggle that is the background to all we hear, the future might still smile on Africans.
Charan Muzaya, London, UK
It's the Yellow Man's burden now, good luck to them!
Jane Carson, Kings Lynn, England
Go read Mungo Park then have another think about all this. Really nothing new under the hot African sun.
Steve, Paris, France
To one of the earlier comments, go to another article to see civil society in SA refusing to allow Chinese munitions to be offloaded at Durban.
Zimonya, you have a point there: accountability. How do you see that panning out? Would you write a guest blog for one of this London-based papers that we can all read on line?
Hope you and yours are safe.
Jo, Olney, UK
There are three inter related concepts here.
1) the virtual, or boundary less state, where government cedes previous obligations to it's specific population
2) Neo colonialism where the difficult and messy bits of old style colonialism (population control) are farmed out to local entities
and 3) the bifurcation of nation specific population and localized "international" entities.
An example of 3) is current stock market resurgence where the companies that are doing best are those most invested overseas, whereas conventional gauges of national wealth, inflation, currency valuation, the "standard of living" no longer have much meaning. Simply put the market may flourish while indigenous population doesn't.
FWIW I agree with your article suggesting government not be thought a curse word, but ironically suggest it is the peoples sentimental attachment to the rags and bones, flags, guns and gods of yesterday that allows the collapse of them in the modern era.
glenn schaefer, holbrook, ny/ USA
So let's be outrageous. Does Africa - from North to South, and East to West - fail for reasons of the peoples' inability to govern, or because of an ongoing legacy of dysfunctional and dangerous social systems? Knee-jerk politically correct reactions are not acceptable in the light of this statement because if cool logic is to prevail it's either one or the other - or more probably both, all tangled up in one syndrome. Much time and many opportunities have passed and it is no longer possible to blame either colonialism or the Cold War or their legacies. Examples: look at South Africa, lurching madly towards its pathetic past; or the several vile Arab governments that treat humans like beasts. We can't change Africa's social history and we can't seem to change its future either, because habits and 'folk-ways' have an awful inertia. This doesn't bode well for millions of unfortunate black and semitic people, trapped in hell. Maybe the UN should try to re-colonise Africa?
john, Bovec, Slovenia
The author is gravely mistaken in assuming that any strong outside power could occupy Zimbabwe without too much resistance, and easily install its own puppet administration. This short logic is partly to blame for the tragedy unfolding in Iraq. The US and its allies have 10,000 times the military might of the militia in Iraq, yet Iraq is still in unabated disarray. Turning to Zimbabwe, suppose the US/ China/ Britain (or whoever) overthrew R.G. Mugabe - how would they control the thousands of upset and dangerous war veterans and Mugabe loyalists? With F22 fighter jets? Let's be serious.
More likely however, is that China/ India will continue to grow their influence and power in Africa by investing, building, buying support, and any other means, clean and unclean. And their "non-interference" strategy is attractive to Africans because there's no forced accountability etc. It's to be said though, that the West's paternalistic and hypocritical stance stance on Africa is also problematic.
Zimonya, Harare, Zimbabwe
The author is gravely mistaken in assuming that any strong outside power could occupy Zimbabwe without too much resistance, and easily install its own puppet administration. This short logic is partly to blame for the tragedy unfolding in Iraq. The US and its allies have 10,000 times the military might of the militia in Iraq, yet Iraq is still in unabated disarray. Turning to Zimbabwe, suppose the US/ China/ Britain (or whoever) overthrew R.G. Mugabe - how would they control the thousands of upset and dangerous war veterans and Mugabe loyalists? With F22 fighter jets? Let's be serious.
More likely however, is that China/ India will continue to grow their influence and power in Africa by investing, building, buying support, and any other means, clean and unclean. And their "non-interference" strategy is attractive to Africans because there's no forced accountability etc. It's to be said though, that the West's paternalistic and hypocritical stance stance on Africa is also problematic.
Zimonya, Harare, Zimbabwe
"Thank you for reminding us of how benign old style colonialism was. "
No-one said it was benign, merely benigner.
The slave trade and the privately-run exploitation of the Congo under Leopold II are precisely the kind of rape Parris is talking about. If you do not understand the difference between exploitation of that kind and settled colonial administration, then you have a history deficit.
John, Bangkok, Thailand
How sad this all is. The reason for the failure of the good governance of most of Africa is down to the USA who beggared us at the end of the war. Perhaps at some time we should resume our burden.
John, Kenilworth,
Hey, we tried and we were told to go away (except when excepting 'aid' cheques of course). Now that the continent has got poorer thats our fault and we should exert ourselves to resolve it!
As for the American influence, we were told 'imperial' interests were wrong and we had to abandon them because it was wrong. The fact that that we were heavily in debt to them because they came into the second world war late, were never bombed like we were, proposed land-lease at our greatest hour of need against Nazism, and nicked our atomic secrets which we delevoped but which was denied us later was a bonus, was never a factor.
Except for the next 50 years when they happily exploited what was the British Empire
Gordon, london,
What Africa needs is not 21st century neo-imperialism but development. The world has changed drastically since the first scramble for africa and it has for the better, there exist now more respect for sovereignty and human rights than any time before. The project of Iraq has clearly shown that in this modern day a power of Amrica's magnitude can easily lose a fight for the control of a country due to globalised and internal forces it cannot control even with the most advanced military to ever be seen in history. China's action in Africa shows the real 21st century neo-colonialism which involves a huge injection of capital anfd infrastructure in retuirn of valuable assets which it needs and at the same time putting no pressure on the sovereingty of the country. This is a good deal in one sense for the host country but it undermines good governance and democracies that are badly needed in the continent. There needs to be a mixture of the 2and western powers need to fill democracy-deficit
James Edwards, Cardiff,
Thank you for reminding us of how benign old style colonialism was. I am gladdened to hear that Heart of Darkness, the Zulu wars, the India Salt Act of 1882, the use of poison gas in Ethiopia, the invention of the concentration camp in the Boer Wars, and the North American slave trade were just figments of the collective imagination.
Theresa Yarmouth, Chicago, IL, USA
Of course you are right. After all, you had first hand experience of Africa. And "Buy your own gang" really hits the right note for involvement!
I predict Organised Crime wil see greater opportunities there than in the Regulated West. Investing ill-gotten drugs money is much easier there than elsewhere. And as the article demonstrates, the rewards could be much higher.
So depressing for those of my generation who had such hope of helping Africa. It has all ended in failure except for Botswana, Eqypt and Tunisia. Maybe there are others....but so, so sad. Zimbabwe and Darfur are the saddest.
John Collins, Eastbourne, East Sussex