May 5, 2026
Introduction
The shift from a “rules-based” global order to a “might is right” self-ordained power that affects the entire world is the most severe challenge the global South, and particularly Africa, faces today. While many African leaders, scholars, and politicians have criticized the manner in which the existing rules-based order was founded, the emerging new system, designed by the few powerful, is worse. It is discriminatory, non-judicious, and exclusionary, and characterized by raw power and unilateralism. It presents unprecedented challenges to Sub-Saharan Africa in particular. (1) With the failure of multilateralism, the inability to enforce decisions of the ICJ, ICC, resolutions of the UN, violations of the UN to provide humanitarian assistance, to stop atrocities, human rights violations, wars across Africa and the Middle East, is the clearest manifestation of the collapse of the rule-based international order. The exchange of international law to a world of “might makes right” will likely return Africa to the days of the scramble for Africa through a strategy where Africa’s sovereignty is ignored to advance the strategic, labor, resource, and consumer needs of global powers. There will be no legal or other means to deter the unbridled plundering through asymmetric threats, imposed land and resource deals, economic pressure, and eventually transform African states into full-blown neo-colonies. The traditional values and spiritual restraints that once held our communities together are being bulldozed by a global order where might creates right, and souls are traded for property. Africa needs to wake up now, while its marginalization is out in the open. If we don’t, we have truly lost our minds. We are losing the game. But if we say ‘No’ and rise, refuse to live only for today’s needs, we can secure a destiny in which the next generation finally owns their pride and true independence.
Being Black
It is generally understood that Africa is the “Cradle of Humanity. Back then, there were no black people, just people. Black was never a color, but the origin of all colors.
“As any rainbow will demonstrate, black isn’t on the visible spectrum of color. All other colors are reflections of light, except black. Black is the absence of light. Unlike white and other hues, pure black can exist in nature without any light at all.” (2) While science defines black as the absence of light or the absorption of all colors, the view emphasizes black as foundational, creative, and powerful, ” mother of all colors.” It is used as a neutral pigment that, when added to others, provides depth, contrast, and intensity. (3)
The history of Black people is the history of the world. African history in the framework of the colonial era is, as Atlantis Browder wrote, ‘like judging a 1,000- page book by its last five pages,” or to refer to African history in two parts: colonial and pre-colonial. Africa was there before Europe and America, and therefore, its history should be integrated realistically into one wholesome civilization. The colonial approach centers the European experience and treats thousands of years of complex African development as a mere ‘prologue’ to the arrival of outsiders. Attitudes remain entrenched in post-colonial Africa, and Afrocentric focus on Africa is defined only by an unrealistic categorization of the continent into two historical time frames, Colonial and Pre-colonial; by what it is and not by what it was and what it had created, before their invasion.
In the bigger context of history, Africa has always been ahead of Europe. It is an important affirmation of facts for younger people who have been misguided by Eurocentric narratives. Numerous records and archaeological findings, historical and academic references, prove the existence of highly developed African civilizations forming the bedrock of current inventions across all sectors of our current world advancement, including political, economic, medical, spiritual, and educational systems. Walter Rodney (Guyanese author and activist) argues that Africa had a path of development that was roughly parallel to Europe’s until the Atlantic slave trade and that subsequent colonization forcibly diverted African raw material and labor to drive European industrialization. In John Thornton’s Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, he provides a powerful argument
that pre-colonial (i.e., ancient) African communities were militarily and politically sophisticated. He highlights that initial interactions with Europeans were often on African terms, with African rulers managing trade and diplomacy as equals or superiors. (4). Heart of Darkness, published in 1899, centers on Joseph Conrad’s fictional character, traveling up the Congo River, which he calls the Heart of Africa, and concludes that this was indeed The Other World. Conrad uses Africa as a “place of negations” or a “metaphysical battlefield,” a primitive space that completely negates his perception of humanity. In the novel, he presents Africa as the direct opposite of Europe, and projects the image of Africa as Achebe Chinua writes in his review as the Other World; “the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization, a place where a man’s vaunted intelligence and refinement are finally mocked by triumphant bestiality. The book opens on the River Thames, tranquil, resting peacefully “at the decline of day after ages of good service done to the race that populated its banks. But the actual story takes place on the River Congo, the very antithesis of the Thames. The River Congo is quite decidedly not a River Emeritus. It has rendered no service and enjoys no old-age pension. We are told that “going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginning of the world.” (5)
1899 ‘Heart of Darkness’ and 2026 ‘Shithole Countries’
After the decolonization of Africa and the creation of 54 states, and 126 years after The Heart of Darkness was published, these states are now being labelled as ‘Shithole Countries’. The latter remark of targeting African countries clearly echoes Conrad’s disdain by framing them as inferior and not fit to migrate to Africa. Many liberal scholars of this century argue that while such attitudes are expressed more subtly and the methods of control changed from physical chains to economic dependence, the looting and exploitation of resources and the suppression of black people at every opportunity are still there for every black man and woman to see and experience in Europe and America. “Shithole” has even crossed the line of subtle racism and added fuel, making it look like it is an accepted reference to African countries. What they call the Global South ( Black Africa) has always been considered as The Other World, treated under different standards, and held hostage to its economic needs under a global, monetary and security order, territorial partitions, under the Berlin Conference of 1884 (The Scramble for Africa) and the Breton Woods Agreement signed in in July 1944 by 44 Allied nations (with no black African Representations), United Nations Charter signed in June 24 1945, with only two African states, one ancient free country just liberated from Italian occupation with support of allied forces (Ethiopia) and the other nominally independent but under the colonial rule of the USA (Liberia). Under these arrangements, Africa has been there for the taking since 1884. The continent copied political systems from European countries. The system of government and the new global order introduced a neo-colonial control, including economic and political interference, cultural subjugation, and power imbalances. It also enabled foreign aid and trade, multinational corporations, and international financial institutions to perpetuate colonial policies. This truth has been established and echoed in the halls of the United Nations and at all opportunities, told by most UN Secretaries General and members of the UN of the contemporary world, who are now 193. Recently, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres has argued that colonialism left a “poisoned legacy” of institutionalized racism and white supremacy that still restricts the potential of people of African descent. He stated in 2025 that “decolonization did not free African countries… from the structures and prejudices.” (6)
This is the concluding paragraph
The best way for African democracies to secure their interests in a transactional world is to trust each other more and present a more united face to the outside world: they need to cooperate to exercise greater influence than any of them can individually. Cooperation will also be the best way to secure as good a return for their raw materials as possible, attract increased foreign investment, and build a local market that will support a manufacturing base as a way of diversifying their economies. Only in this way will they be able to respond to the demands at home and resist the pressures from external powers abroad. As the African Transformation Index from the Ghana-based think tank ACET indicates, many African countries still need to establish the core economic foundations necessary for accelerated growth. This needs good diplomacy as well as sound economic policies. Only by accelerating integration and deepening cooperation can African countries turn today’s shifting geopolitics into lasting autonomy and prosperity and secure a more influential place in the global order. In its current shift, Africa should no longer be fighting for a seat at a crowded, fragmented table; it must be capable of defining its own strategy by identifying the leverage needed to shape the global transformation. A continent that strategically invests in its young populations today will define global innovation and competitiveness tomorrow. The continent’s ultimate challenge is creating systems that nurture leadership pipelines capable of converting demographic momentum into sustained growth. This requires evolving the institutional power centers—both at home and abroad—that were built for an era that no longer exists. In the emerging world order where “might makes right” threatens to eclipse the rule of law, Africa stands at a critical juncture. The continent can no longer afford to be a spectator in a global landscape fragmented by great power competition and the erosion of international norms. To move from the periphery to the center of global influence, Africa must leverage its demographic and resource potential to demand a strategy based on agency rather than dependency.
This is part of a 21-page article. Full article available here: https://www.africaisss.org/_files/ugd/bbb94b_ea7ad8726cae41558ae6917af5c6 7c0f.pdf”
Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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