#neo-colonialism

[kropotkindersurprise]

March 21, 2026 - “After taking everything we had … they want to colonize us again.”

Brazil’s president Lula is warning that the global race for critical minerals could repeat a long history of colonial extraction in Latin-America, the Carribean and Africa. [video]

[tearsofrefugees]

The UK asylum system is a form of neo-colonialism

Our hostile immigration system forces traumatised queer migrants to perform rigid, Westernised scripts for safety

[dontbestingybaby]

“In the industrially more developed countries, capitalism, far from disappearing, became infinitely stronger. This strength was only achieved by the sacrifice of two principles which had inspired early capitalism, namely the subjugation of the working classes within each individual country and the exclusion of the State from any say in the control of capitalist enterprise. 

“By abandoning these two principles and substituting for them 'welfare states' based on high working-class living standards and on a State-regulated capitalism at home, the developed countries succeeded in exporting their internal problem and transferring the conflict between rich and poor from the national to the international stage.”

— Neo-colonialism: The last stage of imperialism by Kwame Nkrumah

[tomorrowusa]

South African women warned about viral Russian job videos

A large number of young South Africans are jobless and attracted by social media offers of work abroad.

Russia was too busy exploiting Eastern Europe and Central Asia to exploit Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries. But it is now apparently thinking: better late than never.

The South African government is warning young women not to fall for social media recruitment drives promoting job opportunities abroad. This comes as a number of online videos by South African social media influencers advertising jobs for young women in Russia have gone viral. The authorities are investigating one promotional video by influencer Cyan Boujee, which has now been removed from her account. She describes a two-year "start programme" for young women at the beginning of their careers who want to acquire professional skills. [ ... ] The influencer, whose real name is Honour Zuma, describes the programme as a "fresh new start" adding that "apparently girls are treated fairly here – Africans, Asians, Latin Americans". Boujee, who has 1.7 million TikTok followers, also explains that those hired will be given jobs and taught how to speak Russian.

The lack of details about the jobs is a red flag. And that bit about equality in Russia is total bullshit. A disproportionate percentage of Russia's war fatalities are members of ethnic minorities from the Russian Far East – especially Buryats; the Putin régime tries to avoid drafting white boys from big cities in European Russia.

The South African government is "extremely worried" about the trend of influencers being used to promote jobs abroad, according to the country's head of public diplomacy Clayson Monyela. In an X post, he warned young people, especially girls, "not to fall for unverified foreign job offers", some being promoted on social media. "If something looks too good to be true, get a 2nd opinion," he wrote. There have been allegations that some of those recruited to work in Tatarstan have ended up working in a weapons factory, making drones that have been used in Russia's war in Ukraine.

Weapons factories are prime targets for Ukraine. And Ukraine is increasingly able to strike deep into Russia. So Putin would prefer to have Africans rather than Russians killed in those factories.

Recruiting young women to work in weapons factories is not the only way Putin is trying to lure young Africans to Russia to do dangerous work. Young men are being tricked into joining the Russian Army. They are told that there are lucrative jobs waiting for them in Russia. When they arrive, they often end up as Putin's cannon fodder. Many Cameroonians who went to Russia have gone missing or ended up dying in Putin's futile war against Ukraine.

[raffaellopalandri]

Who is responsible for African underdevelopment

From today’s Book of the Day, I have selected one sentence for a multidisciplinary analysis. “The question as to who and what is responsible for African underdevelopment can be answered at two levels: first, the operation of the imperialist system bears major responsibility for African economic retardation.” — Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972) Walter Rodney’s observation in…

[paragonne]

The Revolution Will Not Be Civilised

There’s a reason the first world has yet to experience revolution. It’s because it is too civilised, too modern. The rest of the world can struggle, however difficult it may be, but the ivory tower cannot collapse from the top floor.

In Kenya, the reason our protests don’t work is because of economic hardship. As previously discussed, people lack the economic power to prolong their protest and develop it into a true revolt. They must soon return to their daily lives in order to feed themselves. This is true in most countries, but especially in nations with high wealth gaps, high rates of poverty, low daily income, or other economic conditions which might make it difficult for long-term mobilisation of the working class. Essentially, the wealthier a person, the longer they are able to engage in non-labour activities, whether pleasure or protest.

This applies to first world countries as well, despite their higher wealth. But we’re not going to get into that. That point has been made, and it applies everywhere. Now, if people’s needs are met, they have little to no need to protest (sorta), and if their needs aren’t met, they struggle to find the capability to protest. This is an inherent part of capitalism as a system. This, like corruption and exploitation, is not a disease afflicting the system, but a symptom of the system itself.

Another reason people do not protest is fear of reprisal. This is often in the form of police action. Remember kids, the police are the occupying army of the dominant group of a given state (intentional Brennan reference). In less developed countries, the citizens lack access to advanced means of defence, but the police (sometimes) lack access to advanced means of offence, so it balances out nicely. Sometimes.

In the first world, they can know you will be at the protest before it begins, find your home, and send a drone to kill you before you set foot our your door. They don’t (usually), but they can. They can also use sonic weaponry to force you to move, send out advanced military grade vehicles and weapons, actual members of military, and of course toss in some good old fashioned tear gas and water cannons. They don’t (sometimes), but they can. Every military showcase becomes a reminder of who’s holding the stick.

Of course, the West does not have a monopoly on police brutality. It occurs everywhere. In states with higher rates of corruption, it simply is not punished, but even in states known for lower levels of corruption it is a crime which frequently goes unpunished (cough cough USA cough). So there’s that too. That’s nasty.

Now that that’s all settled, we can get into the juicier stuff.

There are in my mind three reasons why the Revolution (note the capital R) might not occur. Firstly is the increasingly unlikely explanation that everyone is happy and noone needs to protest. The actual reasons are that people either are against revolt, or those who are in favour of revolt lack the capability. In terms of leftistism, non-revolutionary socialists have some pretty valid reasons for being against revolt. Violence is always bad. That doesn’t mean it’s never the answer, simply that it’s the final answer because it must be weighed so heavily. And of course faith in a broken system, but we all cling to hope, I suppose, in one way or another.

Of those I have seen, only one of those reasons has truly stuck with me in an important manner, because violence sometimes is the answer. Sometimes you should use violent means to end an occupation, or an imperialist force, or a fascist government, and so on and so forth. Who would deny the oppressed their right to force from the earth those who dare deny them humanity? When we look on the history of colonialism, it’s final chapters are marked not by decrees of willing freedom by colonial powers, but by Kalashnikovs. The imperialist speaks but one language, that of violence, and can only be convinced by words he knows.

The reason that has stuck with me is this: when the Revolution comes about, people will suffer as government systems shut down and infrastructure halts. Hospitals need electricity to function, and many people need hospitals to live. Electricity doesn’t come without power plants. And who keeps the power plants running when the nation is mid-revolt? While the Revolution occurs, they will die, not as willing martyrs, but as collateral damage. The only acceptable amount of collateral damage is zero, hence why it doesn’t matter how many Hamas members are killed by the IOF because they have killed civilians in the process (this sentence only makes sense if we consider Israeli action as non-genocidal, so let us make space in our minds for a reality vastly different from our own, so that this poor little sentence my find a place to live). Any revolution with collateral is a revolution done badly. We can sit and justify the ends, but the means can never be come less evil.

The purpose here is not to argue for or against justification of these means, rather simply to bring it into the light, and to then understand why that light shines brighter for some than others. Because it truly does.

When the Revolution happens, infrastructure stops functioning. It may be only for a few minutes, it may be for months, but it stops, or at the very least slows down. So when the blackout starts, the cancer patients are on a time limit. The parent feeding their children through food stamps gets hungry. Anyone who is in any way reliant on governmental infrastructure to survive starts suffering.

See how the capitalist makes a weapon of the vulnerable?

See how the few benefits one can reap from the capitalist state becomes yet another human shield, another profit point for the wealthy?

See how they find more and more ways to rob you of your freedoms?

But what if there isn’t any infrastructure?

Much of the Global South lacks large scale infrastructure like this. This is often due to corruption, or due to lack of governmental wealth with which to fund it, due usually to corruption. When the Revolution comes, there is practically no infrastructure to halt. The people who would depend on the infrastructure have found other means, or they’re already dead.

Within the civilised realms of the West, one lives because of the infrastructure, the development, the “civilisation”. Within the Third World, one dies, because there is nothing, no “civilisation”. Of course lack thereof is due to neo-colonialism and imperialism by Western powers. These same powers, of course, hurt themselves in their hoarding, because now they are trapped by it. Imperialism hurts all. The Second World War was imperialism coming home to roost; a century later, we watch as it becomes the West’s undoing once more. Capitalism is a fire that burns everyone, some can just afford to stand further from the flames. The fires inevitably reach them, it just might take a bit longer.

Surrounded by the things they mark as symbols of their advancements, the West refuses to rise against its oppressors. The Revolution cannot happen without collateral. But there is somehow so much more collateral in the West, because the very reforms that free the people simply chain them anew. Partial shifts leftwards become exploitations, bugs in the code, ripe to exploit. The Revolution will not be civilised, because the civilised folk are unable to Revolt.

Only the uncivilised remain. And they are who revolt. Nepal, Indonesia, Madagascar, Kenya, Morocco, Peru, the Philippines, all of the so-called “Gen Z Protests” across the world, occur outside of the West, in the uncivilised lands. Where they fail, the Global South succeeds. Decades of war against imperialism and colonialism, I suppose, has been a good teacher. We are beginning to remember the lessons.

Unfortunately, the ultimate struggle is to rid the states themselves from oppression by the West, and that is a Revolt that we still await. For now, we will have to be satisfied with individual states finally taking action against internal oppression.

[shamballalin]

Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin's Rebuttal To President Trump's Speech March 4, 2025

Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan is delivering the Democratic response to President Trump’s speech before the joint session of Congress. Slotkin’s response began after Mr. Trump wrapped his speech, which was the longest speech of his kind. Slotkin was elected in November after representing Michigan in the House since 2019, and replaced long-serving Sen. Debbie Stabenow in the Senate. The…

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[milkboydotnet]

Neo-colonialism is based upon the principle of breaking up former large united colonial territories into a number of small non-viable States which are incapable of independent development and must rely upon the former imperial power for defense and even internal security. Their economic and financial systems are linked, as in colonial days, with those of the former colonial ruler.

Kwame Nkrumah, Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of imperialism