Pols 102, part 3: The Global South

Just one short essay left here. Gonna roll hardcore and not even proofread.

5. Consider our discussion of cases in the Global South:  Mexico, Brazil, India, Nigeria, and South Africa. Choose any three of these countries and discuss the institutions of colonialism as they pertain to political, economic, and cultural challenges in their post-independence period.

The nations of Brazil, Nigeria, and South Africa are an ideal set of cases to explore with regards to colonial vs independent eras. There are colonial institutions shared between the three that have had entirely different repercussions upon them in modern times. Externally-dependent resource trap economies, a history with the slave trade, and comingled racial or ethnic populations each contribute to the colonial histories involved and provide approximate starting points from which we can observe. That each of the three were colonized by different European empires speaks to the formative influence of the imperial cultures, as we examine how different solutions have produced different problems on fundamental levels for these countries.

Economically, these three nations were designed to support the treasuries of their colonizers- Brazil for Portugal, Nigeria for Britain, and much of South Africa for the Dutch. Cash crops like sugar cane in Brazil demanded slave labor that increased the population, but these crops would not necessarily return any profit without the participation of Portugal’s buyers. The slave trade passing through Nigeria consumed entire communities of workers and left the nation vulnerable to even greater foreign influence. Dutch posts along the South African coast were dependent on passing vessels for trade with distant nations- wealth was not generated as much from South Africa’s own development as much as it was that of their trading partners. Modern economies in these nations remain limited in scope; a mercantilist boom fueled by mineral wealth in Brazil has since fizzled (O’Neil, Fields, & Share, 2018, p. 622), an artificial wage boom in South Africa has been legislated away (O’Neil, Fields, & Share, 2018, p. 656), and many people of Nigeria are governed as much by Shell Oil as they are their own representatives (“Poison Fire”, 2008).

African slaves brought to the Americas by the Portuguese for Brazilian labor encountered a situation unlike their brethren in the British colonies. Rather than maintain a strict separation, races in Brazil intermarried often. The liberal approach to interracial relationships has contributed to a large mixed-race population (O’Neil, Fields, & Share, 2018, p. 604), but the nation’s president has always been white. The slaves imported into South Africa by the Dutch were in low enough numbers and the trade discontinued early enough that there are few lasting scars from the industry. The Dutch Afrikaners however maintained a separation between themselves and the native African populace, and through the Boer wars would fight for their own agendas on South African soil (O’Neil, Fields, & Share, 2018, p. 632). The integration of races in Brazil may be a contributing factor in why there have been few racial challenges over the descent of the President (O’Neil, Fields, & Share, 2018, p. 621), while the outright segregation in South Africa may have been a trigger for blacks to eventually stand up against apartheid’s imposed white dominance (O’Neil, Fields, & Share, 2018, p. 634). In Nigeria, the British slave trade removed over 3 million of the nation’s workforce for sale elsewhere. When the industry shut down, the disruption of the economic collapse provided a pretext for further British occupation. Their eventual departure left behind a developed infrastructure that would support a vibrant economy, and borders that would contain and see violence between ideologically opposed Christians and Muslims (O’Neil, Fields, & Share, 2018, p. 666-667).

These externally-applied borders have applied an additional complication in these nations’ histories. Britain’s presence in post-slavery Nigeria was successful in stabilizing and re-orienting their economy towards development. The institutions and western ideology brought with them have survived into the present; the Christian regions of the country adhere to Western conventions of democracy. That influence stopped however at the edge of the Hausa Fulani territory in the northern part of the country. The Muslim population there has resulted in a national legal code that compromises between Western common law and Middle-Eastern Sharia law. Ideological conflict has become physical violence, as the Muslim Boko Haram terrorists have waged a campaign to remove Western influences from Nigeria (“I Abducted Your Girls”, 2014). In South America, Brazil occupies a vast amount of land. The races and ethnicities that have intermarried have helped to stabilize relations between those living throughout 26 states and over 5,000 municipalities (O’Neil, Fields, & Share, 2018, p. 614). These borders have included resources that have become vital to the Brazilian economy, but the distances and population involved are a stretch for federal resources and infrastructure, and poverty is widespread. Some cultural differences in the area that would become South Africa would prove to be irreconcilable. The independent nations of Lesotho and Swaziland exist within the borders of South Africa- similar to the enclosed Native reservations in the United States, but actually sovereign.

Collectively, these three nations evolved at the behest of external colonial powers. With the passing of colonialism they have had to adapt their economies and political systems to support themselves. As the cultures developed by colonization attempt to shape their independent course, they continue to be influenced by their origins.