Our African proverb this week speaks volumes about imperialism in today's Africa. Take the Democratic Republic of the Congo, rich in minerals powering the global tech economy, yet torn apart by endless resource wars. Meanwhile the world praises western-proxy Rwanda as a model of African success. But as Rwanda-backed M23 rebels loot Congolese resources, Kigali profits, seling those same minerals to the west. So when Congo's goat goes missing and Rwanda’s pot overflows, is it really paranoia to suspect neighbouring Kigali?

SOUTH AFRICA NO ‘RAINBOW NATION’

For decades, South Africa has been presented as the poster child of arch enemies burying the hatchet and reconciling in the interest of nation building. This narrative says that Black people must be grateful to white settlers for ending the apartheid system because they tapped into their ‘morality.’

Nothing could be further from the truth, as apartheid did not end in the early 1990s because of white settlers’ benevolence.

This is the argument that South African-Nigerian activist Lovelyn Nwadeyi (@nwadeyi_miss on Instagram) eloquently put across in this 10 November 2016 video. The social justice consultant highlighted how the main reason the system collapsed was due to economic and social factors.

According to Nwadeyi, the global Boycott Apartheid movement’s sustained campaign led to international economic sanctions on South Africa’s apartheid regime, forcing it to the negotiation table with the liberation movement.

Continued……. She also pointed out that the ban on South African sports teams participating in global competitions pushed settlers to break rank with the regime’s policies that they had loyally supported for decades.

Nwadeyi drove the point further by reminding white settlers that it was easy for them to remove themselves from the social struggle that continued after apartheid ended in the early 1990s. Meanwhile, Black people do not have the same luxury, as they still have to live in the peripheries of the economy due to the lingering effects of centuries of economic and social exclusion at the hands of the settlers.

Video credit: Big Debate South Africa/YouTube (aired on @Official_SABC1)

Sources

http://www.econ.yale.edu/growth_pdf/cdp796.pdf

Abolitionist and suffragist Harriet Tubman earned herself the nickname 'Moses' for leading enslaved people to freedom. On 2 June, 1863, Harriet carefully planned and guided an armed raid against Confederate forces, becoming the first woman to do so during the US Civil War. In a bold Union Army operation along the Combahee River in South Carolina, Tubman orchestrated the liberation of nearly 800 enslaved Africans. Working with Colonel James Montgomery and the 2nd South Carolina Volunteer Infantry, a regiment of formerly enslaved Black men, Tubman led Union gunboats deep into Confederate territory, guided by intelligence networks she had developed. Tubman gained vital information about the location of Confederate supplies planted along the river from people who traded information for freedom.

Continued….. The Union boats moved along the river, destroying stockpiles of weapons, food and cotton as Tubman steered the ships away from any danger. She led the vessel to specific spots along the shore where the runaway enslaved people were hiding and waiting to be rescued. Millions of dollars worth of Confederate supplies were destroyed, but the promise of immediate liberation was enough motivation. The Raid at Combahee Ferry freed close to 800 people from slavery and dismantled the myth of passive emancipation. It was a testament that loudly showed freedom had to be seized, not granted. Tubman's legacy remains unshakable- a woman who broke every chain they tried to put on her and forged a path for thousands more to do the same. 

Sources

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/harriet-tubman-raid-at-combahee-ferry/

http://www.harriettubman.com/tubman2.html

'COLOURBLIND' SOCIETIES BODE ILL FOR BLACK PEOPLE

African Stream breaks down Brazil’s longstanding, self-aggrandising mantra of being a ‘racial democracy.’ It’s essential to understand the past as US President Donald Trump’s vow to forge a ‘colourblind’ society mirrors what has already happened in Brazil. 

Here, we spell out what Brazil's 'racial democracy' has already meant for Black people.

Sources

https://www.introcrim.com.br/o-pretugues-de-lelia-gonzalez

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa8KTbJeHPM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU2Gfyfhb8M

Democracia Racial, editorial do Jornal do Brasil, 10-11 nov. 1968, apud T. de Azevedo, op. Cit., p. 52.

WHITE PEOPLE WHO FOUGHT U.S. SLAVERY AND RACISM

'Damn, Black people. Y'all ain't learning your history.' But, in reality, white folks are also not taught their history.

In this video, producer and Black history teacher Ernest Crim raises an important question: How many white anti-racist abolitionists do white people know about?

He said stories about white abolitionists, civil rights allies, and anti-racists have often been minimised or omitted because they challenge the pervasive notion that white people universally accepted racism in the past.

Crim concluded that if history books acknowledged thousands of white people fought against slavery and segregation, generations after would do differently, and this would ultimately upset the power structure. 

As always, your thoughts are welcome!  

Video credit: @mrcrim3 (IG)

Hear Us Roar: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AfricanStream

IS RWANDA BECOMING AN INTEL HUB?

Behind the glitter of tech innovation and continental ambition, a deeper question must be asked: Is Rwanda positioning itself to become Africa's intelligence hub under the influence of imperialist powers?

This question is raised by President Paul Kagame's role in Smart Africa, an initiative aimed to boost the continent's tech scene and achieve a Single Digital Market by 2030.

As the chair of Smart Africa, based in Kigali, Kagame is pushing for quicker adoption of new technologies like AI across Africa. However, analyst Kambale Musavuli from the Centre for Research on the Congo-Kinshasa believes this isn't the kind of Pan-African initiative that truly benefits us. He warns there's a hidden agenda to centralise intelligence-gathering under the control of imperialist forces looking to exploit our continent further.

Continued…….. Smart Africa’s funding is telling. The Gates Foundation, with deep ties to Microsoft, contributed $7.5 million to launch Rwanda’s AI Scaling Hub in 2022. Yet Microsoft has faced multiple lawsuits for benefiting from child labor in cobalt mines in the DRC, meaning that Gates may not just benefit from data but also from the very instability that enables cheap access to African minerals. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development has partnered with Smart Africa to influence Africa's digital transformation.

Rwanda’s proximity to Israel’s intelligence networks adds another layer. With many African countries receiving special military-intelligence training from Israel, could establishing a base in Western-supported Rwanda be a more cost-effective option? For instance, in a surprising move in 2022, Benin sought Rwanda's expertise in counter-insurgency, leading to the deployment of 350 Rwandan troops. Kigali's 2024 troop deployment in Mozambique was also backed by a €20 million grant from the EU. 

All this echoes a disturbing historical pattern: Western powers delegate control to local allies, creating Black faces of imperialism while maintaining actual control from afar.

Video credit: AfroDominion Media

Sources

https://www.iiss.org/ar-BH/publications/strategic-comments/2022/rwandas-ambitions-as-a-security-provider-in-sub-saharan-africa/

https://www.weforum.org/stories/2022/07/rwanda-is-tackling-digital-development-challenges-and-succeeding/

https://smartafrica.org/the-board-2/

https://aefgroup.org/blog-read.php?post=meet-rwanda-africas-singapore

https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20250404/au-commission-chairperson-and-president-kagame-discuss-africas-digital-future

https://www.semafor.com/article/04/02/2025/africas-ai-ambitions-take-the-spotlight-in-rwanda


https://c4ir.rw/global-ai-summit-on-africa

https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/04/how-young-people-are-shaping-africas-ai-future/

https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/netanyahu-s-regional-visit-seals-military-deals-and-un-council-support--1352366

https://www.devex.com/news/gates-foundation-to-fund-ai-scaling-hubs-in-africa-109805

https://trendsresearch.org/insight/the-scourge-of-terrorism-in-benin-and-rwandas-counter-insurgency-role/?srsltid=AfmBOop2ZONRtq5DLfkMkO7tiYen3xiMUcvgzAihOd9Af__2zJaz7q4J

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/committed-grants/2025/03/inv-088245

THE TRUTH EUROPE WON'T ADMIT

Europe’s post-World War II recovery and prosperity is often credited to the Marshall Plan. But that’s only half the story. Former African Union envoy to the US Arikana Chihombori-Quao explains why in this video.

For centuries, Europe’s economy has developed at the expense of Africa and its people. Think colonial occupation, resource wars and currency manipulation.

The West depends on African raw materials, such as cobalt, coltan, gold, oil, uranium and rare-earth minerals, which power Western industries and technologies. It gets these for cheap thanks to exploitative, neocolonial contracts.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, possesses over 70% of the world’s reserves of coltan. The mineral is critical in the production of electric-car batteries, mobile phones and other electronic devices. Zimbabwe is the fourth-largest producer of lithium in the world. The EU’s push for renewable energy is based on electric cars built with lithium.

Continued…….. Africa's agricultural exports, such as cocoa, coffee and tea, fill European supermarkets. But African farmers are trapped in debt and poverty, effectively subsidising Europe's food security.

Africa also receives the West’s electronic, plastic and hazardous waste, silently bearing the environmental cost of Western lifestyles. For example, Kenya alone is the dumpsite for 37-million plastic clothing items from Europe per year.

Meanwhile, African migrants power the European care sector and informal economy, often in conditions of precarious, underpaid and undocumented labour.

Western multinationals and sovereign wealth funds hold vast interests in African land, banks and infrastructure. Via unequal trade agreements, debt servicing and IMF prenoscriptions, Europe extracts billions from Africa annually.

European development is also based on slavery. For example, the development of James Watt’s revolutionary steam engine was financed by profits from the slave trade.

Take away African labour, minerals, markets and migration, and the European economy stalls. It’s time we were treated not as neocolonial subjects but as partners.

Video credits: @aljazeera

Sources

https://ecfr.eu/publication/material-world-how-europe-can-compete-with-china-in-the-race-for-africas-critical-minerals/

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney

https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2023-05/agrifood-africa-all-countries_en.pdf


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-68090482

https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/02/16/eu-dumps-37-million-items-of-plastic-clothing-in-kenya-a-year-which-country-is-the-worst-o

https://www.developmentaid.org/news-stream/post/170661/five-major-lithium-producing-countries#:~:text=1.,in%20the%20world%3A%2088%2C000%20MT

https://www.philanthropistsinafrica.com/multinational-corporations-bring-multiple-benefits-developing-countries/#:~:text=Multinational%20Corporations%20do%20bring%20a%20lot%20of,Multinational%20Corporations%20to%20invest%20in%20their%20countries.

https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/Europe-Beyond-Aid-Illicit-Financial-Flows-background-paper.pdf