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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.

Europe’s assault on the rest of us, who were exterminated and expropriated, millions who were enslaved and died resisting European occupation, continues today – recently, and graphically, re-stated by the European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrell. Eyob Gebremariam exposes the language and practice of coloniality, which sustains inequalities at the global level and has done for nearly 500 years of European empire-building.

Marxism, we are told, is Eurocentric and has lost much of its appeal in the eyes of many scholars and activists. Some have even denounced Marxism as a racist theory, irrelevant to the study of Africa. Joe Pateman argues Lenin placed Africa at the centre of his analysis of imperialism and contemporary capitalism. Here, the author reflects on the key aspects of his analysis. Following this, Pateman's full article in the ROAPE journal can be accessed for free.  

In her final blog in the series Lee Wengraf celebrates the life and work of Walter Rodney, the scholar, working class militant and revolutionary from Guyana who was murdered 37 years ago. His book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa remains a classic that must be carefully studied by activists and scholars today.

ROAPE’s Reginald Cline-Cole provides an analytically rigorous understanding of the differentiated spread and impact of Covid-19 around the world. In so doing he returns us to what ought to be our core concern: the political economy of uneven incorporation of African economies, societies and natures into the world economy.

Issue 131

Issue 127

Issue 123

Issue 122

Issue 104-105