24 ms·

Not all the facts fit the anti-colonialist narrative

208 points by brandonlc 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rudiv 6y ago
The point the gentleman makes is well-reasoned, but I find it strange that he doesn't cite any of the 'facts that don't fit the anti-colonialist mindset', instead settling for general observations that are hard to concretely dispute because of their general nature.
- raziel2p 6y ago
  Agreed, this seems like a bit of a clickbait title. I'm sure you'll find people that say they want colonialism to be taught in school as an exclusively bad thing, but you'll also find people wanting intelligent design to be taught alongside evolution.
  - rvense 6y ago
    I'm starting to wonder if titles such as these are actually "clickbait". Maybe we could call them sharebait - they don't encourage reading and speculation as much as social media outrage for or against the overly simplified, purposefully controversial headline. I don't doubt that a lot of people will see this and think "See? We weren't so bad!" or "See? They don't care how bad we were!", whichever matches their preconceptions.
    - ewzimm 6y ago
      I still wonder why people don't get tired of reducing every discussion to "is x good or bad?" Why should everything need to be categorized in such a way, and why would this be the most important aspect of any analysis? It seems more likely that referring to a massive and complicated process in such a simple way will never be correct, and so these arguments can never be resolved, only recapitulated. The core argument in this article seems to be that multiple perspectives are necessary to understand colonialism and that many lower class people preferred colonial oppression to the oppression by their local elites. This is not related to whether or not colonialism was a net benefit to people. "But in a country like Nigeria, Britain’s largest African colony, feelings towards colonialism were more complicated. In his 1947 book Path to Nigerian Freedom, Obafemi Awolowo, considered one of Nigeria’s Founding Fathers for his role in the independence struggle, offered a frank assessment of the challenges in mobilising his compatriots against British rule at the time. 'Given a choice from among white officials, [Nigerian] chiefs and educated Nigerians as the principal rulers of the country, the illiterate man today would exercise his preference for the three in the order in which they are named. He is convinced, and has good reasons to be, that he can always get better treatment from the white man than he could hope to get from the chiefs and the educated elements,' Awolowo wrote."
  - JabavuAdams 6y ago
    Intelligent design should be taught in school -- just not in science class, because it's not science. Fair game for a comparative religions course. Colonialism is history and should be taught in a history class -- with a wider set of perspectives than in the past.
bantunes 6y ago
This is hard to talk about, here's my take. To say that British colonialism was better in Nigeria than in Kenya, or than Belgian colonialism doesn't _really_ seem to support the thesis that "there were good things about British colonialism", does it? The fact is people showed up with guns one day and said "you work for me now" and "all these separate tribe lands are now one administrative unit so I can manage it better". No matter how nice they were by building roads (to ports), or schools (so the workers can understand basic math and thus follow orders, and how great their lives are under colonial rule) doesn't change the highly likely correct statement that an independent Nigeria free from influence stirring internal conflicts would have been much better off. "Being colonized was better than living through our internal struggles" is kinda moot. Europe had plenty of war, disease and more war and still came out through it. A colonizer imposing stability by the sword/rifle wouldn't have been better in the long term.
- peteretep 6y ago
  > The fact is people showed up with guns one day and said "you work for me now" Seems a reach to suggest this was a novel scenario introduced by recent European colonialism, rather than a human phenomenon going back millennia
  - bantunes 6y ago
    I didn't mean to imply it was an European innovation.
  - wz1000 6y ago
    European colonialism was certainly novel in its sheer scale, and its effects are felt to this day in pretty much every non European country barring a small handful.
    - asa4akj 6y ago
      Nope, because only the brits surpassed the previous biggest empire, the mongols. And mongols did come with some advancements in tech as well, but also plenty of destruction.
Kednicma 6y ago
Sure, let's have some more nuance during our education. But let's also not let the UK off the hook; off the top of my head, during the same century, the UK starved their own people at home in Ireland [0], propped up the Raj while Indians starved [1], and waged a series of wars against the Dutch Boers to the detriment of native South Africans [2]. It can both be true that the British Empire was a great boon in terms of education, health, and trade; and also that the Empire was a great plague upon its subjects, bringing indoctrination, sickness, and slavery. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Raj https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Raj [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_War_(disambiguation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_War_(disambiguation)
- rmrfstar 6y ago
  > the UK starved their own people at home in Ireland Pretty sure the Irish see the British as foreign colonialists who exported all their food, causing the great hunger.
  - Boxbot 6y ago
    pretty sure the british also saw to the irish as subhuman, which also enabled their exploitation
    - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
      Yeah, lazy, drunken, Catholic Irish. It's worth pointing out that when my Dad went to London for work in the 50's, there were signs all over the place saying, "No dogs; No blacks; No Irish"
    - randompwd 6y ago
      Every inch of the British establishment was involved in anti-irish propaganda inlcuding multiple cartoons depicting the Irish as less evolved/symian. for just a flavour: https://ukdiss.com/examples/analysing-the-political-cartoons.php https://ukdiss.com/examples/analysing-the-political-cartoons... https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/art-and-design/apes-psychos-alcos-how-british-cartoonists-depict-the-irish-1.3149409 https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/art-and-design/apes-psych... This kept happening up to and through the 1970s. Also worth mentioning this prick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cummings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cummings
rmrfstar 6y ago
Amazon has a research group it unironically calls the "1492 project". It turns out that the colonial frame is actually useful for predicting behavior, and should be kept for precisely that reason. Tech companies invade spaces with long-established established norms around property rights (e.g. wiretapping is a crime, I own my communications), then operate entirely outside those norms, and once they are powerful enough they assert that their norms have been law all along. This is akin to "buying land" with beads from people who have a completely different understanding of what "buying land" means. There is no informed consent. Informed consent is the difference between a voluntary market transaction and colonization.
YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
>> I cried reading that book, and experienced intense feelings of animus towards white people, even though my own mother, being Polish, was white. I find this a little unfair, given that many white people do not have a colonial past and some have themselves been subject to colonisation and imperalism. This includes most of the peoples of Eastern and Southern Europe, i.e. the Slavs and also my people, Greeks. While Russia had an Empire and colonies in Asia, it never really colonised Africa [1]. Other Slavic countries never had colonies [2] and neither did us Greeks who were ourselves enslaved by the Ottomans for much of our pre-modern history and were a protectorate of the Great Powers saddled by them with a foreign kingly dynasty [3] during the time that the Western Europeans where having their little moment in Africa, in the 1880's. So it's no point feeling "animus" towards all white people- certainly not towards one's Polish mother. It's no use lumping all "Europeans" together, either. I would go as far as to say that even the majority of people in countries that were colonial powers, like Britain or France, did not really partake in the riches pillaged from Africa and its people, because it all stayed in the hands of monarchs and aristocrats who often didn't treat their domestic population any better than the people of faraway lands and certainly didn't hold them in much greater esteem. If you hail from a long line of pig farmers and washerwomen that lived in poverty and squalor while their "betters" partied in India - how can you be held responsible for the latters' behaviour? And then there were the white people colonised by other white people, as in the colonisation of Ireland by the English during the 1550's, by settling it with Protestants and establishing... plantations [4]. Has anyone asked the Irish how they feel about the great British Empire? [5] If we're going to have a historically nuanced debate about colonialism (and not just race and racism, which are somewhat independent, in my view) then we should have a nuanced debate and discuss the fact that colonialism didn't really care about the colour of your skin, only about the degree to which you were inhabiting land with useful resources that could be taken from you and exploited for the glory of Empire (and the enrichment of its elites). ________________ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism#Imperial_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism#Imperia... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_modern_Greece https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_modern_Greece [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantations_of_Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantations_of_Ireland [5] Oh, but it's complicated, I know... probably because of the settlement by Protestants as above.
filleduchaos 6y ago
I am also a Nigerian (from a different ethnicity from the author, which does influence my perspective). I've seen this discussion about "the good sides of colonialism" over and over again, and I've come to the conclusion that people keep tiptoeing around a simple truth: colonisation was wholly unnecessary, and that is what makes it unethical no matter how much good one tries to link to it. As a less morally fraught example, consider the reaction you would have if it was exposed that your browser was secretly sending your passwords in plaintext to some third-party service to check if they were secure enough. It doesn't matter that helping users avoid weak passwords is a noble goal and genuine objective; sharing users' passwords like that is completely unnecessary and thus indefensible. The question then becomes: was there a better way to achieve the "good" of the colonial era - technological progress, etc - without colonisation itself? And the answer is yes, absolutely 100% yes. Colonisation was a betrayal, not the start of Europe's history with Africa and Asia. To give an example close to home, the Portuguese and later the English had a fairly balanced mercantile relationship with the Benin Kingdom (part of modern-day Nigeria) for centuries before the British colonial expeditions of the very late 19th century. You can even tell from the words of earlier visitors/tourists like Olfert Dapper that there was a respect for the people, their way of life and accomplishments (the Edo people were quite good at architecture, for instance). The Benin Kingdom could very well have continued its natural technological, economic and social progression with the support of non-violent foreign partnerships and trade while retaining its sovereignty, but for the greed of the British. In fact, colonisation has most likely hampered its development, not accelerated it. Japan for example avoided colonisation entirely and has quite clearly caught up to and surpassed its near and distant neighbours that got that dubious "help". Or consider how quickly Hawaii modernised even before it lost its sovereignty to the United States.
- bantunes 6y ago
  I recently heard about Benin and the British "punitive expedition" that looted the country in a Vox video, of all things, about the world's largest open crime scene - the British Museum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoTxiRWrvp8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoTxiRWrvp8
- Latty 6y ago
  I think this is a very good way to frame it. I really dislike the "silver lining" narrative that seems to be common, because—as you say—it doesn't matter, the core thing is still indefensible. I'm British, and my education (up to GCSE History as it existed in 2007, I didn't take History at AS-level or above) just completely glossed over colonialism entirely. There was no “anti-colonialist message” because there was no message on colonialism at all. I feel that the desire is more to sweep it under the rug, and while it is better than glorifying the past, I think it encourages people to this kind of mindset, as if it was that bad, surely they'd know more? (Parallels to Americans finding out about the Tulsa race massacre recently).
grepsling 6y ago
This is a right-wing troll website that just generates poorly-argued controversial opinions for clicks. I wouldn't regard any of its articles with much seriousness, they're not designed to make a reasoned point - just to tickle right-wingers existing sympathies, e.g. pro-colonialism. (Obviously this is why it's so popular on HN, you guys are suckers for this sort of thing.)
- dang 6y ago
  HN gets just as many left-leaning articles. When Jacobin stories appear here (or similar), we get comments exactly like yours complaining about how HN is overrun by $left-label. We try to go by article quality, not site quality. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22article%20quality%22%20%22site%20quality%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... I haven't read this article but the HN thread it led to is surprisingly good. Perhaps we got lucky this time.
mattlondon 6y ago
> when I asked my British university class what they had learned at school about colonisation, “Nothing really!” was the chorused reply. I am not surprised. For what it is worth, during my UK education I never really got taught any "general" history. There was no high-level history of the country, no general sequence of world events, no lists of kings and queens or which prime minister was in power when and so on. History classes would instead pick some arbitrary time and location and then "deep dive" into that single subject for the entire school year - e.g. we covered the Russian revolution and only the Russian revolution for one entire school year. Other years it was The Normans, another it was the Great Depression. History class seemed to be less about the actual history (i.e. facts), and more about the approach taken to scrutinise the sources for reliability/credibility and come up with your own judgement based on what you have available.
- merpnderp 6y ago
  If I had to choose between memorizing a sequence of facts curated by some randos in the government, or being taught how to scrutinize sources for reliability/credibility and come up with my own judgements, then you won as that is far better.
- keenmaster 6y ago
  In general, the approach you mentioned misses the forest for the trees. It is a terrible way to teach history. Most students will not later learn much history on their own. Sure, critical thinking is good, but I would argue that knowing the broader strokes of history would enable better critical thinking among the descendants of colonial beneficiaries.
trabant00 6y ago
Even the name, colonialism, is chosen to paint a very one sided contemporary political view. Colonial EMPIRES are just how imperialism manifested in a certain time and place. Human history is a never ending story of empires that didn't care about race, continent, culture, etc. Just the strong conquering the weak (military strength) for resources. With the weak very often being disorganized in every aspect, not just the army, so the conquest also brings benefits to them.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  > Even the name, colonialism, is chosen to paint a very one sided contemporary political view. You're projecting. The word "colony" doesn't by nature have any negative connotations; the reason "colonialism" sounds negative is because it is associated with the enslavement and extermination of native populations.
- asa4akj 6y ago
  I would say that now it's a weird mix for power projection: Economic prowess and Military Strength, and Cultural Propagation
EdwardDiego 6y ago
> According to YouGov, as many as 50% of Dutch people feel proud of their past Empire That got a big "Oof" from me, considering some of the crap that the Dutch pulled - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_conquest_of_the_Banda_Islands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_conquest_of_the_Banda_Is...
- raarts 6y ago
  Being Dutch, I think this can be attributed more to the feeling of 'having been really big in the past' than what actually happened during that period. The Dutch, I mean, suffering from a Calimero complex as we are.
  - robocat 6y ago
    The term “Calimero complex” seems to be only used by the Dutch (and perhaps Belgians too) from my skim of search results. https://www.the-incredible-shrinking-man.net/?p=13281 https://www.the-incredible-shrinking-man.net/?p=13281
    - raarts 6y ago
      Oh I'm sorry, it basically means: "They are big and we are small and that's not fair" It originates from an italian cartoon tv-series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calimero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calimero
feralimal 6y ago
Government is slavery. Colonialist government is slavery. Democratic government is slavery. All government is slavery. When 'the whites' support the Nigerian colonialism, what you have is a bunch of slaves happy to see the same slave system being rolled out to Nigeria too. In case you dispute what I say about _all_ government being slavery, can I ask you resolve the following: If I as an individual ask you to pay 40% of your income to me, you would refuse. If I and 5 friends force you to hand over 40% of your income, you would probably acquiesce but you would not think it was fair - we 6 would be using force to make you act against your will. If the millions of people in your country decide to go along with such a charade (voting, etc), and decide to extract 40% of your income how is that now ok? At what size is the group is big enough to act in this way regardless of your agreement? And none of us have ever knowingly agreed to enter into a contract with this system.
- disgruntledphd2 6y ago
  You do normally get things for your taxation. As an example, in exchange for my tax money, I got: - a hospital to be born in - roads to and from the hospital - education (up to and including a PhD) - welfare for people less fortunate as me. I'm not sure that this maps to traditional definitions of slavery.
  - feralimal 6y ago
    Yes.... maybe that stuff wasn't as helpful as you think. Maybe it ensured that you were trained in a way that you would accept and conform to the world that you were presented with.
    - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
      That's an interesting viewpoint. Given that I dropped out of college (twice!) and generally arsed around unproductively for 10 years while my school mates were buying houses, I'm going to gently suggest that you have little to no idea of what I actually think (except for my views on taxation). Given that I personally believe that schools, roads and hospitals are necessities for modern society and you appear to believe that these are some kind of false consciousness, I'm not sure how we can carry on this discussion.
pessimizer 6y ago
I don't know that the living get to speak for the dead. If someone comes to your town, kills your parents and burns down your house, but then kidnaps you and raises you as a servant, it's a bit silly to compare the comforts of your servants' quarters to the hypothetical situation you would have been in if the invaders had never come. Your parents' story is still important, and your guess about how unhappy you would have been in a world that never happened is a rationalized comfort in your current situation. Especially if you are a member of one of the local Christian elites used around the world as a buffer between the colonial power and the land and workers it needed to exploit. Stories by the colonized about how colonization helped their people are like slate dot com headlines about "Why Getting Cancer Saved My Life."
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  At the same time, though, a world where everyone's going around trying to avenge their ancestors is a world full of conflict and strife. There are obvious reasons it's problematic to tell people they have to forgive and forget, but I think it's a quite similar problem to tell people they shouldn't.
  - merpnderp 6y ago
    99.99% of our 300,000+ years of history is people going around avenging their ancestors through pillage, enslavement, rape and murder. We're for the most part in a brief moment of respite from the norm, but I'm sure we'll be back to genocide and slavery before long.
vinay427 6y ago
I think what bothers me about many instances of colonialism is the misleading historical representations that we are left with, as history is often written by (if not the victors) those who had the upper hand at the end of the conflict. There is still an ongoing narrative that the British brought some kind of civilization and industrialization to the region of British India that was unachievable before, somehow advancing it into a new age. In truth, the start of colonization was centered around the deindustrialization and enslavement of workers in Bengal into forced labor and sometimes starvation, destroying factories that produced advanced ships and textiles in the wealthiest region that alone accounted for 10-12% of the world's GDP if I recall correctly. These products were typically for export, generating wealth in the region, and the production was destroyed in favor of tea plantations that proved to be relatively underutilized and unproductive. Granted, the kingdom was also under external stressors at the time such as conflicts with neighboring regions, so maybe this specific relatively industrialized economy may not have survived until today, but the British certainly hastened the poverty-stricken development of India and other subcontinental countries that the region is still suffering from today. Do aspects such as the exposure to the English language, now relatively widespread as a second language, make up for this in the long term? Maybe this argument can be made, but it seems like an uphill battle in my opinion.
- heavenlyblue 6y ago
  Soviet apoligists day the same about Baltic regions: “we came to basically a forest and built schools for them”. What they forget is that in parallel to that they were systematically eradicating their language and everyone who had any political stance (educated, etc) up to the point that a lot of political movements in these regions originated from overseas, as that is where most of these (lucky) people could move instead of being forcibly removed to Syberia.
  - m0llusk 6y ago
    But the contributions are radically different as the current remains reveal. Worldwide English is the language of commerce and throughout the remains of the former British Empire English for traders continues to be extremely common and global in scope and impact. In almost every city colonized by the British there remain enduring street grids with broad rights of way and predictable block sizes that are in many cases still the most lively and economically active areas. In contrast modern Baltic people speak English for international commerce and Russians when they need to talk to their neighbors. Also most of the construction the Russians were responsible for were military or industrial installations that have mostly been replaced or fallen out of use. It is these artifacts of colonial force that remain that bring into question the idea that the whole business had zero positive impact.
growlist 6y ago
I'm just a single generation away from poverty to the point of - on one side of my family - actual infant malnutrition. Why am I supposed to feel responsible for the actions of people that were geographically and ethnically distinct from my ancestors, simply because they happened to share the same skin colour and kingdom? Not many people in industrial Wales seemed to share in the benefits of colonialism. Many of the British elite were/are Norman: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2479271/1-000-years-invaded-need-Norman-like-Darcy-Percy-ahead.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2479271/1-000-years...
- marci 6y ago
  I've heard/read that many times, but I've never heard/read anyone saying that people should feel responsible for the sins of their forefathers, let alone for the actions of people with whom they share skin color. I would love to be pointed to a conversation or an article that frames things that way.
  - radegast 6y ago
    There ya go https://www.forbes.com/sites/sethcohen/2020/06/28/reparations-now/#75c8e0ce547e https://www.forbes.com/sites/sethcohen/2020/06/28/reparation...
    - marci 6y ago
      Thanks. At least this article (partially) answers "Why am I supposed to feel responsible for the actions of people that were geographically and ethnically distinct from my ancestors, simply because they happened to share the same skin colour and kingdom?", but one first need to (as said in the article) "fully grasp the full benefit and privileges they have received" as a group, not a matter of rich vs poor, otherwise the point of the article is probably moot, especially if you've never heard of red lining or gerrymandering.
      - growlist 6y ago
        > "fully grasp the full benefit and privileges they have received" When do I get my reparations from the Normans? Or the Romans? Is there a time limit?
KaiserPro 6y ago
One thing that can really help with the study of colonialism is the proper sourcing of (and translating if needs be) of first hand accounts. This should be the starting point of any discussion. Dr Remi does this well. There are two objections I have to this piece. The academic points are sound and very good, however There is a throw away at the end "opening the door for white people to shed any guilt". This feels very catholic original sin. Barbarism underscores colonialism, as does greed, this is undeniable. But we cannot tar an entire race with the sins of their ruling elite forebears. (just as its inexcusable to discriminate on the basis of race) The second is the underplaying of the level of colonialism in europe it's self. It suggests (wrongly) that the europe was the land of milk and honey. At the time that the newly formed united kingdom was sniffing around india (pre nationalisation of the EIC) napoleon had invaded most of europe. The ramifications we still feel today. At the time of the british empire was collapsing, russia was brutalising the eastern bloc.
trabant00 6y ago
People who actually lived in that time prefered the colonization administration as per article but progressive intelectuals from today know better. What more could be said...
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. There's obviously a lot of substance in a topic like this—an overwhelming amount really—and the idea of this place is to try not to collapse into the one or two pre-existing fixed points. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - trabant00 6y ago
    Nobody mentioning what the original article said: people of the time affected by what was going on chose the colonization administration as the lesser evil. Mentioning this is flaming? And completely dismissing the content of the article and pushing current trending political stances is not? Not to mention down voting anything that does not agree with "Europe bad, Africa good"? I think somebody needs to say these things, no matter how unpopular they are at the current moment. If you think otherwise though - your site your rules. Just say so and I am out.
    - dang 6y ago
      Mentioning it in a drive-by snarky comment is flamebait. We want thoughtful discussion here.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
- jccalhoun 6y ago
  That is NOT what the article says. It states: "In his 1947 book [...]Obafemi Awolowo, [wrote] “Given a choice from among white officials, [Nigerian] chiefs and educated Nigerians as the principal rulers of the country, the illiterate man today would exercise his preference for the three in the order in which they are named. He is convinced, and has good reasons to be, that he can always get better treatment from the white man than he could hope to get from the chiefs and the educated elements,” [...] "According to this, [...] many regular Nigerians seemed to sense a fairness in the British exercise of power that they were not so sure of in their own leaders." So one author says that SOME people thought that the British were fairer. We don't know how many. And we don't know if they were right or wrong.
dang 6y ago
Although the topic is flameprone and the title arguably baity (no narrative fits all facts), the discussion in this thread is so good—at least in its best parts—that I've turned off flags on the submission. Thanks to everyone posting in the intended spirit of HN: thoughtful, curious conversation. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
zzzeek 6y ago
Without Hacker News I would never even know that such insane authors exist: "This expectation underestimates the human desire to feel strong, the powerful psychological appeal for many, not just in Britain, in taking pride in the conquests of their ancestors. It offers a sense of collective strength they can tap into as individuals. If they, of whom I am one, could be so triumphant in the past, surely I too possess triumph in me? The morality of taking pride in ancestral conquests involving the killing and subjugation of other human beings is questionable, but its psychological appeal is undeniable." why yes, it sure is a RUSH to conquer other people and take all their stuff, especially for the huge number of masses that never had to actually, you know, kill anyone, they just get to have all this awesome land and stuff and kind of a curious way that all the streets seem to be named after native americans even though I've never met any here at all, shrugs.... conquest is awesome! teach the controversy, people!
- function_seven 6y ago
  You confuse the author's identification of this impulse with his holding that view. He identifies one reason why a large chunk of people might feel pride for their ancestors' subjugation of others. Should he not shine a light on it?
  - zzzeek 6y ago
    certainly not a favorable light! the lack of ethics in this community is just depressing to me
    - haecceity 6y ago
      I think he was being charitable. Not wanting to offend anyone. He ended like this So for British teachers wondering how to teach the subject, it is important to cite various perspectives, including, crucially, the perspectives of the colonised; not in a wholly arbitrary manner seeking to buttress this or that grand narrative, but in a way revealing the complexities and contradictions of Britain’s colonial encounter with Africa. which suggests he doesn't agree with their views. I think he is pretty neutral.
chrisjarvis 6y ago
This article is all well and good but realistically, in 2020, if you were a teacher at any grade level who taught about slavery or colonialism with any nuance whatsoever your career would be promptly executed by internet firing squad.
- DuskStar 6y ago
  Unless you're black or some other 'colonized' skin color, of course.
- chillacy 6y ago
  I found that the moral ambiguity only ratcheted up over time. In 3rd grade it was peaceful pilgrims co-existing with the natives. In 9th grade it was the trail of tears and Vietnam. In college it was "the sons of liberty were terrorists and the noble savage trope is a myth".
jacquesm 6y ago
If you set up a bunch of people on the Northpole and support them, that's a colony. If you take someone else's land, murder them, enslave them or exploit them that is conquest. The 'colonies' of yesteryear were simply brutal exploitation strategies executed with zero consideration for anybody's rights except for those of the conquerors. Since those countries - without exception very wealthy, and mostly European though there are some exceptions - tend to be all very civilized now we no longer want to be faced with this uncomfortable truth: that we went from famines and plagues to riches within a few hundred years over the backs of untold people's lives destroyed. In school we don't teach it other than with some strange form of national pride. We only tell the story from some glorified explorer's point of view. But when viewed from the side of the indigenous people the sight of a Dutch, English, French, Portuguese, German, Spanish or some other seafaring nation was that your days were numbered. Any accidental positive happenstances do not negate that conquest is war and war is a net negative, no matter how much you twist it and even if it benefits the aggressor financially.
- aeternum 6y ago
  When viewed from the side of the indigenous however, it wasn't just the sight of a European that meant your days were numbered. Sighting an Aztec for example was almost as bad. It is possible that going from famines and plagues to riches within a few hundred years with European influence ultimately results in less suffering than if that transition took significantly longer without European influence.
  - marci 6y ago
    I think the "going from famines and plagues to riches within a few hundred years" was referring to what happened in Europe. As far as I know, those were not issues in most of the former colonies (before colonization).
- m0llusk 6y ago
  That is bickering over word choice, though. Everyone agrees that what happened was violent and by any modern criteria illegal and immoral. What is more interesting is that if you look carefully you do find gems in the turd pile. The situation varies not only by country but by city and area. Invaders, no matter what name for them is currently considered an appropriate best fit, brought ideas, language, trade, rules, and systems that have value and got propagated. Most African cities did not originally have street grids, sewers, sanitation, railways, courts of law. For all the damage that clearly was done there was also value in the introduction of so many modern ideas and systems. Whether or not the result was a net negative is not relevant when it comes to recognizing value. The way really basic innovations like street grids, English for traders, and sanitation endure in post colonial urban centers speaks to the reality that cultural exchange had many aspects and factors and was not all murder and theft.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
tl;dr humans can act good or bad, this will never change, if you don’t understand nuance, you will not be a happy person
tomohawk 6y ago
Empires are made up of people - both good and bad. Empires have both good and bad impacts as they expand. Its the people (colonizers, colonized) who make the difference in many cases. Prior to the British Empire, slavery was ubiquitous, as was piracy. It was widespread in Africa, the Middle East, and other areas. After the British Empire, these scourges were pretty much gone, primarily through the efforts of the British Empire. That is not to say that slavery and piracy were not actively encouraged, and used as instruments of the British state. In fact, slavery and piracy greatly expanded for a time due to British policies. The British state, and powerful companies and people achieve great wealth and power because of slavery and piracy. Nonetheless, they were eventually ended decisively through the efforts of the British Empire, which banned slavery in 1807. What happened? People changed, and fought for change. Their efforts changed the machinery of the British Empire for the better. Consider John Newton. He was a slave trader, who eventually became an abolitionist (a person who fought against slavery). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Newton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Newton Or William Wilberforce, who spent a large part of his life facing ridicule for opposing slavery, and fighting the powerful slave interests, finally winning that fight in 1807. So, yes, a large government apparatus such as the British Empire can have an enormous impact on people, both good and bad. Simplifying the complexity to "without colonization, we would be fine" or "colonization provided all of these great benefits" - both of those gloss over the reality, and make it likely we'll repeat the mistakes of the past.
renewiltord 6y ago
There's always someone coming to help you out for your own good which just coincidentally enriches them. Listen, if you want to come cut my lawn and install pretty little lights but enslave me, don't expect me to thank you for the lawn. I can cut the lawn myself. Thanks.
jimmynopension 6y ago
It's very rare for anyone to talk about the efforts made by some institutions to give power and wealth away in restorative colonialist experiments, for example the American Colonization Society. We have decades of socio-economic data about Liberia covering all aspects of development since its creation as a colony for freed slaves. I have never heard anyone debate the terrible experiment of Liberia which is today one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the world, despite it being founded and governed by its own free people and independent from any other nation for over 170 years. It is one of the purest split tests in human civilisation but few know it exists and even fewer want to learn anything from it.
tekkk 6y ago
Well I think one thing and which the article describes well, is that colonialism gave external pressure for those nations moving forward. Like being bullied and abused in school before graduating, colonialism gave an identity mixed in with the culture and language the oppressors brought. Tribes that would probably never have formed a country together otherwise, were piled in with arbitrary borders with no regard did it split the tribes or not. And given a name and a flag and told they were now Kenyan or whoever from here on out. Now of course bullying and abusing is wrong and the bullied have eternal trauma of being subjected to it, but I think there are two perspectives to it. You can either look at it as the worst thing that happened "I would have become rich and famous had I not been bullied" or as something that made you stronger "I've been through worse". Granted, the analogy between bullying and colonialism might not be completely accurate. But like everything in life things are mostly grey instead of black and white. Can you quantify which color is stronger and equal it as being one or the other? Maybe, but there should be a lengthy rationale how you came up with the conclusion to reflect the best how world truly is (and yes yes, there are exceptions to this rule also). Which the article actually does well, and I wish this type of rationality to difficult issues would be more popular.
openasocket 6y ago
I'm American, but I'm surprised I've never heard any arguments about reparations for their former colonies, as I've heard plenty about reparations for the practice of slavery in the US. I mean de-colonialization happened much later than the end of slavery in the US, and it would arguably be easier to implement. Has the idea been brought up in public thought in Europe at all? Some cursory googling revealed it has been brought up, but I'm curious what public discussion and sentiment is on the issue
raincom 6y ago
Here is another way of raising a question about colonialism: "What is unethical about a project[colonialism] that, among other things, industrialized the colonies, established courts of Law, laid railroads, and introduced scientific education, modern medicine and parliamentary democracy there? As long as we do not address this issue properly, there are no obvious reasons to assume that the earlier generations of thinkers were wrong. Today, it is not clear how or why colonialism is an evil or from where it draws its evil strength. In other words, we lack an adequate understanding of colonialism." From S.N. Balagangadhara's Colonialism and Colonial Consciousness: The case of modern India. https://www.academia.edu/4214196/Rethinking_Colonialism_and_Colonial_Consciousness https://www.academia.edu/4214196/Rethinking_Colonialism_and_...
luord 6y ago
The part about finding an "African identity" that isn't merely "western" gave me pause because I come from a country that was colonized considerably earlier and, like the rest of the Americas, had its native population decimated so completely and its identity so completely replaced, practically nothing is left but "western"... And I find myself completely alright with that, so it's harder to me to see the importance of such an identity.

208 points by brandonlc 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

The point the gentleman makes is well-reasoned, but I find it strange that he doesn't cite any of the 'facts that don't fit the anti-colonialist mindset', instead settling for general observations that are hard to concretely dispute because of their general nature.

raziel2p 6y ago
Agreed, this seems like a bit of a clickbait title. I'm sure you'll find people that say they want colonialism to be taught in school as an exclusively bad thing, but you'll also find people wanting intelligent design to be taught alongside evolution.
- rvense 6y ago
  I'm starting to wonder if titles such as these are actually "clickbait". Maybe we could call them sharebait - they don't encourage reading and speculation as much as social media outrage for or against the overly simplified, purposefully controversial headline. I don't doubt that a lot of people will see this and think "See? We weren't so bad!" or "See? They don't care how bad we were!", whichever matches their preconceptions.
  - ewzimm 6y ago
    I still wonder why people don't get tired of reducing every discussion to "is x good or bad?" Why should everything need to be categorized in such a way, and why would this be the most important aspect of any analysis? It seems more likely that referring to a massive and complicated process in such a simple way will never be correct, and so these arguments can never be resolved, only recapitulated. The core argument in this article seems to be that multiple perspectives are necessary to understand colonialism and that many lower class people preferred colonial oppression to the oppression by their local elites. This is not related to whether or not colonialism was a net benefit to people. "But in a country like Nigeria, Britain’s largest African colony, feelings towards colonialism were more complicated. In his 1947 book Path to Nigerian Freedom, Obafemi Awolowo, considered one of Nigeria’s Founding Fathers for his role in the independence struggle, offered a frank assessment of the challenges in mobilising his compatriots against British rule at the time. 'Given a choice from among white officials, [Nigerian] chiefs and educated Nigerians as the principal rulers of the country, the illiterate man today would exercise his preference for the three in the order in which they are named. He is convinced, and has good reasons to be, that he can always get better treatment from the white man than he could hope to get from the chiefs and the educated elements,' Awolowo wrote."
- JabavuAdams 6y ago
  Intelligent design should be taught in school -- just not in science class, because it's not science. Fair game for a comparative religions course. Colonialism is history and should be taught in a history class -- with a wider set of perspectives than in the past.

bantunes 6y ago

This is hard to talk about, here's my take. To say that British colonialism was better in Nigeria than in Kenya, or than Belgian colonialism doesn't _really_ seem to support the thesis that "there were good things about British colonialism", does it? The fact is people showed up with guns one day and said "you work for me now" and "all these separate tribe lands are now one administrative unit so I can manage it better". No matter how nice they were by building roads (to ports), or schools (so the workers can understand basic math and thus follow orders, and how great their lives are under colonial rule) doesn't change the highly likely correct statement that an independent Nigeria free from influence stirring internal conflicts would have been much better off. "Being colonized was better than living through our internal struggles" is kinda moot. Europe had plenty of war, disease and more war and still came out through it. A colonizer imposing stability by the sword/rifle wouldn't have been better in the long term.

peteretep 6y ago
> The fact is people showed up with guns one day and said "you work for me now" Seems a reach to suggest this was a novel scenario introduced by recent European colonialism, rather than a human phenomenon going back millennia
- bantunes 6y ago
  I didn't mean to imply it was an European innovation.
- wz1000 6y ago
  European colonialism was certainly novel in its sheer scale, and its effects are felt to this day in pretty much every non European country barring a small handful.
  - asa4akj 6y ago
    Nope, because only the brits surpassed the previous biggest empire, the mongols. And mongols did come with some advancements in tech as well, but also plenty of destruction.

Kednicma 6y ago

Sure, let's have some more nuance during our education. But let's also not let the UK off the hook; off the top of my head, during the same century, the UK starved their own people at home in Ireland [0], propped up the Raj while Indians starved [1], and waged a series of wars against the Dutch Boers to the detriment of native South Africans [2]. It can both be true that the British Empire was a great boon in terms of education, health, and trade; and also that the Empire was a great plague upon its subjects, bringing indoctrination, sickness, and slavery. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Raj https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Raj [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_War_(disambiguation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_War_(disambiguation)

rmrfstar 6y ago
> the UK starved their own people at home in Ireland Pretty sure the Irish see the British as foreign colonialists who exported all their food, causing the great hunger.
- Boxbot 6y ago
  pretty sure the british also saw to the irish as subhuman, which also enabled their exploitation
  - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
    Yeah, lazy, drunken, Catholic Irish. It's worth pointing out that when my Dad went to London for work in the 50's, there were signs all over the place saying, "No dogs; No blacks; No Irish"
  - randompwd 6y ago
    Every inch of the British establishment was involved in anti-irish propaganda inlcuding multiple cartoons depicting the Irish as less evolved/symian. for just a flavour: https://ukdiss.com/examples/analysing-the-political-cartoons.php https://ukdiss.com/examples/analysing-the-political-cartoons... https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/art-and-design/apes-psychos-alcos-how-british-cartoonists-depict-the-irish-1.3149409 https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/art-and-design/apes-psych... This kept happening up to and through the 1970s. Also worth mentioning this prick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cummings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cummings

rmrfstar 6y ago

Amazon has a research group it unironically calls the "1492 project". It turns out that the colonial frame is actually useful for predicting behavior, and should be kept for precisely that reason. Tech companies invade spaces with long-established established norms around property rights (e.g. wiretapping is a crime, I own my communications), then operate entirely outside those norms, and once they are powerful enough they assert that their norms have been law all along. This is akin to "buying land" with beads from people who have a completely different understanding of what "buying land" means. There is no informed consent. Informed consent is the difference between a voluntary market transaction and colonization.

YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago

>> I cried reading that book, and experienced intense feelings of animus towards white people, even though my own mother, being Polish, was white. I find this a little unfair, given that many white people do not have a colonial past and some have themselves been subject to colonisation and imperalism. This includes most of the peoples of Eastern and Southern Europe, i.e. the Slavs and also my people, Greeks. While Russia had an Empire and colonies in Asia, it never really colonised Africa [1]. Other Slavic countries never had colonies [2] and neither did us Greeks who were ourselves enslaved by the Ottomans for much of our pre-modern history and were a protectorate of the Great Powers saddled by them with a foreign kingly dynasty [3] during the time that the Western Europeans where having their little moment in Africa, in the 1880's. So it's no point feeling "animus" towards all white people- certainly not towards one's Polish mother. It's no use lumping all "Europeans" together, either. I would go as far as to say that even the majority of people in countries that were colonial powers, like Britain or France, did not really partake in the riches pillaged from Africa and its people, because it all stayed in the hands of monarchs and aristocrats who often didn't treat their domestic population any better than the people of faraway lands and certainly didn't hold them in much greater esteem. If you hail from a long line of pig farmers and washerwomen that lived in poverty and squalor while their "betters" partied in India - how can you be held responsible for the latters' behaviour? And then there were the white people colonised by other white people, as in the colonisation of Ireland by the English during the 1550's, by settling it with Protestants and establishing... plantations [4]. Has anyone asked the Irish how they feel about the great British Empire? [5] If we're going to have a historically nuanced debate about colonialism (and not just race and racism, which are somewhat independent, in my view) then we should have a nuanced debate and discuss the fact that colonialism didn't really care about the colour of your skin, only about the degree to which you were inhabiting land with useful resources that could be taken from you and exploited for the glory of Empire (and the enrichment of its elites). ________________ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism#Imperial_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism#Imperia... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_modern_Greece https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_modern_Greece [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantations_of_Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantations_of_Ireland [5] Oh, but it's complicated, I know... probably because of the settlement by Protestants as above.

filleduchaos 6y ago

I am also a Nigerian (from a different ethnicity from the author, which does influence my perspective). I've seen this discussion about "the good sides of colonialism" over and over again, and I've come to the conclusion that people keep tiptoeing around a simple truth: colonisation was wholly unnecessary, and that is what makes it unethical no matter how much good one tries to link to it. As a less morally fraught example, consider the reaction you would have if it was exposed that your browser was secretly sending your passwords in plaintext to some third-party service to check if they were secure enough. It doesn't matter that helping users avoid weak passwords is a noble goal and genuine objective; sharing users' passwords like that is completely unnecessary and thus indefensible. The question then becomes: was there a better way to achieve the "good" of the colonial era - technological progress, etc - without colonisation itself? And the answer is yes, absolutely 100% yes. Colonisation was a betrayal, not the start of Europe's history with Africa and Asia. To give an example close to home, the Portuguese and later the English had a fairly balanced mercantile relationship with the Benin Kingdom (part of modern-day Nigeria) for centuries before the British colonial expeditions of the very late 19th century. You can even tell from the words of earlier visitors/tourists like Olfert Dapper that there was a respect for the people, their way of life and accomplishments (the Edo people were quite good at architecture, for instance). The Benin Kingdom could very well have continued its natural technological, economic and social progression with the support of non-violent foreign partnerships and trade while retaining its sovereignty, but for the greed of the British. In fact, colonisation has most likely hampered its development, not accelerated it. Japan for example avoided colonisation entirely and has quite clearly caught up to and surpassed its near and distant neighbours that got that dubious "help". Or consider how quickly Hawaii modernised even before it lost its sovereignty to the United States.

bantunes 6y ago
I recently heard about Benin and the British "punitive expedition" that looted the country in a Vox video, of all things, about the world's largest open crime scene - the British Museum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoTxiRWrvp8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoTxiRWrvp8
Latty 6y ago
I think this is a very good way to frame it. I really dislike the "silver lining" narrative that seems to be common, because—as you say—it doesn't matter, the core thing is still indefensible. I'm British, and my education (up to GCSE History as it existed in 2007, I didn't take History at AS-level or above) just completely glossed over colonialism entirely. There was no “anti-colonialist message” because there was no message on colonialism at all. I feel that the desire is more to sweep it under the rug, and while it is better than glorifying the past, I think it encourages people to this kind of mindset, as if it was that bad, surely they'd know more? (Parallels to Americans finding out about the Tulsa race massacre recently).

grepsling 6y ago

This is a right-wing troll website that just generates poorly-argued controversial opinions for clicks. I wouldn't regard any of its articles with much seriousness, they're not designed to make a reasoned point - just to tickle right-wingers existing sympathies, e.g. pro-colonialism. (Obviously this is why it's so popular on HN, you guys are suckers for this sort of thing.)

dang 6y ago
HN gets just as many left-leaning articles. When Jacobin stories appear here (or similar), we get comments exactly like yours complaining about how HN is overrun by $left-label. We try to go by article quality, not site quality. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22article%20quality%22%20%22site%20quality%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... I haven't read this article but the HN thread it led to is surprisingly good. Perhaps we got lucky this time.

mattlondon 6y ago

> when I asked my British university class what they had learned at school about colonisation, “Nothing really!” was the chorused reply. I am not surprised. For what it is worth, during my UK education I never really got taught any "general" history. There was no high-level history of the country, no general sequence of world events, no lists of kings and queens or which prime minister was in power when and so on. History classes would instead pick some arbitrary time and location and then "deep dive" into that single subject for the entire school year - e.g. we covered the Russian revolution and only the Russian revolution for one entire school year. Other years it was The Normans, another it was the Great Depression. History class seemed to be less about the actual history (i.e. facts), and more about the approach taken to scrutinise the sources for reliability/credibility and come up with your own judgement based on what you have available.

merpnderp 6y ago
If I had to choose between memorizing a sequence of facts curated by some randos in the government, or being taught how to scrutinize sources for reliability/credibility and come up with my own judgements, then you won as that is far better.
keenmaster 6y ago
In general, the approach you mentioned misses the forest for the trees. It is a terrible way to teach history. Most students will not later learn much history on their own. Sure, critical thinking is good, but I would argue that knowing the broader strokes of history would enable better critical thinking among the descendants of colonial beneficiaries.

trabant00 6y ago

Even the name, colonialism, is chosen to paint a very one sided contemporary political view. Colonial EMPIRES are just how imperialism manifested in a certain time and place. Human history is a never ending story of empires that didn't care about race, continent, culture, etc. Just the strong conquering the weak (military strength) for resources. With the weak very often being disorganized in every aspect, not just the army, so the conquest also brings benefits to them.

pessimizer 6y ago
> Even the name, colonialism, is chosen to paint a very one sided contemporary political view. You're projecting. The word "colony" doesn't by nature have any negative connotations; the reason "colonialism" sounds negative is because it is associated with the enslavement and extermination of native populations.
asa4akj 6y ago
I would say that now it's a weird mix for power projection: Economic prowess and Military Strength, and Cultural Propagation

EdwardDiego 6y ago

> According to YouGov, as many as 50% of Dutch people feel proud of their past Empire That got a big "Oof" from me, considering some of the crap that the Dutch pulled - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_conquest_of_the_Banda_Islands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_conquest_of_the_Banda_Is...

raarts 6y ago
Being Dutch, I think this can be attributed more to the feeling of 'having been really big in the past' than what actually happened during that period. The Dutch, I mean, suffering from a Calimero complex as we are.
- robocat 6y ago
  The term “Calimero complex” seems to be only used by the Dutch (and perhaps Belgians too) from my skim of search results. https://www.the-incredible-shrinking-man.net/?p=13281 https://www.the-incredible-shrinking-man.net/?p=13281
  - raarts 6y ago
    Oh I'm sorry, it basically means: "They are big and we are small and that's not fair" It originates from an italian cartoon tv-series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calimero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calimero

feralimal 6y ago

Government is slavery. Colonialist government is slavery. Democratic government is slavery. All government is slavery. When 'the whites' support the Nigerian colonialism, what you have is a bunch of slaves happy to see the same slave system being rolled out to Nigeria too. In case you dispute what I say about _all_ government being slavery, can I ask you resolve the following: If I as an individual ask you to pay 40% of your income to me, you would refuse. If I and 5 friends force you to hand over 40% of your income, you would probably acquiesce but you would not think it was fair - we 6 would be using force to make you act against your will. If the millions of people in your country decide to go along with such a charade (voting, etc), and decide to extract 40% of your income how is that now ok? At what size is the group is big enough to act in this way regardless of your agreement? And none of us have ever knowingly agreed to enter into a contract with this system.

disgruntledphd2 6y ago
You do normally get things for your taxation. As an example, in exchange for my tax money, I got: - a hospital to be born in - roads to and from the hospital - education (up to and including a PhD) - welfare for people less fortunate as me. I'm not sure that this maps to traditional definitions of slavery.
- feralimal 6y ago
  Yes.... maybe that stuff wasn't as helpful as you think. Maybe it ensured that you were trained in a way that you would accept and conform to the world that you were presented with.
  - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
    That's an interesting viewpoint. Given that I dropped out of college (twice!) and generally arsed around unproductively for 10 years while my school mates were buying houses, I'm going to gently suggest that you have little to no idea of what I actually think (except for my views on taxation). Given that I personally believe that schools, roads and hospitals are necessities for modern society and you appear to believe that these are some kind of false consciousness, I'm not sure how we can carry on this discussion.

pessimizer 6y ago

I don't know that the living get to speak for the dead. If someone comes to your town, kills your parents and burns down your house, but then kidnaps you and raises you as a servant, it's a bit silly to compare the comforts of your servants' quarters to the hypothetical situation you would have been in if the invaders had never come. Your parents' story is still important, and your guess about how unhappy you would have been in a world that never happened is a rationalized comfort in your current situation. Especially if you are a member of one of the local Christian elites used around the world as a buffer between the colonial power and the land and workers it needed to exploit. Stories by the colonized about how colonization helped their people are like slate dot com headlines about "Why Getting Cancer Saved My Life."

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
At the same time, though, a world where everyone's going around trying to avenge their ancestors is a world full of conflict and strife. There are obvious reasons it's problematic to tell people they have to forgive and forget, but I think it's a quite similar problem to tell people they shouldn't.
- merpnderp 6y ago
  99.99% of our 300,000+ years of history is people going around avenging their ancestors through pillage, enslavement, rape and murder. We're for the most part in a brief moment of respite from the norm, but I'm sure we'll be back to genocide and slavery before long.

vinay427 6y ago

I think what bothers me about many instances of colonialism is the misleading historical representations that we are left with, as history is often written by (if not the victors) those who had the upper hand at the end of the conflict. There is still an ongoing narrative that the British brought some kind of civilization and industrialization to the region of British India that was unachievable before, somehow advancing it into a new age. In truth, the start of colonization was centered around the deindustrialization and enslavement of workers in Bengal into forced labor and sometimes starvation, destroying factories that produced advanced ships and textiles in the wealthiest region that alone accounted for 10-12% of the world's GDP if I recall correctly. These products were typically for export, generating wealth in the region, and the production was destroyed in favor of tea plantations that proved to be relatively underutilized and unproductive. Granted, the kingdom was also under external stressors at the time such as conflicts with neighboring regions, so maybe this specific relatively industrialized economy may not have survived until today, but the British certainly hastened the poverty-stricken development of India and other subcontinental countries that the region is still suffering from today. Do aspects such as the exposure to the English language, now relatively widespread as a second language, make up for this in the long term? Maybe this argument can be made, but it seems like an uphill battle in my opinion.

heavenlyblue 6y ago
Soviet apoligists day the same about Baltic regions: “we came to basically a forest and built schools for them”. What they forget is that in parallel to that they were systematically eradicating their language and everyone who had any political stance (educated, etc) up to the point that a lot of political movements in these regions originated from overseas, as that is where most of these (lucky) people could move instead of being forcibly removed to Syberia.
- m0llusk 6y ago
  But the contributions are radically different as the current remains reveal. Worldwide English is the language of commerce and throughout the remains of the former British Empire English for traders continues to be extremely common and global in scope and impact. In almost every city colonized by the British there remain enduring street grids with broad rights of way and predictable block sizes that are in many cases still the most lively and economically active areas. In contrast modern Baltic people speak English for international commerce and Russians when they need to talk to their neighbors. Also most of the construction the Russians were responsible for were military or industrial installations that have mostly been replaced or fallen out of use. It is these artifacts of colonial force that remain that bring into question the idea that the whole business had zero positive impact.

growlist 6y ago

I'm just a single generation away from poverty to the point of - on one side of my family - actual infant malnutrition. Why am I supposed to feel responsible for the actions of people that were geographically and ethnically distinct from my ancestors, simply because they happened to share the same skin colour and kingdom? Not many people in industrial Wales seemed to share in the benefits of colonialism. Many of the British elite were/are Norman: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2479271/1-000-years-invaded-need-Norman-like-Darcy-Percy-ahead.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2479271/1-000-years...

marci 6y ago
I've heard/read that many times, but I've never heard/read anyone saying that people should feel responsible for the sins of their forefathers, let alone for the actions of people with whom they share skin color. I would love to be pointed to a conversation or an article that frames things that way.
- radegast 6y ago
  There ya go https://www.forbes.com/sites/sethcohen/2020/06/28/reparations-now/#75c8e0ce547e https://www.forbes.com/sites/sethcohen/2020/06/28/reparation...
  - marci 6y ago
    Thanks. At least this article (partially) answers "Why am I supposed to feel responsible for the actions of people that were geographically and ethnically distinct from my ancestors, simply because they happened to share the same skin colour and kingdom?", but one first need to (as said in the article) "fully grasp the full benefit and privileges they have received" as a group, not a matter of rich vs poor, otherwise the point of the article is probably moot, especially if you've never heard of red lining or gerrymandering.
    - growlist 6y ago
      > "fully grasp the full benefit and privileges they have received" When do I get my reparations from the Normans? Or the Romans? Is there a time limit?

KaiserPro 6y ago

One thing that can really help with the study of colonialism is the proper sourcing of (and translating if needs be) of first hand accounts. This should be the starting point of any discussion. Dr Remi does this well. There are two objections I have to this piece. The academic points are sound and very good, however There is a throw away at the end "opening the door for white people to shed any guilt". This feels very catholic original sin. Barbarism underscores colonialism, as does greed, this is undeniable. But we cannot tar an entire race with the sins of their ruling elite forebears. (just as its inexcusable to discriminate on the basis of race) The second is the underplaying of the level of colonialism in europe it's self. It suggests (wrongly) that the europe was the land of milk and honey. At the time that the newly formed united kingdom was sniffing around india (pre nationalisation of the EIC) napoleon had invaded most of europe. The ramifications we still feel today. At the time of the british empire was collapsing, russia was brutalising the eastern bloc.

trabant00 6y ago

People who actually lived in that time prefered the colonization administration as per article but progressive intelectuals from today know better. What more could be said...

dang 6y ago
Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. There's obviously a lot of substance in a topic like this—an overwhelming amount really—and the idea of this place is to try not to collapse into the one or two pre-existing fixed points. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- trabant00 6y ago
  Nobody mentioning what the original article said: people of the time affected by what was going on chose the colonization administration as the lesser evil. Mentioning this is flaming? And completely dismissing the content of the article and pushing current trending political stances is not? Not to mention down voting anything that does not agree with "Europe bad, Africa good"? I think somebody needs to say these things, no matter how unpopular they are at the current moment. If you think otherwise though - your site your rules. Just say so and I am out.
  - dang 6y ago
    Mentioning it in a drive-by snarky comment is flamebait. We want thoughtful discussion here.
    - deleted 6y ago
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jccalhoun 6y ago
That is NOT what the article says. It states: "In his 1947 book [...]Obafemi Awolowo, [wrote] “Given a choice from among white officials, [Nigerian] chiefs and educated Nigerians as the principal rulers of the country, the illiterate man today would exercise his preference for the three in the order in which they are named. He is convinced, and has good reasons to be, that he can always get better treatment from the white man than he could hope to get from the chiefs and the educated elements,” [...] "According to this, [...] many regular Nigerians seemed to sense a fairness in the British exercise of power that they were not so sure of in their own leaders." So one author says that SOME people thought that the British were fairer. We don't know how many. And we don't know if they were right or wrong.

dang 6y ago

Although the topic is flameprone and the title arguably baity (no narrative fits all facts), the discussion in this thread is so good—at least in its best parts—that I've turned off flags on the submission. Thanks to everyone posting in the intended spirit of HN: thoughtful, curious conversation. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

zzzeek 6y ago

Without Hacker News I would never even know that such insane authors exist: "This expectation underestimates the human desire to feel strong, the powerful psychological appeal for many, not just in Britain, in taking pride in the conquests of their ancestors. It offers a sense of collective strength they can tap into as individuals. If they, of whom I am one, could be so triumphant in the past, surely I too possess triumph in me? The morality of taking pride in ancestral conquests involving the killing and subjugation of other human beings is questionable, but its psychological appeal is undeniable." why yes, it sure is a RUSH to conquer other people and take all their stuff, especially for the huge number of masses that never had to actually, you know, kill anyone, they just get to have all this awesome land and stuff and kind of a curious way that all the streets seem to be named after native americans even though I've never met any here at all, shrugs.... conquest is awesome! teach the controversy, people!

function_seven 6y ago
You confuse the author's identification of this impulse with his holding that view. He identifies one reason why a large chunk of people might feel pride for their ancestors' subjugation of others. Should he not shine a light on it?
- zzzeek 6y ago
  certainly not a favorable light! the lack of ethics in this community is just depressing to me
  - haecceity 6y ago
    I think he was being charitable. Not wanting to offend anyone. He ended like this So for British teachers wondering how to teach the subject, it is important to cite various perspectives, including, crucially, the perspectives of the colonised; not in a wholly arbitrary manner seeking to buttress this or that grand narrative, but in a way revealing the complexities and contradictions of Britain’s colonial encounter with Africa. which suggests he doesn't agree with their views. I think he is pretty neutral.

chrisjarvis 6y ago

This article is all well and good but realistically, in 2020, if you were a teacher at any grade level who taught about slavery or colonialism with any nuance whatsoever your career would be promptly executed by internet firing squad.

DuskStar 6y ago
Unless you're black or some other 'colonized' skin color, of course.
chillacy 6y ago
I found that the moral ambiguity only ratcheted up over time. In 3rd grade it was peaceful pilgrims co-existing with the natives. In 9th grade it was the trail of tears and Vietnam. In college it was "the sons of liberty were terrorists and the noble savage trope is a myth".

jacquesm 6y ago

If you set up a bunch of people on the Northpole and support them, that's a colony. If you take someone else's land, murder them, enslave them or exploit them that is conquest. The 'colonies' of yesteryear were simply brutal exploitation strategies executed with zero consideration for anybody's rights except for those of the conquerors. Since those countries - without exception very wealthy, and mostly European though there are some exceptions - tend to be all very civilized now we no longer want to be faced with this uncomfortable truth: that we went from famines and plagues to riches within a few hundred years over the backs of untold people's lives destroyed. In school we don't teach it other than with some strange form of national pride. We only tell the story from some glorified explorer's point of view. But when viewed from the side of the indigenous people the sight of a Dutch, English, French, Portuguese, German, Spanish or some other seafaring nation was that your days were numbered. Any accidental positive happenstances do not negate that conquest is war and war is a net negative, no matter how much you twist it and even if it benefits the aggressor financially.

aeternum 6y ago
When viewed from the side of the indigenous however, it wasn't just the sight of a European that meant your days were numbered. Sighting an Aztec for example was almost as bad. It is possible that going from famines and plagues to riches within a few hundred years with European influence ultimately results in less suffering than if that transition took significantly longer without European influence.
- marci 6y ago
  I think the "going from famines and plagues to riches within a few hundred years" was referring to what happened in Europe. As far as I know, those were not issues in most of the former colonies (before colonization).
m0llusk 6y ago
That is bickering over word choice, though. Everyone agrees that what happened was violent and by any modern criteria illegal and immoral. What is more interesting is that if you look carefully you do find gems in the turd pile. The situation varies not only by country but by city and area. Invaders, no matter what name for them is currently considered an appropriate best fit, brought ideas, language, trade, rules, and systems that have value and got propagated. Most African cities did not originally have street grids, sewers, sanitation, railways, courts of law. For all the damage that clearly was done there was also value in the introduction of so many modern ideas and systems. Whether or not the result was a net negative is not relevant when it comes to recognizing value. The way really basic innovations like street grids, English for traders, and sanitation endure in post colonial urban centers speaks to the reality that cultural exchange had many aspects and factors and was not all murder and theft.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

tl;dr humans can act good or bad, this will never change, if you don’t understand nuance, you will not be a happy person

tomohawk 6y ago

Empires are made up of people - both good and bad. Empires have both good and bad impacts as they expand. Its the people (colonizers, colonized) who make the difference in many cases. Prior to the British Empire, slavery was ubiquitous, as was piracy. It was widespread in Africa, the Middle East, and other areas. After the British Empire, these scourges were pretty much gone, primarily through the efforts of the British Empire. That is not to say that slavery and piracy were not actively encouraged, and used as instruments of the British state. In fact, slavery and piracy greatly expanded for a time due to British policies. The British state, and powerful companies and people achieve great wealth and power because of slavery and piracy. Nonetheless, they were eventually ended decisively through the efforts of the British Empire, which banned slavery in 1807. What happened? People changed, and fought for change. Their efforts changed the machinery of the British Empire for the better. Consider John Newton. He was a slave trader, who eventually became an abolitionist (a person who fought against slavery). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Newton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Newton Or William Wilberforce, who spent a large part of his life facing ridicule for opposing slavery, and fighting the powerful slave interests, finally winning that fight in 1807. So, yes, a large government apparatus such as the British Empire can have an enormous impact on people, both good and bad. Simplifying the complexity to "without colonization, we would be fine" or "colonization provided all of these great benefits" - both of those gloss over the reality, and make it likely we'll repeat the mistakes of the past.

renewiltord 6y ago

There's always someone coming to help you out for your own good which just coincidentally enriches them. Listen, if you want to come cut my lawn and install pretty little lights but enslave me, don't expect me to thank you for the lawn. I can cut the lawn myself. Thanks.

jimmynopension 6y ago

It's very rare for anyone to talk about the efforts made by some institutions to give power and wealth away in restorative colonialist experiments, for example the American Colonization Society. We have decades of socio-economic data about Liberia covering all aspects of development since its creation as a colony for freed slaves. I have never heard anyone debate the terrible experiment of Liberia which is today one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the world, despite it being founded and governed by its own free people and independent from any other nation for over 170 years. It is one of the purest split tests in human civilisation but few know it exists and even fewer want to learn anything from it.

tekkk 6y ago

Well I think one thing and which the article describes well, is that colonialism gave external pressure for those nations moving forward. Like being bullied and abused in school before graduating, colonialism gave an identity mixed in with the culture and language the oppressors brought. Tribes that would probably never have formed a country together otherwise, were piled in with arbitrary borders with no regard did it split the tribes or not. And given a name and a flag and told they were now Kenyan or whoever from here on out. Now of course bullying and abusing is wrong and the bullied have eternal trauma of being subjected to it, but I think there are two perspectives to it. You can either look at it as the worst thing that happened "I would have become rich and famous had I not been bullied" or as something that made you stronger "I've been through worse". Granted, the analogy between bullying and colonialism might not be completely accurate. But like everything in life things are mostly grey instead of black and white. Can you quantify which color is stronger and equal it as being one or the other? Maybe, but there should be a lengthy rationale how you came up with the conclusion to reflect the best how world truly is (and yes yes, there are exceptions to this rule also). Which the article actually does well, and I wish this type of rationality to difficult issues would be more popular.

openasocket 6y ago

I'm American, but I'm surprised I've never heard any arguments about reparations for their former colonies, as I've heard plenty about reparations for the practice of slavery in the US. I mean de-colonialization happened much later than the end of slavery in the US, and it would arguably be easier to implement. Has the idea been brought up in public thought in Europe at all? Some cursory googling revealed it has been brought up, but I'm curious what public discussion and sentiment is on the issue

raincom 6y ago

Here is another way of raising a question about colonialism: "What is unethical about a project[colonialism] that, among other things, industrialized the colonies, established courts of Law, laid railroads, and introduced scientific education, modern medicine and parliamentary democracy there? As long as we do not address this issue properly, there are no obvious reasons to assume that the earlier generations of thinkers were wrong. Today, it is not clear how or why colonialism is an evil or from where it draws its evil strength. In other words, we lack an adequate understanding of colonialism." From S.N. Balagangadhara's Colonialism and Colonial Consciousness: The case of modern India. https://www.academia.edu/4214196/Rethinking_Colonialism_and_Colonial_Consciousness https://www.academia.edu/4214196/Rethinking_Colonialism_and_...

luord 6y ago

The part about finding an "African identity" that isn't merely "western" gave me pause because I come from a country that was colonized considerably earlier and, like the rest of the Americas, had its native population decimated so completely and its identity so completely replaced, practically nothing is left but "western"... And I find myself completely alright with that, so it's harder to me to see the importance of such an identity.