4 ms·

I voted you down because I was on a 2 hour long conference call and didn't have time to refute your argument. You can reminisce about British/Euro colonialism

by mahmud 17y ago

I voted you down because I was on a 2 hour long conference call and didn't have time to refute your argument. You can reminisce about British/Euro colonialism all you want, but we as East Africans didn't want them. When given a choice between accepting the super power, or fighting them off, we chose the later and paid for it dearly. Independence didn't come to us cheap, we had to bloody the nose of the empire and send it packing :-) Neither you nor anyone else has the right to dictate the fate of a people. Sovereignty above prosperity my man. You say self governance is not high on your list. Nearly everyone on earth is either from a colonial power, or from a former colony. Unless you're from one of the few places on earth that escaped colonization; you're either implicitly rejecting your country's fight for independence, or you're a colonialist yourself, or a direct beneficiary, and have no right to speak for your so-called "subjects".

thaumaturgy 17y ago
> I voted you down because I was on a 2 hour long conference call and didn't have time to refute your argument. That's not very nice, nor constructive. It doesn't improve the conversation at all. I really wish people wouldn't do that. > Sovereignty above prosperity my man. There are a few hundred thousand women in Africa that might take issue with your absolutist position. One of the points of the article here was that, absent any governance at all, the violence in some areas of Africa has gone from being about anything to merely being violence for violence's sake. How can that possibly be considered a better outcome? To badly quote Bertrand Russell, once you begin to think about human suffering, it's hard to think about anything else. It is hard for me to fathom how anyone could see the actual condition in these areas, and conclude that their ideology justifies those conditions! I have every right to speak for my "so-called subjects"; I have the right of a rational argument, which is this: colonial rule is a lesser atrocity than the rule of anarchic violence.
- mahmud 17y ago
  I took it as inflammatory and libelous. Should I rephrase it for you or can you grok what "they were better off under British rule" really means?
  - tsally 17y ago
    You shouldn't be down-voted to -4. Personally I think you're justified in taking lionhearted's as inflammatory and libelous. The claim that Hong Kong and the US are evidence for Britain's superiority is tenuous at best. The success or failure of all nations listed in lionhearted's arguments have a lot more to do with natural resources and geographic location than British rule. I wonder if Britain had had the same natural resources and geographical vulnerability as your average African nation, would they have become a colonial power?
    - lionhearted 17y ago
      > Personally I think you're justified in taking lionhearted's as inflammatory and libelous. Well, this is a bad thing for me to hear from you, because you're one of the commentors on here I admire and always look to read your point of view. You're usually saying some quite insightful stuff. So let me ask if I may, how could I put forth the idea that colonialism isn't such a bad thing without being inflammatory and libelous? I know a lot of people hate it, are raised and taught in school that their country's revolution was most justified and glorious, etc, etc. (I was taught the same way, and had the same feelings until doing a lot of research and reading) Now I don't think that's the case, I think the British did a generally good job, and if I was alive in the times of the British Empire, I'm pretty sure I'd want to be under British rule. Is there a way I can put that point of view out there straightforwardly without tweaking people?
      - tsally 17y ago
        You're intentions are good, no doubt there. I definitely didn't mean to imply it was intentional on your part. It's subtle, but it feels like the argument you put forth implies the colonized were lesser than the British in a fundamental sense. Hence why I said "inflammatory and libelous" feelings are justified. You also gloss over a lot of complex issues in regards to the Empire itself (which I wrote about here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1223286 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1223286). As a general rule, you're not wrong in the sense that a strong government can provide stability to a region. But it's important to remember the native population had no role in government. They never were taught how to govern by the British or allowed to develop their own methods of governing, because it was the British intention that their colonies always be dependent on Britain. The collapse after British withdrawal backs this up I think. Had the native population played a larger role in governing themselves or been given the freedom to develop their own system, they might have been able to create a stable government after Britain left. There's also the fact that the British enslaved millions while building their empire. The military that created the stability you admire was paid for by the lives of millions of Africans. Seems like there is something wrong about glorifying that stability, given how it came about. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that the stability provided by the British Empire was a false and immoral stability. But factually your right that there was some temporary stability. That said, you can stabilize a region by enslaving everyone if you wanted to. Clearly there is a continuum for moral and immoral ways to stabilize a region. It's my belief British colonialism leans more towards the immoral side, but I understand where you are coming from. Sorry, that was stream of consciousness haha. I know it's not well formed. EDIT: Is there a way I can put that point of view out there straightforwardly without tweaking people? I'm not sure. I think there is something important to what you are saying, but it is difficult to frame it without implying that the colonized are inferior. There are positive things to say about the British system of government yes, but who's to say the native populations wouldn't have developed something just as good given the chance? Do I wish all the lives in Africa since the British withdrawal could be brought back? Yes. Do I think subjecting the entire African continent to British rule for two centuries is a fair price to pay for that? I'm not sure. Ultimately African nations need to learn (with international help) how to govern on their own.
lionhearted 17y ago
> Neither you nor anyone else has the right to dictate the fate of a people. Sovereignty above prosperity my man. I think you and I are closer together in perspective than you might think. I don't care about having a say in how the roads are laid out or the standardization of weights and measures, but I do expect freedom and will take it over promises of prosperity yes. As soon as the ruling authority, whether internal or external, starts mandating how I run my life we've got a problem. But I don't care if the guy choosing the layout of the roads looks like me and has the same bloodlines or not - I do spend the majority of my time abroad in countries where I have no vote, and the ruling authority looks differently than me, speaks a different language, and has no common ancestry. I'm comfortable under another person's rule if their rule is good. I don't need a say or someone with shared blood running things as long as whoever in charge is doing a good job. > Unless you're from one of the few places on earth that escaped colonization; you're either implicitly rejecting your country's fight for independence That's correct. Two-thirds of the masterminds behind the revolution in my country were complete thugs, brutal men who incited the crowds to mob violence, who burned down buildings, who tortured largely innocent representatives of the Crown, who even condoned the killing of those men's children! We were very fortunate to get some anti-revolutionary anti-"will of the people" types in my country to moderate and put safeguards against mob violence and oppression, and there were a couple exceptional leaders who didn't fully buy into the "spirit of revolution" nonsense. Of course, I live somewhere with public education that pumps you full of patriotism and winner's history, it's only been my detailed studies of primary sources and the opposing point of view that's gotten me to my opinion. Probably less than 1% of my countrymen feel the same way, as they've never seen or heard of the documents I've read and gone through. Again, give me individual liberty, I don't care if the governor looks like me or if I had any say in his taking his post. If he gives me a fair shake, leaves me to my business, and generally keeps the peace, this is fine with me. I'm not a nationalist, I don't think my people are superior to anyone else's, nor anointed to govern somehow. Good governance to me is what I want, which is why I'm just fine living abroad in a country where I can't vote and I'm under the local law of people who look differently than me, have different bloodlines, and speak a different language.
- mahmud 17y ago
  Your local conditions do not necessarily justify the blanket statement that we all were better off under colonial rule. This is what you said: Say what you like about colonialism, but this kind of shit never happened under the British Empire. They'd come in, kill the local armies and resistance, then they'd start building roads, hospitals, and schools and generally managing their territories fairly well. You then linked to a map of the British colonies and few short comments about a few countries .. which I am happy to quote and refute: Burma was literally the wealthiest country in Asia under British rule For the ruling white minority. The United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand obviously turned out quite well largely modeling British systems of common law, trade, treaty, military organization, and government. Britishness as a metric of success .. wasn't half of Canada French? did they fare worse? Egypt? Incredibly wealthy under the British, not so much under self-governance. The crooked King Farouk was a womenizing gambler and European puppet. It took Gammal Abdelnasser to take back the Suez Canal, bring education and health-care to the masses, and it took the socialists to reclaim Egypt for Egyptians. If you think English colonization is the true recipe for success, look at Turkey :-) Never been colonized, and fares better than all the colonies in its neighborhood. Ireland's a mixed bag, the British did some good and bad things there. Very safe to say that in the internet. After a thousand years, English occupation loses its novelty. I wonder how happy are the Irish with it? The African countries were much better under British Rule than non-British rule. Is that why France has better presence there today? And then there's Hong Kong, which is where I am right now. Any doubts there? Being China's gateway to the world surely helped. It was a lab for China before China opened up and built its economic "Zones". As far back as 1970, Hong Kong was a port to ship smuggled Chinese goods. After '80 it was China's proxy PR agency / Accountant / Mailbox Etc.

by mahmud 17y ago

thaumaturgy 17y ago

> I voted you down because I was on a 2 hour long conference call and didn't have time to refute your argument. That's not very nice, nor constructive. It doesn't improve the conversation at all. I really wish people wouldn't do that. > Sovereignty above prosperity my man. There are a few hundred thousand women in Africa that might take issue with your absolutist position. One of the points of the article here was that, absent any governance at all, the violence in some areas of Africa has gone from being about anything to merely being violence for violence's sake. How can that possibly be considered a better outcome? To badly quote Bertrand Russell, once you begin to think about human suffering, it's hard to think about anything else. It is hard for me to fathom how anyone could see the actual condition in these areas, and conclude that their ideology justifies those conditions! I have every right to speak for my "so-called subjects"; I have the right of a rational argument, which is this: colonial rule is a lesser atrocity than the rule of anarchic violence.

mahmud 17y ago
I took it as inflammatory and libelous. Should I rephrase it for you or can you grok what "they were better off under British rule" really means?
- tsally 17y ago
  You shouldn't be down-voted to -4. Personally I think you're justified in taking lionhearted's as inflammatory and libelous. The claim that Hong Kong and the US are evidence for Britain's superiority is tenuous at best. The success or failure of all nations listed in lionhearted's arguments have a lot more to do with natural resources and geographic location than British rule. I wonder if Britain had had the same natural resources and geographical vulnerability as your average African nation, would they have become a colonial power?
  - lionhearted 17y ago
    > Personally I think you're justified in taking lionhearted's as inflammatory and libelous. Well, this is a bad thing for me to hear from you, because you're one of the commentors on here I admire and always look to read your point of view. You're usually saying some quite insightful stuff. So let me ask if I may, how could I put forth the idea that colonialism isn't such a bad thing without being inflammatory and libelous? I know a lot of people hate it, are raised and taught in school that their country's revolution was most justified and glorious, etc, etc. (I was taught the same way, and had the same feelings until doing a lot of research and reading) Now I don't think that's the case, I think the British did a generally good job, and if I was alive in the times of the British Empire, I'm pretty sure I'd want to be under British rule. Is there a way I can put that point of view out there straightforwardly without tweaking people?
    - tsally 17y ago
      You're intentions are good, no doubt there. I definitely didn't mean to imply it was intentional on your part. It's subtle, but it feels like the argument you put forth implies the colonized were lesser than the British in a fundamental sense. Hence why I said "inflammatory and libelous" feelings are justified. You also gloss over a lot of complex issues in regards to the Empire itself (which I wrote about here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1223286 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1223286). As a general rule, you're not wrong in the sense that a strong government can provide stability to a region. But it's important to remember the native population had no role in government. They never were taught how to govern by the British or allowed to develop their own methods of governing, because it was the British intention that their colonies always be dependent on Britain. The collapse after British withdrawal backs this up I think. Had the native population played a larger role in governing themselves or been given the freedom to develop their own system, they might have been able to create a stable government after Britain left. There's also the fact that the British enslaved millions while building their empire. The military that created the stability you admire was paid for by the lives of millions of Africans. Seems like there is something wrong about glorifying that stability, given how it came about. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that the stability provided by the British Empire was a false and immoral stability. But factually your right that there was some temporary stability. That said, you can stabilize a region by enslaving everyone if you wanted to. Clearly there is a continuum for moral and immoral ways to stabilize a region. It's my belief British colonialism leans more towards the immoral side, but I understand where you are coming from. Sorry, that was stream of consciousness haha. I know it's not well formed. EDIT: Is there a way I can put that point of view out there straightforwardly without tweaking people? I'm not sure. I think there is something important to what you are saying, but it is difficult to frame it without implying that the colonized are inferior. There are positive things to say about the British system of government yes, but who's to say the native populations wouldn't have developed something just as good given the chance? Do I wish all the lives in Africa since the British withdrawal could be brought back? Yes. Do I think subjecting the entire African continent to British rule for two centuries is a fair price to pay for that? I'm not sure. Ultimately African nations need to learn (with international help) how to govern on their own.

lionhearted 17y ago

> Neither you nor anyone else has the right to dictate the fate of a people. Sovereignty above prosperity my man. I think you and I are closer together in perspective than you might think. I don't care about having a say in how the roads are laid out or the standardization of weights and measures, but I do expect freedom and will take it over promises of prosperity yes. As soon as the ruling authority, whether internal or external, starts mandating how I run my life we've got a problem. But I don't care if the guy choosing the layout of the roads looks like me and has the same bloodlines or not - I do spend the majority of my time abroad in countries where I have no vote, and the ruling authority looks differently than me, speaks a different language, and has no common ancestry. I'm comfortable under another person's rule if their rule is good. I don't need a say or someone with shared blood running things as long as whoever in charge is doing a good job. > Unless you're from one of the few places on earth that escaped colonization; you're either implicitly rejecting your country's fight for independence That's correct. Two-thirds of the masterminds behind the revolution in my country were complete thugs, brutal men who incited the crowds to mob violence, who burned down buildings, who tortured largely innocent representatives of the Crown, who even condoned the killing of those men's children! We were very fortunate to get some anti-revolutionary anti-"will of the people" types in my country to moderate and put safeguards against mob violence and oppression, and there were a couple exceptional leaders who didn't fully buy into the "spirit of revolution" nonsense. Of course, I live somewhere with public education that pumps you full of patriotism and winner's history, it's only been my detailed studies of primary sources and the opposing point of view that's gotten me to my opinion. Probably less than 1% of my countrymen feel the same way, as they've never seen or heard of the documents I've read and gone through. Again, give me individual liberty, I don't care if the governor looks like me or if I had any say in his taking his post. If he gives me a fair shake, leaves me to my business, and generally keeps the peace, this is fine with me. I'm not a nationalist, I don't think my people are superior to anyone else's, nor anointed to govern somehow. Good governance to me is what I want, which is why I'm just fine living abroad in a country where I can't vote and I'm under the local law of people who look differently than me, have different bloodlines, and speak a different language.

mahmud 17y ago
Your local conditions do not necessarily justify the blanket statement that we all were better off under colonial rule. This is what you said: Say what you like about colonialism, but this kind of shit never happened under the British Empire. They'd come in, kill the local armies and resistance, then they'd start building roads, hospitals, and schools and generally managing their territories fairly well. You then linked to a map of the British colonies and few short comments about a few countries .. which I am happy to quote and refute: Burma was literally the wealthiest country in Asia under British rule For the ruling white minority. The United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand obviously turned out quite well largely modeling British systems of common law, trade, treaty, military organization, and government. Britishness as a metric of success .. wasn't half of Canada French? did they fare worse? Egypt? Incredibly wealthy under the British, not so much under self-governance. The crooked King Farouk was a womenizing gambler and European puppet. It took Gammal Abdelnasser to take back the Suez Canal, bring education and health-care to the masses, and it took the socialists to reclaim Egypt for Egyptians. If you think English colonization is the true recipe for success, look at Turkey :-) Never been colonized, and fares better than all the colonies in its neighborhood. Ireland's a mixed bag, the British did some good and bad things there. Very safe to say that in the internet. After a thousand years, English occupation loses its novelty. I wonder how happy are the Irish with it? The African countries were much better under British Rule than non-British rule. Is that why France has better presence there today? And then there's Hong Kong, which is where I am right now. Any doubts there? Being China's gateway to the world surely helped. It was a lab for China before China opened up and built its economic "Zones". As far back as 1970, Hong Kong was a port to ship smuggled Chinese goods. After '80 it was China's proxy PR agency / Accountant / Mailbox Etc.