Neo-Colonialism By Nkrumah: The Book That Terrified The West And America, Causing His Overthrow

During Africa's decolonization process, the terms "neocolonialism" and "post-colonialism" gained popularity. The book "Neocolonialism as the Last Stage of Imperialism," written by Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, philosopher, and pride of African leaders, was published in 1965, eight years after Ghana gained its independence. In the book, he described how former colonial powers still exploited newly independent nations and denounced this practice.

Kwame Nkrumah wrote, "The outcome of neocolonialism is that foreign capital is used to exploit rather than to promote the prosperity of the less developed parts of the world." Instead of reducing the global wealth gap, neocolonialism increases investment. Keeping capital from affluent countries out of the economies of less developed countries is not the goal of the struggle against neocolonialism. It is about preventing the financial power of wealthier countries from endangering the economies of less developed countries.

Therefore, neocolonialism is the continuation of the mother countries' economic inequality-based exploitation of their former colonies. Similar to colonialism, neocolonialism involves uneven economic and military-political links between the former colony and the home nation, as well as cultural and linguistic expansion. The so-called "banana republics," nations whose economies are based on exporting a finite agricultural resource to developed nations and are often controlled by a single corporation, are a prime illustration of this interplay.

The notorious tale of the coup in Guatemala, a former Spanish colony, which was masterminded by the American corporation United Fruit Company, is the source of the phenomenon's name. The business served as the model for the "banana corporation" in Gabriel García Márquez's book "One Hundred Years of Solitude." Since neocolonial ties can exist between nations that were not formerly colonies or metropolises, this example highlights the complexity of neocolonialism.

Kwame Nkrumah described the origins of colonialism as "a system of domination of several developed countries over the rest of the world, which existed in the 16th-20th centuries." For a variety of reasons, including streamlining trade routes, taking advantage of natural resources, and monopolizing commerce, developed nations acquired smaller governments. Less developed nations became colonies, while those with more financial and military resources developed into metropolises.

While the colonies were denied political and economic freedom, the metropolises expanded their cultures and languages. In the conquered country, city dwellers frequently had more rights and privileges than the native populace. For instance, the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights of 1689 were extended to the continent by the British colonists in Australia; however, this did not apply to the indigenous people of Australia, who were either purchased or abducted by the British and then made to labor on their farms.

Although the colonized civilizations were handled differently by Europeans, colonialism typically resulted in disastrous events. The year 1960 is frequently referred to as "the year of Africa" in history because it saw the emergence of the greatest number of independent states on the continent: 17 nations, primarily colonized by France, gained independence from their mother countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Gabon, and many others.

The world is affected by neocolonialism because more developed nations continue to use post-colonial strategies to expand their influence in the political and economic realms, and since Kwame Nkrumah's critique of neocolonialism revealed and questioned the methods by which Western powers, especially the United States, maintained political and economic control over recently independent nations without direct colonial rule, the West and the United States feared it and plotted his overthrow.

On February 21, 1966, Kwame Nkrumah accepted an invitation from Ho Chi Minh and flew to North Vietnam before heading to China. While in China, a group of conspirators with the collaboration of America's CIA staged a coup on February 24, and Nkrumah was toppled. The unexpected coup forced Nkrumah to live in exile in the Republic of Guinea. He died on April 27, 1972, in a hospital in Bucharest, Romania, while receiving medical treatment for prostate cancer.

Years later, after the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah, declassified U.S. documents confirm the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) played a pivotal role in the 1966 overthrow of Ghana’s first president.