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THE COLONIAL INHERITANCE

Article · December 2020

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Hassan Mudane
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 THE COLONIAL INHERITANCE
Hassan Mudane1

December, 2020

This long essay excerpted from the An Introduction to African Politics written by Alex
Thomson. I will begin with simple definitions of colonialism then highlights some of
the negative impacts that are associated with colonial legacies.

DEFINING COLONIALISM

It seems generally, if not universally, agreed that colonialism is a form of domination-the control
by individuals or groups over the territory and/or behavior of other individuals or groups. It has
also been seen as a form of exploitation, with emphasis on economic variables, as in the Marxist-
Leninist literature, and as a culture-change process, as in anthropology. In other words,
Colonialism can be described and defined as the establishment of a colony in one territory by a
political power from another territory, and the subsequent maintenance, expansion and
exploration of that colony by that ruling power. Similarly, the term is used to describe a set of
unequal relationships between the colonial power and the colony itself and is often present
between the colonists and the indigenous peoples.

Officially, it described as follows: (A) the control or governing influence of a nation over a
dependent country, territory, or people. (B) The system or policy by which a nation maintains
such control or influence. (C) The practice of taking control over another country, occupying its
land with settlers and/or exploiting its resources for economic gain.

COLONIAL LEGACIES

Africa did not evolve in isolation prior to European colonization. The continent, like other parts
of the world, had to adapt to invasions and imperial rule as history unfolded. Just as Britain
experienced eras dominated by Roman and Norman occupation, North Africa played host to
Persian, Greek, Roman and Ottoman empires over time. This colonial era may have been
relatively short in duration (in most cases from the 1880s or 1890s through to the 1960s), but its
impacts on the subsequent political environment was considerable.

Once more, lines of continuity can be traced between the past and the present. Seven elements
within this colonial inheritance of particular importance are:

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Africa Analyst

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1. The incorporation of Africa into the international modern state structure
2. The imposition of arbitrary boundaries
3. The reinforcement of the non-hegemonic state
4. The weak link between state and civil society
5. The promotion of African state elite
6. The building of specialist export economies
7. And the absence of strong political institutions

MODERN STATES

The most obvious legacy of colonial rule was the division of Africa into modern states. European
rule resulted in Africa being fully integrated within the international jigsaw puzzle of sovereign
territories. All of these sovereign territories had clearly delineated and fixed boundaries, and all
legal political interaction was now channeled through, or at least held accountable to, state
institutions.

ARBITRARY BOUNDARIES

The [colonial] powers‟ imposition of state borders on African territory had major ramifications.
The problem lies with the fact that, when they were delineated, these state boundaries rarely
matched exiting pre-colonial political, social or economic divisions. They were „arbitrary‟. Not
arbitrary in the sense of random, but arbitrary because they reflected the short-term strategic and
economic interests of the colonial powers, and not the interests of the Africans they housed.

Again, it is important to stress that if African state borders had reflected „natural‟ social and
economic divisions, rather than having been imposed arbitrarily and virtually overnight, then
these, and other, anomalies would not have become a reality on the modern map of Africa. As
the British Prime minister of the day, Lord Salisbury, quipped at an 1890 Anglo-French
conference: “We have been engaged in drawing lines upon maps where no white man‟s foot ever
trod; we have been giving away mountains and rivers and lakes to each other, only hindered by
the small impediment that we never knew exactly where the mountains and rivers and lakes
were.”

REINFORCING THE NON-HEGEMONIC STATE

European colonialism reinforced the non-hegemonic nature of the African state. Only in South
Africa, Southern Rhodesia, Kenya, South West Africa and Algeria state were there pretensions
of building a modern the rest of the continent, the colonial powers had only limited goals. There
was no desire to invest resources to ensure the state could project its authority into every corner
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of the new colonies. Instead, they only concentrated on economically productive or strategically
important regions.

WEAK LINKS BETWEEN STATE AND CIVIL SOCIETY

Colonial political authority had been gained on the continent through conquest, and political
institutions imposed. Coercion acted as a substitute for legitimacy. The state, in this sense, never
rested on a social contract between government and people. Indeed, colonial administration were
not even accountable to the Africans they ruled. Instead, they obeyed order emanating from their
superiors back in the capitals of Europe. Government was therefore about maintaining order,
balancing budgets and overseeing the extraction of raw materials for export. It was never about
the provision of public services for citizens. This is why Crawford Young describes the African
colonial state as “Alien to its core.”

THE FORMATION OF STATE ELITES

Colonial administrators selected traditional leaders to be the intermediaries of imperialism.

Chiefs or monarchs, who already commanded authority among their people, were charged with
raising taxes, supplying labor and ensuring that colonial laws and regulations were respected. In
return, these intermediaries could expect the power of the state to back their leadership, with
considerable benefits in terms of tribute.

The state elite were not just composed of traditional leaders, however. As time progressed,
younger African elite began to emerge. These individuals also gained their position from their
proximity to state power, but their source of social mobility was not necessarily traditionally
authority. The main currency was education. This “proto-elite” was often employed in the lower
ranks of the government, as clerks, teachers or court interpreters, or became professionals such
as lawyers and doctors.

THE ECONOMIC INHERITANCE

Of all the elements of Africa‟s colonial inheritance, it has been the economic legacy that has
been most widely debated among African scholars. This is because the most obvious feature of
modern African history has been the continent‟s poor economic performance. However, a
dominant school of thought, at its height in the 1970s and early 1980s, directly blamed the
colonial inheritance for this lack of development. Its followers maintained that the continent had
been systematically underdeveloped by colonial interests, and this now left the new independent
states in a highly vulnerable „dependent‟ position. As such, colonial administrators had failed to
provide Africa with the basic economic foundations governments now needed if their countries
were to flourish.

Underdevelopment also stunted African advancement by only developing primary production on

the continent (mining and agriculture). Colonial rule ensured that peripheral economies became

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predominantly export economies (minerals, coffee, gas and oil, cotton and cocoa). Consequently,
at independence, many African states were faced with the problem of a monocrop economy
(economies over-reliant on primary sector).

WEAK POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS

Colonial powers did not have as its goal the creation of legal-rational institutions on colonies
soil. In this respect, colonial administrations had been highly bureaucratic and authoritarian.
They never sought legitimacy from their subjects; they were highly interventionist; they had few
pretentions about representing the views of their subjects; and they ruled through domination,
supported by force.

As a consequence, bureaucratic authoritarianism became the visible institutional legacy in post-

colonial Africa.

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 WORK CITED

Thomson, A. (2016). An introduction to African politics

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