IN THIS AND SUBSEQUENT ISSUES IT IS PROPOSED TO PURSUE A common theme under a general title: Dependent Africa?. The question mark is needed to qualify the assumption. The assumption is based on a loose array of arguments which are often rehearsed and which run, very roughly, as follows.

No sooner, it seems, has an end to colonialism been proclaimed than it appears in other forms. Imperium expellas furca tamen usque recurret? So many now argue in relation particularly to Africa, the most colonial of continents. The ghosts of the Berlin Conference, it is said, must surely be returning to watch the re-enactment of their play. Is Africa not being repartitioned - parcelled out once again by forces external to the continent? Even the old colonial dominance once exercised by European powers now looks as if it has been given a new framework, in a post-independence setting, through treaty arrangements.