This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC Reith Lectures.

This lecture in the series The African Condition, given by Ali Masrui,

was originally broadcast in 1979.

In the first wreath lectures to be focused primarily on Africa,

Dame Marjorie Perram, the Oxford historian,

decided to use a metaphor from accounting.

She attempted a colonial reckoning, a kind of balance sheet of the costs and benefits of the colonial experience

for both the colonized and the imperial powers.

My own metaphor for these lectures is from the medical field.

It's as if I were a doctor and Africa had come to me

for a comprehensive medical examination on the eve of a particular anniversary.

The most important century in Africa's relations with Europe

has been from the 1880s to the 1980s.

It was from the 1880s that the map of Africa began to acquire more decisively the different flag colors of the occupation powers of Europe.

Let's assume Africa has come to my clinic for varied medical tests

on the eve of the 100th anniversary of Europe's rape of her body and her possessions.

I've therefore called this series of lectures the African condition for two major reasons.

One is diagnostic.

To some extent, this series is about Africa's aches and pains.

What is Africa's state of health after a hundred years of intense interaction with Europe.

I also chose the title because it echoed the philosophical phrase,

the human condition. I want to examine the state of Africa partly as a way of measuring

...