Imperialism by invitation

By Onwubiko Agozino

 

Imperialism by invitation is a common sign of neocolonialism under phantom bourgeois rulers. Maybe the US will invite Africa to come and strike their domestic terrorists too and Americans will not applaud such a foreign intervention at home no matter what for. 

 

If it is the abundant gold deposits in Northwest Nigeria that Trump is greedy for, he does not need to bomb Nigeria to get some for his family. If he wants to buy oil from the South East and Niger Delta, all he needs to do is place orders at fair market prices. There is no need for gangsterism by invitation, Africans are ready to sell their produce to interested buyers, we will not eat the gold nor drink the oil.

 

There is probably more killing of Christians in the US than in Nigeria and there is definitely more kidnapping in the US than in the whole of Africa. Kidnappings per Country 2025 Data pertaining to the number of people kidnapped around the world, sorted by the country in which the kidnapping took place... 

 

There is no example of the defeat of terrorism through militarism. All the armed conflicts in the world tend to be settled through dialogue around a conference table - Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, South Africa, Sudan, Congo, Sierra Leon, Liberia, Rwanda, Columbia, Northern Ireland, Ukraine, you name it. On the contrary, everywhere the US intervenes militarily, tends to be ruined back to the stone age. 

 

The solution towards silencing the guns, according to AU, is to recognize the militants as legitimate political parties. Let them run for office nonviolently in line with the African philosophy of Ubuntu, and if they win a local government area or a state or country, let them govern without corruption to show that they can govern better than the corrupt politicians and war mongers. 

 

Let there be gender parity is all offices; and let there be ranches where the cattle will be kept and food and water brought to them instead of fighting feudal wars over land at a time that the economy is evolving into an industrial one that depends on knowledge and not on land ownership. Defund the military and invest in education, agriculture, housing, roads, hospitals, technology, sports, arts, and culture.

 

Let the African states that committed genocide against their own citizens apologize to the victimized and offer reparative justice. Let Africans erase the colonial boundaries for a united States of Africa or the Peoples Republic of Africa. Never again should any republic of ants try to swallow the African elephant without facing insecticides. 

 

Donald Trump pardoned those who attacked law makers and law enforcement officers, he has no business bombing fishermen in the Caribbean and African youth - al Shabab - even if some Caribbean or African crooks invited him to do so in order to protect them while they loot the economies. Yes, Africa needs help from friends. What we need to see in Africa are more books and not bombs.

 

Down with imperialism! Down with recolonization! Decolonization Forever! 

 

Dr. Agozino is a Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies, Virginia Tech.

A Critique of Neo-Colonial Reason

 Scottish Criminology Seminar on Counter-Colonial Criminology

https://www.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR0k0ayhGKHHD-V5Gd-WAVK1wZ4HeDlJdsfNmYhzdkn0oaQBD-4C4djLeIQ&v=nd6mKmPfR9c&feature=youtu.be

Biko

Liberation Sociology

Colleagues,

I was told that Joe Feagin mentioned me in his Plenary at the Southern Sociological Society meeting last year. This year, the Third Edition of his Liberation Sociology text has just come out from Paradigm Publishers and I am one of the sociologists profiled multiple times in the book. As if this is not enough honor for me, I am credited in the book as developing a paradigm that the authors called 'Liberation Criminology: The Decolonization Paradigm' which was highlighted in a couple of pages of their book.

https://paradigm.presswarehouse.com/books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=409713

I recommend the book to all social scientists and all those working to make the world a better place. Here is my personal description of the book:

Numerous sociologists have exhaustively analyzed multiple systems of oppression that plague society in many ways; the entire point, however, to paraphrase some pioneer liberation sociologists, is to free the entire global society from all systems of oppression. Enter Liberation Sociology as a major contribution from a long line of critical activist intellectuals who were mostly sidelined by mainstream bourgeois sociologists until Joe Feagin and colleagues courageously came out with the eye-opening innovative eponymous text. Now in its third edition, it comes with extensive highlighting of even more contributions from hitherto relatively marginalized critical sociologists for the benefit of every discipline of social science and as a contribution to the liberation of the entire global society from all systems of oppression.

This kind of recognition did not happen overnight but resulted from the support of colleagues that deserve to be mentioned: Thanks to you all for making this happen especially in the ASC round-table review of Counter-Colonial Criminology that we later published in maiden issue of our journal, African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies, that I continue to edit as the founding editor-in-chief. Professor Ihekwoaba Onwudiwe started the ball rolling in 1998 when he reviewed my first book, Black Women and the Criminal Justice System (which started the Ashgate Publishers Interdisciplinary Research Series in Ethnic, Gender and Class Relations that I continue to edit), and identified what he called the Decolonization paradigm as my major contribution.

In 1995, an excerpt from the doctoral dissertation that led to the book was awarded the Mike Brake Memorial Prize in Radical Social Policy and Social work by an international jury of eminent scholars. This was followed by Professor Shaun Gabbidon in 2007 when he devoted several pages to my work in one of his book. Then Professor Emmanuel Onyeozili had the audacity  to mention my name in the same sentence as intellectual giants in his contribution to the round-table review. Dr. Mark Christian was generous in the African Studies Review for crediting Counter-Colonial Criminology with making an original contribution to the discipline of Black Studies even while critiquing the choice to focus on feminist theory rather than on Africana Womanism. Professor Temitope Oriola followed up (whilst still a graduate student) with that rave review essay on Counter-Colonial Criminology that credited me with founding Post-Colonial Criminology and colleagues from around the world kept it up as you can see from the current special issue of our journal honoring the 10th anniversary of Counter-colonial Criminology. May others support your work the way you have supported mine

Biko