4 ms·

The point is that it wasn't just blatant oppression, for oppression's sake. As people like to pretend because it better serves their victimhood narrative. Neit

by cb18 11y ago

The point is that it wasn't just blatant oppression, for oppression's sake. As people like to pretend because it better serves their victimhood narrative. Neither were Europeans acting in a purely altruistic manner of course, nobody ever does. The Africans had a choice in matters as well, they chose to cooperate for the most part because they felt that was in their best interest. People always like to take the agency away from whoever's 'victim' story they are telling. It's demeaning. Two entities interacting, pursuing their own interests, resulting in mutual benefit. That's called symbiotic. Sure you can drill down and find good and bad, you can't have one without the other. What's the balance between the two? The main point and the absurdity of these discussions is that people so often try to say that the descendants of the colonizers are somehow to blame for the present state of the descendants of the colonized, whatever that may be, when it is crystal clear that without the European intervention the descendants of the colonized would be in a far worse state today.

astrodust 11y ago
You have such a ridiculously warped view of history it's both shocking and hilarious simultaneously. I'm sure your views on slavery are similarly enlightening. Don't look at me trying to blame anyone for anything. I'm simply refusing to ignore historical fact. As far as I'm concerned what's done is done, we can move on, that the more we try and pin blame the more of a mess we'll end up in. White-washing history and pretending it resulted in "mutual benefit" is absolutely monstrous, though. The colonial powers differed in their attitudes from country to country, from era to era, but on the whole they were belligerent, greedy, and utterly indifferent to the people they were subjugating. If there's one reason why it's hard to paint a picture of how brutal colonial powers treated the people it's because they often erased the other side of the story. We're only just beginning to put together the pieces of the true story of what happened.
stuxnet79 11y ago
> The Africans had a choice in matters as well, they chose to cooperate for the most part because they felt that was in their best interest. People always like to take the agency away from whoever's 'victim' story they are telling. It's demeaning. Do you even know anything about European intervention / influence in Africa? Europeans at first came as explorers, missionaries, enslavers and then as armed soldiers. At what point in the last 2 does choice figure? The only part of history that fits your blissfully idealistic and ignorant narrative is European activities in East Asia / particularly Japan. Japan had a healthy amount of contact with Europeans early on in the Age of Exploration but they kicked them all out (British, Dutch, Spanish, ... etc) convinced that they were up to no good and it was only when Commodore Perry breached Japan's defenses in the mid 19th century that Japan again opened itself up to the west. But even this renewed contact was markedly different as America was under the sway of the Monroe Doctrine & was not interested in making Japan an extension of America. In Africa however, in the late 19th / early 20th century land was being grabbed en masse and native people's rights trampled as a result of European foreign policy which was influenced strongly by the stipulations spelled out in the "Berlin Conference" (1884).

by cb18 11y ago

astrodust 11y ago

You have such a ridiculously warped view of history it's both shocking and hilarious simultaneously. I'm sure your views on slavery are similarly enlightening. Don't look at me trying to blame anyone for anything. I'm simply refusing to ignore historical fact. As far as I'm concerned what's done is done, we can move on, that the more we try and pin blame the more of a mess we'll end up in. White-washing history and pretending it resulted in "mutual benefit" is absolutely monstrous, though. The colonial powers differed in their attitudes from country to country, from era to era, but on the whole they were belligerent, greedy, and utterly indifferent to the people they were subjugating. If there's one reason why it's hard to paint a picture of how brutal colonial powers treated the people it's because they often erased the other side of the story. We're only just beginning to put together the pieces of the true story of what happened.

stuxnet79 11y ago

> The Africans had a choice in matters as well, they chose to cooperate for the most part because they felt that was in their best interest. People always like to take the agency away from whoever's 'victim' story they are telling. It's demeaning. Do you even know anything about European intervention / influence in Africa? Europeans at first came as explorers, missionaries, enslavers and then as armed soldiers. At what point in the last 2 does choice figure? The only part of history that fits your blissfully idealistic and ignorant narrative is European activities in East Asia / particularly Japan. Japan had a healthy amount of contact with Europeans early on in the Age of Exploration but they kicked them all out (British, Dutch, Spanish, ... etc) convinced that they were up to no good and it was only when Commodore Perry breached Japan's defenses in the mid 19th century that Japan again opened itself up to the west. But even this renewed contact was markedly different as America was under the sway of the Monroe Doctrine & was not interested in making Japan an extension of America. In Africa however, in the late 19th / early 20th century land was being grabbed en masse and native people's rights trampled as a result of European foreign policy which was influenced strongly by the stipulations spelled out in the "Berlin Conference" (1884).