Europe’s Neo-Neocolonial Attack On Africa Is in Full Swing | Peo Hansen & Aghogho Akpome

## The Repressed Return: Europe's Geopolitical Continuity What emerges from the conversation is a single provocative claim: the European Union’s recent “geopolitical turn” is not a novel rupture but a revival of long-standing strategies rooted in colonial practice. The discussion pushes back on the comfortable self-image of Europe as a primarily peace-making, post‑colonial actor. Instead, it argues that the EU’s rhetoric of newfound strategic urgency masks continuities—economic, territorial and rhetorical—with mid‑twentieth century projects that sought to manage and benefit from Africa. Far from being a fresh response to crises such as the war in Ukraine, Europe’s assertive posture toward Africa revives older logics of control, competition and resource access clothed in new institutional forms and euphemisms like “strategic autonomy.” This reframing matters because it forces a reassessment of contemporary policies. If the EU’s external ambitions are a return to a repressed past rather than an unprecedented shift, then policy debates remain haunted by the same ethical and political problems—extraction, dependency and the denial of African agency—that defined earlier eras. The conversation insists that understanding today’s engagements with Africa requires reading European statements and strategies through historical continuities rather than accepting the novelty that official discourse promotes. ## Colonial Language and the Illusion of Post‑colonialism A central theme in the exchange is the power of language to conceal structures of domination. The EU’s self-representation as a post‑colonial actor—a benign, normative power advancing peace, human rights and development—functions rhetorically to neutralize scrutiny. Yet the conversation highlights how this language frequently reproduces colonial tropes: Africa as a problem space to be managed, partners as needing guidance, and strategic presence as a natural entitlement. Such diction is not accidental; it shapes policy and legitimates interventions that, in practice, reproduce hierarchies of dependence. The speakers point to historical parallels: the Treaty of Rome’s association arrangements with African territories in the 1950s, contemporary talk of Africa as a “neighbour” whose fate matters to Europe, and repeated warnings about competitors “encroaching” into a European sphere of influence. These examples show that the rhetoric of partnership often operates alongside assumptions of ownership. The illusion of a post‑colonial Europe enables a discourse in which external actors are cast as rescuers or guardians—an image that deflects attention from extractive economic interests and the continuation of asymmetrical relations. Decolonial scholars in the conversation urge a careful parsing of semantics: words like “interdependence,” “development,” and “strategic autonomy” can be performative devices that sanitize domination. This linguistic layer is not merely academic; it has real effects on policymaking and geopolitical behavior. Recognizing the persistence of colonial idioms within European diplomacy is therefore a critical step toward exposing the mismatch between stated values and enacted power. ## Sovereignty, Strategic Autonomy, and European Anxiety A striking argument made in the discussion is that much of the EU’s rhetoric about “strategic autonomy” reflects a deep insecurity about losing privileged windows into Africa. The concept—now fashionable in Brussels—presupposes an external freedom of action: a Europe that can project influence independently of other powers. Yet this posture is often deployed to justify reasserting access to resources, markets and geopolitical footholds that were once part of empires. The conversation situates this anxiety within a longer history: mid‑century European elites feared the diffusion of newly independent nation‑states and promoted arrangements that would preserve European advantages. Today’s policy papers, think‑tank maps and diplomatic warnings about rival influence echo those anxieties. Where post‑colonial rhetoric once masked direct colonial control, contemporary strategies cloak competitive maneuvers—countering China, Russia, or even private commercial rivals—in the language of security and resilience. Equally important is the treatment of African sovereignty. The discussion emphasizes that European strategists often find the notion of autonomous African political agency difficult to accept. When states in the Sahel or West Africa reject European presence or diversify partnerships, European responses frequently interpret such moves through an externalist lens—blaming foreign patrons or malign external influencers—rather than acknowledging indigenous political choices or grassroots movements. That reflex underscores a residual colonial attitude: agency is imagined as something to be managed from the outside, not something that properly belongs to African peoples themselves. ## Africa as Arena: Competition, Extraction, and Resistance The conversation reframes Africa not as a passive theatre of competition among great powers but as a space where long‑term economic interests and local struggles intersect. European policies toward Africa retain a core logic of extractivism: securing raw materials, stabilizing supply chains, and preserving market relations that benefit metropolitan industries. Whether it’s cocoa for chocolate industries in Europe or strategic minerals for green transitions, the interplay of economics and geopolitics remains foundational. Yet the speakers insist that African actors are not mere pawns. Recent political shifts—from popular movements to military and civilian policymakers rethinking foreign partnerships—signal a search for alternatives to traditional patronage. The expulsions of French forces and the turn toward other partners are frequently depicted in European media as sinister signs of external manipulation; the conversation pushes back, arguing that these developments often express genuine assertions of sovereignty and dissatisfaction with unequal relationships. Moreover, the idea of competition itself is ambiguous. While some Africans welcome alternatives that might lower dependency on a single external partner, others fear substituting one form of domination for another. The conversation therefore calls for nuanced analysis: competition among external powers can open space for negotiation and leverage, but it can also intensify extractive dynamics if African agency is sidelined by new clientelist ties. Recognizing local aspirations and valuing sovereignty on its own terms must be central to any honest account of current transformations. ## Media, Academia, and the MIMAC: Manufacturing Consent Another persistent insight from the exchange is the role of institutions—media, academia, and think tanks—in shaping public and policy understandings of Europe’s role in Africa. The phrase MIMAC (military, industrial, media, academic complex) captures the argument that these sectors co‑produce narratives which normalize geopolitical assertions and obscure exploitative practices. Scholarly framing, strategic briefs, news coverage and policy reports often converge to present European actions as defensive, necessary, or benevolent. The conversation highlights how certain narratives—about “protecting” Europe’s backyard, or about Africa as vulnerable to malign Russian or Chinese influence—are circulated with little attention to historical context. Think tanks produce maps that repackage old strategic ambitions as contemporary priorities; media outlets amplify framings that foreground external threats rather than structural inequalities. Even academic disciplines can reproduce disciplinary blinders that fail to interrogate embedded power relations. Challenging these narratives requires critical scholarship and journalism that center African perspectives and that trace continuities between past and present. It also means exposi

Europe���s Neo-Neocolonial Attack On Africa Is in Full Swing Today I’m talking to two colleagues from Europe and Africa. I’ve got with me Peo Hansen a professor of Political Science at Sweden’s Linköping University, and Aghogho Akpome, a Associate Professor of Literature and English at South Africa’s University of Zululand. Both of of them have worked on the issue of European Colonialism in Africa and Peo recently published another great article entitled “The Return of the Repressed: The Colonial History of the Eu’s Geopolitical Turn”. This unfinished business of Europe’s colonial mindset is what we want to discuss today. Links: Peo Hansen’s Work: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcms.13757 https://www.bloomsbury. com/uk/eurafrica-9781474256803/ https://www.editionsladecouverte.fr/eurafrique-9782348055560 https://cup.columbia.edu/book/a-modern-migration-theory/9781788210553/ Goods Shop: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall.com #M3 Strategic autonomy is the buzzword in Brussels today. And strategic autonomy presupposes that the EU has an external sort of freedom of action. And going to West Africa and the Sahel, and countries kicking out Europeans—mainly the French now—it's precisely that: the Europeans are not mature enough to see or to acknowledge that sovereignty could be on the African side. So they cannot accept that anything could come from within African states themselves, from movements and so on. It has to be something from outside, just like in the 50s, when the Bandung movement was said to influence Africa in the wrong way. And right now it's Russia or China and so on, because there's nothing really—Africa is hollow in the political sense, still, for the European mindset. #M2 Hello, everybody. This is Pascal from Neutrality Studies, and today I'm talking to two colleagues from Europe and Africa. I've got with me Peo Hansen, a professor of political science at Sweden's Linköping University, and Aghogho Akpome, an associate professor of literature and English at South Africa's University of Zululand. Both of them have worked on the issue of European colonialism in Africa, and Peo recently published another great article entitled "The Return of the Repressed: The Colonial History of the EU's Geopolitical Turn." This unfinished business of Europe's colonial mindset is what we want to discuss today. So, gentlemen, welcome. Thank you. Thanks for taking the time, both of you. And maybe we start with you, Peo. You wrote this article in which you are making the argument that this geopolitical turn of Europe, of the EU, is not as new as they try to make it look. Could you maybe lay out your argument for a moment? -- 1 of 16 -- #M3 Yes. I mean, of course, roughly since 2014, with Russia's annexation of Crimea, this sense of a geopolitical turn in the European Union has been growing exponentially, not least with 2022 and the war in Ukraine. It has taken on new proportions. So that is clearly new, right? But the question is how we relate this historically, because what the EU is doing is saying that it has to change, it has to become geopolitical. And then the EU, but also a lot of scholars, think tanks, the media, and so on— punditry—there's a consensus here that this is a thoroughly new thing. The EU was born in the 50s as a peace project, as a democratic sort of freedom project proponent, and that it didn't have anything to do with geopolitics other than the situation in Europe proper. So yes, it is acknowledged that in the 50s, the Cold War European scene had a lot to do with the formation of the EU. But the EU's role was to play a peaceful role, and even an anti-geopolitical role. If we compare that to today, yes, in the rhetoric, we can see that there are differences. But if you look at it historically, the EU was actually founded as a geopolitical project, as a geoeconomic project too. And that had everything to do with how it related to Africa, mostly the French and Belgian colonies. So this is where my work together with Stefan Jonsson on Euro-Africa comes in, because Euro-Africa was the name given by the EU to the association regime that was created in 1957 with the Treaty of Rome, which associated a large part of Africa with the EU. Algeria was a special case. It was actually formally incorporated into the EU—or EEC, as it was called then. So my argument is simply to say, look, don't call this new until you've studied the history here. What I'm arguing is that the return of the repressed is really the return of the unmentionable. Because the image that the EU wants to propagate is, of course, that it gave peace a chance—it was a peace project. And so it protects that sort of immaculate conception, if you like. But what I'm saying is that there's never been such a thing. The EU has always been involved in geopolitics. So what scholars and EU officials are saying today—that they are being forced to become geopolitical because there is so much foul play on the part of Russia and China and so on—is very, very flawed. It's actually a return to the roots of the European project. I also add that right now the EU is comparing itself a lot to the post-Cold War EU, because there they give the EU project the sense that the post-Cold War EU was also a peace project, but in a different way. It was sort of multilateral—becoming the model for the world. Again, a lot of scholars worked on this, saying that the EU would rule the 21st century because of its unique anti-geopolitical stance, and so on. In the article, I also go back to the post-Cold War era and show that no, it's not true. The EU was very geopolitical during this era too, yet in a different way than now in many ways, but it still was geopolitical. And I think that has to be taken into account to understand what is going on today. #M2 I find this very interesting because this view of the Europeans as a pure peace project, right, that never does any kind of repressive act—that's something that, Aghogho, I mean, you also worked on, -- 2 of 16 -- and you worked on the literature part as well. Let me ask you this: Do you think that Africans from various countries look at the EU and Europe as a peace project? #M1 Not at all. Not at all. And I thank Peo. I read your paper once—I'm sure I'll read it again. I think that's brilliant work. And it's also the stuff that decolonial scholars, both largely from Latin America, but an increasing number across Africa and other parts of the world, have also paid attention to. And yes, to your question again, Pascal, no. Not in this generation have Africans who pay attention considered the European involvement in global affairs as a peace project. Peace, yes, for Europeans. And if you grow up in the academy in Africa, if you pay attention, you would understand the significance of the semiotics of the linguistics. So it's a bit like human rights. Who is the human? When somebody steeped in the European ethos talks about the human, they're looking at a creature differently than you, who are not steeped in that ethos, would think about. So peace, yes—maybe for Europe, maybe between Germany and the UK, maybe between Germany and France. But peace, not for Africa. Not for Africa, not for the parts of the world that remain in the peripheries. So we've never thought of it that way. And I think we need to really pay attention to the semiotics. So I find this tension in Peo's paper. And even he is trying to show the continuities and to dispel the deceptive posturing of the Europeans that they are for peace. But when you get sucked into the European—maybe the English—language, I don't know what it is in other languages. English is the language I've studied the most, and of course, my home language. So, the idea of the past and the present, the idea of a return—because when you say "return," you're suggesting that there was an actual departure. But I see it's the paradox, it's the contradiction brought about by language, not by intent. So, Europe has been where it has been, I would say, even from the 1880s in regard to Africa and the non-core, the non-metropole. I could use the word "periphery," but also I'm very careful with the words I use. #M2 So do you... The way that Europe looks at Africa, I find that quite interesting. Peo, also in your paper, you write about this view that what happens with Africa is something that the European Union and European countries engage with and that, of course, they do not perceive as colonial anymore. But the way that they act, the political decisions, again, the incorporation of Algeria and then also this association with African states that were still colonized, and the language that's being used. You've looked at that. Can you maybe go a little bit deeper into these ways in which the Europeans aren't even aware that they still talk in colonial terms? #M3 -- 3 of 16 -- Yeah, I think it's very interesting. When the EU has this discourse around Africa, it can get away with a lot of colonial tropes. And it can do that because it styles itself as a post-colonial project, historically. France, Britain, and many other European colonial powers could not really use this rhetoric today. I mean, they still do, but then they're met with protests and there's always a tension there. The EU project, however, speaks about Africa in a very colonial idiom. Yet it can do it because it feels that there is no history here. The EU proper doesn't have a colonial history; it has a post- colonial history. But yet I look at, for instance, Josep Borrell, the EU's former high representative, or the... the high diplomat, the foreign chief of the EU. He said in 2021, "As Africa's neighbor and its main partner, we are directly concerned by the conditions in which the rise of this young and dynamic continent takes place. If we do not give this matter sufficient attention, others will, and probably at our expense." So I take that, and there are so many statements like this, and then I compare that to how the debate went around the foundation of the European Union in 1957. So here's a quote in Le Monde from 1957, from February 1957, right before the Treaty of Rome was signed. And here, their opinion page—the op-ed page—states that, quote, "The six," meaning the six founding members of the EU, "are also aware that the political fate of Europe is more or less linked to that of Africa, and that if other influences were to supplant ours in these territories, serious risks would appear on the horizon." So again, there is this competition for Africa. And for the longest time, the EU sort of owned that competition, and there was very little competition. For the past 20 years or so, the picture has changed dramatically, and the EU doesn't like that. It doesn't like to have competition in Africa, so that's why the situation gets more and more tense. So I focus on that, and that's where the EU rhetoric becomes even more reminiscent of the colonial days. #M2 Yeah, because the idea is we have to be strong in Africa so others cannot be here. And then I suppose if you go to South Africa or to Nigeria, Aghogho, I guess competition is something that a lot of people would welcome, no? #M1 That's interesting, but well, not kind of. You know, Africans revile the idea—which Peo has expressed so articulately—that Africa is a pawn, something to be taken either by Europe, or by America, or by China, or by Russia. It's a very condescending, very, very racist idiom. And that's—I'm using Peo's words. I'd like to refer again to Peo, and I think that's a brilliant comment he made when he talks about Europe self-styling itself as post-colonial. There's a lot of deception in the language that is used by these people. You may want to say "neocolonial," but many decolonial scholars prefer to talk about "coloniality," by which they make a clear distinction between those historical moments that pretended to be post-colonial—especially the -- 4 of 16 -- moments of the creation of the Westphalian idea of