Wednesday 26 February 2014

Direct Foreign Investment is not the Key to Kenya's development your excellency!

Learned colleagues.
Educated friends.
Fellow Kenyan Brethren.

Allow me to start by quoting that individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean[1]. That is why we  are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond[2] so please allow me (in the public interest of-course)to  quote on a practice that our nation’s Capable and resilient leadership is adopting which alike its vicious brothers slavery & colonialism leads to eternal debt .
I was shocked the other day when I read an article online where President Uhuru Kenyatta  said the Government is working on the country’s tax system to make it more friendlier to foreign investors. President Kenyatta said double taxation and other barriers that inhibit foreign investment will be removed for the country to retain its rightful position as the regional business hub[3]. This was followed by the various trips to Kuwait, China and the Global world as a whole to encourage foreign investment in Kenya.
This is a misguided move, that is not well researched and thought of and that lacks expert opinion and if it has the it is fraudulent, and if you would grant me more of your precious attention (seeing you’ve made it this far) then I would show you how it is a de-service to our nation if such practices are adopted.
You see under colonialism the ownership was complete and backed by military domination. Today, in many African countries the foreign ownership is still present, although the armies and flags of foreign powers have been removed. So long as foreigners own land, mines, factories, banks, insurance companies, means of transportation, newspapers, power stations, etc. then for so long will the wealth of Africa flow outwards into the hands of those elements. In other words, in the absence of direct political control; foreign investment ensures that the natural resources and the labour of Africa produce economic value which is lost to the continent [4]
It often takes the form of loans to the government , these loans have to be repaid, in the 1960s the rate of repayment (amortization) on official loans in underdeveloped countries rose from $400 million per year to about $700 million per year, and it’s been on the increase  ever since, it’s painful to imagine the current rate.[5] Furthermore, there is interest to be paid on this loans and profits to be made from this direct investments, the profits all flow outwards from the African continent, this brings about something known as capital flight, this is when a country’s wealth including profits made flow outwards of that country because it is not nationals of that country that own the bases of production.
"The magnitude of African capital flight is staggering both in absolute monetary values and relative to GDP. For the thirty-three sub-Saharan African countries for which we have data, we find that more than $700 billion fled the continent between 1970 and 2008. If this capital was invested abroad and earned interest at the going market rates, the  accumulated capital loss for these countries over the thirty-nine-year period was $944 billion."[6]
Ills of Foreign Direct Investment
Ø Ecological Debt: when foreign investors come to Arica they exploit our natural resources without boundaries and without consideration of the people living round that area and how that extraction process affects them.
In Nigeria Ogoniland shell company has been extracting crude oil for decades now however they have done it negligently and as a result they have had numerous oil spills that have never been cleaned up and they practice gas flaring, the oil spills have practically killed the flora and fauna of life here and no crop can grow, in some places people walk ankle deep in oil, mothers have miscarried babies, lost newly born children due to their breast milk being cancerous, shell have successfully exercised the mass extermination of a village, for more on this you can watch the documentary called Poison Fire on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq2TBOHWFRc 



Closer home oil was discovered in Northern Kenya, private companies from foreign nations are the ones controlling the sting but before it was even discovered the effects of harmful environmental extraction were being felt, Cancer epidemics are killing our Moran brethren up there as well as their animals which are so precious to their livelihood watch the documentary called Desert of death 1 & 2 on  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKQjrw3IYG0






Ø Privatization of public institutions: Let’s start with capitalism shall we, you see private property is a principle tenet of capitalism and capitalism entails the endless accumulation of wealth, through profit of course and this accumulation is accumulation by dispossession, hence private institutions are out here for profit not provision of public service, hence even when planning the provision of services they are not putting the general welfare in mind but their own private welfare.
Examples Kenya’s transport industry used to be government owned the services may have been moderate or poor to some( but you have not been bestowed the capacity nor authority to make broad policy considerations of that magnitude hence hush citizen, your only one in 44 million) but the prices were constant come rain come sunshine hell come winter. But nowadays even when the smell of rain covers the area fares triple because this is a private organization,
Kenya’s telecommunication industry was government owned but due to this vermin of worshipping foreign investments it had not gotten to good standards but the country was working towards t because they had installed underground copper wires all over the country then before this plan came into fruition Bam! Telkom Kenya was privatized and sold to orange who are not concerned with providing public services but profit!  
Is foreign direct investment really the key?
Any alternative ideas?
Remember your country Kenya is very rich and if the right policies are employed we can Invent our future!



[1] Quote by Ryunosuke Satoro
[2] Quote by Gwendolyn Brooks
[3] http://www.nation.co.ke/business/Double-taxation-to-be-abolished-Uhuru-kenyatta/-/996/2221110/-/10rblcd/-/index.html
[4] http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/rodney-walter/how-europe/ch01.htm (33 of 45) [8/22/05 11:03:07 AM]
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 1973 page 39
[5] Ibid Page 40

[6] - L. Ndikumana and J. Boyce, in Africa's Odious Debts.

Tuesday 18 February 2014

Exam Revision guide.

RFC 106: Essential Elements of Africa’s Development
Final Exam Revision Guide

This examination consists of 3 parts. You are required to answer five short answer questions in Part I and two essay questions from Part II (one each from Sections A and B respectively).

PART I. – Possible Short Answer Terms (Final Exam Will Have 8 of these 12)
Select five of the following terms and write short descriptions (a paragraph or two) for each. Use specific and factual information to support your answer.
Short Answer Questions- 4 points each, 20 points total

African Independent Schools, acting against the useless provision of technical education, the African schools though pegged with many problems managed to offer better education than the missionaries as this schools taught math and English the mission schools emphasized agriculture, crafts & rudimentary industrial education. Were formed between 1900 and 1933,many formed from break aways of the mission schools.


Alexandria Museum and Library
It was established in the third century B.C. in Egypt. It grew to become the
largest center of learning in the ancient world. The complex is estimated to
have housed more than 200,000 volumes, and supported up to 5,000 scholars
and students. Clearly, this was a large research institution, and many of the
leading Egyptian and other African as well as Greek, Roman, and Jewish
scholars of the ancient world studied or worked there at some point in their
lives.


Austerity measures


Carbon Trading- Form of emissions trading that specifically targets carbon dioxide (calculated in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent or tCO2e), This form of permit trading is a common method countries utilize in order to meet their obligations specified by the Kyoto Protocol; namely the reduction of carbon emissions in an attempt to reduce (mitigate) future climate change. This is where the major polluters namely large industrial company buy carbon credits so that they may be allowed to continue polluting the atmosphere, it affects agriculture negatively as it makes the climate unfavourable , thus in many area without climate resilient agriculture a negative decrease in yields is noted.


Dare to invent the future. This was the name given to an interview between the late captain Sankara and a reporter where he urged that Africans should dare to invent the future, their own future, which is not controlled by the whites, our own future without debt (foreign debt) the only way to achieve this was through hardwork and sacrifice, in order focus to emancipate ourselves we need to accept that we are poor, thus we need to get rid of all the unnecessary spending, in order to save the local cloth industry and some money it was suggested that civil servants must wear uniform, it was emphasized that we also do away with exorbitant salaries to public officials, and that if the president is a captain he should receive a captains salary, if a minister is a teacher then he should receive a teachers pay, when delegates travel overseas they shouldn’t fly first class nor shouldn’t they sleep in 5 star hotels.


Gender Stratification; Gender stratification: The unequal distribution of wealth, power, and privilege between men and women, has been there since time immemorial

Leave the oil in the ground
This is the campaign started by Oilwatch international that unites civil society organisations to push for the international obligations of states to not extract earths minerals such as oil, the slogan goes keep the oil in the soil, the coal in the hole, since its mining affects the environment and ultimately ruining the climate.
An early example of Oilwatch’s activism is the case of Yasuni ITT, pioneered by Accion Ecologica Ecuador’s forests sit above extensive, yet unplundered oil reserves, with the Yasuni National Park being one of the most bio-diverse spots on our planet Oilwatch deepened the campaign to ‘Keep the Oil in the Soil’ in order to preserve Yasuni and resist oil exploitation Ecuador is now asking the international community to compensate the country in exchange for keeping the oil below ground

Nationalization of land and natural resources
A principle tenet of socialism that states that since the land belongs to the nation, the Government has to see to it that it is being used for the benefit of the whole nation and not for the benefit of one individual or just a few people. (Nyererep.13)
   

Oligopoly, is a market form in which a market or industry is dominated by a small number of sellers (Oligopolists). Oligopolies can result from various forms of collusion which reduce competition and lead to higher costs for consumers.


Principle tenets of Capitalism
Individualism
Endless Accumulation of property
Exploitation of human labour
Private property

Structural Adjustment Programs
Removing Trade Barriers: Free Markets, FTAs, Liberalizing the economy .
Privatization of State industries and Public Services: PPPs.
Double standards on subsidies and incentives to farmers: PL480.
Banning production of generic HIV/AIDS drugs: Global Pharmaceuticals and Aid


Trade Liberalization, this is the supposed opening up of trade or the better of human kind by removing tariffs and trade barriers to enable easy international trade which always results in killing local industries rivatex,

PART II. – Possible Essay Questions (Final Exam Will Have 4 out of these 6)
You MUST answer the essay question in Section A. There is no choice in this Section.  In Section B, you may choose any one (1) essay question to answer.  You must write two (2) essays in total. Be certain to utilise specific and factual information to support your answers. The more specific evidence you offer to support your argument, the better.  Do write in complete sentences. A well developed answer should be approximately one page of a foolscap. Essay Questions- 20 points each, 40 points total


Sections A & B

1.      Discuss three ways in which colonial education was deliberately used as an ideological tool for domination and thus, a weapon for under-developing Africa.
Ø  Colonial education as a tool for cultural imperialism, an effective method of domination is to make the dominated believe that they have no culture and thus adopt the oppressors culture, this made Christianity an integral process of the curriculum as it was used to denounce African cultures as heathen and satanic . Africans still practicing their customs were kicked out of this mission schools, Oginga Odinga wrote that the mission schools products were clerks, secretaries and messengers (subservient positions) for the colonial government
Religious instruction wasn’t the only subject used, lessons in geography, history and civics, emphasized European cultures and white supremacy and how they struggled in a bid to civilize Africans ( lies such as that the white man ended tribal war as if it is not he who propagated tribalism by making us compete for scarce resources after a successful divide and rule policy)
African Communities richness in oral culture had no room in colonial education, at games time they played soccer and volleyball whereas during literature classes they sung London bridge is burning down. Colonial education was simply education for underdevelopment.

Ø   Racialized and disproportionate allocation of educational resources
The African population that constituted 97 % got 40% of the educational funding whereas the Europeans who were 1% got 33% of the educational funding, it is stated that there luxury standards of European schools had long surpassed British standards,This has a lingering legacy that is carried out up to today as a result people send their children to upcountry schools with the thought that they will work because of the tough conditions rather than inspite of the difficulties,whereas a child in England studies without difficulties and to the maximum number possible thus this puts our education levels subservient to theres, our numbers less as usual.  

Ø  Language and Curriculum of Colonial education
Highly technical as according to the 1926 Department of Education Annual Report it states that the African mind in Kenya has reached the sense perception stage hence had not developed reasoning faculties for literary education.
It was only until 1935 that literary education was introduced to African but even then it entailed the Rote memorization and the banking concept of teaching, where students in this system are  “ ‘receptacles’ ” that are to be “ ‘filled’ ” with the “content of the teachers narration”.(Freire, 1) These “receptacles” are expected to regurgitate information given in class, on tests, quizzes, and anything that requires an answer that is “word for word” what the teacher says.   In a banking classroom, the teacher is the authority and the students are oppressed. Freire writes, “The more students work at storing deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world.
Education was used as a tool for cultural suppression because it showed the Africa that he had no culture, no achievements in his history and was just pegged with afro-pessimism, to be noted was the emphasis put on religious instruction as it made a submissive, peaceful African out of men.

Ø  Rigorous Examinations for Africans
Common Entrance Exam (C.E.E.) class 4, exceptionally hard out of 40 pupils only 5 or even none made it.
Kenya African Preliminary Examination (K.A.P.E.) class 7
The hard exams are continued to this day some are K.C.S.E and K.C.P.E, result being that the majority of people fail and only those who pass get good jobs in the end and are a t a greater market value, this education only makes as have black skins white masks because even content wise we study more European things than African, we study his Story hence portraying us as subservient to him, this makes some have a greater market value than others, Mwalimu Nyerere is of the view that anyone who has  a market value is a slave/Commodity.

In the alternative of what education should do and what its not doing is;
                    i.                        Re-humanize Africans and reclaim their dignity
                  ii.                        Contextualizing African education: problem-solving education
                iii.                        Pursuing African Nationalism and Pan-Africanism




2.      Define unfair trade and discuss the four weapons of unfair trade employed in Africa and other underdeveloped regions.
A.    Dependency on Primary Product Exports
. According to the UN Conference on Trade in Development, in 2003 a dozen African countries were dependent upon a single commodity for exports, including crude petroleum (Angola 92 percent, Congo 57 per cent, Gabon 70 per cent, Nigeria 96 per cent)
Challenges of Primary Product Exports
·         High levels of price volatility
·         Downward price trends for many natural resources
·         Production is highly capital-intensive
·         It offers low incentives for educational investments
·         Disincentive against industrialization and manufacturing.
·         Manufactured goods are more valuable in the world market

B.     Trade Liberalization
·         Removing tariffs and other barriers to “Free Trade.”
·         Killing infant industries: Rivatex,
·         Loss of manufacturing jobs
·         Privatization
·         Double standards on subsidies
C.     Foreign Direct Investment
Under colonialism the ownership was complete and backed by military domination. Today, in many African countries the foreign ownership is still present, although the armies and flags of foreign powers have been removed. So long as foreigners own land, mines, factories, banks, insurance companies, means of transportation, newspapers, power stations, etc. then for so long will the wealth of Africa flow outwards into the hands of those elements
The ills of FDI
·         Ecological Debt: Depletion of natural resources and dumping of toxic wastes (Poison Fire)
·         Privatization: Telkom Kenya Experience with Orange

D.    Bio-piracy
A 2005 study commissioned by the Edmonds Institute and African Centre for Biosafety identified nearly three dozen cases of African resources captured by firms for resale without adequate ‘access and benefit sharing’ agreements between producers and the people who first used the natural products. The values expropriated are impossible to calculate but easily run into billions of dollars. They include a diabetes drug produced by a Kenyan microbe; a Libyan/Ethiopian treatment for diabetes; antibiotics from a Gambian termite hill; an antifungal from a Namibian giraffe; an infection-fighting amoeba from Mauritius; a Congo (Brazzaville) treatment for impotence; vaccines from Egyptian microbes; multipurpose medicinal plants from the Horn of Africa

3.      Analyze the validity of the three theories offered to explain the colonial conquest of Africa and show which one is the most convincing. 
Economic Theory
Industrial Revolution and the need for raw materials: Capitalist Exploitation

Psychological Theories
 Social Darwinism
Evangelical Christianity
Social Atavism

Diplomatic Theories
National Prestige
Balance of Power
 Global Strategy


4.      Analyzing the four principle tenets of capitalism, explain why it is ill-advised for African governments to privatize public services as a strategy for development.
Ø  Individualism
Ø  Private Property
Ø  Endless Accumulation of capital. Accumulation by dispossession.
Ø  Unlimited exploitation of humans and nature.

5.      Discuss four market-based solutions to climate change and show why they are not real solutions to the problem.
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) we are
now seeing granddaughters such as the Reducing Emissions from
Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD). A number of father
and mother mechanisms fall in between, dealing with one carbon
off-setting mechanism or the other. The most plausible concept
behind these market mechanisms is that they provide the basis
for private sector investment in efforts to tackle climate change.
Less subtly put, these mechanisms provide opportunities for the
private sector to control the pace and nature of projects allegedly
designed to tackle climate change, but which in reality advantage
vested interests while allowing primary corporate polluters to
evade accountability.



6.       Define patriarchy and elaborate on how it contributes to gender discrimination in various social spheres, including the corporate world, religious circles, academic institutions, legal systems, and family relations.
Patriarchy: A social system of power relations that privileges males and masculinity over females and femininity.
A.    Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV)
 a. Capitalism and deformed masculinity
 b. Gubernatorial Slap
 c. Rape: The Story of Liz
-January to May 2013, 338 reported rape cases in Kenya
- More than 25% of South African men admit to raping
-48 women raped in Eastern DRC every hour
- ONE IN THREE WOMEN ON THE PLANET WILL BE RAPED OR BEATEN IN HER LIFETIME.THAT IS ONE BILLION WOMEN. (1 Billion rising campaign)

B.     . The Sexual Objectification of women
In news T.V anchors, Models, magazines, Music videos, HipHop, Prostitution
C.     Racism and women’s bodies
Ø  Eurocentric standards of beauty and the market
Ø  Pain and the pursuit of beauty
Ø  Indian example (beauty products that makes private parts white)
D.    Religion and Gender Politics
Ø    Moral double standards: The story of Amina Lawal.
Ø    The silencing and subordination of women
E.     State and Gender Politics
Ø  . Matrimonial Property Bill
Ø  b. Women: The most affected by underdevelopment
F.      Gender and the Politics of Reproductive Health
Ø  Women and Contraceptives
Ø  Marginalization and access to sanitary towels
G.    In the Corporate world, the most number of bosses are men, in order for women to make it in the corporate world they are forced to become aggressive, manlike creating her into a female king, rather than being a queen and appreciating her significance, furthermore the women who have made it the corporate world are stigmatized against as men are intimidated by them hence many end up not married
H.    Family relations, at home the woman has been domesticated according to the Victorian woman whose work is to just stay at home pop babies and take care of the homestead they have been pulled out of active production.
I.       Academic institutions, in the onset of colonialism due to patriarchy girls stayed at home, thus many boys were sent to school at the expense of the girl because the girl was going to get married, this resulted in lesser numbers of the female gender being educated and to date the majority of scholars in academic institutions mostly public are men and not women.

J.       Legal systems, Kenya has never had a female chief justice, nor has it ever had a female attorney general,

Thursday 6 February 2014

Justifications put forth for colonization tarnished down; Mythical benefits(of colonialism) and their absurd nature exposed.


This critical analysis will to the best of my ability study the so called benefits of colonialism, who exactly it was benefiting? The quality and quantity of these benefits and lastly the magnitude of these benefits, furthermore it will look at the negative consequences of the colonialism so as to see if it outweighs the benefits.
Colonialism was the advent of the 19th century where European powers partitioned Africa unto themselves and forcefully entered Africa and through deceptive means as well as military might conquered the people they passed dubious laws in their local countries and somehow gained rights over the indigenous population, the natives and the land[1]. They then set out on a massive scale exploitation and murder of the African people, they were pushed into reserves and forced to work in the settler farms (farms which were previously there’s) for cheap labour, this was coupled by indirect maneuvers such as hut taxes. In the event of this taking place in order to enhance better and efficient exploitation they created infrastructure for their settlers and some few social amenities. This meager developments were meant for them on our land and not us, this explains the sharp racial segregations that were evident everywhere in Africa at that time, blacks were regarded the same as dogs thus were not eligible to enjoy this so called ‘benefits’ for example in south Africa during the Apartheid in one bus (or all) there was a sign saying blacks and dogs are not allowed and we all know that equated blacks to dogs, thus in a nutshell that’s what entailed colonialism
For starters we need to carefully apply reason and see if this so called benefits were intended or were by mistake, it was never in the intention of the colonizers to benefit the colonized with basic things because then that would not be colonization but a mere helping hand this is not what happened in Africa. The benefits that came to Africa of which I will deal with were to facilitate their exploitation and not the local populace.
The question still lingers on can one benefit from oppression?
Let’s look at this certain benefits that Europe benefited Africa with
Reduced warfare
Arrogant and ignorant white supremacists state shamelessly that colonialism helped unite Africans and end warfare that was inherent among us in terms of cattle raiding and interstate warfare that was at times rampant.it was deceptively stated that Africa was in chaos in the 19th century, and that ‘tribes’ like the Ngoni and the Yao and Samori’s sofas were killing left, right and center.[2] However on a close analysis you will find that since most African societies were functionally independent and everything that the society needed was at its avail, the only one point in which raiding became necessary was in extraneous circumstances where let’s say a disease would hit a community’s cattle, wiping it out, this is when the elders of the society would arrange a raid on the enemies (neighbors) in order to replenish their stocks and ensure survival, and in the most rare cases it would happen when a long period of drought had encompassed the society. And even during this raid[s of course there a casualties but very few because the raiders would time when the other community had sent its men to graze cattle far away from the village, this is when they would attack and get hold of the cattle. In the event of coming across of women or children they were not harmed but rather captured, there was marriage by capture hence basic rules of war were maintained.
Colonialism did not unite Africans actually it disunited us and led to the warfare that they claim to have reduced. Firstly when they partitioned Africa they paid no regard to the existing societal boundaries hence they separated societies into half greatly weakening them, furthermore they applied policies that were aimed at turning us against each other because they understood well that ‘divided we fall’ such policies were divide and rule whereby they co-operated with some African leaders, they resorted to arming African communities so as to attack other African communities and this was mostly their enemies. A good example is the Baganda they were armed and fought off their neighboring enemies greatly weakening them little did they know this was a ploy so that the British can conquer the other land without much resistance. If this was not enough in the Kenyan context the colonial government banned the formation of national political parties and allowed the formation of ethnic fronts of political participation this was segregating us so that we be tribally divided and united against the common enemy. It is this divide and rule tactics that has exhibited disunity amongst Africans and this has resulted in major hate between tribes thus tribalism. For example in Rwanda the colonizing country used one of the tribes as leaders over the other, thus since the system was still one of oppression one of the tribes disliked the other as they saw them as a mere extension of the persecutor (colonialists) thus by the time the genocide broke out, to one of the tribe they were revenging as well as liberating themselves from this extension of the persecutorial rule. This tribalism and genocide politics was a straight result of the direct and rule policy. Hence colonialism did not reduce warfare amongst African tribes; it developed it into a large scale and gruesome warfare.
Colonial infrastructure
It is not debatable and true that the colonialists did introduce infrastructure that was not there in Africa such as roads, buildings, rail and power. However the cookie here is that this infrastructure was meant to be for them in facilitating better exploitation of the people. To prove this, let’s look at Kenya. All roads and railways led down to the sea. They were built to extract gold or manganese or coffee or cotton. They were built to make business possible for the timber companies, trading companies and agricultural concession firms, and for white settlers, The British were interested in the agriculturally fit areas and with areas where they could make profit( mind you their own profit not benefit Africa) that is why if you look at Northern Kenya which is made of arid and semi-arid areas they largely ignored them and this disproportionality in development is what has been carried on to post-colonial Kenya, roads going to Northern Kenya are virtually non-existent or have not achieved the status of being called roads, a Monday newspaper reaches Moyale on Friday. People of Northern Kenya in 1963 during the Lancaster house conference wanted to secede and join Somalia because they did not regard themselves as Kenyans because surely they weren’t treated as such and still are not treated as such. Hence they feel left out. It is my humble submission that to the extent of the disproportional nature of the infrastructure so introduced and its long term effect of disuniting Kenya from the North that its demerits outweigh its benefits because this was the beginning of underdevelopment and for a nation to develop it should be in one accord or else it will be developing at the cost off its unity with the abandoned parts. It would do justice to not consider how first of all this social amenities were put in place specifically the railway in Europe rail building was characterized by a massive capital investment and bonuses to the workers in Kenya the pay to the coolies and black workers were lashes. A more prominent example is the Embakasi airport of Nairobi. Because it was built during the colonial era (starting in 1953) and with U.S. loans, it is customary to credit the imperialists for its existence. But it would be much more accurate to say that the people of Kenya built it with their own hands under European supervision, in fact it has gone down in the annals of history as it being the first airport to be built with hands![3]
Foreign investment
Many capitalist scholars brag about how European capital was invested in Africa for the benefit and modernization of Africa through colonialism, they make it sound it’s like they did us a very important favor, however with the careful application of reason(which they thought this black beasts were not capable of ) we come to see that most of the funds that were invested in Africa were gotten from the spoils of slavery hence this was dirty money which had been gotten from massacring and subjecting blacks to untold misery during slavery good examples are the Barclays bank(whose founders were active slave drivers) and the Niger company which was a monopoly of many other organizations that made their buck from slavery. Apart from slavery it should be noted that that Europe’s greatest source of primary capital accumulation was overseas, and that the profits from African ventures continually outran the capital invested in the colonies, in this sense it should be seen that apart from the initial capital(traceable to slavery profits) the more that was added was from the profits made in the colonies themselves for example diamond business in South Africa made too much profit that some of it was constantly reinvested as capital.
Expansion of agriculture 
As they wine and dine they kept on and keep on living on the unwarranted assumption that they modernized and expanded agriculture however the true thing is that the African entered colonial agriculture systems with a hoe and came out with a hoe (plus a whole lot of fatigue and not enough produce to feed his family that he could show for it). They brag of introducing new crops to Africa such as maize by the Portuguese, due to their non-industrialization policy they did not build factories in Africa for the processing of this goods, the factories were in Europe this brought about the retarded situation which is that lets Ghana grew cocoa but imported cocoa products! They pushed the Africans to reserves where they forced them to practice shift cultivation on a piece of land that was too small. Furthermore they introduced monoculture which is the growing of one crop and just that one is majored in. mind you before they came Africa practiced diverse agriculture of all forms of plants that were healthy however with their introduction of monoculture and their emphasis on cash crops over food crops this is the major cause of famine in Kenya today because this policy has been continued long after independence. Diversified agriculture was within the African tradition. Monoculture was a colonialist invention, how ridiculous is it for us to plant tea and flowers and lay emphasis on its export when we have citizens who are sleeping hungry? How erroneous is it that we put emphasis on cash crops whereas we are not food secure ourselves? It’s quite fallacial that when hunger breaks out in Kenya the nation contributes up to a billion worth of foodstuffs whereas this is not the remedy but just a temporal relief .Lastly it is to be noted that the so called crops that they introduced in Africa back home they were food for their horses. With respect to agriculture and nutrition it is to be noted that the crops that they introduced which later on became staple foods were neither nutritious nor as healthy as the foods that were previously there such as sorghum, cassava , millet thus has greatly impacted on the natural African physique, which was exceptionally well to prove this we lay down the test proposed by Rodney which is we draw a contrast with the communities that have retained their eating patterns and foods such as the Maasai , they are exceptionally strong than the average Kenyan man .This has overally limited our life span as nowadays due to the westernization of our diet it has lowered our immunity we are dying of the same diseases as the white man, lifestyle diseases such as Heart disease and Diabetes!
Expansion of gender inequality
What happened to African women under colonialism is that the social, religious, constitutional and political privileges and rights[4]. Prior to colonialism women played a great role overally in community natters and were even described as the matricentric core of production, however shocking as it may seem women were more involved in leadership matters and played a greater role. In Ancient Egypt when the pharaoh died the queen took over leadership and we had queens who were very brilliant in leadership and greatly steered ancient Egyptian civilization to prosperity[5]. Back in Britain the women were called the ‘Victorian woman’ this entailed that the man should go to work do everything necessary and the woman was to stay home take care of the household and give birth this was the role of women in Britain. In Africa traditionally the division of labour was such that the men would do the hard manual labour, with the advent of capitalism in Africa more men entered it in great numbers given the hard nature of the labour involved this consequently this made women’s work become greatly inferior to that of men within the new value system of colonialism: men’s work was ‘modern’ and women’s was ‘traditional’ and ‘backward’. Therefore, the deterioration in the status of African women was bound up with the loss of political power by African society as a whole; this is why nowadays we have to set sui generis rules such as the two third gender rule because its result was the sharp marginalization of women especially politically.
Opening up of Africa’ to Trade
It is often bragged that colonialism opened up Africa to legitimate international trade, however before we go far we need to discuss two things first. Trade is the exchange of goods and services equitably and on a negotiable basis but when one party dictates the trade terms and price then that ceases to be trade and develops into something else but not trade. Secondly in Africa there was trade that was really doing well, every country had a form of local industry that produced goods in surplus which were in turn traded. Since this inter-African trade did not bring benefits to Europeans it was not encouraged by them, and up to the latter part of the colonial period only 10% of Africa’s trade was internal.
Lastly you see Africa was not opened up to trade internationally we were limited to trading with Europe only in that they dictated what we planted, what quantity to sell, and the price at which they would buy it (is this trade?) so they did not open us to trade with the world they opened us to further forms of exploitation in the name of trade to Europe only and not elsewhere and we are still dependent on them until today. We trade with Europe then they trade with the world with our products for instance Kenya exports millions of tonnes of tea to Britain about 60% of the whole produce, Britain consumes 20% and resells the remainder 40% to the rest of the world. Africa was denied the opportunity of developing healthy trade links with parts of the world other than Europe and North America. Some trade persisted across the Indian Ocean, but on the whole it is fair to say that the roads in Africa led to the sea-ports and the sea-lanes led to Western Europe and North America. That kind of lop-sidedness is today part of the pattern of underdevelopment and dependence. To conclude I would quote what Rodney said in terms of trade “There may be more rubber and coffee exported, there may be more cars imported with the proceeds, and there may be more petrol stations built to service the cars. But the profit goes abroad, and the economy becomes more and more a dependency of the metro poles’
Education
It is stated time and time again that colonialism introduced formal education to Africa what is never mentioned is that there was already education in Africa only that the African education was out of the environment and based directly on the work pattern of the societies and I continued lifelong especially when one moved from on age grade to the next. Among the Bemba of what was then Northern Rhodesia, children by the age of six could name fifty to sixty species of tree plants without hesitation, but they knew very little about ornamental flowers. The explanation is simply that knowledge of the trees was a necessity in an environment of ‘cut and burn’ agriculture and in a situation where numerous household needs were met by tree products; learning about flowers was and still is not useful to the survival of an African. Pre-colonial African education was outstanding because of its close links with social life, both in a material and spiritual sense; its collective nature; its many-sidedness; and its progressive development in conformity with the successive stages of physical, emotional and mental development of the child. It was both informal and formal and in some advanced African societies writing had already been introduced. The colonizers did not introduce education into Africa: they introduced a new set of formal educational institutions which partly supplemented and partly replaced those which were there before, and which were highly irrelevant to the life of an African because the purpose of the colonial system of education was to train Africans to help man the local administration at the lowest ranks and to staff the private capitalist firms owned by Europeans. It was not an educational system designed to give young people confidence and pride as members of African societies, but one which sought to instill a sense of deference towards all that was European. The quality as well as the quantity of this education was below minimal, first of all there was racial segregation in that the whites around got the best educational facilities, out of millions of Africans only a few hundred made It to school, and out of this few that made it to school less than 50% finished it successively, this is because there was no prospect and even if there was it was minimal of an African making it to secondary or university because Africans were being trained to be clerks and messengers. Furthermore they didn’t want to administer quality education to the blacks because this would open their eyes to demand for their rights. The system of education did not house any new ideas thus it was not progressive at all. It was not relevant to the African environment they had no programme of instruction relating to the plant life with which they would otherwise have familiarized themselves with. Instead, they were taught about flowers — and about European roses, it taught one more of Europe than back home in Africa it was at the expense of that when one was colonially educated he was also de-Africanized, and we have good example in Kenya one sir Charles Njonjo is popularly known to be among those who embraced white culture fully and is even referred to as a white man. Other that intellectual education of Europe genuine technical education was ruled out, because the fundamental purpose of the colonial economy did not permit the development of industry and skills within Africa.
Imperialist whites snigger at Africans for being ‘illiterate natives’ then argue that illiteracy is part of ‘the vicious circle of poverty’. Yet, it is the same same people who boast proudly that they have educated Africa. How did they educate Africa then?  A system full of impediments and no prospect of success is no system at all. The colonial schooling was education for subordination, exploitation, the creation of mental confusion and the development of underdevelopment.
It is at this juncture that I conclude that the so called key benefits of colonialism were not benefits but seemingly unintended outcomes and these needs to weigh against their negative consequences as well as the negative nature in which they were introduced. It is good focus to break down these mythical benefits so s to eradicate this psychological prison we are in that the white man is better than Africans hence we should bow to him!



[1] Specifically How the British Acquired ‘legal’ control over Kenya
[2] Page 348 , Walter Rodney’s How Europe underdeveloped Africa
[3] Page 328,How Europe underdeveloped Africa ,Walter Rodney
[4] Page 357 supra
[5] Queen Nefertiti & Queen Hatshepsut