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Aid or Imperialism? West Germany in Sub-Saharan Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

What is the precise nature of the relationship between the so-called Third World and the industrialised West? While a question of this sort was much more easily answered in the era of direct colonial control over vast non-European regions, there is much debate concerning the symmetry of economic and political relationships in the postindependence period. In fact, to a considerable number of observers, it is asymmetry which characterises the ties between the industrialised and ‘underdeveloped’ countries, based on a long historical process of incorporation into the western capitalist system. Political independence, these critics argue, has merely shifted a ‘colonial’ to a ‘neo-colonial’ relationship, leaving the unevenness basically intact.

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Articles
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

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page 295 note 4 ‘Partnership’ between West Germany and the Third World is the officially pronounced leitmotif of Bonn's policies. To show how in an ‘interdependent’ world this co-operative spirit is essential, the Government explains this as follows to secondary-school students in a handbook especially designed for them: ‘We need materials from the Third World; the Third World wants our modern technology. Our citizens do not want to do without coffee and bananas; people in the Third World want to lead better lives and want to be free of hunger and misery… We want a clean environment. The developing countries want their chimneys finally to billow smoke.’ Unterrichtshilfen, p. 27, emphasis added.

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page 304 note 4 In fact, according to the O.E.C.D., the Third World at the end of 1982 owed $625,000 million to banks, governments, and other external lenders in the capitalist world. Of that amount, only 21 per cent are debts to international development institutions, while 79 per cent are owed to private debtors and are thus repayable at ‘hard’ or market conditions. The level of indebtedness has gone up exactly 700 per cent since 1971. Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Zurich), 20 12 1982.Google Scholar

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page 305 note 1 Entwicklungspolitik. Jahresbericht 1979, p. 21.

page 305 note 2 By technical assistance, the Bonn Government means: ‘Training of students, apprentices, experts and development helpers; supply of equipment and materials for purposes of research, education and demonstration; other cooperation such as technical support and consulting services on a contractual basis.’ Dritter Bericht zur Entwicklungspolitik der Bundesregierung, p. 129.

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