Mercator Map and How We Have Completely Lost the Plot on Colonialism

How did anti-colonialism go from a struggle against unequal global material conditions to a battle of egos about whose country looks bigger on a map?

The UN is honestly a bit too busy to deal with trivial issues such as Iran-US war, the genocide in Gaza and Sudan, the trade-war between US and China, the inhumane sanctioning of Cuba or the fact that head of state of Venezuela was abducted by the Americans earlier this year and remains in their custody while Venezuela is being made available to unfettered imperial looting. The United Nations cannot be bothered with news that might seem harrowing to some that global heating is projected to exceed the 1.5-degree safe threshold, a threshold beyond which the world faces significant decline in food production, water shortages and extreme weather. The United Nations is currently addressing the most pressing concern threatening the survival of humanity today: the fact that Global South appears smaller than the Global North on a navigational map.

At this point, the satirical ‘The Onion’ news agency should take up the job of reporting actual news as it happens in the real world for the jokes write themselves. On September 4th 2026, the UN general assembly voted overwhelmingly to encourage government, schools and tech companies ‘to stop using maps that make Africa look smaller than it really is. This is in reference to the Mercator map; a projection created in the 16th century by Flemish Cartographer Gerardus Mercator and has since then become synonymous with what we consider ‘the world map’.

The use of this map was not a devious plot devised by the Europeans to intentionally make the Global South appear smaller than it actually is. This invention was a matter of life-and-death for those daring to navigate the relatively unknown seas of the 16th century. You see what these ‘African Nationalists’ do not understand is that the Earth is round, and because it is round, representing it accurately on a flat two-dimensional plane is practically impossible. However, we still need a two-dimensional representation of Earth if we plan to navigate it safely. The Mercator map is thus far the best way to do that as straight lines on this map correspond to constant compass directions, allowing sailors and travelers to plot their courses reliably. However, in the pursuit of creating navigational accuracy, the map stretches land that is further away from the equator, giving the illusion that North America, Greenland and Russia are as big as Africa.

This is not a malicious racist attempt by white Europeans to create the impression that Africa is smaller and hence inferior. However, the discourse surrounding the Mercator map heavily features the assumption that land mass somehow determines whether we psychologically perceive an area as superior or inferior. If such an absurd notion was actually the case, the world would never have allowed the British, the French, the Japanese, the Portuguese and the Spanish to dominate the rest of the world as its colonial overlords, for how can people who come from such a small land mass dominate those who live in such a huge land mass? Its like the analysis of colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism was devised by a 5-year-old.

Yet, the world leaders from the African Union have jumped at this opportunity to stop western domination once and for all, leading the charge against the Mercator Map, a piece of paper acting as a master code that holds western imperialism together. They have been lauded by the middle class left living in the Global South and their extremist cousins the ‘post colonial’ diaspora and why shouldn’t they be? The dark days of colonialism, imperialism and neo-colonialism are now officially behind us!!!!!

However, those of us who are not as enlightened as the world leaders leading the charge against the Mercator map may ask this rather naive question: how does this address the massively unequal distribution of wealth that create the distinction between the Global South and the Global North to begin with? How does this address the fact that more money leaves Africa than enters it? How can the Mercator map beat the domination of foreign multi-national companies that dominate and virtually control all industry in the Global South, at the expense of the misery and mass exploitation of the Global South’s working class? Will the IMF (which has furthered entrenched the Global South into the depths of poverty through systemic debt traps that primarily line the pockets of the Global North) magically dissolve the moment the Mercator map is taken from their hands? Or will Western fashion brands read this headline about how small the Global South looks in the world map and reach a moral enlightenment that will shut off their sweatshop labour in Pakistan and Bangladesh?

The fundamental problem is that the discourse anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism has moved away from the material conditions marking the inequality between the colonizers and the colonized, and towards petty debates on symbolism and ideology. In 20th century, anti-colonial movements were led by Marxists whose use of nationalism was primarily directed towards addressing the material exploitation of the colonized working class in the Global South by the nations residing in the Global North. The end goal for these movements was not symbolic, but rather the removal of imperial centers of power from native soil and transforming the economy towards self-sufficiency to avoid any future imperial take-over. This was not the result of the correctness of an abstract Marxian theory on colonialism, but the product of Marxist organizing and enmeshment within the colonized working masses, the class most affected by the exploitation of the colonized nation. However, with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the defeat of the revolutionaries in China in 1976, the Marxist movement across the world collapsed and the politics of the working masses moved towards the periphery of mainstream politics. For the first time since the 19th century, politics was now strictly the affair of the victorious Imperial bourgeoise, their lackeys in the Global South in the form of comprador bourgeoisie/feudalists and the middle class, the latter of whom quickly abandoned their previous support for the working class in favor of now undisputed global ruling elite.

The comprador bourgeoisie and the feudal are a class of individuals found in imperial colonies who control the colony on behalf of the imperialists. The African countries most enthusiastically pushing forward the idea of replacing the Mercator map, or the leaders of the subcontinent and Latin America are all governed by this comprador class. A core task of this comprador class is to re-direct anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist sentiments arising from the masses towards counter-revolutionary ends. Colonialism as an issue may arouse in the masses a desire to overthrow imperialism both locally and across the globe, so the comprador class re-directs that energy towards a purely symbolic and ideological debate. Suddenly, the pre-colonial past is romanticized, there is a focus towards native spiritualism as a form of collective liberation, native culture is fetishized as an unchanging essence that the west must not transgress and there is a hyper-fixation on choosing the ‘right’ language for engaging with colonialism. From this social milieu, the discourse around the whether a navigational map is “racist” arises.

The biggest supporters of the comprador class in their aesthetic liberation project are the urban middle classes. The urban middle class, particularly those emerging from capitalist academia, have this extremely resentful attitude towards the colonialism of the past. Colonialists are the root of all our problems and if we just ‘decolonize our minds’, all the contemporary structural problems of mass inequality, patriarchy, ethnic and queer oppression, and national poverty will dissipate. It must be highlighted that one must be extremely resentful towards colonialism, but not because colonialism detached us from our spiritual essence, destroyed the pre-colonial paradise or made our maps look smaller than they actually are, rather our resentment must be directed towards how colonialism systemically exploits the Global South to this day to create the current high living standard and wealth of the Global North. This would lead to strategies against colonialism that is not directed towards changing our language, symbols and discourses, but rather towards the abolition of the imperial economy found in the Global South, the expulsion of foreign multi-national companies, the refusal to pay predatory IMF debts, and the establishment of local industry catered towards the interests of the native population.

However, our urban middle classes are unlikely to put forward this analysis, strategy or demands, especially if it remains attached to the comprador class and their imperial masters, and detached from the plight of the native working masses. The worldview of the middle class and their pseudo-hate for colonialism is informed by the contradiction between the middle class working under foreign multi-nationals and the comprador class and being exploited by them, while simultaneously being awarded high wages and a decent standard of living by the same foreign companies and compradors. As such, the urban middle-class feels resentful towards the imperialists and their lackeys, but they do not express their resentment enough to upset these classes deeply. They find that the counter-revolutionary channel created by the comprador class to discuss the aesthetic, symbolic and spiritual critique of colonialism as the safest avenue for their resentment, as it does not threaten the structures of powers and their full-time jobs.

In other words, until the middle class does not break away from its class alliance with the comprador and imperial bourgeoise and realize that their class interests are more closely aligned with the interests of the workers and peasants of the global south, and until a new anti-colonialist critique, movement and revolution is not created that is led by the working masses of the Global South, all we will see is an influencer industrial complex celebrating that the Global South has won the ‘whose country/area looks bigger on a battle of egos contest.