THE mad, racist “scramble for Africa,” by European nations was formalised at the Berlin conference which concluded just over 140 years ago.

The Berlin carve-up of the African continent began on November 15 1884 and ended with an agreement on February 26 1885.

European nations, which during the 19th century were the planet’s dominant powers, were looking for more ways of exploiting Africa’s rich resources for their newly growing industrial sectors.

The Europeans were looking to further embed the exploitative trade arrangements that had existed between the two continents for decades. Also, of course, the Europeans had already enslaved millions of Africans to enrich their coffers. 

Now the Europeans wanted to exercise much more direct control of Africa’s rich diversity of natural resources.

There was racist talk about wanting to “civilise” Africa, but this was in essence part of the justification for the continued horrendous treatment of Africans as free or forced labour.

The reality was that the Europeans wanted the resources and they saw the value in not having to compete — or fight — with each other to get them. 

But before the Berlin deal they certainly did squabble over who was entitled to what in a continent that was not theirs to argue over.

Britain, Portugal, France, Germany and King Leopold II of Belgium began sending scouts to secure trade and sovereignty treaties with local leaders, buying or simply staking flags and laying claim to vast expanses of territory criss-crossing the continent rich with resources from palm oil to rubber.

Rows soon broke out between the major powers. The French, for example, clashed with Britain over several west African territories, and again with King Leopold over central African regions.

To avoid an all-out war over Africa between the rival European nations, all stakeholders agreed to the Berlin meeting to set out common terms and “manage” the colonisation process.

Needless to say Africans had no say whatsoever in this. No African nations were invited or represented at the Berlin conference.

On the conference agenda was the clear mapping of and agreement over who owned which region of the continent.

Lines were drawn across Africa that took no notice of traditional or tribal considerations. The only thing that mattered to the Western powers was a carving up of the continent to maximise profit.

Four of the European powers — France, Germany, Britain and Portugal — already controlled vast swathes of African territory. But others, such as Belgium’s King Leopold, also wanted a piece of the action.

Of the 14 nations present at the conference, nine left with no territory at all. This reflected the pre-World War I dominance of the western Europeans.

The countries that went home with empty pockets were Austria-Hungary, Denmark, Russia, Italy, Sweden-Norway, Spain, Netherlands, the Ottoman empire (Turkey) and, notably, the United States.

The carve-up of the African continent internationalised free trade on the Congo and Niger river basins and recognised King Leopold’s personally owned International Congo Society.

Leopold claimed he was carrying out humanitarian work. It was an area that became known as the Congo Free State. 

It would suffer some of the worst brutalities of colonisation ever known, with hundreds of thousands worked to death on rubber plantations, or punished with limb amputations.

The Berlin deal bound all parties to protect the “native tribes … their moral and material wellbeing,” as well as further suppress the slave trade which was officially abolished in 1807/1808, but which was still taking place illegally.

It also stated that merely staking flags on newly acquired territory would not be grounds for ownership, but that “effective occupation” meant successfully establishing administrative colonies in the regions.

Western “ownership” of African territories was not finalised at the conference, but after several bilateral events that followed. Liberia was the only country not partitioned because it had gained formal independence from the US.

Ethiopia was briefly invaded by Italy, but resisted colonisation for the most part. After the German and Ottoman empires fell following World War I, a map closer to what we now know as Africa would emerge.

Even that map is portrayed by most cartographers across the west as showing Europe far larger than it is and Africa, of course, far smaller. But the lines drawn on the map have remained largely unchanged since the conference.

While only about 20 per cent of Africa — mainly the coastal parts of the continent — had already been claimed by European powers as theirs before the conference, by 1890 about 90 per cent of African territory was colonised, including inland nations.

The conference did not begin the process of colonisation in Africa but it certainly accelerated the process.

But what was the impact of the conference in real terms?

While it meant the next stage in the rape, looting and pillaging of Africa and the erasing of African culture it did not mean the end of resistance to colonial rule.

From the first instance of the exploitation of Africans and the racism used to justify it there has been resistance.

This racism has not just disappeared as the world has moved on to the next stage of imperialist domination of Africa. It has continued to impact the way that the Western powers treat Africa.

The same racism that enabled the Western powers to carve up the African continent without consideration for Africans is the same racism that allows Africa to be treated today as a mere extraction zone and its people as cheap labour to secure the valuable minerals needed to maintain Western wealth.

It is all too easy to see events such as the Berlin conference as being so far away in history that it bears no relation to events of today. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The identification of Africans as inferior to whites stems from enslavement and colonialism. The West continues to reap the benefits of those supremacist beliefs today.

If Africa is to arise from the exploitation of the West then it must reclaim its history and with it a pride in Africa as a continent and Africans as a people.

I think the story of the remaining three quarters of the 21st century will be the rise of Africa and Africans on the continent as well as across the diaspora.

Part of this rebirth must be a reclamation of Africa by removing the lines imposed on the continent at the Berlin conference.

Without this the debate about the future of Africa will continue to take place within the constraints created by those who led the racist scramble for the continent at the Berlin conference.

The very beautiful, rich and diverse continent of Africa needs to be brave enough to shift the paradigm and kick-start its future on its own terms.