RE: ||NaijaObserver|| Re: PhotoNews: Gov. Aregbesola at London School of Economics Africa Summit

[Rex Marinus]

 I have never heard that the Mayor of London came to the University of Ibadan or the University of Nigeria, or the University of Legon, of the Fourah Bay College, to address a European Summit. So, the question is why? Why do Africans do these things to themselves? Part of the issues in Africa is the continued "colonization" of the African mind. Achebe's retort to the Swedish academy in the 1980s that it was time for Africans to begin discussions of strategic African affairs in African capitals and institutions father than in foreign cities remains apt. These "summits" are jamborees, and they hardly speak to any strategic issues on Africa. But of course, people like Aregbesola do not yet get it. A man may occupy a high office, but only also act as a "veranda boy."
Obi Nwakanma
 

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To: topc...@yahoo.com
From: NaijaO...@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:44:29 +0100
Subject: ||NaijaObserver|| Re: PhotoNews: Gov. Aregbesola at London School of Economics Africa Summit

 

Oga Joe,

I am abiodun KOMOLAFE.

First and foremost, 'e ku ojo meta, Sir.'

But, don't you think something is wrong, somewhere? 

Like play, like play, Aregbesola take am win your man, Iyiola Eru'ku Omisore, B. Eng; M. Eng; PhD; EFCC; CCB, for Osun. 

'Aregbesola no know book'. Still, he spearheaded efforts that's now sent your man, Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan (PhD) packing from Aso Rock. 

'The man no sabi book'. Still, he is governing well and his people are, with each passing day, appreciating his efforts.

This 'Ija ilara' sef! Oga Joe, wetin again you want jare? 

Anyway, may God save us from ourselves!

abiodun KOMOLAFE, AMNIM,

020, Okenisa Street,
PO Box 153,
Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State.

 

Tel:- +234 803 361 4419

        +234 809 861 4418

Alternative E-mail: ijebu...@gmail.com

 

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                                                   Because He lives, the end is not now!

Sent from my iPad

On Apr 19, 2015, at 18:20, topcrest topcrest <topc...@yahoo.com> wrote:

abiodun KOMOLAFE

Do you have a video/audio of his presentation? I'd love to hear what Ogbeni was  speaking about.

His listeners , including the VP elect, seem to have this quizzical look on their faces --like heck what is this guy talking about? 

Joe

On Sunday, April 19, 2015 5:45 PM, 'abiodun KOMOLAFE' via OkonkwoNetworks <okonkwo...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

PhotoNews: Gov. Aregbesola at London School of Economics Africa Summit

  <image1.JPG>

The Panel on Innovative Governance: From left; Mimi Fawaz, CNN/VoxAfrica TV(Chair/Moderator of the Panel), and Speakers: Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, Governor, State of Osun; Dr Mamphela Ramphele, South African Activist; Dr Nkosana Moyo, Founder, Mandela Institute for Development Studies and Former Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the African Development Bank.

<LSE-OsunStateA4.jpg>

From Left: Dr Lesley Drake, Executive Director, Partnership for Child Development, Imperial College London, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, Vice President-Elect; and Gov. Aregbesola

<LSE-OsunStateA6.jpg>
From Left: Dr Drake; Prof. Osinbajo; and Gov. Aregbesola

abiodun KOMOLAFE, AMNIM,

020, Okenisa Street,
PO Box 153,
Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State.

 

Tel:- +234 803 361 4419

        +234 809 861 4418

Alternative E-mail: ijebu...@gmail.com

 

                                                      -------------------------------------

                                                   Because He lives, the end is not now!

abiodun KOMOLAFE, AMNIM,

020, Okenisa Street,
PO Box 153,
Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State.

 

Tel:- +234 803 361 4419

        +234 809 861 4418

Alternative E-mail: ijebu...@gmail.com

 

                                                      -------------------------------------

                                                   Because He lives, the end is not now!

Sent from my iPad

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[Mobolaji Aluko]

Obi Nwakanma:

The analogy that you are using to skeptically pooh-pooh Aregbesola's attendance at this Summit is not correct.

If the Federal University Otuoke School of Economics Europe Summit chooses to INVITE the Mayor of London and the PM-Elect of Britain and Germany to attend, and they agree, then is there a problem with that?

The fact of the matter  is that VARIOUS universities in Nigeria should take it upon themselves to develop expertise in KEY foreign countries or regions - Japan Studies (not necessarily language, but policy), Russian affairs, American Studies, etc., and INVITE experts from these countries periodically to their campuses to interact  with (graduate) students and scholars alike, to give some direction to how our country should relate with those countries, and give us a vista into how they are thinking in the future.    The University of Birmingham School of Oriental and African Studies has LONG been doing those kinds of things, as well as the  Institute for African Studies, RAS, Moscow, etc.

So the answer to "why (not)?" is not "colonization", but our scholarly lack of inattention to the world around us, leaving it all to the NIIA (Nigerian Institute of International Affairs), and certainly not only the Embassies in those countries,  to do all the heavy lifting.

And there you have it.

Bolaji Aluko

VIce-Chancellor

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[Anunoby, Ogugua]

“The fact of the matter  is that VARIOUS universities in Nigeria should take it upon themselves to develop expertise in KEY foreign countries or regions…”

 

BA

 

To what useful purpose one may ask?

Has any consideration been given to the budget implications of such pursuits by cash strapped Nigerian universities that are forever grossly underfunded and do not seem to be able to fulfill their basic mission? Grants may be suggested as the answer but whose grants and agenda?

Why is the  “development of expertise” on “key foreign countries and regions” such a priority that scarce funds should be allocated to the cause at the expense for example, of situating a functional, well-resourced and laboratories and libraries at Nigerian universities? What might be the measurable pay-off of such costly enterprise which as everyone should know, may never be undertaken for its own sake or to be like the Joneses. What are the likely opportunity costs?

Global trading and dominator countries have good reasons to develop the said expertise. They need them. They profit from them. Why invest in global strategy studies if you are not a global operator and have no realistic chance of becoming one in the near, some might say distant feature? Achebe’s dictum to the Swedish academy  as per Obi Nwakanma below is still good and useful advice.

It may be argue that it might even be understandable that a Mayor of London addresses a European Summit if one was held in a. African University. His country will earn great dividend form it. The more important point though is that such a summit is very unlikely to happen. Europeans know that African leaders are more likely to attend such a summit and not pay close attention, if it was held in Europe and not in Africa. Europe continues to have strategic interests in Africa. Africa does not in Europe. The situation for over five hundred years has been that Europe mostly always takes from Africa and Africa mostly gives to Europe.

African countries are not global players. They have no ambition, drive, or capacity to be. Their leaders are too soaked in oppressing their citizens and stealing from them to be bothered by strategic global power and trade concerns. They do not think as leaders concerned about their countries’ global role and success do. African leaders for example, attend summits in Europe and North America to  emboss their resume and shop. European leaders visit Africa to enrich and strengthen their countries. They collect gifts and have no need to go shopping

Big dreams are heart-warming but do not always make good and timely economic and political sense.

 

oa

[Rex Marinus]

Ok, Dr. Aluko. Fair point.
Obi Nwakanma

 

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Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 20:15:44 +0100
Subject: [africanworldforum] Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - RE: ||NaijaObserver|| Re: PhotoNews: Gov. Aregbesola at London School of Economics Africa Summit
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[Segun Ogungbemi]

"The University of Birmingham School of Oriental and African Studies"

I think you mean School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

[Samuel Zalanga]

I absolutely agree with Professor Aluko's observation below. No one here of course doubts the question of colonialism and its impact on African societies past and present. But in response to a statement like: "Part of the issues in Africa is the continued "colonization" of the African mind. Achebe's retort to the Swedish academy in the 1980s that it was time for Africans to begin discussions of strategic African affairs in African capitals and institutions father than in foreign cities remains apt" I have this to say.

Colonization is a function of power differentials (broadly conceptualized) and the desire and willingness to use such power differentials to dominate others i.e., "Libido Dominandi." Once the power and the means are there, what remains is the political will to act. Unfortunately,  there is no any indication in history that simply because people are Black Africans they are immune from this human problem or condition.

 In its essence, colonization does not have to be Europe vs. Africa. Indeed, there is a whole body of literature on "internal colonialism." Even within Africa, within African countries and within the same ethnic group, "colonization" can take place in so far as there are power differentials and the powers that be have the desire and the determination to use their power to dominate others. Such a problem is not an essentially European problem but a human problem which has manifested itself in different times and social spaces in different forms.

Across Africa, I see ruling classes using different means to mentally colonize ordinary people either on religious, ethnic or regional lines. There is nothing to suggests that educated Africans simply because they are educated are inherently immune from this kind of moral corruption that comes when power differentials and political will are combined to justify the domination of others. Indeed, many of the African elites including the educated ones have supported leaders in Africa whose policies are not aimed at liberating Africans but making them beggars , subservient and colonizing their minds to believe doing so is right because the elites come from the same ethnic and religious group, or region.

In one conference I attended, a lecturer from Nigeria asked me the difference between Republicans and Democrats. And he is a political scientist. This is something basic that a political scientist in a developing country should know just because of the influence of the U.S. on global affairs. For the African to liberate his or her continent, he or she needs to know not only the history of his or her continent but the evolution of the mindset, history and culture of others and other regions. This is particularly important in this era of globalization. When I did research in Malaysia, I met a White professor from one of the state Universities of California who conducted research on Maitatsine in Kano. When he heard I was in Kuala Lumpur he said he wanted us to meet. We met and he spoke perfect Hausa language to me. He knew a lot about the country.

So I truly agree with Professor Aluko that Nigerian Universities need experts on different regions and countries. I would want them to know the key and influential social forces in the politics and economies of various countries and regions, starting with different African regions. How many West Africans know very much about the nuances or issues in East African politics or South Africa? By acquiring such knowledge African scholars an debate westerners on their own turf. Doing so does not mean Africans feel inferior about themselves. Westerners study other regions and become experts for the same purpose and not because they feel inferior. I think Manthia Diawara calls this "Reversed Anthropology."

Sometimes I feel that if there was serious study of Latin American development experience, Africans should have avoided some of their mistakes if they were very serious. And learning about East and Southeast Asia can make a huge difference in terms of understanding how we compare to other regions. Lee Kuan Yew was trained at Cambridge University but yet looked at the Westerners in the eye and told them that their system is not the only possible one in the world. He came up with a kind of hybrid of his own and succeeded. But one cannot do that without deep and serious knowledge and reflection. It is an easy position to take in our world today. 

Nyerere's numerous speeches and writings show that he was influenced by what he learned in the West but he did not see that as something that he would replicate in his country or Africa verbatim. He saw his country in a different light after learning about great social changes that took place in Europe.  Nigerian universities in my view should have experts on themes like Civil Rights, Wall Street business practices, the American educational system etc. etc. Doing all this is not because of inferiority complex but one can describe it as strategic interests. They do not need someone to lecture them on these topics because they would have studied the topics on their own. If they publish on these subjects, they can help ordinary Africans  see how they can learn from the American experience and disabuse their minds of the perfection of the U.S.. I personally I have appreciated learning so much about the civil rights and how it could be used to inspire people in Africa. And if one understands Wall Street very well, there is no reason why Africans should embrace free market capitalism as a panacea to their development problems given how there is a silent takeover in the U.S., where corporations are having more rights than ordinary citizens. Moreover Wall Street can get rich at the expense of ordinary Americans.  There are also interesting lessons to draw from the transition experience of former communist countries.

Samuel

--

Samuel Zalanga
Department of Anthropology, Sociology & Reconciliation Studies
Bethel University, 3900 Bethel Drive #24
Saint Paul, MN 55112.
Office Phone: 651-638-6023

[Ibukunolu A Babajide]

Neither have we heard that Nigeria created the UK by force of arms and later colonised and exploited it for over 100 years!

Cheers.

IBK

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[Mobolaji Aluko]

Segun Ogungbemi:

You are absolutely right....SOAS, University of London (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOAS,_University_of_London) , not U. Birmingham.  What exists  at the University of Birminghan is CWAS  - Center for West African Studies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_of_West_African_Studies).

Thanks for the correction.

Bolaji Aluko

On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 12:40 AM, Segun Ogungbemi <segun...@gmail.com> wrote:

"The University of Birmingham School of Oriental and African Studies"
I think you mean School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

> On Apr 19, 2015, at 8:15 PM, Mobolaji Aluko <alu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The University of Birmingham School of Oriental and African Studies has

[Anunoby, Ogugua]

." Even within Africa, within African countries and within the same ethnic group, "colonization" can take place in so far as there are power differentials and the powers that be have the desire and the determination to use their power to dominate others…
“Across Africa, I see ruling classes using different means to mentally colonize ordinary people either on religious, ethnic or regional lines.”

 

SZ

 

To dominate is not to colonize.

I see a difference.. Colonization means a group migrating, settling in, occupying territory, and establishing and keeping cultural, economic, political, and economic control of another group. It seems to me that to colonize, the colonizers must be foreign in the sense that they are not inherently a part of the group being colonized.

Do people dominate others? Yes they do. Is all domination colonizing? In my opinion, No. “Power differentials” are not unusual. They arise all the time and cause some to dominate or seek to dominate others even within the same group. That is not colonization. Not all power differentials result in colonization.

Colonization is usually crushing. It transforms the colonized culturally, economically, mentally, politically, and psychologically. It leaves boot prints in the mind, that may take generations to erase. In many cases, it implants such fear of the colonizers in the colonized, that the colonized accept the “inferiorness” of not only their culture, institutions, and systems, but also they themselves as a people, to the colonizers. Colonization is a humiliating and terrible experience suffered by a people on account of the takeover of their land, abrogation of their institutions and systems by colonizers, and subordination of the culture.

 

oa

[Mobolaji Aluko]

OA:

Prof. Samuel Zalanga has beautifully responded to your question "To what useful purpose one may ask (should VARIOUS universities in Nigeria ... take it upon themselves to develop expertise in KEY foreign countries or regions?)"  even before you asked it! :-)  I have copied his response into the appendix below - so I don't have much to add except to point you to  to SOAS, University of London's website (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOAS,_University_of_London), which gives you the size and impact that the School has made over the years. (I mean SOAS University of London, not University of Birmingham, in my earlier intervention, correction thanks to Prof. Segun Ogungbemi.)

As to your broad-brush (and I would say cynical) claims that you made below eg 

QUOTE

African countries are not global players. They have no ambition, drive, or capacity to be. Their leaders are too soaked in oppressing their citizens and stealing from them to be bothered by strategic global power and trade concerns. They do not think as leaders concerned about their countries’ global role and success do. African leaders for example, attend summits in Europe and North America to  emboss their resume and shop. European leaders visit Africa to enrich and strengthen their countries. They collect gifts and have no need to go shopping

Big dreams are heart-warming but do not always make good and timely economic and political sense

UNQUOTE

I do not share them all, nor do I believe that we are perpetually condemned to such.

And there you have it.

Bolaji Aluko

PS: The Zalanga response:

QUOTE

I absolutely agree with Professor Aluko's observation below. No one here of course doubts the question of colonialism and its impact on African societies past and present. But in response to a statement like: "Part of the issues in Africa is the continued "colonization" of the African mind. Achebe's retort to the Swedish academy in the 1980s that it was time for Africans to begin discussions of strategic African affairs in African capitals and institutions father than in foreign cities remains apt" I have this to say.

Colonization is a function of power differentials (broadly conceptualized) and the desire and willingness to use such power differentials to dominate others i.e., "Libido Dominandi." Once the power and the means are there, what remains is the political will to act. Unfortunately,  there is no any indication in history that simply because people are Black Africans they are immune from this human problem or condition. 

 In its essence, colonization does not have to be Europe vs. Africa. Indeed, there is a whole body of literature on "internal colonialism." Even within Africa, within African countries and within the same ethnic group, "colonization" can take place in so far as there are power differentials and the powers that be have the desire and the determination to use their power to dominate others. Such a problem is not an essentially European problem but a human problem which has manifested itself in different times and social spaces in different forms.

Across Africa, I see ruling classes using different means to mentally colonize ordinary people either on religious, ethnic or regional lines. There is nothing to suggests that educated Africans simply because they are educated are inherently immune from this kind of moral corruption that comes when power differentials and political will are combined to justify the domination of others. Indeed, many of the African elites including the educated ones have supported leaders in Africa whose policies are not aimed at liberating Africans but making them beggars , subservient and colonizing their minds to believe doing so is right because the elites come from the same ethnic and religious group, or region.

In one conference I attended, a lecturer from Nigeria asked me the difference between Republicans and Democrats. And he is a political scientist. This is something basic that a political scientist in a developing country should know just because of the influence of the U.S. on global affairs. For the African to liberate his or her continent, he or she needs to know not only the history of his or her continent but the evolution of the mindset, history and culture of others and other regions. This is particularly important in this era of globalization. When I did research in Malaysia, I met a White professor from one of the state Universities of California who conducted research on Maitatsine in Kano. When he heard I was in Kuala Lumpur he said he wanted us to meet. We met and he spoke perfect Hausa language to me. He knew a lot about the country.

So I truly agree with Professor Aluko that Nigerian Universities need experts on different regions and countries. I would want them to know the key and influential social forces in the politics and economies of various countries and regions, starting with different African regions. How many West Africans know very much about the nuances or issues in East African politics or South Africa? By acquiring such knowledge African scholars an debate westerners on their own turf. Doing so does not mean Africans feel inferior about themselves. Westerners study other regions and become experts for the same purpose and not because they feel inferior. I think Manthia Diawara calls this "Reversed Anthropology."

Sometimes I feel that if there was serious study of Latin American development experience, Africans should have avoided some of their mistakes if they were very serious. And learning about East and Southeast Asia can make a huge difference in terms of understanding how we compare to other regions. Lee Kuan Yew was trained at Cambridge University but yet looked at the Westerners in the eye and told them that their system is not the only possible one in the world. He came up with a kind of hybrid of his own and succeeded. But one cannot do that without deep and serious knowledge and reflection. It is an easy position to take in our world today.  

Nyerere's numerous speeches and writings show that he was influenced by what he learned in the West but he did not see that as something that he would replicate in his country or Africa verbatim. He saw his country in a different light after learning about great social changes that took place in Europe.  Nigerian universities in my view should have experts on themes like Civil Rights, Wall Street business practices, the American educational system etc. etc. Doing all this is not because of inferiority complex but one can describe it as strategic interests. They do not need someone to lecture them on these topics because they would have studied the topics on their own. If they publish on these subjects, they can help ordinary Africans  see how they can learn from the American experience and disabuse their minds of the perfection of the U.S.. I personally I have appreciated learning so much about the civil rights and how it could be used to inspire people in Africa. And if one understands Wall Street very well, there is no reason why Africans should embrace free market capitalism as a panacea to their development problems given how there is a silent takeover in the U.S., where corporations are having more rights than ordinary citizens. Moreover Wall Street can get rich at the expense of ordinary Americans.  There are also interesting lessons to draw from the transition experience of former communist countries.

Samuel

UNQUOTE

[Anunoby, Ogugua]

MA,

 

SZ did not answer my point. If I thought he did, I would not have posted my disagreement with him.

If you truly believe for example, that any Nigerian university sits in the same row as SOAS or the older colleges of the of the University of London-  an imperial university, I will respect that you do. I presume that you are familiar with the history of SOAS and its mission. Britain was an empire country with colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East (formerly the Near East). It needed expertise on the lands and the people. It still does as a major global player and trading country. It could pay for it then. It can pay for it today. More importantly it values and uses the expertise.

I share your sentiments. I commend you for them. My point is that the child is advised to walk before it runs if it is to understand and master, the dynamic and art of balance in motion. It is wasteful and unwise in my opinion to do good things at the wrong time- before the one is ready and can profit from the one’s actions.

Objectives and goals can be desirable and lofty; the practical and prudent take their feasibility and timeliness into serious consideration in their adoption. Opportunity cost matters if rational choice is the preferred choice does it not?  

I try to be a dreamer too but am not oblivious of the difference of day and night dreams.

[Segun Ogungbemi]

You are welcome. Thanks for your huge contributions to this forum. 

Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

[Mobolaji Aluko]

OA:

Please let us move on while we are both ahead...each one of us has made his point eloquently, and it is left to our readers and other contributors to pick and choose among our points.

But this much I know:  to defeat an enemy, emulate a competitor or best a friend, you must study him closely in a SYSTEMIC manner, and that is what serious country do of other countries.  We can walk and chew at the same time.  The mission and vision of (for example)  SOAS have changed over the years, and I am certain that a new OSSS (Otuoke School of Social Science, just to pluck a name) would have a different mission from SOAS, and still serve a useful purpose.

Best wishes.

Bolaji Aluko

[Samuel Zalanga]

"Colonization is usually crushing. It transforms the colonized culturally, economically, mentally, politically, and psychologically. It leaves boot prints in the mind, that may take generations to erase. In many cases, it implants such fear of the colonizers in the colonized, that the colonized accept the “inferiorness” of not only their culture, institutions, and systems, but also they themselves as a people, to the colonizers. Colonization is a humiliating and terrible experience suffered by a people on account of the takeover of their land, abrogation of their institutions and systems by colonizers, and subordination of the culture.Then religion and capitalism are forms of colonizations given the characteristics you identified below."

The religion of Christianity, Islam, and modern capitalist consumerism that is at the core of modern neoliberal capitalism satisfy almost all the requirements you listed above of colonization. Your view of colonization needs to be broadened in my assessment.  I attended one meeting where some Americans said that they cannot go to France and Spain as Christian missionaries because such a status is not condoned or recognized there. It is seen as a kind of cultural colonization.  Why? Because the French assumes that Americans feel there is something inferior about French culture that needs to be changed and that is considered cultural violence. Welcome to the postmodern world.

For a thorough analysis of the manner in which the market and capitalism did exactly what you listed above in history and raised concerns among erudite western scholars starting from Aristotle to the present, please check Jerry Muller's book: :http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Market-Capitalism-Western-Thought/dp/0385721668/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1429521590&sr=1-1&keywords=jerry+muller

 Moreover, Weber's "Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" is still being debated today in terms of the social cultural and institutional prerequisites of modern capitalism. If you check many of the development theories, on the surface they sound like neutral, in practice, if you comply with everything in the name of development, you would end up transforming yourself, your culture, mindset, institutions. Such transformation does involves violence, and the best recognition of that is the work of Joseph Schumpeter in what he calls "creative destruction" which he recognizes might lead to resentment and probably lead to the collapse of capitalism. Creative destruction satisfies many of the elements you described above. For many Africans, this is humiliating.

 On another note, kindly also check the documentary that is very insightful titled "Bamako." It is not in English but I saw it at a film festival. Capitalism has social, cultural, institutional and psychological consequences that are humiliating to some but empowering to others.  So in the past we were directly colonized but now we colonize ourselves and our people using what appears to be innocuous practices. The reminds one of Focault's idea of the "Panopticon" in his work "Discipline and Punish."   We were supervised before but now we have internalized what was at one point humiliating. Now it is transformed into capitalist empowerment.  Indeed, the Frankfurt School especially in the work of Herbert Marcuse and Jurgen Habermas have raised important questions about how the market colonizes the private sphere. They highlighted how the culture industry is transformed by capitalism in a manner that is cultural violence and not egalitarian. Also check this CitiGroup internal document that highlights the things you have highlighted but presumably happening in a free society. The document is called "plutonomy memo" : http://delong.typepad.com/plutonomy-1.pdf

If you have the patience to systematically check the history of capitalism and the two religions I mentioned above and many others, in terms of the ways they have violently transformed cultures and created institutions that were not necessarily egalitarian to all people, most of the requirements you mentioned above are satisfied. 

Back in Africa, I remember one of my "o level" exam questions in history was "The Bible in One Hand, the Flag in the other" or as Basil Davidson said, "The Bible and the Gun." We must note that even persuasion in rhetoric assumes the force of superior argument, and a human interest behind the commitment of the rhetorician which raises an ethical question i.e., persuade someone in whose interest? Neoliberal capitalism is as evangelical as religions to the extent that capitalism requires certain kinds of institutions, a certain kind of personality, and a certain kind of secular eschatology. 

Historically, anthropologically and sociologically, capitalism has transformed the family, education, and even the human body by making it "human capital" in contrast to (for example) the Christian religious idea that the human body is God's temple. Well, I am sorry, capitalism says the human body is a commodity whose value is traded in the market. 

In the past we used to have places that were slave markets where the quality of slaves were evaluated for serious business investment i.e., reducing risk. Today, you have your human resource department that performs the same role but in different ways. The human resource departments based on their commercial interests come up with a criteria for evaluating the quality of labor, and then people go in there and ignore the fact that it is their market value that is being evaluated i.e., their worth. They can be good worshipers of God but if they do not rank well in terms of the market criteria that is in particular need, I am sorry, even some churches or mosques will not employ them. We sugar coat this by using the term "fit."

But a more deeper problem of colonization is often when people get employed by organizations, they tend to lose their "moral agency" to the extent that they sign a document agreeing to comply with company practices. This has become so serious that they had to pass a whistleblower bill in order to help revamp the moral agency of people. What this means is that even business organizations colonize people mentally to the extent that even when the people know the truth, they will comply with what in their private morality is wrong just in order to survive.This is another form of colonization. After some time, people just lose their moral standing in order to fit.

 Human capital as a concept was seriously resisted by some theologians who saw it as slippery slope in devaluing something essential about what it means to be human. It is this kind of concern that creates the reality where people in some places think they are free but statistically speaking a cow in Europe is doing far better than they are doing because the cow is subsidized more than $2.50 per day under the EU common agricultural policy. Some people make less than $1:50 per day. In theory you are free, in substance you are colonized, indeed, not colonized but even irrelevant. In this case to be even colonize gives you some relevance, at least the system considers you worthy of exploitation.

 Colonialism has become more efficient now because you can do it from far away through market relations and many are willing to offer themselves to be colonized because of "Freedom." Today, people sink deep into consumerism thinking it is freedom but Herbert Marcuse sees it as efficient way to colonize the person by preoccupying his or her minds with nothing but superficial self-gratification.  You can colonize people by making them find meaning in no other way than through consumerism. Their value is determined by what they have and they accept that and see themselves as the freest people in the world. God becomes relevant because of the material prosperity he confers on people, else he is treated as irrelevant.  Examples of these kinds of control are highlighted  in "The Persuaders" PBS Frontline documentary which is free online, and "Inside Job" ---- an award winning documentary film which demonstrates the colonizing power of neoliberal capitalism where power differential is accompanied by the political will to dominate as I said before. So call it democratic capitalism or whatever, it satisfies the criteria for colonialism you mentioned above in my view. The only people who can minimize the consequences or significance of domination on their lives are the people themselves. If a person lacks what to eat, cannot afford healthcare for his or her family, healthy drinking water, etc, I cannot a priori tell them that they are free. The greatest form of dictatorship in Africa is "absolute poverty." The situation of many people in Africa today is terrible. Many feel they are "non-persons" because of the way they have been treated. They can tell us exactly what it means to be dominated. In any case from a Platonic point of view, even within a single person his or her reason can be colonized by "appetitive desires" and when this happens there are social and cultural consequences, indeed a huge price to be paid.

 Actually I find your contribution fascinating because it elevates the discussion of colonialism to even a more deeper level. You make me feel scared now that even my religion can be an instrument of colonization to the extent that today's colonization does not require direct contact. It occurs in a subliminal manner.  Maybe none of us is actually free as we think. Our rationality is bounded. Hegel would say that the reality we see is constrained by our "categories of mediation."  Our categories of mediation can limit what we see or imprison us as human beings. And interestingly, Paulo Freire's conscientization approach to education clearly shows that human beings might be free but in chains.

 As a way of providing you a context for my current response so that can appreciate the influences on my thinking, I derived insight on the deeper analysis of what the market and capitalism is from  the book "The Market" by Alan Aldridge. I agree with you that power differentials can exist without colonization but you missed my point when I said people have to have the political will and desire to dominate as well, in addition to power differential.

Simply because someone is educated for instance does not tell us how he or she will use his or her education. How he or she uses that is a moral and ethical question that is contingent on the person's decision. I will indeed agree that power can be used for good when the people who exercise it decide to inform their decision with a moral compass that is humanistic and dignifying of others. Rudyard Kipling's "The white man's burden" in theory assumes the  exercise of power differential with compassion. In reality, this was not the case.  In this respect, I am a realist who believes that there will always be some with more power, but the question is what moral and ethical values will inform the way the powerful use their power?  Thank you sir.

Samuel