BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 19. Colonialism is, in many ways, one of the most complex and pressing issues of the present era, said Sénamé Koffi Abgodjinou, anthropologist and board member of the Black Civilization Museum, Trend reports.
Speaking at the international conference titled “Neocolonialism and Global Inequality,” organized by the Baku Initiative Group, Abgodjinou stressed that humanity is facing unprecedented challenges.
“We are the first human generation confronted simultaneously with three existential threats. In other words, the ability of our species to sustain itself is under threat on three levels or in three dimensions.
The first level is political. It is linked to the return of wars, many of which are colonial wars or preventive wars. There is also a technological threat. Today, all the processes generated by digital technologies could potentially bring an end to the dominance or even the continuity of our species. On the other hand, there is an ecologically well-documented scientific threat. This danger stems from the depletion of the planet’s resources and pushing it into such a crisis that it can no longer regenerate itself,” he said.
The anthropologist noted that humanity’s capacity to restore the planet to a sustainable level is increasingly limited.
“Such periods are favorable for the emergence of ‘monsters.’ It seems that we are indeed in a phase where many ‘monsters’ are appearing. I believe they all share the colonial question. Whether it is the ecological threat, the danger linked to digital technologies, or the political threat emerging against the backdrop of the plundering of international law, all of these are, in a certain sense, colonial threats. In this regard, colonialism remains one of the central and most difficult issues of our time,” he added.
The Baku Initiative Group (BIG) was created on July 6, 2023, in Baku, Azerbaijan, to fight colonialism and neocolonialism. It promotes self-determination for French, Dutch, and Belgian-colonized regions. BIG organizes over 30 international conferences, supports colonial freedom movements through discourse and legal activism, and connects with over 20 states. The institution reports to the UN on decolonization, reparations, human rights, and environmental challenges in colonized regions. BIG, led by executive director Abbas Abbasov, works with French overseas territories on minority rights concerns as a decolonization platform complying with international law.
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