Let’s start with the fact that empires were not invented by the modern European nations whose advanced ships and guns were more effective in maintaining them than forced marches and pikes. Stronger nations have colonised weaker ones since the beginning of recorded history; indeed, before there were nations in our modern sense at all. Greeks and Romans built empires, as did the Chinese, the Assyrians, the Aztecs, the Malians, the Khmer and the Mughals. Those empires operated with varying degrees of brutality and repression, but all of them were based on an equation of might and right, which amounts to no concept of right at all. All of them used their power to compel weaker groups to surrender resources, submit tribute, press soldiers into service for further imperial wars, and accept commands that overrode local custom and law. As far as we know, there was one thing they lacked: a guilty conscience.
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Samizdata quote of the day – lets be more inclusive when discussing colonialismSamizdata Illuminatus (Arkham, Massachusetts) · Culture Wars · Historical views · Slogans & Quotations August 7th, 2023 |
 11 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – lets be more inclusive when discussing colonialism |
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It really comes down to the question of whether or not a culture believes in itself as a superior culture. The Greeks, Romans, Mongols, Ottomans, Byzantines, Victorian Europeans, Aztecs, Normans, Japanese, Americans, and everyone else who have ever shown up and conquered someone else all thought their cultures were the top of the heap. They might take something from the conquered, like how the Romans simply renamed a bunch of Greek gods, but if you asked any of them they would all say their culture was superior and would tell you why.
WW1 was an existential crisis for the Anglosphere, French, Belgians, Russians, and the rest. WW2 just made that crisis worse because our own ideas of our own superiority didn’t stack up to death camps and cities around the world bombed flat. How could civilized Europeans, and Germans were Europeans, do those things and how could French and English colonies still be subjected to the indignities that came with being colonies, and how could we condemn the Nazis for their views on racial inferiority while still treating blacks and Indians (dots and feathers) as subpar to whites? Where does the White Man’s Burden to pull the colonized out of what we consider to be barbarism fit in? What happens if/when we decide to just leave the colonized areas and do we owe them support for some period? Is there a way for a multicultural/multiracial “empire” to exist or would it just be best to say “a place for every race” and let non-whites live in non-white places? Those were real questions that had to be grappled with.
And then we get to throw Communists into the mix who were looking to bring the West down and used our own introspection and sense of fairness and equality against us. And then throw in the bleeding hearts in academia and the media. And people and companies and organizations with agendas.
It’s just too simplistic to chalk it up to the woke provide us with the guilty conscience we somehow needed.
The European Empires fell because they were no longer profitable and had largely bankrupted themselves after two world wars and thus lacked the resources to attempt to recover the situation. Those that did not acknowledge the situation voluntarily (mainly France) were kicked out by force. It wasn’t a guilty conscience that caused the French to abandon Algeria (which had a significant French population and was official a province of France, not an imperial possession like Viet Nam). They fought a bloody war against the local Arab populations for years before finally coming to grips with the truth that they lacked the power to control the country at a cost they were willing to pay.
There were three main factors post-WW II that made the Empires untenable. First was the availability of modern weapons, such as the AK-47, that meant the empires couldn’t simply rely on firepower a la Omdurman. Second was the rise of the American post-war order, which was both hostile to and largely obviated the need for direct imperial rule from Europe (as long as the Americans were committed to keep trade open you could get the resources even without control). And third was the moral debt owed to the various colonial native troops that fought in both world wars. The circumstances that allowed European countries to control African or Asian territories with little more than token European forces backed by local levies in the 19th and early 20th century were no longer present by 1950, and the American guarantee of free and open international trade for the western block meant the old imperial mercantile trading blocks were unnecessary anyway.
Releasing colonial possessions to local control wasn’t abandoning economic interests. Both the British and French still maintain influence in many of their former colonies, as can be seen in the current mess in Niger. They’ve just reverted to the pre-colonial period were Europeans traded with locals throughout Africa and much of the Indian Ocean basin with little more than the odd trading post. It’s a whole lot cheaper and gets you most of what you actually need in terms of raw materials.
The Europeans didn’t abandon their empires in a fit of conscience, they just lost the ability to hold them and any real rationale to justify the kind of sacrifice that would have been required to try. The guilty conscience came afterwards, and was mostly just consolation for their relegation to the role of American clients anyway.
Like slavery, colonialism and imperialism are ubiquitous to all known civilisations. I would be pleased to hear if anyone knows of any exceptions to this rule. Nigel Bigger and Bruce Gilley argue, convincingly, in their respective books, for the net benefit to humanity of the British Empire. Never allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
You could make a pretty good argument that the British empire and its american successor are probably the best thing that ever happened.
I’m not sure any other potential empire with global reach would have contributed so much. And apart from europe, who else could possibly have done done such a thing?
You could make a pretty good argument that the British empire and its american successor are probably the best thing that ever happened.
I’m not sure any other empire with the same potential for global reach would have contributed so much. And apart from europe, who else could possibly have done done such a thing?
Writers sometimes speculate that ancient China could have had a sea-based Empire, perhaps with colonies in California. Whilst possible, this seems as unlikely as the Nazis winning WW2. The Chinese government tended to think that the rest of the world had nothing to offer, and their bureaucracy was allergic to seawater.
Willis Eschenbach, a sane and traveled man, has a wonderful discussion of a small piece of colonialism: the Black Hills of South Dakota, USA. It’s actually about a series of conquests, and the final question is simple: who owns the place. Who’s in charge here?
Will Whoever Stole The Black Hills Please Return Them?
The only land native to humans is Africa. The rest was occupied by colonists, followed by a variable number of conquerors. Some of the conquerors massacred the previous occupants or drove them away; others just moved in and started taking over. Sometimes they interbred to form one people. (The British Isles did that: Celts Picts, Angles, Saxons, Vikings, Normans.) Some portions are prone to family fights, but that’s the nature of families.
“If it’s not nailed down, it’s mine. If I can pry it loose, it’s not nailed down.” There will always be adventurers who seek fortune in new lands. Colonialism is one way they deal with those lands, and their occupants, when they find them. But there are differences. I’d much rather be colonized by the British Empire than by Genghis Khan. Come to think of it, where I live was colonized by the British (plus French and Spanish).
Irredentism is a pernicious vice, one prone to leading into folly those who’d be far better off minding their own business.
What, precisely, did the Jews gain from regaining their ancient homeland? A lot of damn grief, really. Objectively speaking, they’d have been a lot better off saying “Screw this for a game of soldiers, let’s find somewhere else to live… Away from these idiots…”
Likewise, the so-called “Palestinians”, who’re more “Arab opportunists” than anything else. They’re faced with an Israel-in-fact, and the Israelis ain’t going anywhere soon. Why fixate on lands that they a.) never really owned, in any real sense, and b.) ain’t getting back? Smart move would be to make the Israelis and others pay through the nose for the ruined land that they never took care of, and then move elsewhere like the human locusts that they are…
What, pray tell, are the Russians going to get out of trying to rebuild the Russian/Soviet Empire, other than a lot of dead young men that they can ill afford? End state, when this adventure in Ukraine is all over? A generation of dead and maimed young men, who they already cannot replace. They’re going to be coping with a generation of lost men far worse than they had from Afghanistan, and that pulled down the Soviet Empire. They don’t have the slack in their system to survive this, but they’re still doing it. Why? Irredentist sentiment for the “good old days” when they had demographic primacy over their neighbors. By the time they realize that’s dead and gone, they’re gonna be done for. And, for what? A few hectares of land? They should have stayed at home and fixed their own problems, helped their own people. Every one of those tanks they’ve lost in Ukraine is a school building or a half-a-dozen nice, modern homes they could have built for their own people. Most of the villages of Russia don’t have running water or indoor toilets, and they’re following Putin off to war in Ukraine to “kill Nazis”? WTF?
The desire for lands that were never yours in the first place is what led Italy into the follies of WWII. History says that Italy had an empire, but apparently the lessons of why that empire was lost in the first damn place weren’t taught. The Arabs want Andalusia back, but forget why they lost control of it when the locals got tired of their BS.
The capacity for human folly is near-infinite, and this is merely one of the more notable instances.
Should the colonial powers have allowed things like tribal war, human sacrifice, ritual burning of widows, cannibalism, caste systems, and slavery to have continued? All those places colonized and civilized by Europeans ended up being forced to give up those things. Yes, I agree the Conquistadores, Transatlantic Slave Trade, the Opium Wars, and Leopold II’s African atrocities were black marks, but it wasn’t like India, Africa, the Americas, and Australia were peaceful places where none of this things happened before the Europeans showed up and sadly they’re showing up again in some of the places the European powers decolonized.
Genghis Khan may have killed as much as the tenth of population of the planet – a very impressive achievement, for armies without modern weapons.
As for the British Empire – in most places (NOT all) British rule was an improvement on what went before.
By the way, the “Native American Genocide” in the United States is a lie – a lie based on false population figures for Native American tribal populations before Europeans arrived.
People who claim they understand this aspect of American history should be asked about Vice President Curtis. Most of the “Woke” seem to be unaware of basic facts, for example intertribal war and the wiping out of tribes by other tribes – and how tribal groups slaughtered animals (not Gaia types).
You should also have mentioned that some of those non-European empires ruled over Europeans. In the case of the Ottoman Empire, up until the First Balkan War of 1912-13.