This article appears in the February 17, 2023 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
SCHILLER INSTITUTE FEB. 4 CONFERENCE
New African Assertiveness
Presages an End to Colonialism
[Print version of this article]
Will colonialism finally end during our lifetime? According to its own official “narrative,” the dominant institution of colonialism, the British Empire, ended its colonial exploitation in 1960 with Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s “Wind of Change” address. However, a more modern and sophisticated system of exploitation was already in place, a system of supranational bureaucracies, such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, that prevented the development of infrastructure and local manufacturing in the now nominally independent nations of the Global South. As a consequence, the economic relations of these nations remained essentially unchanged, and the exploitation continued unabated. As an added measure, the “climate change” crisis has more recently been introduced to further suppress development, to avoid the purported possibility that “the planet will boil over,” in the words of former U.S. President Barack Obama.
However, in recent years, new conditions have arisen that have altered the political landscape. We have seen the spectacular success of China, and its willingness to share its success with other nations through the Belt and Road Initiative. This has caused shrieks of alarm from the colonial powers. In addition, the brutal sanctions policies of recent, neocon-dominated administrations in the United States have forced nations around the world to begin a process of disengagement from the dollar-denominated financial system and its institutions, creating an opportunity for a new, development-oriented system to supplant it.
The first internationally coordinated effort to end colonialism was the emergence of the Non-Aligned Movement at the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia. Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche, speaking at the Institute’s February 4, 2023 online conference, said, “... the developing countries, the Non-Aligned Movement, are having a renaissance right now; they’re picking up on the fight to end colonialism. The Spirit of Bandung has reemerged.”
We present here edited transcripts of speeches of participants in the Feb. 4 Schiller Institute conference who spoke on the development of Africa. Their contributions illustrate that reinvigorated spirit. They are followed by the dialogue at the conference on the historical importance of the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba.
