The moment that the topic of the pre-European African past is raised, many individuals are concerned for various reasons to know about the existence … - Walter Rodney

In brutally suppressing the Maji Maji War in and in attempting genocide against the of (South-West Africa), the German ruling class were getting the experience which they later applied against the Jews and against German workers and progressives.

During the colonial period, the forms of political subordination in Africa were obvious. There were governors, colonial officials, and police. In politically independent African states, the metropolitan capitalists have to insure favorable political decisions by remote control. So they set up their political puppets in many parts of Africa, who shamelessly agree to compromise with the vicious apartheid regime of South Africa when their masters tell them to do so. [...] The presence of a group of African sell-outs is part of the definition of underdevelopment. Any diagnosis of underdevelopment in Africa will reveal not just low per capita income and protein deficiencies, but also the gentlemen who dance in , , and when music is played in Paris, London, and New York.

West Africans had developed metal casting to a fine artistic perfection in many parts of Nigeria, but when it came to the meeting with Europe, beautiful bronzes were far less relevant than the crudest cannon.