Guerrilla History - African Revolutions and Decolonization (AR&D) - Ep. 1: Introduction w/ Momodou Taal

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

With this episode of Guerrilla History, we officially launch our long awaited series on African Revolutions and Decolonization!  Every other week (between other, non-thematic episodes) for roughly the next year and a half, we will be turning a spotlight on struggles across the African continent, with both case studies as well as more theoretical or conceptual episodes present.  We could scarcely ask for a better guest to help us launch this series than our comrade Momodou Taal.  In this episode, we discuss the importance of studying African revolutionary history, and what we should be doing with this series.  Get excited, we certainly are! In addition, if you want to read Adnan and Henry's thoughts on this series, they introduced the series in a blogpost for the Review of African Political Economy last week.   Also subscribe to our Substack (free!) to keep up to date with what we are doing.  With so many episodes coming in this series (and beyond), you won't want to miss anything, so get the updates straight to your inbox.  guerrillahistory.substack.com   Momodou Taal is a British-Gambian PhD student at Cornell University studying African Political Economy.  He is host of the outstanding podcast The Malcolm Effect, and has a forthcoming book The Malcolm Effect Revisited, which preorders are open for.  Be sure to also follow him on twitter @MomodouTaal. Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory 

You don't remember den, Ben, boo? The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on. Hello and welcome to Gorilla History, the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present. I'm one of your co-hosts, Henry Huckimacki, joined as usual by my co-host, Professor Adnan Hussain,

historian and director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan. How are you doing today? I'm doing well, Henry. It's wonderful to be with you today. Absolutely. And I am very very. excited for what we are kind of unveiling today. I know that we've talked about it before, but this is episode one of a brand new series that we're going to have. But before I mention that series, I want to remind the listeners that they can help support the show and allow us to continue making episodes like this, both in our series that we're going to be discussing

today, as well as our usual, quote unquote, episodes by going to patreon.com forward slash gorilla history. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. And you can keep up to date with everything that Adnan and I are doing individually as well as what the show is doing collectively by following us on Twitter at Gorilla underscore Pod, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-L-A-U-Pod, and on Instagram at Gorilla underscore History. Again, Gorilla with two R's. So, without further ado, and we have a terrific guest, which we'll have introduced himself in just a second, I want to lay out what this series is that I mentioned. This is episode one of the long anticipated series, roughly 35-part series that we have. So it's not really a mini-series,

I guess maxi series, on African Revolutions and Decolonization. We already have all of the episodes planned out. We have most of the guests selected, and we've already recorded a couple of other episodes in this series. But what you're going to be hearing today, listeners, is episode one of the series. Every other week, you will hear an episode of the African Revolutions and Decolonization. Civilization series on Friday, our usual release date. Half of those episodes are going to be case studies of revolutionary and decolonial movements on the continent, and half of the episodes are going to be more conceptual and theoretical discussions that are relevant to those case studies.

In between those every other week episodes of this series, you will hear episodes of our usual content, which is to say a grab bag of socialist and communist history. But without further ado, allow me to turn the microphone over to our guest today, who is a wonderful friend of the show and somebody who has gotten some very good news recently. So Mamadu, we're very happy for you for the news that you've received. But we have Mamadu Tal joining us today. Many of you will be familiar with him as co-host of the Malcolm Effect podcast, one of my favorite podcasts. And Mamadu, why don't you introduce yourself to the listeners briefly? and then we'll get into the conversation today.

Absolutely. And thank you so much for the opportunity to be in conversation with you both. I am a massive fan of the show and I credit a lot of my own intellectual journey and trajectory to this show. So from listening to it to finally being on it is an honor and privilege for me. Yep. So my name is Momudutal. I am the host and co-host of the Malcolm Effect podcast. Alongside this, I am currently pursuing and will finish my PhD at Cornell University in the Africana Studies Department in which my project focuses on conceptualizations of sovereignty, particularly pan-Africanism.

And I focus on Ghana and Guinea, Ghana within Krumah. Guinea under Sikulture. And particularly, I'm interested in looking at pan-Africanism from a critical economy lens. So that's how I'm bringing like a Marxist analysis of pan-Africanism and how they kind of come together. So that's why I'm working at the moment. And yeah, hopefully I, it's still, I guess, any PhD student will tell you that, you know, when you're working for your project, there's a lot of changes that happen with your project. But so far, this is where I'm at.

Wow. Needless to say, very excited to see what comes out of those projects, and they are directly related to some of the other episodes that we have coming up on this series. And as I mentioned to Mamadu before, we hit record. We have plans to bring him back on in the future as long as he accepts our invitations. So if he doesn't come back on, it's all on hand, this son of this. But just to tease a little bit future episodes, you mentioned Pan-Africanism. Episode two is going to be Pan-Africanism, a primer with our friends Layla Brown and Jackie Lukman. So listeners, stay tuned. for that. You'll hear that episode, not next Friday, but the following Friday. It's already recorded and ready to go. So stay tuned. If you're not already subscribed to guerrilla history on your podcast feed, now is a great time. And then of course, we have episodes planned on Nkrumah, Sekutore, and also regarding Pan-Africanism. We have a Pan-Africanism and communism episode planned that Hakim Adi has said that he would also come on. And I can see you fitting in very well also is a special guest host on any slash all of those episodes. So be prepared for invitations, Mamadu. But without further ado, the reason that we're having this introductory

episode is not to start diving in and going really deep on any particular African revolution or decolonial movement. We're not even trying to get a comprehensive broad sweep of revolutionary movements on the continent. We even have another episode titled, an introduction to African revolutions and decolonization with Leo Zelig, who we made the episode with a few years ago and remastered recently. But really what we want to be talking about today is why is this history important? What is the utility of studying African revolutions and decolonial movements, both from a historical perspective, but also from a political perspective? I know Adnan and I both have many thoughts that we will share on this as well, but I want to turn it over to you for

opening thoughts on why this is an important topic for us to dive into. Thank you so much. So where do I begin? Why is it important that we study Pan-Africanism and especially for those of us living in the imperial core? I mean, whenever I introduced to Pan-Africanism, I always start with the quote of Fanon, in which he says, each generation out of relative obscurity must fulfill this mission or betray it. And then I also read that in tandem with Marx when he speaks about paraphrasing that men make history but not out of their own conditions, right, out of conditions that are transmitted to them. And I think what Pan-Africanism fundamentally does, we can have many definitions of Pan-Africanism and we have

many kind of orientations of Pan-Africanism. But I think fundamentally, for me, how I understand it, is that it's a political orientation. And if we are talking about Marxism, not as dogma, but as a theoretical tool and an apparatus that helps us understand the unfolding of history and helps to understand reality, then I think it is imperative that we engage with the tradition for those who are involved in a dialectic of imperialism versus anti-imperialism. And we understand that Africa particularly is obviously a place that has been under the boot of imperialism and the developments of Marxism that come out of Africa. I believe fundamentally I speak to issues of like race, of class, of those of burgeoning kind of professional

managerial classes. And we see similar patterns for those of us in the West as well. So in why I think it's important and fundamentally, this is actually my project. Why I was fundamentally looking at Guinea in this time was because I noticed that, okay, within Guinea it brings together so many aspects of the world as we know it today. So in Guinea, you have. have a understanding of battling French colonialism. And we understand European colonialism is different to like US imperialism in many ways. And, you know, shout out to Samiramin for teaching me that. And then in Guinea you have an example of like, you know, within presence of in Krumer,

kind of we have an understanding of not, I wouldn't say the failures, but the contradictions that emerge when you're trying to understand national development, right? what kind nationalisms are healthy, what kind nationalisms are not so healthy, how do you overcome those contradictions? Guinea was also a safe haven for internationalist and you find that internationalist black, internationalist perspective. So I find that you can take many African socialist, communist, communist revolutions, you can pick many of them and you'll find similar themes. So I fundamentally for me, it is one of theory and praxis why I think we understand and study pan-Africanism, one that I like to see how Marxism was developed in African conditions

and also what lessons can we learn and draw that apply to our time today? I agree that there are so many lessons and the example that you gave of a place like Guinea and how it encapsulates so many different aspects of contemporary history is a great illustration of that. In general, I would, I would, you know, offer also the point of view that the salience, and you started with Fanon, of course, he's the great theorist of decolonizing of settler colonial power, that the African continent provides a lot of very key examples of forms of colonialism and the great variety of ways. in which European nations, states and the global capitalist order

tried to subordinate indigenous peoples around the world to extract their resources to undermine any future possibility of their sovereignty and self-determination and so on. And so it's a very important history, even as we're dealing, for example, today, you know, today's we've seen that the movements that have been active in the Imperial Corps objecting to organizing against and showing solidarity for the Palestinians

has taken the frame of thinking of it as an analyzing the state of Israel as a settler colonial project that is continuing a history and of settler colonialism globally that's been so important in reshaping the world system and the world economy in the new world on the African continent in Asia, and that that's unfinished business still. So we need to look to these histories of resistance to settler colonialism, of which there are many examples on the African continent to try and understand how does the Zionist entity fit into this, what do we learn from resistance?

And of course, again, coming back to Fanon, he was a great theoretician of that. I'm wondering if you have any other thoughts about the kinds of examples of settler colonialism that are so powerful and important for contemporary, you know, resistance that, you know, we should pay attention to. I think we'll try and get to many of these in our series. But I think it's worth, you know, meditating on the particular utility right now. now of looking at these cases and examples of settler colonialism on the African continent, the resistance to them, the way in which decolonization happened. So I'm wondering if you have any sort of thoughts, you know, on that. Absolutely. And I thank you so much for raising that point,

because as I understand Zionism is particularly the most probably some of the most harshest and crystallized forms of colonialism and white supremacy, right? And I'm just thinking if you take it back, I'm thinking of an M.A. Sezer here in which he speaks about the techniques that were perfected on African bodies. For example, we see the first genocide of the 20th century with the Namo and Herrero people, right? And that was conducted by the Germans, right? And they later on go on to become the Nazis, right? And they, but those techniques in which they developed on African bodies then go on to be exported to different people around the world and the global south. But we also, as you said, rightly, we see a tradition of resistance to these

technologies, for example. And think about, and it become particularly salient in our time, we think about the genocide taking place right now and a question of settler colonialism and a question of apartheid, right? A question of, we think of South Africa comes to mine straight away. Algeria comes to mine straight away, right? These settler colonies. But I think particularly with what the analysis of apartheid does for us is that it gives us. It gives us, us a structural analysis of how Israel operates in the West Bank and entirely in the whole occupied territories, but it also allows to see where it doesn't match up in the same way. Because for all, and again, this is never going to be like, oh, apartheid isn't, no, that

bird, of course, this is a terrible and disgusting and an atrocious system of operating. At the same time, apartheid in South Africa didn't rely on ethnic cleansing, right? There wasn't a thing of ethnic cleansing of the native population. So we have to ask ourselves, what is the differences taking place here? Whilst that apartheid is definitely analytic to look through, it's one of many, right? And we have to understand what is it about the particularities of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian scenario that requires ethnic cleansing in the way that apartheid didn't. And obviously apartheid was also brutal.

We understand the French in Algeria. we think of set teeth, right, brutally killed negative populations. But I think what we, by looking at these scenarios, looking at a set of the colonies, particularly the African continent, for me, it allows for comparison, but also allows us as for departure points into developing new theories and analysis. I really like how the point is,

is that one could recognize certain structures that are similar and comparable across location, and across time periods, but that, of course, each of them inhabits a particular place in the overall architecture of imperial hegemony, the global world economy and world system, and these things do pattern specific or give those patterns more specific shape. And so that was a great question, you know, pointing out that, like, you know, one can recognize apartheid, but that apartheid might have multi-farious modes of expression. And, of course, the rationale and the policies and consequences will differ at different times.

So, you know, paying attention to the labor, structure of labor and its exploitation in a settler colony will give indications. You know, if it's a, you know, plantation style situation where you need a, you know, a subordinate, labor population to inhabit the factory complex, the plantation complex, and so on, then there is a need to manage these populations through apartheid, but not to eliminate them because they need to be there for labor and their scarcity of labor. You know, what's happened, of course, you know, in the case of Palestine is that there was a kind of labor dependence on Gaza and West Bank labor over the course of, you know, since the 50s until probably about the 80s, 90s, when because of the globalization of, you know, labor markets, if you want to put it in that, you know, kind of crude,

neoliberal sort of way, the fact that labor could be mobilized and moved and so on is that it is allowed, you know, the Israeli settler state and the apartheid to see. see Palestinians only as a surplus population that is resistant and undermining of the project and to replace the labor. And then thus, it's only once they can really replace the labor, then they can undergo a different kind of phase of genocide. So I think that's a very good and important point that if you look at the African continent as well, settler colonialism had certain features that are comparable across the cases, but they might have differed given, you know, particular features of the way in which society was organized, the labor was structured,

and their position in a global, you know, geopolitical economy. That might shape, you know, the situation differently, you know. So Kenya is a settler colonial situation, but with a white farming class. So they want to replace as many people and take over. over the land, as opposed to, you know, one where there might have been more attempt at industrial, you know, and dependence upon, you know, industrial labor in some of the South African sort of cities or mining, you know, and exploitation of natural resources in various ways. So that is a great point that we need to look at many of the specifics. We get a lot of information about comparable structures that are relevant for us today. But, of course,

things change. That's the importance of history is looking at the actual material conditions. So that's a great point. I just wanted to underscore and elaborate on that. Before Mamadu, before you hop in, I just want to let the listeners know if you haven't been listening to all of our episodes. When Adnan is talking about labor migration and Palestine, we have an episode that is directly on that topic with our mutual friend, Ali Kadvi, who I should thank again by texting him and say, Ali, thanks for all of the wonderful work you do. I do that like once a week just to remind him that his work is invaluable. But in any case, we have an episode of guerrilla history that came out just about a year ago at the time that

this episode will be released. It's titled Palestine War, Occupation and Proletarianization. And it's based on Ali's book, Forced Labor Migration, the Proletarianization of the West Bank under Occupation, 1967 to 1992, which is a really terrific book. I highly recommend everybody read the book. I mean, Ali is a wonderful theorist. So his analysis and theoretical insights are really terrific in the book. But then also, if you don't have a copy of the book, you can listen to the episode that we did with him where we discussed the book for like an hour and a half as well. So Mamadu, sorry to sidetrack. I hear them out. Ali's work is invaluable. So shout out to Ali Cudley. But yeah, just tying back, I guess, back to Henry's first.

question what does studying african revolutions offer us but also tying into arnaan when you speak about we mentioned globalization right by i would re i'm going to reframe that for this conversation to say how do we situate africa as a world making project right and we can think of i don't get to choose work but how do we situate africa as a world making project right and i'm thinking and we have so many examples but immediately we think of contemporary world what does chairman mao say about about his African brothers. He goes, our African brothers took us to his Security Council. He says, you know, with support of African nation, Chairman Mao saying that is because of our

African support that we are now permanent members of security, United Nations Security Council. And we see what impact that has for us today and the world, right? We also see when the UN adopted in 1975, the official call of the official declaration that Zionism is racism. and that was only undone with the collapse of Soviet Union, but also bringing Israel to the Madrid peace process in 91, Israel said as a condition that you have to remove this slide for us to come to the table.

But it was Sekul Ture and other African leaders who said that we recognize what Zionism is. It was passed in the OAU in previous years that this form, this is a form of colonialism because we are familiar with this. We recognize this. And my point of saying that is that it's very easy to either ignore Africa because of the way history is taught or to isolate bourgeois history often isolates countries, right? We only see countries in terms of their respective nations.

But what does it mean to open that up and see Africa is involved in a world-making project? And Africa's contributions are shaping the world in which we are today. And that's how I try and understand African and Africa and Pan-Africanism. And even though Pan-Africanism, some people suggest, like, it's maybe just talking about Africa. It's not. Like, it's not pan-Afri. It's not, it's really not about, it's not even about African people. Fundamentally, it's a project of anti-imperialism, right?

And that affects everybody. And listeners, you'll hear that exact point made in two weeks. As are both of our guests reiterated that pan-Africanism is fundamentally an anti-imperialist way of thinking. But Mamadu, I'm going to throw out a few ideas based off. of what you had just said, and then feel free to pick up these in any way that you would like. So, you know, you're talking about the importance of studying African history and particularly the revolutionary and decolonial history, but then also how Africa fits into, you know, the broader scale of things, like not just looking at individual countries in Africa, and also

not just looking at Africa as a continent, but thinking about the role that Africa plays globally, you know, historically as well as in the context. temporary world. Thinking about these ideas and thinking about what the role of this series that we're putting together is, really what we're trying to do here is to highlight these sorts of narratives of courage and resilience and unrelenting spirit in the face of colonialism and imperialism. We're looking at not only the past, but looking at how these struggles persist to the present, and we have to then understand that, again, this is a global process, just to highlight what you said in your last answer, Mamadou, when we think, when we hear about

Africa in the Imperial Corps, I know, I don't live in the Imperial Corps, but, you know, I'm from there. When you hear about Africa, you typically hear of Africa as being a passive recipient of the civilizing missions of European powers. I mean, this is how it's portrayed within Western history teaching and schools, you know, like in schools, they will say that, which is appalling, but nevertheless, that is the case. But we have to always remember that Africa has been the epicenter of some of the most profound and radical revolutionary movements that have ever taken place despite being, and probably because of being, the locus of the most brutal domination, exploitation, extraction, colonial extraction. But,

It's not only as a result of this, you know, we can go way back into African history and look at the ideas of communalism that were being developed within the African continent long before this colonial domination by Europeans. These ideas that began millennia ago and were being fostered and developed and theorized are often not talked about in the West. at all. You can find works that are written about them, but these are not works that are made very accessible. They're not works that you will just find at your local library. They're not works that are taught as part of a curriculum in school. They're not works that are integrated into textbooks that are taught to children. But yet, these insights, these theories were present on the continent, and those also inform the way that these struggles then unfolded. And also the way that resistance took shape to colonial domination.

So keeping in mind that this history that didn't spring up out of nowhere, there was history before the history that we're talking about, and we will dive back into that to try to understand that and put these pieces together to hopefully get an idea of where the revolutionary spirit, where the resilience, where these ideas of how resistance can take form, but these ideas take right long before the colonial period, as well. And I think that that's something that's not often talked about. I'll stop there. I have a lot more to say, but I realize I'm going on quite a while. Mamma do, and you probably, something you want to

add here. No, yeah. I mean, again, absolutely in agreement with you. I think the only thing I will add, you are just maybe going to go back to the communalism point, which I think is important here. Let me start off by, let's quoting Margaret Thatcher, right? No, but you know, when Margaret Thatcher said that the neoliberalism, beyond being, just if you want to call it a regime of accumulation, it is we're trying to change the hearts and minds of people, right? And the reason why I think it's important to mention this is a lot of the times when we think of policies that were developed in the West in terms of like the development of capital, capitalism, we find that they were looking to Africa and saying that, oh, it is the

collectivist spirit that exists in Africa that prevents its development, right? That the African collectivism is the reason why they're behind and underdeveloped, right? And for them to be brought into modernity and for them to be brought into, to be brought into prosperity, they must adopt, you know, become the perfect neoliberal subjects, right? And we see this and, again, just shout out people are interested. Then I'll highly recommend, I think it's an invaluable work and probably read every single book by this man, Sheikh Anta Jop. Right? Sheikh Anta Jop is someone who I think is invaluable and I hope there is an episode done on him, actually. I think People do know him, obviously. He's a famous scholar, but I think not enough people know about him. And he was, people do come in the Marxist camp. But I think it's important that we kind of highlight that as someone who speaks about the things of African communalism and these things were theorized. And that's why all too often when we speak about, and again, we can talk about the project of African socialism and ill drama and the issues that people have with it. But the argument being made by Africans was that we already, socialism isn't alien to us.

Ideals of socialism is not alien to us. That's how that has been our arrangement of societies for millennia, right? So we're very attuned to this, right? And we can talk about the issues that people have with these products afterwards or what they materialize afterwards. But no, absolutely. I think that's why I keep coming back to this point of, okay, what lessons do African Africa teaches us?

And again, I'm fortunate to be in an Africana Studies department. And I think sometimes I can even be blindly, and think, oh, you know, everyone is aware of the narratives that I'm learning, or at least they're better than what I think they will be. But when I speak to people, again, it's an issue of Africa being a recipient of aid. Africa is just a place, it's failed, right? Africa is just failing. It's a failed post-colonial state.

Oh, okay, why are they still talking about colonialism? 70 years later, independence was one in the 50s and the 60s, right? And these are the conversations that still persist, even in liberal circles. It's not merely the right-wing side. These are like also the liberal circles that persist, and the blame is placed squarely on the African leadership in the post-independence era.

But I think what fundamentally is missing from the conversation is, again, how do we situate Africa, for example, in the Cold War context, right? How many of us are actually aware of how the French, literally, by way of assassination and assassination, nation, gutted Sawaba, for example, which was like a French African communist movement in the continent, which was wiped out by the French. And this is before independence. This is before countries even achieved independence, right? And then so on. And then how do we then read, like,

for me, a phenomenon in conjunction. He's seeing like the nascent stages of independent. And then you get to Cabral where we had like 10 or 15 years of independent. And we're seeing what issues come about. Right. So I kind of feel like I constantly try. try to like hold these contentions. And I feel that once again, it offers so much for the contemporary world because we're thinking of issues of like race and class, and colonialism or domestic colonialism as well,

particularly as it pertains to black people, but not just black people. I kind of tried to hold, okay, what does Africa offer us? And this is some of the themes that keep coming back, I keep coming up for me. Yeah, when you said, you know, African people think socialism is not an alien idea to us. That nailed exactly what I was saying

in a much more concise and probably much better way than I was trying to articulate. But that was exactly the point that I was trying to say is that, you know, these ideas were rooted in tradition and were developed over time. And, you know, various things were borrowed from alternative traditions. But, you know, there is development that takes place, but it does come from somewhere as well. So, you know, being respectful of these traditions, but then also thinking about where where these new insights coming from is going to be important as we go along with this study. But also to add in, just a couple more things. And actually, I'm going to turn it to Adnan and Mamadu at the end of this because I think it'll relate to something that you both can talk

about quite a bit. But before I get to that, I just want to say that, you know, studying African history, especially the decolonial struggles, we cannot treat this as an act of charity or exotic curiosity. No, this is a moral imperative for those of you on the left, particularly those of you in the imperial core, this is an absolute moral imperative that you study and grapple with this history of revolutionary and decolonial struggles on the continent. You have no excuse anymore now that we have a 35-part series coming out to not be at least fairly familiar with these sorts of struggles, their successes, and their failures over decades. We have to also understand, as we've pointed out several times already,

the interconnectedness of global struggles against oppression and how that relates to the African continent. And we have to also, as much as we can, dismantle Eurocentric narratives that have skewed the perception of this history in the ways that it is taught, you know, as much as it is anyway. But the Eurocentric narratives are very, very much ingrained with the way that African history is taught even on the left, which is why listeners you will find as we go through this series, the majority of our guests that we have planned and some of whom we have

lined up are from the continent itself and generally from the countries on which they are speaking about, particularly in those case study episodes. So we're trying and are committed to reaching out to people who come from epistemological backgrounds outside of this Eurocentric, hegemonic thought that you will see in the imperial core. So as the series goes on, listeners, you know, just keep that in mind that not every guest will be from the continent, but many of them, the majority of them, will be. But also, the last thing I say before I'll turn it over to you, is that we can't sanitize this history. In the last thing I said, I mentioned successes and failures. There certainly were successes

of the decolonial struggles, there were failures within the decolonial struggles. And failures in various ways, failure of achieving decolonization, failure of achieving decolonization, but terrible excesses in terms of the way in which that was carried out and the way that it unfolded, failure in terms of they achieved decolonization, but then they fell into relationship of neocolonialism, as many of the case studies that we'll talk about do. I mean, there are failures here. have to grapple with those failures. We have to be honest about the successes and honest about

the failures. If we just boil this down to heroes and villains and rah, raw good and oh, no, bad, we're losing all of that complexity that is inherent within this history. And we have to understand that this is an incredibly complex history with a lot of relations. It's not going to be taught in the way that you could find in textbooks in the Imperial Corps. I always like to talk about the textbooks that, you know, I was raised with in school and thinking about how bad they truly were. But there are going to be contradictions. There are going to be uncomfortable truths within this series. And that is so that we can build our understanding of what has succeeded and what has failed and then try to conceptualize what continued decolonization

and anti-imperialism looks like because there still is a lot of work that needs to be done. Now, this, of course, relates, looking at failures, we also have to look at the ways in which colonization has colored perception, not only of Africa, but of Africans, and not only of people within the Imperial Corps towards Africans, but also of Africans of themselves. And this is where people like Fanon come into play. And Fanon, of course, we have an episode planned on Fanon. But Adnan and Mamadu, I'm going to turn it over to you now. can you talk a little bit about how this perception of the continent and the perception of the people on the continent is so deeply ingrained that it prevents a lot of people from actually trying to process the complexity of this history and thinking about why these perceptions even exist in the first place because, you know, too often, even amongst people on the left, these perceptions come through in the way of their thinking. It's Eurocentrism, it's orientalism, but, you know, it's there. So take it away, guys.

Yeah, I can go. So thank you so much. It's funny, great question, because I literally was talking this morning with some of my comrades about similar themes. And I think the way African history is written, and this is not just to do with colonialism. It's also to do with, unfortunately, how Islamophobia works. because when we speak about Islam and West Africa, why is it that the history of Africans is always written and persistently written as Africans are just some docile

and everything is just imposed and impressed onto Africans and we just accept it? For example, when we think of the story of Islam in West Africa, Islam did not spread by conquest on West Africa, right? Islam was established in the 11th century, some reports said earlier, by way of trade. Why is it that the agency of Africans is never written and spoken about.

It's just somehow throughout the millennias, Africa is always having people come to them and just impressing on them. Adnan, did you want to go and add to that? Well, only just that I think that there's such an important topic. I actually had in mind that I wanted to ask you a little bit more about that because some of the fiercest anti-colonial resistance took place because of Muslim religious movements. Sufis in West Africa like Hajou Mar-Tah.

Luthman Danfodio and others. My relative, by the way. Oh, wow, fantastic. Amazing. We definitely will have to come have you as a guest for a guest host and a guest for that episode. But I mean, I think the point here is that that passivity, that sort of sense of Africa as just the victim basket case of modernity, you know, because it's been mired in pre-modern. forms, even the idea that, well, you know, monotheistic religion really couldn't be indigenous in some sense to Africans. They just have the, you know, kind of traditional spirit religions and so-called

animism and so on. And, you know, although it's true that Christianity existed since the time of late antiquity, in fact, actually Christianity is older in Africa than it is on two parts of the continent, North Africa, but also, you know, in East Africa and, you know, the Horn region, Abyssinia, as it was called, in the past, is older than it is in Europe, you know. But nonetheless, that's a kind of religion that is introduced to much of the West Africa through colonial missionary, colonial era missionaries. But Islam was already there for, as you're saying, centuries upon centuries. And it's so often characterized and represented some alien import or imposition that isn't important in, you know, really understanding

Africa and Africa's revolutionary capabilities and histories and legacies, much of which are tied and bound with religious movements that provided a kind of structure and organization for radical hopes for freedom and for liberation in fighting against, you know, British and French and Spanish. and Portuguese, you know, colonizers on the continent. So I think that was a kind of very important point to raise is that we have to have a much more textured and complex idea of what Africa is. It is a product and shaped by many centuries of history where there were changes and

developments. And that's the problem with so much of how African history has been narrated and talked about is framed entirely through modern colonialism as the start of Africa's, you know, history. And then again, purely as a victim of, you know, of European exploitation. Of course, that's what we are going to talk a lot about Europe's exploitation, you know, but to think that Africa didn't have like a dynamic. I mean, why did they want to colonize so much of Africa? It's because it was a source of incredible wealth, of knowledge of, you know, it was, I really loved the way you said, you know, introduced us.

to this, you know, Africa as a world-making, you know, region is that it's actually been so important any understanding of global history in both the modern and the pre-modern world really depends on an appreciation of very important developments taking place on the African continent and their relations to other regions. So I think that's a very important point as well, is that doing African history is global history. And I think that's especially the case when we're talking about the Cold War, about these movements for resistance against colonialism. They really ushered in a new era like Banjung in 1955.

That is a launching point for a kind of global solidarity for decolonization. It had its successes, it had its failures, had his weaknesses, because it was a statist project at that time. But it inspired peoples around the world to dream of freedom of a post-colonial future and the end of, you know, colonialism and racism, which was one of the planks of the, you know, of the Bandong principles, you know, that it outlined. And it's from that period forward where still at that point, most of the African continent was under colonial control. but that that helped, you know, really inaugurate and initiate movements, as did, of course, the Algerian struggle for freedom, you know, and so on over the course of the next decade, but other movements across the continent. And it's a world transforming achievement that really shaped the non-aligned project, the larger kind of global order was really shaped by the fact that there were all these new. post-colonial nation states. And, you know, one could argue that the colonial construction

of international law and a lot of the other institutions and arrangements that we're seeing fractured and fragmented now by their very contradictions and the end, you might say, of that kind of period of global institutions, in some sense, the contradictions were sharpened by of this kind of liberal order, the sort of international rules-based order or the international legal regimes that preceded it and were meant to be less cynical than the international rules-based order, those have been put under extreme pressure by the fact that there are nations of the global South, many of whom were from the African continent that have demanded that the international system actually try and uphold the so-called universalist principles. And we've

seen, of course, deeply cynical abandonment of those. But that's only because of those resistance struggles in the 60s, 50s, 60s and 70s that have really reshaped the geopolitical world. So without understanding what's happened in Africa in modern history and even in its pre-modern history, I don't think it's possible to understand our world. And that's a very important point that you raised. And just to kind of add on to that, thanks for mentioning how Africa has spoken about in terms of passivity. Like we see that persisting even to contemporary day.

When we see the issues with, say, the alliance of the Sahelian states, as one example, or where we see movements on the continent today, the characterization that it's reactionary or it's just one is going to be, oh they're just anti-French and I'm just like okay no why why did that Africans cannot also have ambitions aspirations they have visions visions of the world of what we want to look like and we're and we have memories right we those of us in the West African context have memories of the brutality that took place by the French and we would have heard from our grandparents and our parents and we're like we reject this right or also like oh don't run away from the fire

into the frying pot is a phrase my Africans were often news And people will say that in context to, oh, moving away from the U.S. as a backguard and moving, just running away to Russia. Or Russia's going to be the new colonial system or China's going to be the new colonial system. How about, no, we actually think, you know what, this is a bad deal that we're getting from one place. And we realize we can get a better deal from another place. Like, I think that's my issue I'm constantly having. And even when leftist speaker, again, we can talk about the kinds of leftists, but. That's for another day.

But the way of the characterization I'm hearing of the movement on the continent today, it's even as if we have to be perfect from the outset. Africans are not allowed to experiment and try and fell, because again, this is feeding to narratives of all kind of backwardsness, a kind of almost like an essentialized backwardness on African peoples, which I think is deeply problematic and racist. But also when I'm thinking about today, the kind of, I guess the re-inscription of Cold War logic,

It's like, no, I'm speaking to people on the ground. They're very clear in articulating who their enemy is. They see their enemies as French colonialism or French imperialism and the bourgeoisie of these countries. And this is coming from the young people on the ground today. And I think, like, what frustrates me when I hear people speak about this as if we, there's no agency taking place into, there's no agency or no account of the agency of these Africans today.

The question of agency is always a very interesting one and one that I've talked about on the show before, and we've also had guests that have spoken on it as well. But when talking about agency and particularly the agency of colonized people, it's always a very interesting dichotomy that emerges within the minds of most, which is that either one, they have no agency. You know, they are this passive resistance-less mass that just accepts what happens to them without any analysis of why things are happening to them or any analysis of how to change these sorts of things. But on the other side of that dichotomy, we also have the people that fixate on violence. They fixate on, well, you know, these people are savages. And I'm using, of course, air quotes here listeners, which I'm aware that you cannot see. Nevertheless, I think it's obvious that when this essentializing of people as savages, this is just racist, but also is racist in a way that it propagates colonial mentalities and colonial imperatives. You know, this goes back to that civilizing discourse that we had a bit earlier and then, you know, we've talked about in various other places on the show.

But it is really interesting that there is this dichotomy that emerges within the minds of most, that either they are completely passive or they are completely savage and they just resort to some extreme form of violence and bloodshed anytime that the opportunity presents itself. neither of these analyze, you know, the relationships that are taking place and analyze the ways in which the people actually are rippling with the reality of their situation. It's like they completely take out any sort of thought process in a way that is extremely racist. So, yeah, the question of agency is one that I've talked about before, so I'm not going to belabor the point. But, you know, anything that you want to add on that, Mamadu, I think that this is a really important question when we think about colonized people that we don't think about agencies. see nearly enough. And I think it speaks to like, again, the unfortunate perceptions

people have African peoples, even amongst the left, because I don't understand when I'm speaking to leftists, why does the structural analysis go out of the window? Why is it like, yes, of course, and I agree with you, I'm not someone to fetishize agency. Of course not, right? I am very aware of the ways in which people operate

within structures, and that structures, even the options available, to them in their action. Absolutely, I recognize that. But when I'm speaking to so many other people, I'm like, oh, why is it that you can have a structural analysis and all too often will excuse the racism that exists from white people in the Americas in North America

as, again, a structural issue. But that analysis then doesn't match up or is translated or understood or applied to African peoples on the continent as well. And it's something, again, this is not everyone, of course. But it's just, again, some things I have noticed. Well, it's another interesting issue is that, you know, in contemporary discourses when, you know, neoliberal or liberal historians quite apart from, as you're saying, the right wing and, you know,

more racist assumptions that are made about Africa and African peoples, so often the explanations for the failures of post-colonial nations, you know, isn't structural analysis, as you're pointing out, but often targets these cultural components. You were mentioning, of course, you know, the idea that, you know, without individualism and, you know, some kind of neoliberal sense of, you know, individual agency, this is the reason why Africa couldn't develop. But likewise, there is also the discourse about how. the projects of national development were just short-circuited by corruption, you know, like as a sort of evanescent force that it's just ambient in the, you know, African social and political context is that, well, that has undermined, you know, the ability of state projects to develop, you know, with no historical contextualization of the way in which, you know, neoliberal, you know, regimes of structural adjustment created all kinds of,

new conditions in, you know, in which, you know, what's called corruption, you know, is just the necessary privatization of the state that was really encouraged and is, in fact, even part of, you know, these policies of defunding state institutions, you know, in order to, you know, meet their payments and so on. And so, you know, there's a whole structural analysis in which, you know, that's often missing. and it becomes about some kind of cultural, you know, problem or cultural force or individual, you know, bureaucrats and leaders enriching themselves and so on, which isn't to say this isn't happening. And they, you know, that, you know, we have, you know, the quality

of leadership that was produced in revolutionary, you know, context and so on. Of course, all these critiques have to have to be there. We have to analyze those, those conditions. But it's so much a part of the natural reflex of blaming the victims, as it were, you know, of blaming the victims of a global world system and making them solely and exclusively responsible in ways that they wouldn't do in other sorts of context because there are different assumptions that are there. I think the other question that, you know, Henry, you raised, and this is a very interesting theme, I think, that we'll be discussing when we look at particular revolutionary movements and struggles for decolonization is the role of violence, right? This is always seen as some kind of

very controversial sort of topic because it undermines liberal norms. And, you know, everybody around the world was supposed to decolonize and achieve independence by having a passive resistance movement and making salt, you know, on the beach and vote out the colonizers. Yeah. Right. And be given a chance for parliamentary opportunities to vote out. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, that's going to be a kind of an interesting topic. And I just recalls to mind, you know, Mahmoud Mamdani's analysis about the importance of violence as a structuring kind of tool for what's legitimate and illegitimate politics, you know, and where there's a rational kind of purpose, the way reason is deployed and understood, that means there's politics. And so that makes it legitimate. And when there isn't, then it is just. And of course, when those. reasons and contexts are occluded, then it becomes savagery. It becomes, you know, barbaric. And because it has no reason and purpose, it is just some kind of a description of the dysfunctional characteristics that have, that legitimized colonialism beforehand and legitimize neocolonialism and, you know, the regime of the international order through neocolonialism. So I think that's going to be a very interesting kind of theme to see, you know, everything from the Mau Mau, you know, movement to, you know, the characterization as ever of liberatory struggle, military and armed liberatory struggle as terrorism in, you know, the case of Algeria.

you know, I think we're going to see that, of course, as a feature of colonialist discourses critiquing resistance. And that, of course, has so much salience in our own age and in our own era. So that's going to be a very interesting theme, I think, to look at the overall character of that discursive move and what is at stake in it. And then also to look at specific cases, you know, But, you know, you have the Malcolm effect as the title of your podcast. One of my favorite, there's so many wonderful things Malcolm X said. But one of my favorite things that he said to kind of connect in a transnational way, the idea of colonialism and resistance to colonialism on both sides of the Atlantic as having

a connection to one another is when he said in one of his later speeches before his death, when he said, in Alabama, we need. a Mao-Mao. In Mississippi, we need a Mao-mau. He was saying, look, we have to have the possibility of genuine resistance. And from that perspective, he's legitimizing, you know, armed resistance against forces of colonial oppression that are colonies in Africa and the special condition of black people sometimes characterized as a colony, you know, in the Americas, you know, particularly in the United States. So I think that's a interesting topic that I'm looking forward to developing and exploring further. But I think, you know, you might have some thoughts on that broadly and the importance and relevance of that topic for our contemporary situation as well.

Just because you mentioned Malcolm, I have to go to there. Of course. No, but I think, so living in North America has been a very interesting experience for me because I'm able to see, I mean, as someone who's, you know, born in Gambia, I'm raised in the UK, I live seven years in Cairo and now I'm in North America, right? And I've been able to see different ways in which blackness is understood, expressed, and its rationality to other forms of processes of racialization. How I'm tying this back to the Malcolm conversation, and the way even some black history is taught in North America, we are often taught to treat black figures on black movements as silos, right? So the Black Panther Party, of course,

is an endogenous North American formation, but it drew on inspiration from other parts of the world. It drew from Africa as well. There was parts of Black Panther members who went to Algeria, for example. the famous Malcolm X quote where everyone likes to bring back and quote chickens come home to roost in speaking about the assassination of JFK he was referencing there's been works to say Balkans actually referencing what took place to Lumumba in Congo right these things have these things have a connection

of history when we speak about for example we understood that World War I veterans from from Harlem, we're going off to fight against fascism in Ethiopia with Mussolini. We see that there's constantly, again, these connections. And I think one of the things I'm trying to bring out in my work is that these connections, that we like to treat these figures and thinkers and intellectuals who we love, perhaps in silos, or just that they are geographically moored to specific places. And I think I'm trying to constantly unseat that, speaking about the condition of black people that know there's a constantly, even this idea of

reverse diaspora. And again, I don't know who's listening, but we know amongst several black formations and groups, there's like internal contradictions and internal tensions, right, that exists between diasporic people. And I think what Pan-Africanism does and what I understand, African history does, not, I say African in the broadest sense of African people's histories, is that there's so much more that connects us than divides us. And it's really, important contemporary actually because we see a reactionary strand of many people who are either like black folk or a republican or who vote Trump or who adopts fierce anti-immigrant orientation and I think a part of the education in terms of like we're thinking about political

practice is that we have to unseat the narratives that treats African peoples as silos and that's why I kind of yeah I really find that's one really interesting project that I'm trying to get involved in Yeah, well, you know, I'm wondering if there are any other kinds of themes that you think we should be keeping in mind about the relevance and the importance and significance of African history, particularly the history of decolonization struggles and revolutionary moments, either conceptually and theoretically in terms of understanding, you know, modern capitalism and the world. system, you know, that is intrinsic to the analysis. And I think this is an important question because in so many ways, the Marxist tradition, you know, of dialectical materialist history has nonetheless not always done a great job of incorporating, you know, the histories of the global South. Often this was because of a Eurocentric orientation, because those histories were better studied and better known, it was possible to build.

theory and concepts around it. But as scholarship has progressed, if people have been included in the process of telling their histories and of being, you know, considered part of, you know, the modern global system, we've come to appreciate and understand more the interdependence and the, you know, world-making role, as you put it earlier, of Africa and African history. But I think from another perspective is just, you know, what are the kinds of processes in studying and appreciating about African revolutionary history and decolonization struggles is of, you know, value to, you know, people on the left today? Big question. And I'm very wary. I don't want to just go through a laundry list of all the books I recommend and all the people that you should check out and all the places that I think

people should study. But I think fundamentally, a couple of things. I think people, when people ask me to define Pan-Africanism, I'm often saying it is a project that overcome structural dependency. It's a project that allows for the overcoming of dependencies war upon the continent due to colonialism as a, due to the colonial imposition. That's the first thing. Secondly, when people I say, approach, I tell some of my students oftentimes is when we think of history, think of history as a conversation. Think of history as inheritance, meaning that when you're reading someone like Cabral, don't isolate Cabral from the thinkers that came before him because Cabral is also reading those thinkers and he's departing, he's adding to, he's modifying due to the increasing

conditions. And also as well, don't freeze the African continent. We all remember Lumumba, but how many of us are in touch with what's happened in Congo today? We can talk about Sankara, but how many of us are understanding what's happening in the Sahedian region today. So I often think an approach to history is that it's continually moving and unfolding and Africa is no different, right? Right, we could even say that decolonization

is a continuing process, you know? So there's always going to be new moments in the history of its struggle. Absolutely, no, absolutely. And that's kind of the approach I've been taking to tell, okay, we have to, and I think it's fortunate that we have like, we can put someone like, from on in Cabran conversation because again

for non you're seeing okay what was the aspirations of the kind of first decolonial independence movement and then 20 years later what is the assessment 40 years later what is the assessment and even contemporary scholarship exists definitely exists about the African continent

today and that is still being and also I think it's in this moment what I find particularly interesting is I'm loving again there's like a reclamation of Marxist analysis by many African scholars once again, right? Whereas I remember that a lot of the literature in Krumah, just a side point was like doing everything to discount him as a Marxist,

to say he's not, he's not, and you have, and funny enough, you often find a lot of racist themes that, oh, these African leaders didn't really understand Marxism, or they didn't really understand because they diverted on these certain opinions, but no, we're taking them as thinkers and developers of that tradition, which I think is important as well. Absolutely. I mean, that is a very important. I mean, we're going to have a lot of episodes that are dedicated to African thinkers, simply because there's often this perspective that peoples of the global South didn't really contribute that much to the theory of Marxism. Okay, they've had movements and they've had really existing, you know, projects of socialism take place most of the time. Those are criticized and critical. you know, by first world intellectuals who, you know, have not done anything in their own context to try and create revolutions in their respective theaters. So it's often in somewhat bad faith. But I think, you know, really we need to appreciate that there's been so much creative. And it's not creative in terms of imagination. It's built from the experience of struggle and the material conditions of liberation and, um, decolonizing that has been such a productive kind of place for new vantage points that I think First World Marxism, we had a great episode with Gabriel Rockhill talking about Losurdo's book,

Western Marxism. And I think the big picture point there is that if you don't take into account colonialism as a structure, as a phenomenon, as fundamental to the world order, you know, you're not going to really understand the contemporary world. And likewise, you're also not going to appreciate the way in which Global South is a fecund arena for generating, you know, potentially successful. And, you know, I think there's more potential, frankly, in the Global South of revolutionary movements in our own age. And already the accomplishments, you know, of decolonization and these sorts of struggles, many of which were subverted, which is a big. part of the story that's, you know, relatively ignored in these judgments about post-colonial states in Africa. You know, I think it's going to be an important recognition and realization

for many Western Marxists when we actually start having, you know, episodes on the richness and variety of conceptual and theoretical contributions that adapted liberatory ideologies and theory to their circumstance. And it's not just the big hitters, as we mentioned, Phenon, and so on. Although I, you know, even today, there are, you know, Marxists who, you know, are tweeting, oh, read more Marx less than on. You know, like, I mean, I got into my own little spat on, on Twitter over that, because I can't think of the theorist who's more relevant in the contemporary moment than Phenon when we're dealing with settler colonialism, its relationship. to empires, you know, and it's not a simplistic theory. I mean, Vennon himself is the one who theorized the pitfalls of national consciousness and the way in which a kind of new Comprador class would emerge in the neo-colonial, you know, you had compradors under, you know, direct colonialism, and you would have them realign and maybe they would replace others, but there would be a class that could position

itself in the new weak post-colonial states, you know, for coming out of war, and decolonization struggles, just think of Algeria after, you know, years and years of war with like a million people, you know, killed from Algeria, but that there would emerge, you know, a class of people who would position themselves in the neo-colonial order to collaborate with the global, you know, global economy. So, you know, if you don't read Fanon, you know, in this moment, you know, I mean, there's no better opportune moment. It means that you're just not taking seriously critiques. have come from the experience of the global south. And so I think that's going to be very eye-opening in many ways for people listening to this series is how many important African theorists of revolution, on theorists of struggle, you know, their and the range and variety of their critiques and analysis. Well, and I just want to add briefly before turning it back over to Mamadu. First, a flip-in point, which is, you know, that comment about Read More Marx,

Lesvinan first made me want to claw my own eyes out when I saw it. But then also, it made me very glad that I am located on the opposite end of the earth from the person who made that tweet, whom will remain nameless here. But he writes, you were from the same state. Well, you know, technically, you know, Upper Peninsula, Lower Peninsula. That's a touchy subject at Nan. Let's not go there. That's even touchier than this whole discourse about violence. But anyway, let's just be glad that I'm on the opposite end of the earth because at the very least there would have been very, very unhappy words being shared. But more likely it would have, well, anyway, let's, to be collegial. It's just, you're a professor. I am not in academia. Being collegial is not my

specialty. In any case, to get back on topic, and before I get too angry again, I did want to mention something else about Fanon and something else about these African thinkers. So Fanon is, you know, he's not as widely read as he should be, especially by people who say that we should be reading less of him. They are just demonstrating that they haven't read enough of him. But anyway, getting back away from that for a moment, Fanon's name is well known, even by people who haven't read his work. But there's also a lot of people, particularly on the left, who have read Fanon's work.

That cannot be said for many of these other really, you know, foundational and monumental African scholars. There are, you know, a few here or there. And then, of course, there are individual works by people that are well known like, you know, neo-colonialism and Krumas' neocolonialism is a well-known book, even the vast majority of people haven't read it. But many of these intellectuals who we've been talking about are people who don't get talked about at all on the left. I mean, how many people were, how many brilliant scholars were

associated with the Dara Salam School, for example, and how many people even know that there was this entire group of people who were working at the same institution that had absolutely terrific and foundational insights from that, you know, from that one location in Tanzania, the vast majority of whom are unheard of in the imperial core. I mean, that's a travesty. And then also with Fanon, we have individuals who claim to be Fanon specialists, who then fail to utilize any Fanonian analysis when it comes to things that, you know, take them out of their liberal bubble.

So think about all of the people who are so-called specialists in Fanon, who become silent as soon as the events that began to unfold after October 7th, you know, and again, I'm not going to say the start of the genocide, because as I've said numerous times, the genocide has been going on for 100 years. But, you know, since October 7th, there has been a more acute phase of genocide within Gaza. But we have these individuals who, in theory, should be well equipped to analyze what is happening in Gaza, and they become absolutely silent or they don't become silent but they take up some of these same sorts of colonial narratives against the colonized people that Fanon himself would have railed

against. So, you know, we have these two problems. One that Fanon is not as widely read as he is, but even when people do read him, if they are reading him from a liberal perspective, they're not utilizing the profound insight that Fanon provides for us. And on the other hand, there's other really tremendous intellectuals from the continent who people need to be reading who they've never even heard of so they don't know what to read. So these are two things that we really have to grapple with as we go through this series is, you know, talking about phenon, but talking about the radical phenon, not this liberal phenon that some of these individuals try to portray him as. I don't know how they manage to, but anyway, that's a different question. But then also

shining some light on some of these other radical intellectuals from the continent to otherwise their work doesn't get seen in the Imperial Corps. I know there was no question there, but you know. No, no, but Henry, you mean to tell me that decolonization isn't a metaphor? Yeah, that might be the title of something, Hamidu, you know? Something that, you know, I don't know if we've actually talked about that paper on the show before, but anyway, if we haven't, we should at some point. But, yeah, we may have, I don't remember.

We have over 200 episodes. I lose track of what we have and what we haven't talked about. No, no, I think you raised a brilliant point when it comes to, because naturally, when people engage Phon for a radical lens or, or I would say, true to Phanon, it's going to indict them, right? They become indicted because they, and, and it's going to make themselves be placed into a quite uncomfortable position because it, you know, it will unseat a lot of their, liberalism that exists in their own work, right? You see that time and time again, and I've seen that, it happens so much when engaging these thinkers. But yeah, I guess just to kind of add, I don't really have much to add to what you said,

other than just a plug, a cheeky plug, because I'm trying to think of the ways in which the thinkers speak to our contemporary age, is the last essay in toward African revolution in Phenon's toward Africa Revolution, in which is talking, his analysis, or he's speaking about the death of Lumumba, I think. is mandatory reading for everybody who wants to speak or understand about like imperialism today and for me it illuminated for me the positions of or the necessity of multipolarity but also the positions in which other state actors around the world who maybe sometimes people feel an uncomfortability around some certain actions but why they took those actions I think

that essay is quite instructive when illuminated that's a wonderful reference and You know, frankly, I love that collection. It's much different from Fennell's other writings. You know, it's not Wretched of the Earth, black-skinned white masks. It's not, you know, la Cinque, en, you know, dying colonialism, as it's been translated, you know, from the French, that have more obvious theoretical points and discussions. But these are essays that he wrote for El Mujahid, you know, the newspaper or journal. of the FLN and were geopolitical insights and analysis of contemporary world events and the things taking place elsewhere on the African continent from the vantage point

of the struggle in Algeria against French colonialism and for national liberation. And so they're wonderful because they are historical documents that, as you're pointing out, You know, given the world's situation today, there are still many deep insights that are relevant for us, but they're, they're just a fascinating work. And it's almost an ignored text. I mean, hardly anybody reads that. They're interested in those other theoretical works in particular. But when I say read more fanon, it isn't just read more of the wretched of the earth, you know, to deepen your understanding, you know, of his analysis of settler colonialism and resistance to it. But it is also that, you know, you have to kind of also see the model that he has for interpreting global events. We are right now participants in a very important period in history. You know, our actions and activities now, the character of our struggle now, you know, is going to make a difference for whatever phase we're entering in the future with the end of the unipolar hegemony into what we like to say as a multipolar world, but the way that is going

to be shaped is open. And a dying colonialism, well, similarly that a dying empire is extremely violent, extremely unpredictable. And so it's very important for us to see somebody with Fennon's, you know, sophistication and theoretical analysis working through an interpret contemporary events from the perspective of how do we advance our revolution by observing what's happening in the world. Where are these lines of connection between our struggle and other struggles? And so it's really a wonderful collection that I think I agree. Anybody should read the essay you mentioned. And I think the whole collection is really excellent. And, you know, I don't have much more to say about that because that's just a great recommendation. But I did

want to say, you know, maybe some of the other themes or topics that I'm really looking forward to in this that I think are of relevance and connected to our contemporary moment is, of course, thinking about labor on the African continent and the regimes of labor, everything from enslavement to, you know, kind of contemporary, you know, labor under, you know, the conditions of extreme neoliberalism. and so on. So I think the end migration of labor and movement of labor. That's, you know, I think a very important kind of suggestion theme that will be crucial for this series. But also resource and resource extraction. And I think it's going to be so important to really understand colonialism and resistance to it, to be able to put into context some of the discourses that are trying to characterize, for example, Chinese investment in Africa, development projects that are taking place in Africa, within the framework of colonialism,

which is how a lot of Western critics of China's investment and involvements want to, which isn't to say that there aren't, it is still capitalism. We get it. You know, there are going to be relations, you know, of unequal exchange of various kinds. But what distinguishes European colonialism and the neocolonialism from other ways and pathways of global interconnection and of investment and of a network of, you know, development that is trying to do it on different principles.

I mean, it's important, this history is important to appreciate so that we can understand when there is neocolonialism, you know, taking place and when we have alternatives that are still happening under the regime of capitalism, but have a chance of being beneficial for development, local development, you know, of African economies and so on. So that's another kind of big theme, I think, that will be important is to look at that kind of a question in these revolutionary and in the early post-colonial histories of decolonized nations. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts there. It certainly connects with some of the things you were talking about with the Sahel and other developments that are taking place and how to look at them from a different perspective

if you appreciate this broader historical background and context and also have a good analytical framework for what makes something colonialism, what is neo-colonialism in order to distinguish other ways of trade, exchange, and development in the contemporary African situation. I just want to say this and just very clear. China is not colonizing Africa. Like I think we need to reiterate that like a thousand times over because I have this conversation so many times. Now, as you quite rightly, and I think it's just an honest. conversation. Is their exploitation? Of course there is capitalism, right? China is investing into places in which the social relations have been produced out of colonialism. China did not

create those social relations, right? So of course exploitation. I'm very like, I'm very comfortable in saying that, but this kind of glib and kind of lazy intellectual scholarship, intellectual intellectualism that just says China's colonizing Africa actually just really does frustration. I'm sure you do more on this series. I don't want to go too much into that. But I think as well, again, situating Africa and seeing it in what I can teach us today, something one of my teachers and mentors, Bickram Gill, always tells me to think about is why is Morgabi demonized and hated, but Nelson Mandela is praised in the way he is, right? This question always comes back, right? And the answer is land reform.

And again, Mugabe has, we can critique Mugabe. There's many critiques to be leveled up Mugabe. But fundamentally, why is it that Nelson Mandela is the hero to the point that, you know, the right-wing neo-fascist, Piers Morgan can say, where is the Palestinian Mugabe? And there's the Palestinian Mandela, for example, right? Where's the Palestinian Mandela? Because that is the image that Mandela has given in the West. Because fundamentally, he didn't take up land reform.

When you take up land reform like Mugabe did, what happens? you are met with sanctions, right? And again, and that is instructive for our moment today. Why are countries sanctioned today? What is it about the geopolitical economy and the unilateral sanctions in relation to unilateral sanctions, right? What is it about processes of accumulation that feed into, that require certain countries to be,

to have a de-development or hindering of a development of their productive forces? Again, I think fundamentally, and I think why I like, why I particularly focus on Africa because again you see some of the most when we say Palestine is a litmus test and what I've said in more contemporarily Palestine holds up a mirror to the international

world order. Palestine begs the question can we continue the way we are and what is the Palestinian exception in similar ways Africa serves as a case study and informs our analysis of imperialism and colonialism and forms of accumulations

and today. And that's why I feel like there's many examples on the African continent contemporarily and also historically. Well, that's similar to why was Nasser demonized? You know, I mean, in some ways, he was a nationalist. He was looking for, well, where can I get financing, you know, west or east? I'll take it anywhere I can to, you know, finance and, you know, my Aswan Dam project and so on. You know, what was really so threatening about him was, you know, he's willing to nationalize, you know, resources. And that included land and land reform.

And how do we get, you know, minutiafique, you know, oppressing students who are demonstrating Palestine solidarity? It's because her family was, were feudal landlords and they were, you know, victims of, you know, Nassar's policies of redistribution. That's what made a figure like him, a militant third world nationalists seem like has to be an enemy, you know, has to be taken down. that project has to be undermined because he's actually trying to materialize aspects of sovereignty on behalf of a popular redistribution project.

So that's exactly the case with other parts of the African continent, you know, is that when there was land distribution, that was really evil, you know, from the perspective of the colonizers. And, you know, that was a threat to the neo-colonial order. And, you know, the history's post-colonial history, I mean, that would be a great topic. I mean, of course, we could have somebody like Max I'll come on and talk about, like, you know, and others of his colleagues who are in part of that agrarian, you know, journal. I forget the name of the journal, but. Journal of the Agrarian South. That's right.

Journal of the Agrarian South is that, you know, the conditions of the post-colonial nation, you can see the different trajectories out of decolonization, whether both geopolitical. but then also socially, like the ones that did do land reform improve the social base. It just happened. However, they became geopolitical enemies of the United States and Europe and were subject to all kinds of, as we were saying, you know, geopolitical violence of sanctions or marginalization and so on or coups to take out these leaders and reverse those gains and so on. And the countries that didn't take the path of some form of redistribution of the land, which was the basis of wealth, in, you know, these societies, as it has been historically in global history, you know, they're, you know, maintained their feudal elites. They maintain such inequality that it has devastated and hampered the development of those countries.

They've never had a chance because they didn't take that, you know, key step. So I think that's an important, you know, kind of question, you know, for understanding revolutionary projects, what were their real goals and objectives? And of course, distinguishing between bourgeois sort of political revolutions or political decolonization struggles and then being incorporated quite easily into the new colonial, you know, system, you know, the, what is it again? The franc, you know, those countries that maintain their currency from. See, yeah, the CFA Frank. Exactly. Versus planned on on that as we do with most of these topics that you've mentioned your topics.

It's an important topic. But the distinction between those countries versus ones that actually had a radical revolutionary project of redistribution, you know, those had different histories. And so this isn't a, you know, a one size fits all understanding of, you know, African revolutions. They had clear differences and there were different kind of forces and aspirations and political logics that at play that helps explain a lot of what's happened in many of these countries. You know, I'm going to hop in here because I know Adnan has to leave very soon. So that will be Adnan's closing remark. I'll make my closing remark and then we'll give it to Mamadu to wrap us up entirely. But a couple of recommendations before I hop in. So I know that we had mentioned Zimbabwe. Mamadu, you mentioned Zimbabwe recently in Sanctions. Now, a recommendation, not on an episode that we had, but part of a series that we did,

listeners who were listening to the show over a year ago will remember that we had a Sanctions as War series which we had 10 or 12 episodes which was based on the book Sanctions as War one of the essays in that book was Chapter 12 and it's a really terrific chapter

targeted sanctions and the failure of the regime change agenda in Zimbabwe by Washington Maseradze I highly recommend reading that chapter we had reached out to Washington and we had gotten through but we weren't ever able to actually get the interview you over the line. So we don't have an episode about that chapter as part of our sanctions

as war series. But we did talk about Zimbabwe a bit within the context of the series. So you know, you can listen to those episodes, but definitely read the chapter on the sanctions policies that were levied against Zimbabwe for, as Mamadu said, land reform. Adnan had mentioned labor migration on the continent. We have an episode with our friend Manny Ness on his book. Labor migration is economic imperialism, which analyzes labor migration on the continent in some part of that conversation, but then also in his book as well, the book of the same title, which we didn't go quite as much into depth during the interview on that specific topic as he did on the book. So be sure to check out that book as well. And then, since you

mentioned the CFA, Franca, just a teaser for an upcoming episode of this series. We'll talk with Ndongo San Basil about his book, Africa's last colonial currency, the CFA Frank. At least we'll try to, you know, if we can get him to agree to it. I have his contact and everything. We just have to get that scheduled with him. But read the Africa's last colonial currency, the CFA Frank story. It is a marvelous book that really shows how neo-colonialism works in a very, very explicit way. Obviously, it doesn't go into neo-colonialism more broadly, but takes one aspect of neocolonialism, this colonial currency, and really is a sharp examination of it. And so if you're interested in that discussion of the CFA Frank, which Adnan had just mentioned, pick up the book and start reading it now because we'll have that episode in the not too distant future, hopefully, if we can twist his arm into coming onto the show. But as for my final notes, before I turn it over to Mamadou, we have to, in terms of this series, in terms of the way that we think about it, in the spirit of people like Phenon, like Cabral, like McCrumah, like countless others, whom we've mentioned in this episode and who will mention throughout the series, we have to continue to give voice to the voiceless.

These are people who are often not heard from in the Imperial Corps. and I'm not talking about Fanon Cabral and Cruma and so on in terms of these people. I do have names that are mentioned in the Imperial Corps from time to time. I'm talking about the people in these revolutionary and decolonial

movements whose names would never be heard in the Imperial Corps and whose names may not even have been recorded within history, but we're taking part within these movements. We have to give voice to these movements. These revolutionary and decolonial

colonial movements. And while this show is history, I mean, we are guerrilla history after all, and we are doing a history of African revolutions and decolonization, we have to understand that this is not just about the past. This series in particular, and the show more generally, is about not only the past, but also about the present and the future. It's about the ongoing battles for decolonization. We have to grapple with this.

history to understand the current struggles of decolonization, because this process is still unfolding even though there is independence on the African continent. And we also have to understand that there needs to be a decolonization of minds as we go about this process. We've talked about the problems of Eurocentrism all throughout this conversation and the way that European epistemologies are focused on entirely, whereas these thinkers from the African continent who are analyzing their own condition are never talked about in the West. These are things that need to be confronted. There is a decolonization of the mines that needs to be taken place as well as an analysis of

how to further decolonize the continent, reclaim stolen lands, build an equitable future for the people of the continent. And yeah, I'm running out of steam because it's late in the evening. Otherwise, usually to get more steam, I have to get more anxious. And I'm angry, but I don't want to start shouting. So I'll turn it over to you, Mamadu for a, you know, much more sharned and incisive. Close. Then I'll take a little at this point.

I don't know how to follow that. Honestly, thanks once again for having me on the show. I guess I think in closing, if you want to take, if you want to be a serious thinker, if you want to have a higher level of analysis that is reflective of geopolitics and world conditions as they are, then I just implore all listeners to take the question of Africa seriously in their thinking and in their analysis. The modern world, you cannot understand modernity and from a material perspective to an ideological perspective without understanding Africa. When we think of all the tropes that were then used on indigenous folks in other

places, a lot of the times the tropes that were used, we found them also being used, first or later on in Africa when we think of the technologies used today even in contemporary worlds even in contemporary world in times of like surveillance policing we find a lot of the time they used they were used developed perfected on African bodies we think of even the point of just accumulation at like the level of like primitive accumulation we find that a lot of it was taken from the continent by material wealth but also like it was as bickram gil often writes about different tribes were known for cultivating lands in specific ways and it's also the accumulation of knowledge as well not just of like physical and material things as well so i just

fundamentally would implore everyone that if you are serious about change and you're serious about geopolitics and understanding the world in order to change it then please take the question of africa seriously yeah absolutely mamadu can you tell the listeners where they can find you on social media, where they can read. I know you have some essays that have come out recently. If you can tell them where they can find those. And also tell them where they can find the Malcolm Effect, which I will reiterate because I was being quite sincere at the opening of this episode, really is one of my favorite

podcasts. It's not quite as frequent as I would like because, you know, I'd like to learn more from you and your guests all the time. So there's my one criticism of the show. we need more Malcolm Effect, but it really is one of my favorite shows. I've learned so much from you and from your guests on that show. So be sure to tell our listeners where they can also do the same. Thank you. Yes.

So the Malcolm Effect on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, and most podcasting platforms, you can find me on Twitter. It's my name, Momadu, Tau. On the Instagram, it's the Gambian. And, yeah, I have a few op-heads out from Munderweiss. Oh no, so for new Arab statesmen. I have a few operas coming out. Also, the pre-orders for the Markham Effect revisited,

which is a book that I am way in delay in of publishing. But it's coming out. I promise to people, it should be up. People should have their copies in December. I'm just waiting on the forward at the moment from a scholar to be sent in and then it's all good to go. And other than that, just, yeah, but please reach out, engage. Point taken, I'm trying my best to get more of the podcast.

This is life has been, you know, very busy and interesting right now. But fundamentally, again, just a shout up to both of you. This has been one of my favorite conversations ever. And I can only ask, I'm going to hold you to account so listeners can hear. You both have to come onto the Malcolm Effect now and have a discussion with me. Any time. Time. Happy to do it.

Happy. It will be great. Yeah, I mean, I'm a bit crazy. You know, we're a weekly show and we're often recording multiple. episodes per week in case Obnan is traveling because, you know, Adnan is a renowned scholar that gets invited to speak at places and things like that.

So I always think everybody should be as crazy as we are, but I'm well aware that there is actually something wrong with me. So that's neither here nor there. Adnan, tell the listeners where they can find you in your other podcast. Well, you can follow me on Twitter at Adnan A. Hussein, H-U-S-A-I-N. And, you know, you can check out the Mujah, M-A-J-L-I-S, a podcast about the Middle East Islamic World. We're a little bit infrequent as well, but I'm hoping that we will have some new episodes soon that I'm organizing and scheduling now to start a new season, as it were. And so do check it out, M-A-J-L-I-S, the M-A-J-L-I-S, the M-L-L-Lis.

Absolutely, highly recommend that. I learn a lot from the M-Glis, too, although if I'm going to complain that the Malcolm effect is too infrequent, Adnan, I have very bad news for you. I'm even, we're even worse, I know. Significantly, it's an order of magnitude, but I take what I can get. I don't have that much time to listen to things anyway, but I always make room for the two of your excellent podcasts. As for me, listeners, you can find me on Twitter at Huck 1995, H-U-C-1-995. You can help support the show and allow us to continue making episodes like this, as I said, both within this series

and our, I don't want to say normal content, but, you know, the other weeks of stuff that we do by going to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. And you can keep up to date with everything that we do individually and collectively by following us on social media. Twitter at Gorilla underscore Pod. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A underscore pod. And on Instagram at Gorilla underscore History. Again, Gorilla with two R's. So on that note then, listeners, and until next time, solidarity. I'm going to be able to be.