1. The world before globalization (XIX century until 1989)

The Berlin conference, 1884-1885 - colonisation and imperialism in the partition of African territories , see map

The principle of effective occupation - an empire had to prove t hat had capacity to occupy a territory (using military and administrative powers) or have special treaties with local leaders. By then they could occupy and explore the land, impose sovereignty, and control the population.

Slavery was banned but, in most cases, it was substituted by force labour and no citizenship rights. Local communities were considered barbarian, not civilized, their culture - values, language - was suppressed and western culture was imposed.

African American sociologist W.E.Du Bois defended that " the partitioning of Africa after the Franco-Prussian War which, with the Berlin Conference of 1884, brought colonial imperialism to flower" and that "[t]he primary reality of imperialism in Africa today is economic," going on to expound on the extraction of wealth from the continent .

The problem of extraction and the development of capitalism

Colonialism in the XIX century evolves with a series of characteristics :

- An economic model based on extractive activities : extraction of goods - rubber, sugar, coffee, gold, etc. To develop new industries in the West. This era of industrialisation was sustained by two different type of workers.

Western workers: obliged to work in small and bigger factories for small wages, long hours, child labour , wage gap between men and women. Organized in unions, major strikes in the late XIX century forced governments to introduce first labour rights and compensations in case of death or disease - Bismarck model introduced in Prussia (now Germany).

International solidarity between Western workers created the First International movement in 1864, in London, reunited the most influential trade leaders divided in different ideologies: Marxism , socialism, anarchism, Proudhonist .

The First International was founded under the name International Working Men's Association

Southern east and west colonies workers: forced labour, use of torture, forced migration, abandon of agriculture . Riots and other protests were violently supressed. Forms of solidarity among workers were difficult to implement .

Extraction was combined with national monopolies - those companies who had the right to produce and commercialise in each territory . Italian Colonial Trading Company, British West India Company

A social and cultural model: imposing European languages as official even if throughout the centuries other non- European language s were especially important to trade, science and culture like Arabic.

Imposing an idea of civilization going hand in hand with Christian religions: Catholicism and Protestantism and the involvement of missionaries' work on colonies creating schools, hospitals.

Non-recognition of cultural diversity, the History of each region was silenced .

A political model: based on the establishment of administrative powers and the development of judicial institutions and norms. For instance, the right to private property and the use of land, expropriating local communities to use the land for economic reasons - creation of plantations, mineral extractio n, etc.

A citizenship model: defining who were the citizens of each colony and their rights . World War I and II had impact on that model through the mobilization of soldiers from colonies.

Roger Casement and the Casement Report , 1904 denouncing the violation of human rights in Congo, at the time owned by King Leopold II of Belgium. The report describes the atrocities committed to the Congolese population and its obligation to work extracting rubber .