Yash Tandon is the author of numerous books and is an Honorary Professor at Warwick and London Middlesex Universities in the UK. He is the Founder-Chairman of SEATINI (Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and Negotiations Institute), and former Executive Director of the South Centre, a think tank of the Global South.

The WTO is essentially a conspiratorial organisation. Its decisions are made by a few select members (the big powers plus a small number of countries from the South selected by the North) in so-called 'green rooms'. These decisions are then binding even on those not present. Africa was not present in these 'green rooms' at Singapore, and yet Africa was obliged to accept the so-called 'Singapore Issues' that were agreed upon behind their backs as part of the WTO agenda. The WTO is definitely not a democratic organisation. Since 1996, Africa has been fighting to reverse the damage done at Singapore.

In 1997, following the experience of the WTO Ministerial meeting in Singapore, I did some research and I discovered to my dismay that practically all African countries had signed the Uruguay Agreements that set up the WTO without even reading the text. That shocked me. Why would they sign an agreement that harmed Africa's interests without even reading it? Why had African governments not subjected the Agreement to rigorous analysis? I also found that none of them had presented the treaty to their national parliaments for democratic scrutiny. Why not? Was it an oversight? Or was this behaviour a product of history or psychology?

I am not a psychoanalyst. But Africa's experience with the WTO reminds me of the brilliant analysis by the Martiniquean-Algerian-French psychiatrist and philosopher Frantz Fanon. In his book Black Skin, White Masks (1952), he applied psychoanalytic theory to explain the feelings of 'dependency' and 'inadequacy' that black people experience in a white world. Even after independence, it is difficult for black 'subjects' to eliminate the inferiority complex that is a necessary product of the colonising process. Fanon said that this was particularly the case with educated black people who want to be accepted by their white mentors. 'The Negro enslaved by his inferiority, the white man enslaved by his superiority alike behaves in accordance with a neurotic orientation'.

It sounds astonishing that, in spite of decades of struggle for independence, most African leaders have an incredulous faith in their European mentors. This reveals an implicit assumption that now that the anticolonial wars are over, Europeans may be trusted to look after African interests. Of course, this is not the only reason why they would sign agreements such as the one that created the WTO. There is the lure of 'development aid' and the threat of sanctions. There is also the all-pervasive ideology, especially after the emergence of the neoliberal economic doctrine, of free trade and state deregulation. This ideology argues that, left to the market, the resources of the world are most efficiently and productively allocated on the basis of comparative or competitive advantages. But I came to the conclusion that the reason Africa trusts Europe is, above all, the naive belief that the erstwhile colonial masters have seen the error of their past sins and can now be trusted to deal with Africa on trade matters with fairness and justice. This is what puzzled me most.

Yash Tandon is the author of numerous books and is an Honorary Professor at Warwick and London Middlesex Universities in the UK. He is the Founder-Chairman of SEATINI (Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and Negotiations Institute), and former Executive Director of the South Centre, a think tank of the Global South.

The WTO is essentially a conspiratorial organisation. Its decisions are made by a few select members (the big powers plus a small number of countries from the South selected by the North) in so-called 'green rooms'. These decisions are then binding even on those not present. Africa was not present in these 'green rooms' at Singapore, and yet Africa was obliged to accept the so-called 'Singapore Issues' that were agreed upon behind their backs as part of the WTO agenda. The WTO is definitely not a democratic organisation. Since 1996, Africa has been fighting to reverse the damage done at Singapore.

In 1997, following the experience of the WTO Ministerial meeting in Singapore, I did some research and I discovered to my dismay that practically all African countries had signed the Uruguay Agreements that set up the WTO without even reading the text. That shocked me. Why would they sign an agreement that harmed Africa's interests without even reading it? Why had African governments not subjected the Agreement to rigorous analysis? I also found that none of them had presented the treaty to their national parliaments for democratic scrutiny. Why not? Was it an oversight? Or was this behaviour a product of history or psychology?

I am not a psychoanalyst. But Africa's experience with the WTO reminds me of the brilliant analysis by the Martiniquean-Algerian-French psychiatrist and philosopher Frantz Fanon. In his book Black Skin, White Masks (1952), he applied psychoanalytic theory to explain the feelings of 'dependency' and 'inadequacy' that black people experience in a white world. Even after independence, it is difficult for black 'subjects' to eliminate the inferiority complex that is a necessary product of the colonising process. Fanon said that this was particularly the case with educated black people who want to be accepted by their white mentors. 'The Negro enslaved by his inferiority, the white man enslaved by his superiority alike behaves in accordance with a neurotic orientation'.

It sounds astonishing that, in spite of decades of struggle for independence, most African leaders have an incredulous faith in their European mentors. This reveals an implicit assumption that now that the anticolonial wars are over, Europeans may be trusted to look after African interests. Of course, this is not the only reason why they would sign agreements such as the one that created the WTO. There is the lure of 'development aid' and the threat of sanctions. There is also the all-pervasive ideology, especially after the emergence of the neoliberal economic doctrine, of free trade and state deregulation. This ideology argues that, left to the market, the resources of the world are most efficiently and productively allocated on the basis of comparative or competitive advantages. But I came to the conclusion that the reason Africa trusts Europe is, above all, the naive belief that the erstwhile colonial masters have seen the error of their past sins and can now be trusted to deal with Africa on trade matters with fairness and justice. This is what puzzled me most.