The history of humanity is, in many ways, the history of domination of one group over another. Across centuries, these patterns of domination evolved but rarely disappeared; they simply took on new forms. This essay explores the continuum of man-to-man domination from ancient times, through slavery and colonization, and into today’s global order, highlighting both changes in structure and the stubborn persistence of inequality between the Western civilisation and the rest of the World.
Not to be forgotten, the age of slavery: codified control and racial hierarchies
The transatlantic slave trade marked a watershed moment in the history of man-to-man domination. European empires, fueled by capitalism and conquest, developed a brutal system of human trafficking that forcibly uprooted over 12 million Africans from their homeland. Unlike earlier forms of servitude in other parts of the globe, this system was industrialized, racialized, and global. By no means justifiable.
Men were reduced to property, traded across oceans, stripped of names, languages, and dignity. The plantation economies of the Americas, especially in the Caribbean, Brazil, and America were built on the backs of enslaved African slaves. White men exercised total power over Black men, shaping notions of hierarchy, and civilization in deeply violent ways. For reference, we recommend watching “ROOTS”, a tv series well documented.
Slavery didn’t only exploit the body, it transformed social relations and produced ideologies that would justify inequality long after abolition. The domination of men over other men in this era was not only physical but epistemological: it dictated who could own, who could rule, and who was considered fully human.
Then came the colonization: restructuring domination under a civilizing Mission:
After slavery was formally abolished, colonization replaced one form of domination with another. European empires redrew global maps, carving up mainly Africa, and elsewhere under banners of progress and civilization. Though slavery had ended legally, its logic continued: European men ruled over colonized men through indirect rule, forced labor, racial hierarchies, and cultural imperialism.
In many African colonies, traditional chieftaincies were co-opted or corrupted by colonial administrators. Education systems trained a small class of indigenous men to serve colonial interests, while the vast majority remained disenfranchised. Economic systems prioritized extraction and dependency. All was redefined through colonial eyes, labelling black men as “lazy,” “childish,” or “barbaric” unless they conformed to European ideals.
Colonization restructured man-to-man domination through systems that were simultaneously legal, economic, and psychological. The colonial state became a machine of extraction, surveillance, and assimilation, all driven by male-dominated power structures.
Here we recommend watching “King Leopold’s Ghost” movie. Terrifying!
Post-colonial continuities: Independence without liberation?
Though most former colonies gained independence by the 60’s (only the anthem and the flag changed), the power dynamics between men did not vanish. They merely changed actors. In many postcolonial states, liberation movements led by charismatic leaders gave way to authoritarian regimes, military coups, and neo-patriarchal governance. Their longevity was and still is dependent on European leaders’ willingness.
The same tools of domination, policing, propaganda, media, resource control were often turned inward, where ruling men dominated dissenting men in the name of nation-building or stability. Economic dependence on former colonizers through aid, debt, or trade continued a form of indirect domination. The World Bank Bank and IMF were and still are the tools to maintain the young nations under control and domination.
At the same time, global capitalism created new hierarchies: the Global North vs the Global South. In this new world order, domination persists, but often wears a suit and speaks the language of development, innovation, or national interest.
Whether it is GDP, political exclusion, economic sanctions, modern domination is subtler, but just as insidious. The slave ship and the colony may be gone, but the power imbalance between men across race, class, and geography remains: USD and Euro domination, UN security council votes, nuclear power, and again economic sanctions speak loudly about inequalities and domination by man-to-man.
Breaking the Chain
But history also shows resistance, revolution, and the possibility of change. From abolitionists to anti-colonial fighters, civil rights leaders to today’s grassroots movements, countless men and women have fought to break these chains.
To understand today’s world, we must look backward: recognizing how systems of domination have evolved, who benefits from them, and how they can be dismantled. True liberation cannot come without confronting the roots of inequality and imagining new relationships built not on domination, but on dignity.
If Africa is to move forward, it must reckon with this history of foreign domination of how the West countries have dominated Africa for centuries.
The domination of Africa by Western civilization did not begin with war, but with a narrative: that Europe was advanced, rational, and destined to “civilize” the so-called savage. From that ideology flowed conquest, colonization, and control.
In the late 19th century, European powers gathered in Berlin to divide Africa without a single African in the room. What followed was brutal: lands were seized, kingdoms dismantled, and African societies restructured to serve foreign interests. Colonizers built roads, yes but to mines, not markets. Schools were opened but often to train clerks, not thinkers. Western civilization came with a Bible in one hand, a rifle in the other.
Even after independence, Africa remained caught in the grip of Western influence. Economic structures built to export raw materials were never dismantled. African currencies were tied to European treasuries. Loans came with conditions. Leaders were often educated in Western universities, governed with Western ideologies, and silenced when they challenged Western interests.
Today, domination is no longer about direct control, it’s about soft power and economic dependency. Global trade rules, international media, foreign aid or sanctions, and development agendas are often set in Washington, London, or Paris. African talent is drained through migration; African stories are filtered through Western lenses.
And yet, Western civilization also brought tools of resistance: education, law, technology which Africans have used to push back, reclaim, and redefine. The struggle now is not to reject the West, but to stop being ruled by it. Africa’s future must be written in African terms. What matters now is LIBERATION not Independence.
Until that happens, the domination of Western civilization is not history, it is current affairs.
“War”, a song by Bob Marley in 1976 summarizes our essay. Fifty years later it’s still actual.
