AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Historical reports and analytical studies indicate that although slavery has been formally abolished across Europe and the Americas, its consequences continue to be reproduced within the political, economic, and social structures of African and Afro-Caribbean societies. Critics describe this phenomenon as “modern slavery in the form of values and power relations,” arguing that domination has shifted from overt coercion to embedded systems of control.
According to observers, Africans and their descendants worldwide, particularly in the Caribbean, continue to face daily forms of discrimination and pressure. These pressures not only echo the colonial past but also reflect the persistence of structural inequalities within the contemporary global order.
Formal Independence, Real Dependency
Before World War II, only three territories in the West Indies enjoyed independence: Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba. After 1945, a wave of decolonization swept much of the Caribbean, leading territories formerly under British, French, and Dutch rule to achieve political independence.
At first glance, these developments appeared to mark the end of centuries of exploitation of the region’s predominantly Black population, communities that, since the era of slavery, had served as the primary labor force for colonial white powers. Critics, however, emphasize that political independence did not necessarily translate into liberation from Western mechanisms of influence and control.
Haiti: From a Slave Revolution to Structural Poverty
A prominent example is Haiti, which, in 1804, after 13 years of a slave revolution against colonial rule, emerged as the world’s first independent state founded by formerly enslaved people. Nevertheless, the country’s trajectory was severely disrupted by military occupation by the United States in the early twentieth century, followed by the authoritarian rule of the Duvalier family regimes.
Today, Haiti is widely regarded as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Analysts attribute this condition to a combination of foreign interventions, dependent economic structures, and the persistence of unequal power relations in the international system.
Black Societies, Constrained Governance
In other Caribbean countries, such as Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, reports suggest that despite governments being ostensibly led by Black political elites, repressive conditions and structural limitations continue. Critics argue that part of the crisis stems from the replacement of one elite class with another—one that continues to govern through colonial mindsets and values.
Analysts maintain that the core issue lies in a “power asymmetry” between small peripheral states and established major powers such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. Through networks of economic, political, and cultural influence, these powers retain the capacity to exert pressure and control.
Reassessing White Dominance
Within this framework, a reassessment of Afro-Caribbean societies highlights how hopes for genuine renewal persist both among populations in the West Indies and within diaspora communities, particularly in Canada. Critics contend that these societies have, often unintentionally, contributed to the continuation of white supremacy through popular tourist destinations.
A Jamaican researcher, pointing to the failure of Black states to achieve real autonomy, describes the process as the substitution of one managerial class for another, one still rooted in colonial logic and values. The researcher also criticizes Canada’s international development programs as reproducing what is described as “the heavy burden of the white man.”
Similarly, a Canadian-Haitian activist, marking the twentieth anniversary of the coup against Jean-Bertrand Aristide, compares that episode with renewed threats of U.S. military intervention and calls for an end to what is termed “the ongoing crimes of white supremacy.”
Outlook Ahead
Observers argue that without a fundamental reassessment of global power relations and a genuine break from the mental and structural legacies of colonialism, political independence in the Caribbean will remain incomplete. From this perspective, the central challenge lies not only in the past but in how the world confronts the enduring legacy of colonialism in the present and the future.
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