Neocolonialism

An African history of cannabis offers fascinating and heartbreaking insights – an expert explains

Retrieved on: 
Saturday, December 30, 2023
Cannabis, Survivor, Society, Textbook, Ecology, Seed, Research, Smoking, Congo, Income, Human, Plant, Trauma, Anxiety, Post-traumatic stress disorder, Water, Edible, Association, History, Democratic republic, Neocolonialism, Drug

I’ve studied plants from perspectives ranging between ecology and cultural history, including obscure plants and more widely known ones, such as the African baobab.

Key Points: 
  • I’ve studied plants from perspectives ranging between ecology and cultural history, including obscure plants and more widely known ones, such as the African baobab.
  • Cannabis has a truly global history associated with a wide range of uses and meanings.
  • Cannabis has been under global prohibition for most of the last century, which has stunted understanding of the people-plant relationship.
  • Africa, Africans and people of the African diaspora have had crucial roles in the plant’s history that are mostly forgotten.

Medicinal potential

  • The African history of cannabis highlights its medicinal potential, a topic of growing interest.
  • The African past is absent from this medical literature, even though historical observers reported how Africans used cannabis in contexts that justify current interest in its medicinal potential.
  • Their experience justifies exploring cannabis as a potential treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and other conditions.

Exploitative labour

  • Africans have valued cannabis for centuries, though it’s difficult to know all the uses it had, because most weren’t documented.
  • Despite its limits, the historical record clearly shows that people used cannabis as a stimulant and painkiller in association with hard labour.
  • affirm that it wakes them up and warms their bodies, so that they are ready to start up with alacrity.

Africa’s place in global culture

  • I also study cannabis to understand how African knowledge has shaped global culture.
  • Oral histories from Brazil, Jamaica, Liberia and Sierra Leone tell that enslaved central Africans carried cannabis.
  • Around the Atlantic, many terms for cannabis trace to central Africa, including the global word marijuana, derived from Kimbundu mariamba.

Drug policy reforms

  • Drug policy reforms worldwide have opened lucrative, legal markets for cannabis.
  • Most African countries that have enacted drug-policy reforms – notable exceptions being South Africa and Morocco – did so only after foreign businesses paid for cannabis farming licences.
  • These drug-policy reforms don’t meaningfully extend to citizens of African countries.
  • Cannabis-policy reforms in Africa have mostly benefited investors and consumers in wealthy countries, not Africans, a textbook example of neocolonialism.

Way forward

  • In any case, the plant’s African past provides insight into both long-term and emerging issues in humanity’s interactions with cannabis.
  • This is why I study African cannabis.


Chris S. Duvall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Gabon coup has been years in the making: 3 key factors that ended the Bongo dynasty

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, September 5, 2023
Convalescence, Turkish coup d'état, Politics, Stroke, Central African, Neocolonialism, Cryptocurrency, Industrial design

Its roots can be traced back to when deposed president Ali Bongo Ondimba suffered a stroke in 2018.

Key Points: 
  • Its roots can be traced back to when deposed president Ali Bongo Ondimba suffered a stroke in 2018.
  • The group also includes powerful clan members inside the Bongo dynasty jockeying for position and wealth in the uncertainty surrounding Ali Bongo’s health.
  • Factors in favour of coup
    Before the coup d’état there was little hope that Ali Bongo Ondimba would lose his third re-election bid.
  • Now that a coup appears to have achieved that, it will be difficult for Albert Ondo Ossa to take office.

Children's book revolution: how East African women took on colonialism after independence

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, May 9, 2023
Male, Barbara Kimenye, University, Freedom, Habit, Friends, Malnutrition, Parent, East African Publishing House, Reading, African Writers Conference, Africanization, Woman, Adventure, History, Science, Mother, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Literature, Man, Publishing, Animal, Collection, Oxford University Press, Inequality, Colonialism, System, Missionary, Linguistics, Conference, Neocolonialism, Skin, Farm, Son, Makerere University, Book, Film industry, Toy, Entertainment

One of Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiongo’s most stringent criticisms of colonialism was the explosive effect of this “cultural bomb” in the classroom, as missionaries taught African students western cultures and foreign histories.

Key Points: 
  • One of Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiongo’s most stringent criticisms of colonialism was the explosive effect of this “cultural bomb” in the classroom, as missionaries taught African students western cultures and foreign histories.
  • What’s particularly noteworthy is that most of these authors of children’s books in this period were women.
  • Read more:
    The story of an African children's book that explains the science of skin colour

    As an historian of East Africa, these women writers and their children’s books formed part of my doctoral research.

The women writers of independence

    • The 1962 African Writers Conference was convened at Uganda’s Makerere College (today Makerere University).
    • The University of Nairobi’s English Department was dissolved in a 1968 revolution led by East African writers and thinkers.
    • Women writers were seldom published and often dismissed or even ridiculed.
    • Women writers took it upon themselves to educate children about independence and the meaning of decolonisation.

The Moses series

    • The Moses series was published between 1968 and 1987 by Oxford University Press.
    • Moses in Trouble, the fifth in the series, centres on an upheaval at Mukibi’s due to poor school meals.
    • Despite the seriousness of the topic, the narrative is humorous, and the Moses series remained popular for decades.

Folk tales

    • African folk tales were another popular literary genre for children.
    • One example is the collection East African Why Stories by Kenyan author Kola.
    • Reading traditional folk stories was a way for African children to remain in touch with their heritage, which the colonial education system effectively eradicated.

Why this matters

    • Fewer remember the role children’s book authors played in the Africanisation of written literature in the 1960s and 1970s – probably because most of them were women.
    • Looking beyond the texts discussed here, the women critiqued colonialism and neocolonialism, inequality, oppression, patriarchy and state authoritarianism, often representing marginalised communities.

BRICS is bringing the power of choice to Africa

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, April 15, 2021
International relations, Foreign relations, Countries, Foreign relations of Brazil, Foreign relations of China, Foreign relations of India, BRICS, Bric, Bric, South Africa, Neocolonialism

This implies stepping away from neocolonial patterns ensuring the dominance of the EU, UK and USA in Africa.

Key Points: 
  • This implies stepping away from neocolonial patterns ensuring the dominance of the EU, UK and USA in Africa.
  • The BRICS members are known for their significant influence on regional affairs.
  • Originally the first four were grouped as " BRIC " (or "the BRICs") before the induction of South Africa in 2010.
  • The BRICS have a combined area of 39,746,220 km2 (15,346,101.0 sq mi) and an estimated total population of about 3.21 billion, or about 26.656% of the world land surface and 41.53% of the world population.

BRICS is bringing the power of choice to Africa

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, April 15, 2021
International relations, Foreign relations, Countries, Foreign relations of Brazil, Foreign relations of China, Foreign relations of India, BRICS, Bric, Bric, South Africa, Neocolonialism

This implies stepping away from neocolonial patterns ensuring the dominance of the EU, UK and USA in Africa.

Key Points: 
  • This implies stepping away from neocolonial patterns ensuring the dominance of the EU, UK and USA in Africa.
  • The BRICS members are known for their significant influence on regional affairs.
  • Originally the first four were grouped as " BRIC " (or "the BRICs") before the induction of South Africa in 2010.
  • The BRICS have a combined area of 39,746,220 km2 (15,346,101.0 sq mi) and an estimated total population of about 3.21 billion, or about 26.656% of the world land surface and 41.53% of the world population.

How does China conduct international development cooperation? Here comes the most authoritative interpretation.

Retrieved on: 
Monday, February 1, 2021
Countries, East Asia, World, Neocolonialism, Religion in China, China, International development

How does China conduct international development cooperation?Here comes the most authoritative interpretation.

Key Points: 
  • How does China conduct international development cooperation?Here comes the most authoritative interpretation.
  • CHINA.COM.CN: We know that certain countries are questioning China's international development cooperation, saying that a stronger China is using international development cooperation as a tool to enhance its influence and promote neo-colonialism in Africa.
  • Tian Lin:The absurd claim that China is using international development cooperation to engage in so-called neo-colonialism doesn't hold water.
  • How does China conduct international development cooperation?