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21st century colonialism: a new scramble for Africa © Photo: en.wikipedia.org Download audio file Dr. Hamdy Hassan, Director of the Center for African Future Studies based in UAE, speaks on the modern-day colonialism and the dominance of the West over new independent states in Africa and in Asia. There’s been a conference held in France this week and the conference was focusing on neocolonialism and anti-colonialism. And I found it a little bit ironic that the French should hold this kind of event, though they are now closely engaged in Mali. So, do you think that the issue of neocolonialism is really hot on the agenda or perhaps it is a more theoretical stuff? If we talk about the theoretical issue of the different aspects of colonialism, you have the ancient type of colonialism and the neocolonialism which is widely used after the liberation movement in Asia and Africa and it meant of this kind of economic and political influe...

The new scramble for Africa By LENA WEINTSTEIN   LENA WEINSTEIN is a member of the International ­Socialist Organization in New York City.Thanks to Petrino DiLeo and Amy Muldoon for their assistance and input. FOR CENTURIES, beginning with the slave trade, the West has ruthlessly exploited the African continent. As Karl Marx described it, “the turning of Africa into a commercial warren for the hunting of black skins” was one of the chief sources of “primitive accumulation” that “signaled the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production.” But the abduction and enslavement of millions of Africans was only the start. In the late nineteenth century, in what became known as the “scramble for Africa,” the continent was arbitrarily carved up into colonies by the leading European powers, which violently subjected its people and plundered the continent of its rich natural resources. In the post-independence eras, African states became weak pawns in the world economy, subject to Cold...

US Military Scramble for Africa Secret wars, secret bases and the Pentagon’s “new spice route” in Africa They call it the New Spice Route, an homage to the medieval trade network that connected Europe, Africa, and Asia, even if today’s “spice road” has nothing to do with cinnamon, cloves, or silks. Instead, it’s a superpower’s superhighway, on which trucks and ships shuttle fuel, food and military equipment through a growing maritime and ground transportation infrastructure to a network of supply depots, tiny camps, and airfields meant to service a fast-growing US military presence in Africa.  Few in the United States know about this superhighway, or about the dozens of training missions and joint military exercises being carried out in nations that most Americans couldn’t locate on a map. Even fewer have any idea that military officials are invoking the names of Marco Polo and the Queen of Sheba as they build a bigger military footprint in Africa. It’s all hap...