The West viewed post-independence Africa as the white man’s burden, and as a staging ground for its Cold War wrangle with the Soviet Union. Economically speaking, the West also dismissed Africa as a bottomless charity basket. The resources of the continent were pawned for backbreaking debt. The West lined the pockets of stooge dictator regimes and used the continent to dump obsolete weapons. America initiated the Marshall Plan to revive Europe’s ruined economy after WWII at any cost. For Africa, the West thought a bowl of porridge was more than enough.

Against this dismal backdrop, China arrived. It did not come with the condescending attitude of the West, but with cash for investments in one hand and affordable products on the other. China promised to extend US$ 5 billion in loans and credit over three years at a China-Africa summit where 50 African heads of states were in attendance this past November.

China also created a fund to develop African infrastructure. It smoothed its path to African oil and mineral resources by building roads, schools, hospitals, sports facilities and development projects.

As a young schoolboy, I used to admire China when I saw the theatres, football stadiums and roads they built in Somalia. 80 years of European colonialism didn’t leave behind any buildings or institutions worth remembering. It is also important to mention that unlike the West, China’s loans and aid to Africa have no political strings attached. They don’t demand democratization, regime change, transparency, environmental mandates, or good governance. The West demands these tings as a gimmick when giving aid not because they are sincere about these good values, but because they want to numb the conscience of their taxpaying, philanthropic citizens.

Emerging as a global trade behemoth, China dominates the world export market. Some predict it will topple Germany as the world’s top exporter by 2008.

One may argue, however, that China’s trade colonization is not limited to Africa but extends also to America, whose trade deficit with China stood at $214 billion in November 2006. In fact, some experts argue the U.S. and its allies depend on China for their economic well-being, while a number of European countries are teaching Chinese in their schools to prepare themselves to communicate with their future trade masters.

China’s trading power may have come as a result of the West advancing beyond needing it. The West is now in the post-industrial age -- the age of soft technology. While China’s domination is increasingly physically conspicuous, the West has already embarked on a new era of imperialism that is more subtle, perhaps invisible. Western oil and diamond companies flooded Africa long before the omnipresent “Made-In-China” products entered a home or office.

But now, something less obvious enters both, to great affect. Microsoft and Google are two soft powers that have caused a revolution in our working environment. They have deprived us of our ability to think and to labor. At the same time, most of the world’s population willingly empties its pockets for Hollywood’s mesmerizing fantasy worlds. In addition, in its quest to dominate the future, Western scientific institutions have patented almost all known species of plants and living animals, including the genes of the entire race. They literally put a claim to the entire earth’s plant and animal gene pool in a naked act of biopiracy. I cannot extract juices from a small plant in my native village and make medicine out of it because the rights to the plant in my village belong to an American or European pharmaceutical institution. I cannot store part of my farm’s harvest to use it for next farming season because the seeds I have are genetically modified and sterile. Therefore, I have to buy fresh seeds every year from an American or European agricultural corporation in order to feed my family.

The West has also closed all doors to rebellion and dissent by creating world bodies such as the World Bank, IMF, the WTO, the IEA, the Security Council and others to police and suppress all tendencies of rebellion. They have tailored the values and standards of these organizations to serve their needs and even when a Third World country wiggles its way into acceptance as a member, it is given an unequal treatment by the pigs of Animal Farm. When all these civilized measures fail to work, the West simply becomes bullish and bombs those it wants.

China never colonized Africa, never threatened us with its aircraft carriers, and never bullied us by establishing military commands for Africa. So the question must be rephrased: Who is the real colonizer of the 21st century?