China and Europe trade accusations over the same colonialism in Africa

Africa, the mirror where China and Europe accuse each other of the same thing

What is worse for Africa: the memory of European colonialism or the present of Chinese investment? The question is not new, but a meme has put it back at the center of the conversation. Some argue that, on the historical balance, Beijing's presence is infinitely better than that of the Europeans: there were no hand fruta, no civil wars deliberately sown, no famines. Others reply that this reading overlooks the modern slavery of usury and that China has its own unfinished business, with Tibet as an example. The discussion quickly slides into historical "what about you": Berber raids, the sultan's harems, Spanish or French governments.

China as a better colonizer or as a different one?

The argument in China's favor does not claim it is selfless. The sharpest formulation is that it is not cutting off hands or plunging countries into civil wars either. The rebuttal comes quickly: Europeans did not do that as a general colonial practice either, and financial control has been the most effective tool of domination, a dependency that needs neither armies nor mutilations. In the middle sits the view that the right, at least in caricature, would accept returning to Africa the talent and resources that were expropriated.

Two hundred years of the same song

The closest thing to an agreement in this Twitter war is that we have spent 200 years going around the same old refrain. The meme, whatever its slant, is made on a Mac 4K, and that detail is not trivial: the debate over who exploited better is conducted from the unquestioned privilege of the present. The final irony is that Spain's problem, like Africa's, remains the same as ever: its rulers.