Book Title: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Author: Walter Rodney

This month, we are examining a milestone text in colonial studies, international development, and African studies. The dialectical relationship between modern European development and African underdevelopment forms the scaffolding of Walter Rodney’s 1972 book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. He examines the economic motivations that moulded and defined the social, cultural and political (under)development of the African continent. Furthermore, a key contribution made is foregrounding the profound impact of colonialism on metropoles. He thus argues that the underdevelopment of Africa sustained the development of the West. 

For Rodney, the concept of monopoly summarises the way European power was cultivated. The prior disparity in socio-political organisation and technological advancement allowed Europe to one-sidedly reap the benefits of economic activity: Rodney convincingly sketches out the ‘multiplier effect’ in the metropole and the simultaneous monopoly over economic, technological and epistemological gains. He takes the example of the monopoly Unilever. Starting as a soap company, it acquired its raw materials, palm kernels, from colonies. In the process of expansion, scientific research was subsidised and technologies were developed; and oil/fat-based products proliferated in detergents, cosmetics, margarine, toothpaste. The byproduct of glycerin contributed to making explosives. As Europe developed exponentially, widening the chasm with its colonies, it actively maintained this by denying these technologies to African economies. The creation of colonies solidified national monopolies: it eliminated ‘competition among Europeans’, maximising the ‘sum total of exploitation’ (200). This approach punctures any account of European development that ‘treat the European economy as if it were entirely independent’ (95).

Rodney dismisses interpretations of the ‘mother country’s’ benevolence. Popular arguments for colonialism include its ‘civilising mission’ — where European countries have brought civilisation and modernity to tribal Africa. Another popular defence of colonialism is that Europe helped develop Africa through its construction of infrastructure, welfare and education. In response, Rodney traces the content of these ‘developments’. Colonial education was limited to begin with, offering minimal training that at best offers a future of becoming a collaborator or an administrative cog. A more latent aspect is what is taught: this is contrasted against the holistic pre-colonial education. Rodney points to how students ‘would learn about the Alps and the river Rhine but nothing about the Atlas Mountains of North Africa or the river Zambezi’ (301). The psychological nature of this — assimilation and mystification — is explored by many postcolonial novelists, such as in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions (2004).

Pursuits of infrastructure are similarly dictated by the needs of the metropole: ‘economic investments’ of hospital, schools and transports were made only in regions with import-export activities (250). Rodney stresses the complete lack of communication infrastructure between and within African societies: ‘all roads and railways led down to the sea’ (251). These developments fundamentally do not serve African interests: rather, they cement the superstructural edifice for European economic expansion.

What is Rodney’s vision for African development then? While he rightly calls for a complete reimagination, his materialist commitment potentially limits this as he states, ‘exploitation of land and labour is essential for human social advance[ment]’, contingent upon the products benefitting ‘where the exploitation takes place’ (176). The linear view of economic development is space for further transformation. Indeed, the future requires a commitment to our historical circumstances, as well as active development of consciousness — one of imagination in order to ‘make history’ and ‘determine [our] own destiny’ (346). Rodney’s diagnosis uncovers the necessity of development, one that allows individuals to fully realise their capacities and agency. 

Overall, Rodney argues that Europe’s development wasn’t a coincidence, but rather a result of actively stifling Africa’s potential.

Engaging with Rodney’s ideas offers a powerful lens through which to view development. It challenges our traditional understanding and exposes the inequalities created by colonialism. It has the potential to spark new approaches that promote a fairer and more balanced world.