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Long Reads

We post long reads (up to 4,500 words) on a range of historical and political-economic issues on the continent. We welcome submissions on focused, thoughtful and controversial issues about African political economy and the wider impact of international development on Africa’s development, history and politics.

How Hegel’s Deliberate Ignorance of African History Legitimated the Colonisation of Africa

Isaac Samuel is an independent researcher whose work focuses on African history and economics. His prolific output on pre-colonial African history can be found on his blog AfricanHistoryExtra, which as a collective body of extraordinary scholarship puts the lie to the still widely held belief that – in the words of esteemed University of Oxford historian Hugh Trevor-Rope in the 1960s – there is no African history, “only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness”. Here, in a blistering account, Samuel shows how German philosopher Georg Hegel – one of the most influential figures of 19th century philosophy – wilfully misinterpreted first-hand accounts of the Asante kingdom from the 18th century. The result, both in the work of Hegel and those who followed him, was the construction of an absurdly fictional account of African society, steeped in popular beliefs of his time about the continent’s supposed backwardness, that deliberately subsumed the richness and complexity of Asante history in order to legitimate imperial expansion and colonial rule.

A review – The New Age of Catastrophe by Alex Callinicos

In this review essay ROAPE’s Peter Lawrence discusses Alex Callinicos’ new book The New Age of Catastrophe. Callinicos has written a book that admits to the mind-numbing scale of the catastrophe that confronts humanity but provides enough ammunition to those who want to see a more optimistic future. Lawrence argues that Callinicos makes a strong case for socialism as the solution and mass mobilisation from below of the organised working class as the only way to achieve it. 

The June Days – Senegal’s struggle for justice

Since the start of the month, Senegal has seen major demonstrations, rioting, and violence. In an interview with ROAPE, Ndongo Sylla explains what is happening. Supporters of opposition leader, Ousmane Sonko, are furious at the regime’s attempt to frustrate next year’s elections by framing Sonko on false charges. Sylla examines the social and political forces that are engulfing the country and threatening to overturn the political class and the neo-colonial settlement.

Forgotten drafts of Walter Rodney’s third visit to Cuba

ROAPE’s Chinedu Chukwudinma, unearths two previously unknown draft texts by Walter Rodney in the archives in Atlanta. He writes how Rodney was inspired by the lessons of the Cuban revolution, and that during a prolonged visit to Cuba between 1968-1969, he began to imagine a world without racism and inequality. Chukwudinma examines an incredible seven month visit to Cuba by the Guyanese revolutionary.  

50 years since the murder of Omar Blondin Diop

Fifty years ago, on May 11, 1973, young Senegalese revolutionary philosopher Omar Blondin Diop died in detention under suspicious circumstances in Dakar. Our understanding of liberation movements in Africa tends to focus on struggles in colonial settings, yet Florian Bobin argues that over sixty years after Senegal’s independence, Diop’s life, work, and legacy reveal what revolutionary politics looks like in a neo-colonial context.