“They are savages… and it is our duty to civilize them.” – Jules Ferry, former French Prime Minister, defender of French imperialism.
“The African is happy under the firm but benevolent guidance of his British master.” – Cecil Rhodes, British colonizer and founder of Rhodesia.
Traveling through West Africa, especially Senegal, felt like peeling back the skin of a history we never truly studied. I went to school in Karachi under the British system—O-Levels, A-Levels, polished Queen’s English—but never once did we question what colonization really meant. The word “empire” was tossed around in textbooks with pride, not remorse. There was Rome, then the British Empire, and the French. But what were they doing? And how did they get away with so much, for so long?
At Île de Gorée, just off the coast of Dakar, we were told the stories—the horror stories. Of how enslaved men were shackled in darkness, while girls—virgin girls with large breasts—were kept in separate chambers. A European buyer might come, choose her, rape her. If she got pregnant, she might be spared from the brutal journey across the Atlantic. Her baby, a mulâtre or metis, would become part of a different caste—neither fully slave nor fully free. The British and French may have used different words, but the system—the alaystem as some locals called it—was similar across colonies: dehumanize, divide, dominate.
In some ways, it reminded me of caste systems back in South Asia. In British India, the colonizers weren’t just stealing spices and textiles—they were also playing gods. Some were placed in fancy schools, others in fields or sweatshops. It wasn’t much different from what we saw in Senegal. The French, even today, run agricultural operations here. The peanuts, the cotton, the fruits—they’re sent straight back to Europe. It’s as if independence came with a dotted line: free in name, but still feeding the same machine.
And then there’s Ethiopia. We’re told it’s the only African country never colonized. Was it because they didn’t eat as much pasta and pizza as the Italians who tried to conquer them? Or did they just fight harder? Maybe they were lucky—or just proud.
Persia, they say, was where domestic farming began. Empires often begin with innovation and end with exploitation. They leave behind railroads, roads, a few schools—and a legacy of trauma. The question is, which empire was the bloodiest? Was it the Belgians in Congo, the French in Algeria, or the British with their famines in India?
And here we are, still asking these questions. Walking the streets of Dakar, seeing French signs, French banks, and French businesses—on African soil. Colonialism might be over, but the game hasn’t changed. It just got rebranded.
I didn’t learn any of this in school. But I learned it here—in the stories, in the eyes of the people, in the ruins of the past. And I carry a strange guilt. A borrowed guilt. Because even though I didn’t own the ships or sign the treaties, I belonged to a system that never questioned it. That normalized it.
And yet, despite it all, I saw resilience everywhere—in the rhythms of the drums, the smiles in the market, the elders sitting under baobab trees sharing stories that refused to die.
As they say in Wolof:
“Ku muñ, moo gëna duu.”
The one who endures is greater than the one who escapes.
Halai 
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