As they say, history is written by the victors; and further to the point, some parts of history are seldom written about at all. The question that people should want to know the answer to, is how is it that the continent of Africa ever became colonized? The answer to that seminal question is contained within that Berlin conference. At the conference, fourteen European nations, as well as the United States, got together to discuss, the necessary “civilization” of the African continent, as well as the intended successful exploitation of that same continent for the benefit of those that would be colonizers of such. In other words, Africa became colonized on behalf of those European nations, in which, the African people themselves had absolutely no say in the matter, and no seat at the table; and of which, by the sword, if so necessary, those Africans would be held perpetually subservient to those that claimed the right to take what they considered to be of value from those same Africans.
In those types of situations, in which, a people, do not have the proper war materials, structure, or the resources to defend themselves, and of which the only powers in play in the world, are the very ones deciding one’s fate, then there are really no viable options available to those people, which will not result in the wholesale destruction of one’s society, other than to basically comply with the demands, so being imposed by those conquering nations. The Berlin conference was an especially heavy blow for Africa to suffer from, for though Africa had been exploited for the white man’s benefit for centuries, it wasn’t until this conference and thereby its aftermath, that the Europeans went beyond the coasts and ports of Africa and thereby into the wholesale interior of this continent.
It must be remembered, that in an era, in which, it was believed that civilization must be defined by European proclivities and beliefs, this thus meant for indigenous Africans, that their culture, their language, their governance, their laws, and their religions, must thereby be subsumed by European preferences, on behalf of what those Europeans believed to be the accouterments of what it meant to be civilized. So too, in the lust for profit and the great natural resources that Africa so represented, the lives of Africans were for the most part, considered to be expendable, if there were not suitably compliant to the demands so being imposed upon them.
Not too surprisingly, at a time, in which we had those not of African descent in power, and also that were not particularly concerned about the identities or the historic background of the denizens of that continent or its indigenous institutions, so of; that therefore those that were in charge and therefore in control of those that were so being colonized, subsequently created artificial country boundaries that served to divide the African continent per the preferences of those that were its conquerors, in a way and manner that perhaps made sense to those Europeans and none else. This thus meant, that a lot of the ills that plague Africa today in the sense of intra-country tribal and religious conflict, can be laid at the feet of those Europeans; along with the fact that since in order for this colonization to work effectively for those Europeans, they also made it their point, to structure the governance of those nations in an authoritarian manner in which, democracy or even the hint of such, was effectively snuffed out.