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Food Imperialism Is Alive in Africa
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A market in Abidjan. Photo by Eva Blue / Unsplash
Good Food

Food Imperialism Is Alive in Africa

Waithera Sebatindira
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time 11 minutes
Waithera Sebatindira:
A writer based in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. She has co-authored a book, “A Fly Girl’s Guide to University” published last year with Verve Poetry Press.

On the continent of Africa, the colonial economic arrangements never really ended. To discover this, you need look no further than the food on your plates.

“Where is imperialism? Look at your plates when you eat. The imported grains of rice, corn, and millet – that is imperialism. Let’s not look any further.”

I’m standing in the fruit and veg section at a Carrefour in Abidjan, examining already-mouldy punnets of blueberries and searching desperately for just two hundred useable grams of imported fruit, when I’m once again haunted by these words from the Burkinabè revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara. Sankara rose to the presidency of Burkina Faso in 1983 and led the country on a Marxist-Leninist agenda that was staunchly anti-imperialist. By the time he was assassinated in a foreign-backed coup in 1987, his ideas about food sovereignty had spread across the continent.

I was prompted to engage with Sankara after I made what was supposed to be a temporary move from London to Abidjan, the capital city of Côte d’Ivoire, at the start of this year. Like many people, my plans were shifted by Covid-19 and I’ve found myself here for an extended period of time. To be fair, this has only presented a minor problem. Abidjan is a city that has always been close to my heart; I lived here for a few years as a child before the First Ivorian Civil War and my parents moved

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Waithera Sebatindira:
A writer based in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. She has co-authored a book, “A Fly Girl’s Guide to University” published last year with Verve Poetry Press.
Publish date: 17.09.2021

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Fragment of a mural depicting the history of Mexico, in the background the Aztec city of Tenochtitlán, between 1929 and 1935. Diego Rivera, Palacio Nacional in Mexico
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The sentimental depiction of the discovery of the New World as a great adventure is one of the biggest lies in human history. This is why it should come as no surprise that statues of Columbus and Cortés are being toppled. During just the first 50 years of colonization, the Indigenous populations of the Americas were reduced by 90%.

In his book Tristes Tropiques (Sad Tropics), Claude Lévi-Strauss rightly observes that the first encounter between Europeans and the Indigenous peoples of America should be considered the greatest adventure in the history of humankind, which is rather unlikely to be measured up to unless some alien civilization pays us a visit someday. It must have been a breathtaking experience to see for the first time the jungle, paradisical coastlines, volcanoes, animals that brought to mind mythology, cities with large markets, and people speaking languages unknown to the colonizers. When Bernal Díaz del Castillo – one of the foremost chroniclers of the conquest – first saw Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec Empire, he thought he was dreaming. During the second and third expedition, Columbus observed his new surroundings so intensely that his eyes would bleed. 

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