Colonial burdens and foreign debt as a tool of domination over African countries

Abstract

This article aims to understand the dynamics of external debt in African countries, taking into account the historical dimensions of colonization and its multiple social, economic, and environmental consequences for the current development of these countries. It argues, first, the existence of an institutionalized racial hierarchy in the global financial architecture, which (re)produces inequalities through a set of financial structures, mechanisms, and policies that serve the interests of countries in the Global North. Second, African external debt is both a colonial burden and a tool of domination, preventing African countries from achieving economic autonomy in the contemporary world. Methodologically, an interpretative and cross-cutting approach to the racial element was adopted to investigate the discriminatory and differentiated impacts of external debt. The analysis used the ideas of colonial legacies and racialization as analytical categories, linked to a critical theoretical foundation with recent empirical data presented in a series of official reports from intergovernmental organizations and specialized non-governmental entities. It was concluded that racialization is a fundamental element in the power relations that structure and guide the AFI. At the same time, foreign debt functions as an effective instrument of control over African countries, transforming vulnerability into financial risk and risk into profit. This demonstrates how a global debt system transforms historical racism into an economic structure of continuous exclusion.