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>Infrastructure is a lot more than roads and rails; it's also constitutions, laws, education systems, and what I term "social infrastructure." Colonial powers

>Infrastructure is a lot more than roads and rails; it's also constitutions, laws, education systems, and what I term "social infrastructure." Colonial powers created infrastructure (physical and social) that fitted their form of government, i.e. a colony controlled from the outside, and then just left. Although colonialism itself is the "original sin", the sudden abdication of all responsibility is almost worse, at least in the case of relatively mildly oppressive colonial systems. But it is what the locals wanted in the 1960s, by all accounts. In fact, they worked to scuttle efforts to have more gradual transitions, because they wanted independence now. Very understandable but very naive. Here's a great archival BBC documentary[0] from 1972 about the collapse of social infrastructure in action - the expulsion of south Asians from Uganda under Amin. It's instructive to see how enthusiastically the interviewed native Ugandans support this policy, in retrospect clearly more disastrous for them than for people they uprooted and expelled. Not blaming or judging them, just find it quite sad for all involved. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-i0JVip9N4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-i0JVip9N4

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
I remember that clearly. The asian Ugandans (they were born and bred natives), controlled a lot of stuff. It's fairly easy to see why the resentment festered. The problem was that they controlled a lot of stuff. When Amin threw them out, he gave their holdings to his cronies, who immediately started to loot them. The national infrastructure collapsed, almost overnight. I have no idea if it has fully recovered. When I lived there, Uganda was actually a relatively cosmopolitan country. Lebanon comes to mind, as a similar nation.
quadrifoliate 5y ago
> Although colonialism itself is the "original sin", the sudden abdication of all responsibility is almost worse, at least in the case of relatively mildly oppressive colonial systems. As another person born in a former British colony (often referred to as the The Jewel in the Crown), I essentially have the same conclusion in a different subthread. [1] > But it is what the locals wanted in the 1960s, by all accounts. In fact, they worked to scuttle efforts to have more gradual transitions, because they wanted independence now. This is true, but the impression I get [2] is that the British were also more than happy to have an abrupt transition, because it was becoming rapidly economically infeasible for them to bear the costs of maintaining the Empire after 1945. ---------------------------------------- [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29785964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29785964 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#Decolonisation_and_decline_(1945%E2%80%931997) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#Decolonisation_...

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

I remember that clearly. The asian Ugandans (they were born and bred natives), controlled a lot of stuff. It's fairly easy to see why the resentment festered. The problem was that they controlled a lot of stuff. When Amin threw them out, he gave their holdings to his cronies, who immediately started to loot them. The national infrastructure collapsed, almost overnight. I have no idea if it has fully recovered. When I lived there, Uganda was actually a relatively cosmopolitan country. Lebanon comes to mind, as a similar nation.

quadrifoliate 5y ago

> Although colonialism itself is the "original sin", the sudden abdication of all responsibility is almost worse, at least in the case of relatively mildly oppressive colonial systems. As another person born in a former British colony (often referred to as the The Jewel in the Crown), I essentially have the same conclusion in a different subthread. [1] > But it is what the locals wanted in the 1960s, by all accounts. In fact, they worked to scuttle efforts to have more gradual transitions, because they wanted independence now. This is true, but the impression I get [2] is that the British were also more than happy to have an abrupt transition, because it was becoming rapidly economically infeasible for them to bear the costs of maintaining the Empire after 1945. ---------------------------------------- [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29785964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29785964 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#Decolonisation_and_decline_(1945%E2%80%931997) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#Decolonisation_...