Colonialism and Racism as Dominant Discussion in the Contemporary Lecture: A Review of Kehinde Andrew’s New Age of Empire
In global historical conversation, it is very easy to overlook some brutal salient factors that have contributed to Western and far Eastern countries’ development. In some instances, to justify the overview, we rounded these developments in sectional periods that we have tagged—ages — historically, with its foremost culprit blaring the “Enlightenment Age” emblem. It is in this light to challenge this narrative that Professor Kehinde Andrews authoritatively traced every inch of development in the Western world to three excruciating topics—genocide, slavery, and colonialism.
It is not a new centre of discussion for historians to talk about these three topics; however, regarding the foundation of the West, these topics graciously dissect how the developed countries arrived at the stage they are, the processes they took, and what is left over for those affected. To do this, the book, The New Age of Empire, is therefore divided into eight topics set to capture genocide, slavery, colonialism, and imperialism all in one discussion.
From the outset, the British Professor began a discussion of the inherent racism in the idea of the glorified Enlightenment. Citing one of its major proponents—Immanuel Kant—Kehinde established an undeniable fact that presents this sainted philosopher beyond his contribution to the modern pool of thinking. It is not new to see a white man reserve unapologetic hatred towards a black man; what is gut-wrenching is seeing a supposed deep thinker also fall into the category of a one-way racist thinker. This therefore posed a question of intellectuality against Immanuel Kant. It is certain that we cannot overwrite his contributions to philosophy but should his parochial perspective be left out too? This erotema faced several lashes of answers in the first subsection of this book.
Apart from Kant, other authors classified under the Enlightenment period similarly shared the racial view towards other groups different from the West. Kehinde Andrews noted that “racial science arose as a discipline to explore the superiority of the white race, and it is telling that basically all the key Enlightenment thinkers were architect of its framework.” Therefore, given the excerpt, the damage created by the Enlightenment is beyond the period itself, as it splashed over centuries even up until 2023, hence laying the foundation of white politics over other races.
In an attempt to decolonise knowledge, the book moved from dissecting the racist theories in the Age of Reason backwards to the Age of Exploration. Again, it is the second semester of my first year at the University of Ibadan, and all I can remember is Professor C.B.N. Ogbogbo discussing the European exploration of the New World, the factors, and some achievements. However, what started as a normal quiet class turned topsy-turvy of ideas at the mention of the term “discovery of the new world” in the same sentence referring to Christopher Columbus. He emphatically stressed, “It is highly abnormal for some group of explorers who came to a place of highly sophisticated civilisation to call their encounter ‘discovery’ when they were clearly received and hospitalised.” He corrected this lingual error with “exchange with the new world.” To therefore create a foundation for Western development, Kehinde Andrews picked the first level of European weaponry — genocide. It is ironic that a race which deems it fit to liberate others from their backward lifestyle first ends the lives of those they come in contact with.
The idea of genocide itself was not deemed such until Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Lawyer, coined it during World War II to discuss the brutality he and his people faced at the Nazis’ hands. But to discuss the beginning of the modern-day conundrum, Professor Andrew examined the foundation of America and how Christopher Columbus, who had erstwhile sought to get to India, ended up in a new land of the Amerindian civilisations. His meeting not only opened Europe to this land but also utterly wiped out more than 97 per cent of the autochthonous dwellers and created a new generation of settler colonialism.
While that may seem far-fetched, a recent example of another genocidal encounter of the West is the Belgium-Congo relationship as a result of the 1884–5 Berlin Conference. In this case, it should not be shocking that even the degree of the holocaust orchestrated by King Leopold II scared the Europeans themselves as one of the colonial horrors. One can now ask, What should not be feared if a man has the death of approximately 10 million people on his neck?! To end this chapter, Andrews emphatically noted, “Western prosperity is propped on the countless bodies sacrificed for so-called development.”
The conversation around slavery is not the type we have with a smile flashing across our lips. In this book, Kehinde Andrews traced the inception of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the legacies it left behind in African nations. Over the years, various authors have written so much about the subject of slavery, so much so that a colleague once noted that we have discussed enough about slavery that it is high time we move to globalisation. However, it is important to note that while we give credit to industrialization for seeing the end of the slave trade, the catalyst for industrialization itself is the prosperity gathered from slavery. For instance, James Watt’s steam engine design was credited with “eternal gratitude” for the generosity of the slave owners. Watt is only one out of the pool of industrial inventors; as Kehinde pointed out, other industrial inventions further led to the skyrocketing of the plantation economy in the cotton sector. It is, however, undoubtedly true that the rise of industrialization was not a standalone phase in Western civilisation but rather a beneficiary of the slave trade. All these events clearly suggest a similar thing and that is the racial aggrandisement of the white.
Gravitating from this point of view, it is therefore now important to look into another phase of history in which, according to Professor Kehinde, the West has used colonialism to amass wealth for their empire’s development — colonialism. The period of colonialism led to something unique in African history: the problem of nation-building, which still fights the continent today by creating imperial democracy and the incompetence of loyal masters to the Western orders. Kehinde indicated a salient point, “…ever since the West dug its claws into Africa, it has been building and then sustaining its exploitative hold over the continent.”
It is important to note that even after the independence of African nations, there are still various indications of indirect penetrations and continual operations in the Western colonies in a new form known as imperialism. Therefore, the idea of imperialism is centred on the idea of creating a country that can be controlled remotely without having to bring itself down. To answer how imperialism has dealt with African development, he worked on a detailed chapter called The Dawn of a New Age, which statistically shows how African nations have been affected by various dimensions of imperialism, not only by the West now but also by another powerful non-white country—China, which left the readers asking an important question: when will Africa reach the greatness it crazily desires?
