Antifascist Former Resistance Fighters Netherlands (AFVN)
Especially focus on US imperialism, but EU imperialism also plays a major criminal role
Typically, when discussing imperialism, the focus is mainly on the crimes of the US. They lead the imperialist system and, from that role, commit the crimes. However, the focus cannot be solely on them, especially if you live in an imperialist country like we do. The Netherlands is among the biggest players within the EU, and there are numerous large multinationals here that are part of dominating the world. These multinationals determine the policies of the Dutch government and are the plunderers of raw materials and exploiters of labor. The Western European countries have traditionally seen Africa as their backyard. What Latin and Central America are to the US, Africa is to Western Europe.
History of the Netherlands in Africa
Marx calls the Netherlands the original capitalist model nation. There was a time when the Netherlands led the colonial system. This was the period that the Dutch ruling class calls the Golden Age. It was during this period that the Netherlands began colonizing parts of the world, including Africa. That started in what we now call South Africa and reached all parts of Africa. This was a struggle with Portugal, which had already colonized parts of Africa. Later, the Netherlands also acquired a colony in West Africa, and through the ports there, the Netherlands became the largest trader in enslaved Africans. After England took over that role, the Netherlands gradually had to relinquish its dominant role as well. Also in Africa, where Ghana was traded away to be left alone in Indonesia. Meanwhile, through divide-and-conquer practices, people from present-day Burkina Faso and Ghana were recruited to suppress Indonesian freedom fighters as part of the Dutch army.
Imperialist phase of the Netherlands in Africa
In the imperialist phase, the Netherlands had no colonies in Africa, but that certainly does not mean it had no influence there. It is no accident that ‘Apartheid’ is a Dutch word that became internationally known. The criminal regime of Belgium in Congo was inspired by what the Netherlands did in Indonesia. Dutch capital was therefore present in Congo from the very beginning of Belgian colonialism. Dutch multinationals and investors also profited from colonialism in Africa, even though it was carried out by its competitors. Despite the two world wars, imperialists have far more often cooperated throughout history to oppress oppressed peoples. Certainly Unilever, with its Dutch roots, became gigantic through Africa. After the Second World War, the US became the greatest power and neo-colonialism emerged in Africa. In the economic works of Kwame Nkrumah and Dani Wadada Nabudere, which expose neo-colonialism, Dutch multinationals such as Philips and ABN Amro appear regularly. The EU has ensured that Africa is linked to the Caribbean region since the Lomé Convention in 1975 through partnership agreements.
Contemporary focus on Africa
Africa is becoming increasingly important for Europe, partly because their role is diminishing elsewhere. Currently, the EU together is the largest ‘trading partner’―or better said, plunderer―of Africa. After France, the Netherlands is the largest investor, and within the EU, it has the most trade with Africa. Through Global Gateway, the EU is trying to determine its investments in Africa and its foreign strategy. Last year, the royal family visited Kenya, a NATO ally. In 2023, the Dutch government created a plan specifically for Africa for the first time. The organization of Dutch capitalists has also made a plan for Africa. If you look at the trade balances, you see that the Netherlands mainly exports industrial products to Africa and imports raw materials. The Netherlands also exports its agricultural products to Africa through numerous subsidies. In this way, it ruins local industry, making unemployment in Africa a bigger problem. It also hinders the import of African products, partly by having certain requirements that lead to African products being rejected for the Dutch market.
Resistance to China and Russia in Africa
Through VNO-NCW, Dutch capitalists organize themselves, and they are part of Business Europe. The largest European capitalists meet there. This was set up in the 1970s in competition with the US. They also resist China and Russia. China was declared a systemic rival by the EU in 2019, and this also applies in Africa. Therefore, according to Dutch capitalists, there must be a European alternative to the Belt and Road Initiative, which is Global Gateway. Russia is currently the EU’s biggest military opponent, and Africa is called the southern flank. When the mainstream media discusses Africa’s relations with China and Russia, they want to convince us that China and Russia are the imperialists, not the EU. Russia would therefore install ‘pro-Russian regimes’ in Africa and thus undermine the West. In Africa itself, journalists are also being trained by the EU, most likely to further promote this message.
Dutch military in Africa
The Netherlands is a small country, but it is among the top 10 arms exporters. The industry is of a very high level. The Dutch military is also present all over the world, including in Africa. Actively involved in both the so-called ‘war on terrorism’ and the ‘war on drugs’. This legitimizes the military presence. Until 2020, most of its forces were active in Mali, but under the revolutionary government there, it was expelled from the country, just like the other imperialists. The Dutch government explicitly states that it wants to contribute to UN and EU missions in Africa. Currently, there are Dutch military personnel training African armies to suppress their own populations, such as in Kenya and Chad. And perhaps also to use them against the AES (Alliance of Sahel States). When Libya was destroyed in 2011, that country had fewer people living in poverty than the Netherlands. The Netherlands, as part of NATO, also played a role in the destruction of Libya. Besides military pressure, there is also economic warfare carried out through sanctions. The EU and the Netherlands are also skilled at this. For example, the anti-imperialist countries Mali, Niger, Eritrea, and Zimbabwe are victims of those sanctions.
Propaganda also through the trade union
In the Netherlands, despite all the austerity measures, social provisions are still relatively of a high level. There are also two social democratic parties in the Netherlands, both of which have a great deal of influence on the largest Dutch trade union, the FNV. Within this trade union, there is also a Sub-Saharan Africa working group. This group is mainly active in the struggle against the Zimbabwean government. In this, it also cooperates with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In any case, the Dutch government also finances the international work of the FNV through the Trade Union Co-financing Programme. That work has little to do with international solidarity but rather with serving Dutch imperialist interests. Traditionally, trade unions in Africa are much more political and more focused on anti-imperialism. The FNV, with its ties in Africa, wants to remove these ideas as much as possible so that the focus is solely on struggles within companies and for higher wages. Kwame Nkrumah and Mohamed Babu already pointed out imperialism that operates through trade unions.
Anti-imperialist struggle in the Netherlands
The Netherlands has a large African diaspora. This group has primarily risen up against the racist figure of Black Pete. Yet, in general, the anti-racist struggle is not linked to the anti-imperialist struggle. The contemporary colonialism of the Netherlands in the Caribbean region is also hardly criticized. Still, it is positive to see that there are positive reactions regarding the AES (Alliance of Sahel States), despite all the negative propaganda about it in the Dutch media. Although there is attention for the anti-colonial history and its leaders, it is important to also link this to the contemporary anti-imperialist struggle in Africa. Therefore, we also support the GoFundMe for the leader of the Kenyan party, Booker Omole. We also follow the news from Sovereign Media, more or less the successor to African Stream, to stay informed about the struggle in Africa. In addition, The Spearhead has also emerged, which also critically exposes imperialism in Africa. The Thomas Sankara Centre also provides interesting information that we can follow, as does the West African Peoples Organization (WAPO).
“Imperialist Policies Are the Logical Continuation of Their Colonial and Imperialist History”
Communist Organization (KO, Germany)
Comrades,
In March, the European Union adopted a resolution calling for the reinstatement of Niger’s former president, Mohamed Bazoum. Naturally, this was done under the guise of democracy and human rights. At the same time, a resolution was adopted that demonizes Russia’s activities in Africa. These resolutions are a clear example of how chauvinistic colonial attitudes remain an essential part of imperialist policy. Germany, France, and Great Britain—which exploited, enslaved, robbed of their lands, and forcibly conscripted millions of Africans in the 19th and 20th centuries—still want to rule over Africa.
We remember the tirailleurs who fought against fascism in Europe. But when colonized peoples demanded freedom and dignity for themselves, colonialism responded with massacres—whether in Thiaroye or Sétif—it becomes clear: The anti-fascist victory of 1945 by no means meant the end of fascist violence for the colonized peoples, but rather its continuation in colonial form in many places.
1. The Colonial Origins of European Fascism
We must draw this historical line if we are to understand the origins of fascism—something even communist forces in the imperialist center too often overlook. The European powers developed their methods of oppression—apartheid, forced labor, collective punishment, and racist administration—in Africa and other parts of the periphery, and later applied them in Europe. The policy of extermination in German South West Africa against the Herero and Nama, the suppression of the Maji-Maji uprising: these were laboratories of fascist violence.
It is no coincidence that contemporary right-wing forces in Europe—including openly fascist parties—downplay colonial crimes while aggressively promoting their reactionary nationalism. They know full well: whoever rehabilitates colonial history lays the ideological groundwork for new imperialist wars.
A central part of this historical revisionism is the decontextualization of German fascism and the portrayal of the Holocaust as unique. It obscures who profited from and strengthened fascism, and which methods were already tested during colonialism. Thus, the German government recently decided that German colonial crimes have no place in the memorial concept, which instead focuses solely on the Holocaust and the so-called “SED dictatorship” (the defamation of the German socialist state).
The exceptionalization of the genocide against German Jews is necessary to render protests against German imperialism toothless and to justify the German raison d’état—the unconditional support of Israel. Through this politics of history, Germany can be portrayed as a bastion of human rights, while anti-colonial liberation struggles are delegitimized.
A genuine denazification never truly took place in the FRG after liberation from fascism—quite the contrary: in recent decades, the EU project was instead built up as an anti-communist bulwark cloaked in so-called Western values.
2. EU Policy as Continuity: Anti-Communist and Misanthropic
The EU tries to market itself as a peace project. Yet its foreign policy, in particular, demonstrates the opposite. EU Foreign Affairs Representative Josep Borrell put it bluntly in 2022: Europe as a “garden” that must be protected from the rest of the world—the “jungle” and its encroachment into “paradise.”
Such openly chauvinistic imagery is not mere rhetoric but finds concrete expression in policy: rearmament, militarization, colonial migration control, sanctions regimes, and direct political interference thus appear not as isolated measures but as the logical continuation of this reactionary policy.
The demonization of Russia also fits into this overall picture—it appears as another element of the same strategic orientation. It is clearly not about the protection of human rights. Support for Ukraine, in particular, reveals how right-wing and openly fascist forces are supported and downplayed as long as they align with the strategic interests of the West. Actors who speak positively of Stepan Bandera’s historical collaboration with the German fascists are reinterpreted in this context as “freedom fighters.” The fascist regime in Kyiv is intended to serve the EU and, in particular, NATO as a battering ram against Russia, against which Germany has historically waged war on several occasions.
Furthermore, to demonize Russia, the massive Soviet contribution to the liberation from German fascism must be hushed up. Thus, in Germany, May 8 and 9 are by no means official holidays commemorating liberation from German fascism; instead, a so-called “Europe Day” on May 9 is contrived as a distraction.
At its core, therefore, the aim is to isolate geopolitical rivals while simultaneously obscuring one’s own colonial past and present.
3. The Old Order in a New Guise
Comrades, imperialism may have changed its guise—but not its practices.
On the African continent, we are witnessing struggles over neocolonial influence; while it is being pushed back in the Sahel, French imperialism is seeking a new sphere of influence in Kenya. An obvious example is the reason we are gathered here today: the new military agreement between France and Kenya. French soldiers are granted extensive immunity. French law is effectively placed above Kenyan law. This amounts to the practical abolition of political sovereignty.
And this policy only works because compradors—economic and political elites around Ruto, Kagame, or Tinoubou—within African countries are willing to enforce the interests of foreign powers. Yet we can currently see a striking example of breaking this pattern in the Sahel!
4. The Shift in Western Strategies in Africa – From West to East
French imperialism in West Africa is in crisis. The resistance and growing self-confidence of the peoples of the Sahel are undeniable: Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger are increasingly breaking away from neocolonial dependencies and charting a sovereignist course. In response, the West is shifting its strategies eastward—the Ruto regime in Kenya is being deliberately built up and stabilized as a reliable lackey. Current developments are accompanied by growing repression and worsening social conditions in Kenya.
Yet, the weakness of the imperialist order is revealed: despite coup attempts, destabilization strategies, and massive pressure, it has failed to push back the sovereign shifts in the Sahel region. The fact that France is seeking new footholds after its expulsion is not a sign of strength, but an expression of crisis and an attempt to regain lost ground.
This makes determined resistance and strengthened international solidarity all the more necessary. The Kenyan comrades set an impressive example: despite persecution, assassination attempts, imprisonment, and torture, they remain unyielding and hold fast to the struggle. Their steadfastness is a living expression of revolutionary consistency—and an experience from which we must learn.
Israel, too, is a central pillar of Western strategy on the continent: primarily in military and technological terms. The colonial character of Zionism is thus laid bare—historically in the close alliance with the apartheid regime in South Africa, which ranged from military cooperation to economic interdependence and security policy collaboration.
Currently, Israel exports not only weapons but an entire system of control: surveillance technologies, military tactics, and counterinsurgency methods—tested in occupied Palestine—are disseminated globally and thus also applied against the African masses. Security forces from the centers of imperialism undergo training in Israel—and carry their inhumane practices out into the world.
5. Fascistization at Home–Imperialist Offensive Abroad
Israel’s role in this is closely linked to Germany: “Israel’s security” is regarded as a matter of German national interest—and is enforced politically both domestically and abroad. While the German government stands firmly by Israel’s side in foreign policy and acts as an accomplice in the genocide of the Palestinians, it intensifies repression against Palestine solidarity at home. At the same time, the German government likes to stage a firewall against the open fascists of the AfD and tries to rally the population to condemn them, thereby extricating itself from the affair. Yet with the current coterie around Merz, an openly chauvinist force has long been in power: the deliberate stoking of racism and mistrust, the massive expansion of the military and a European war machine—especially in close cooperation with France—as well as social cuts characterize the agenda.
All of this goes hand in hand with an attempt to rewrite German history and render its colonial continuities invisible. None of this is possible without rehabilitating colonialism. What we are currently witnessing is part of a project in which the ruling class aims to ideologically re-legitimize those methods of oppression that were once tested in Africa.
6. Conclusion
The European powers—especially Germany, France, and Italy—are attempting to reassert themselves more strongly in the global power struggle, secure their own spheres of influence, and claim their share of the imperialist pie, rather than allowing themselves to be pushed to the margins by the U.S. Despite all their internal contradictions and competing ambitions, they are united by the desire not to come away empty-handed in the redistribution of the world and to suppress anti-colonial movements. Their policies are not a deviation, but the logical continuation of their colonial and imperialist history.
Furthermore, within our own movements, there is often a failure to recognize how closely colonialism and fascism are linked—both historically and today. The right-wing knows this very well. And they openly exploit this connection to legitimize colonial relations and weaken the struggles for social and national liberation.
We are at a historic turning point. The struggle against all who resist imperialism is intensifying, and fascist forces are being strengthened.
The U.S. is desperately trying to defend its crumbling hegemony through war, sanctions, and destabilization—from its support for the Zionist agenda of annihilation in Palestine and Lebanon, through aggression against Cuba and Venezuela, to interventions and proxy wars on the African continent. Yet this very offensive also reveals its crisis. For while imperialism opens new fronts, resistance is simultaneously growing, appearing more self-assured and determined—from the sovereign breakaways in the Sahel to forces in West Asia that are increasingly challenging the supposed inviolability of the U.S. Iran, in particular, makes it clear: the era of unchallenged U.S. dominance is beginning to falter.
The EU dutifully aligns itself with its big brother while simultaneously pursuing its own claims to great power status. Under the guise of “Western values,” it sells war as peace, rearmament as security, and exploitation as partnership—while helping to orchestrate brutalization, annihilation, and genocide. But behind the façade of liberal morality lies a system in dissolution: its resolutions, military agreements, and economic structures of domination are built on sand. It is up to us to bring down its house of cards.
That is why we need a clear analysis, a clear understanding of the conditions, and, building on that, a clear anti-imperialist practice. The liberation of the African, Asian, American, and European peoples remains unfinished—and it will not be achieved as long as colonialism and fascism are not fought together—and as long as so-called anti-imperialists in the imperialist center fail to break free from their own colonial patterns of thought.
Long live international solidarity!
Down with colonialism and fascism!
Long live the socialist revolution!
Long live the common struggle—shoulder to shoulder—for a just world for all peoples!
