6 ms·

Sounds like mining is partly responsible. This time they can’t blame colonialism.

killyourcar 4y ago
What do they mine, and what do they do with the mined resources? Usually, extractive industries result in resources flowing to former colonial powers (because those powers tended to have strong economies, which were often a result of colonialism). Just like how making redlining illegal didn't immediately fix the problems it introduced, moving to a post colonial government doesn't immediately address problems and systems introduced by a colonial past.
seanw444 4y ago
That's one of the rules of modern society: people will find any way to blame anything on colonialism. Scapegoats are nice because you don't have to fix anything yourself.
- rayiner 4y ago
  As someone from that part of the world, this is one of those reasons I think western liberals are actually a threat to the prosperity of south Asia. It’s a double whammy because anti-colonialism also keeps us from adopting efficacious social patterns from western countries. (Not invented here syndrome.) Let white people in Britain fight over how many trillions colonialism expropriated from India. It’s irrelevant to desis. Britain is a shadow of its former self. They don’t have the resources to do anything about what happened.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    Perhaps it's human nature though for at least part of your cultural identity to be defined by the degree to which you differentiate yourself from other cultures. I'd think that must at least explain a lot of anti-Western sentiment in the world even in places that would seem obviously able to benefit from adopting at least some of the institutions and basic principles that have proven themselves successful in the Western world. The fact that so few places have successfully done so (Japan and S. Korea being two obvious examples) is telling.
  - erenyeager 4y ago
    Anti-colonialism is still relevant in that the pre-existing indigenous institutions and communities of colonized countries were interrupted and many times shattered. Educated strata dropping into illiterates in a generation or two, ethnicity being set against each other in the new social order, the exploitation of the Subcontinent, all of these contributed to the enslavement of the people and the colonized mind. The modern day problems are inherited from the colonial history of the region, and moving forward requires reckoning with this.
    - rayiner 4y ago
      Even if true, how is any of that actionable by people on the subcontinent? How does “reckoning” help them help themselves? On the subcontinent, you’d have to go back a millennium, before the British, before the Mughals, and before the Sultanates, to get to institutions that are “indigenous.” Even if you could do that, those institutions would be wholly unfit to modern society.
      - erenyeager 4y ago
        By indigenous I am referring to before the british colonial era. Reckoning deals with mindset and history, it is an understanding of how to come to terms with all that has passed and what is happening now. You do not need to revive old institutions, but neither does a people need to be effacing their own culture, self-awareness, and history (which has already occurred) and feel inferior. The way land ownership was stratified, martial races, playing off of groups of ethnicities and religions, how one humbly starts writing a letter, the present arrangement of nations in the Subcontinent, feudal land ownership, government structures into parliaments, these are all examples of colonial legacy that affect the present day. The challenge is for people and societies to find a way through all these; integrating some, discarding some, fusing some, ignoring some, embracing some, etc. In some ways, there have been successes, in other ways, the legacy of being submissive to Western foreign powers remains. It is for charting a path as a traumatized people.
        rayiner 4y ago
spaceman_2020 4y ago
Everything traces back to colonialism - the incompetent people in charge today largely inherited their power from the colonial masters, mostly by being close to the colonists and being steeped in their traditions. Power structures don’t disappear the moment a dominant power leaves a country. Power just shifts to their closest proxy at first. It can take decades for the locals to vote/throw out these people and elect a government and build institutions that are more aligned with their local way of living.
- waqasx 4y ago
  even when after decades people muster courage and strength to throw them out, old colonial powers prop them up again thru colonial structures like the military. this has happened again and again in Pakistan. Another fact is Pakistan is paying the price not just for carbon emissions that happened last year, but for the emissions that have been happening since the industrial revolution. The very same industrial revolution that caused colonialism in the first place. It is double whammy for countries like Pakistan, all this is traced directly to colonialism - the floods, and the inability to cope with them.
- gadders 4y ago
  How far advanced as a country do you think Pakistan would be without colonisation?
  - erenyeager 4y ago
    Before the British invasion of the Subcontinent, Pakistan was part of the Mughal empire and held the seat of power in Lahore. Colonization destroyed local institutions and created a servile mentality in the populace towards the Europeans, the shadow of which still hangs over the populace today. The scale of colonization and destruction did its part in "setting back" the country.
    - Mordisquitos 4y ago
      But neither was the Mughal empire indigenous to Pakistan. It was established when Mongol armies invaded the subcontinent from the North and took over the Delhi sultanate from the ruling Lodi Dynasty, and the newly founded Mughal empire imposed its own political system to replace that of the Lodis. How was this colonization and destruction of local institutions qualitatively different from that of the British?
tchalla 4y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocolonialism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocolonialism

What do they mine, and what do they do with the mined resources? Usually, extractive industries result in resources flowing to former colonial powers (because those powers tended to have strong economies, which were often a result of colonialism). Just like how making redlining illegal didn't immediately fix the problems it introduced, moving to a post colonial government doesn't immediately address problems and systems introduced by a colonial past.

seanw444 4y ago

That's one of the rules of modern society: people will find any way to blame anything on colonialism. Scapegoats are nice because you don't have to fix anything yourself.

rayiner 4y ago
As someone from that part of the world, this is one of those reasons I think western liberals are actually a threat to the prosperity of south Asia. It’s a double whammy because anti-colonialism also keeps us from adopting efficacious social patterns from western countries. (Not invented here syndrome.) Let white people in Britain fight over how many trillions colonialism expropriated from India. It’s irrelevant to desis. Britain is a shadow of its former self. They don’t have the resources to do anything about what happened.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  Perhaps it's human nature though for at least part of your cultural identity to be defined by the degree to which you differentiate yourself from other cultures. I'd think that must at least explain a lot of anti-Western sentiment in the world even in places that would seem obviously able to benefit from adopting at least some of the institutions and basic principles that have proven themselves successful in the Western world. The fact that so few places have successfully done so (Japan and S. Korea being two obvious examples) is telling.
- erenyeager 4y ago
  Anti-colonialism is still relevant in that the pre-existing indigenous institutions and communities of colonized countries were interrupted and many times shattered. Educated strata dropping into illiterates in a generation or two, ethnicity being set against each other in the new social order, the exploitation of the Subcontinent, all of these contributed to the enslavement of the people and the colonized mind. The modern day problems are inherited from the colonial history of the region, and moving forward requires reckoning with this.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    Even if true, how is any of that actionable by people on the subcontinent? How does “reckoning” help them help themselves? On the subcontinent, you’d have to go back a millennium, before the British, before the Mughals, and before the Sultanates, to get to institutions that are “indigenous.” Even if you could do that, those institutions would be wholly unfit to modern society.
    - erenyeager 4y ago
      By indigenous I am referring to before the british colonial era. Reckoning deals with mindset and history, it is an understanding of how to come to terms with all that has passed and what is happening now. You do not need to revive old institutions, but neither does a people need to be effacing their own culture, self-awareness, and history (which has already occurred) and feel inferior. The way land ownership was stratified, martial races, playing off of groups of ethnicities and religions, how one humbly starts writing a letter, the present arrangement of nations in the Subcontinent, feudal land ownership, government structures into parliaments, these are all examples of colonial legacy that affect the present day. The challenge is for people and societies to find a way through all these; integrating some, discarding some, fusing some, ignoring some, embracing some, etc. In some ways, there have been successes, in other ways, the legacy of being submissive to Western foreign powers remains. It is for charting a path as a traumatized people.
      - rayiner 4y ago

spaceman_2020 4y ago

Everything traces back to colonialism - the incompetent people in charge today largely inherited their power from the colonial masters, mostly by being close to the colonists and being steeped in their traditions. Power structures don’t disappear the moment a dominant power leaves a country. Power just shifts to their closest proxy at first. It can take decades for the locals to vote/throw out these people and elect a government and build institutions that are more aligned with their local way of living.

waqasx 4y ago
even when after decades people muster courage and strength to throw them out, old colonial powers prop them up again thru colonial structures like the military. this has happened again and again in Pakistan. Another fact is Pakistan is paying the price not just for carbon emissions that happened last year, but for the emissions that have been happening since the industrial revolution. The very same industrial revolution that caused colonialism in the first place. It is double whammy for countries like Pakistan, all this is traced directly to colonialism - the floods, and the inability to cope with them.
gadders 4y ago
How far advanced as a country do you think Pakistan would be without colonisation?
- erenyeager 4y ago
  Before the British invasion of the Subcontinent, Pakistan was part of the Mughal empire and held the seat of power in Lahore. Colonization destroyed local institutions and created a servile mentality in the populace towards the Europeans, the shadow of which still hangs over the populace today. The scale of colonization and destruction did its part in "setting back" the country.
  - Mordisquitos 4y ago
    But neither was the Mughal empire indigenous to Pakistan. It was established when Mongol armies invaded the subcontinent from the North and took over the Delhi sultanate from the ruling Lodi Dynasty, and the newly founded Mughal empire imposed its own political system to replace that of the Lodis. How was this colonization and destruction of local institutions qualitatively different from that of the British?

tchalla 4y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocolonialism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocolonialism