
Come Back, Colonialism, All Is Forgiven (2008) - pythia__
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1713275,00.html
======
yoo1I
Give a man a fish and he'll be satisfied for a day.

Teach a man to fish and he'll not be hungry for the rest of his life.

Force a man and his friends to catch fish for you in big fish farms for your
cronies back home to enjoy, but don't teach them how to run fish farms,
instead make them dependent on your farm destroying their previous way of
life, create some wars and kill a couple of millions, then exit leaving behind
a vacuum and you get to write smug, pseudo-provocative pieces in time magazine
bemoaning the white man's burden.

~~~
jernfrost
While it could all be done better, it would be quite fair to say Africa is in
its current predicament exclusively due to whites. Whites might have created a
messed up continent with their unnatural borders, abrupt exit etc. However
without colonization, Africa today would in large part still be in the iron
age.

And it is not like whites invented wars. Africa was full of wars before whites
came. So you can't pretend war was some sort invention brought to Africa by
whites.

~~~
carapace
> However without colonization, Africa today would in large part still be in
> the iron age.

I can't let this pass. This is incredibly, crazily racist.

Africa is a vast continent with hundreds of millions of people. There are more
middle-class people in Africa than North America, did you know that?

~~~
omonra
I find it rather hilarious that all you can muster is 'that's racist'. It
pretty much means 'I can't produce a coherent argument that counters what you
said but I don't like it, so I'll call it x-ist'.

Your second point might make sense if Africa had middle class before Europeans
arrived. The fact that there is civilization there after colonization doesn't
in any way refute the original point.

I personally don't know whether Africa was on track to have civilization
without colonialism (other people commenting that 'people around the world got
there' is nonsense as most societies throughout history didn't get
civilization on their own). But I detest trying to shut someone up merely
because you don't find their thinking agreeable.

~~~
yoo1I
> But I detest trying to shut someone up

This is your imagination. Challenging someone's ideas is not shutting them up.

Especially if their ideas are as misguided, and yes, racist, as to believe the
whole continent of Africa was unable to develop without the help of the white
Europeans.

> I personally don't know whether Africa was on track to have civilization
> without colonialism

Are you seriously suggesting that there was no civilization in Africa before
colonialism ?

You know, I'm not trying to shut you up, by this point you're so far off, that
it doesn't even make sense to have a conversation. Or said much more
succinctly:

The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude
bigger than to produce it, and ain't nobody got time for that.

~~~
omonra
What I meant was not a civilization in the abstract sense of the word but
rather what we consider modernity (as brought to us by Europe).

My understanding is that Asia is widely expected to get there without Europe -
but it's not clear for Africa.

In the case of America there actually were quite a few civilizations on the
upswing when Europeans arrived (and killed everybody off with their diseases).
I am yet to see the same said about Africa.

~~~
meira
I think you probably watched too much whitewashed movies about the Egypt and
internalized that it is an European country, don't you?

------
jernfrost
As with most historical events the truth lies somewhere between the extreme
narratives. Conquests have brought suffering and suppression since the dawn of
time, but it has also brought new ideas, technologies and development. While
Europeans were exploited by the Romans, we also gained a lot of advantages
from the Roman empire. Napoleons conquest of Europe also ultimately brought
benefits like modern standards for measurement, modern set of laws and
administration.

Colonial Africa is no different. It is a mixed bag. It was exploitative but it
also brought development, not because European necessarily wanted to help
Africans but because getting hold of resources required building ports, roads,
railroad etc. They could not exploit agricultural resources without actually
building farms and hiring locals. And of course there was always people with
different ideas. Some wanted to help Africans and brought modern medicine e.g.

The chief error the western powers did when they left Africa was to not allow
for any transition period. They left countries were whites had managed
everything and no African had experience or education in managing operations
from the top level. They should have given Africans education in white
institutions and let them work with the white administration to learn how
things were managed.

We see the same disaster in South Africa. Suddenly blacks are put in power but
they have no previous experience in having power since they were never given a
chance. White rule should not have ended abruptly. There should have been a
gradual winding down.

~~~
carapace
If you find yourself apologizing for conquest, it's fine to just go ahead and
stop there.

\---

To elaborate with less snark: No one is complaining about the good things.
It's the violence and exploitation and coercion that are bad. The conquerors
don't get "points" for the good stuff that they can redeem against their sins
(or crimes if you prefer) to somehow balance the bad stuff out. What a strange
idea!

If I stab you in the guts and then hand you a free milkshake, does that make
it okay?

~~~
lostlogin
This is exactly how it is though - now we have a "but he was a bad guy"
narrative for the Iraq invasion. That good thing offsets the other stuff a bit
right? I don't agree with it, but it's there.

~~~
carapace
I would ask, "Who's 'we' in that sentence?".

If we could survey Iraqis how many would say, "Yes, I hate being invaded and
occupied, but at least they got rid of that jerk Saddam."? Keeping in mind
that we can't survey the dead...

Notwithstanding that awesome scene in Monty Python's "Life of Brian":

> Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education,
> wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public
> health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

> PFJ Member: Brought peace?

> Reg: Oh, peace? SHUT UP!

The basic issue facing everyone is how do we have the good stuff, while giving
the bloodshed and trauma the miss?

~~~
lostlogin
"We" was intended to mean everyone, but probably actually represents and small
subset of the western world.I'm in New Zealand and get my news from US and UK
papers (and our dross). Edit: the Monty Python sketch would perhaps apply if
any of that stuff had been delivered. Are there measures by which Iraq is now
better? Saddam has gone, that's good. Anything else?

