
Not all the facts fit the anti-colonialist narrative - brandonlc
https://unherd.com/2020/08/anti-colonialists-must-tell-the-truth-about-empire/
======
dang
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)

------
filleduchaos
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.

~~~
blueyes
How about the fact that the British Empire, at great cost to its own
interests, ended the practice of slavery widespread among Arabs and sub-
Saharan Africans?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWrfjUzYvPo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWrfjUzYvPo)

That does not fit into the anti-colonialist narrative either.

~~~
filleduchaos
That is not at all how that works. How do you reconcile this _altruism_ with
Britain's continued trade with and reliance on goods from the Americas and
their continued use of slave labour? How is it that so many Westerners keep
making these strangely naïve and surface-level readings of history and
politics?

You might find this interesting: [https://origins.osu.edu/review/after-
abolition-britain-and-s...](https://origins.osu.edu/review/after-abolition-
britain-and-slave-trade-1807)

~~~
trabant00
> How do you reconcile this altruism with Britain's continued trade with and
> reliance on goods from the Americas and their continued use of slave labour?

By simply not moving the goal posts.

> so many Westerners keep making these strangely naïve and surface-level
> readings of history and politics

So they are naive for noticing a good thing in an ocean of evil, and you are
keeping it real by thinking that until everything is perfect no progress
matters. Got it.

~~~
filleduchaos
It's not "moving the goal posts" to point out that the "great cost to her
interests" was largely nonexistent considering that Britain kept right on
benefiting from and funding it under the table - it's simply knowing enough of
the history involved to not reason like a small child.

~~~
trabant00
Keep adding insults to your posts. Makes you right every time.

And for the "benefiting", there's nothing anybody can do that you people won't
label as benefiting even if it's 2nd, 3rd or 10th party. All the while posting
this on devices produced by workers free only in name with materials from the
poorest countries with the most horrible work conditions in their mines.

~~~
jhardy54
> you people

Yikes.

> All the while posting this on devices produced by workers free only in name
> with materials from the poorest countries with the most horrible work
> conditions in their mines.

Sweet, so you're obviously an anti-capitalist too right?

------
bantunes
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.

~~~
DarthGhandi
> doesn't change the fact that an independent Nigeria free from influence
> stirring internal conflicts would have been much better off

Maybe we have different definitions of the word fact but I'd suggest what you
are saying is actually a hypothetical and not a fact at all.

Ethiopia was never colonised and look how they turned out compared to the rest
of Africa. It's very tempting to try simplify these highly complex realities,
the relative comparison you've made doesn't hold water though.

~~~
EdwardDiego
...Ethiopia was conquered by Fascist Italy.

~~~
arp242
This was just for 5 years (1936-1941); although you could perhaps also add on
3 years of British rule to that. I wouldn't really describe that as
"colonialism" in the same way that e.g. Nigeria was ruled by the British for
160 years.

------
jacquesm
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
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
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).

------
KaiserPro
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.

------
rmrfstar
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.

------
vinay427
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
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
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.

------
rudiv
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
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
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
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."

------
mattlondon
> 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
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.

------
growlist
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...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2479271/1-000-years-
invaded-need-Norman-like-Darcy-Percy-ahead.html)

~~~
SaberTail
You're conflating guilt and responsibility.

An analogy: Suppose that at work, some critical system belonging to another
team blows up, and everyone is asked to help fix it. It's not useful to
complain that it's that other team's fault. The mess is there, and it needs to
be fixed. Even though you don't share in the guilt for it blowing up, you're
still responsible for fixing it.

~~~
growlist
I don't see anyone rushing to make amends for the grinding poverty much of the
population of the UK suffered. Funny that.

------
chrisjarvis
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.

~~~
chillacy
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".

------
Kednicma
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_\(disambiguation\))

~~~
tomxor
> But let's also not let the UK off the hook

I think this kind of attitude is what the author of the article is struggling
with: assigning blame, tallying up the sins of each side to see who is the
winner, this kind of debate is not useful - even if you don't intend it,
framing things in this light will cause it.

There is value for everyone in discussing the nuances of dark events in our
histories. But unfortunately we have a natural tendency to over simplify
things into these highly polarized dichotomies, a vs b, in an attempt to make
complex events easy to understand. Nobody alive today had a hand in these
events, and while it's natural to feel things for our ancestors whether it's
shame, pride or anguish, we would do well to distance ourselves like an alien
observer when analyzing these events... the sins of our fathers should remain
that way if we are to make progress as a species - I'm not religious, that was
an accident.

~~~
rorykoehler
It's not history though. The same attitudes prevail today. Northern Ireland is
still part of the UK. France are bombing most of N Africa and involved in all
sorts of shady deals in Africa in general. The list is long and current.

~~~
disgruntledphd2
Northern Ireland is still part of the UK because the majority of the people
wish it so.

The British Secretary of State is _required_ to hold a referendum to rejoin
the South if he/she believes that it will pass.

Don't get me wrong, it's bad but its 1000x better in the last 20-30 years.

~~~
rorykoehler
Which people? If you want to undo colonialism you need to include all Irish
people in this measure and I can tell you not many Irish nationals if even
that want it to be like it is. I'm probably the most outlier opinion in that I
think they should be their own country outside of both the UK and Ireland.

From politico: Overall, the results showed 65 percent "yes" versus 19 percent
"no." Excluding undecided voters and those who refused to answer — 15 percent
— nearly four in five respondents who had made up their minds said they would
vote in favor. [https://www.politico.eu/article/election-two-thirds-of-
irish...](https://www.politico.eu/article/election-two-thirds-of-irish-would-
vote-for-united-ireland/)

~~~
disgruntledphd2
Full disclosure: I am from the South of Ireland (i.e. the Republic).

I actually have always agreed with your outlier opinion, but you need both
countries to be in the EU to make it work (shrug).

You are not counting the appropriate people in your study. A pretty large
majority of people in the Republic would like to see the North become part of
their country.

However, our opinion is less important than the opinions of the people living
in Northern Ireland, and in that part of the island, there is _not_ a strong
majority for re-unification.

Like my original point is what the Good Friday/Belfast agreement states, so
I'm not sure why you're disagreeing with me.

~~~
rorykoehler
I’m talking more about decolonisation. If you steal something it was and is
never yours to begin with. GFA was only necessary because of colonial history
and continuing attitudes and the power games that come with them.

There is one school of thought (which the GFA falls under) which is what’s
happened in the past is legitimate and we have to work from where we are and
there is another which is that the colonial past is illegitimate and therefore
any gains are also illegitimate and most be returned to their rightful owner.

I don’t subscribe to either necessarily but seeing as continuing prevailing
attitudes among the colonial elite haven’t changed one bit I think we have no
choice but to confront them gloves off style. It’s literally stealing our
collective global future.

~~~
wankeler
How far back do you want to unwind? Should all non-aboriginals be
disenfranchised or removed from Australia? At some point you have to work with
things as they are and move forward.

~~~
rorykoehler
Australia is an exceptionally interesting case study. Tbh I don’t have the
answer to that as you are 100% correct too.

------
trabant00
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
> 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.

------
raincom
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_...](https://www.academia.edu/4214196/Rethinking_Colonialism_and_Colonial_Consciousness)

------
YeGoblynQueenne
>> 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#Imperia...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism#Imperial_Russia)

[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.

~~~
paganel
Re: Slavs and colonialism, most of the money that built the Italian city of
Genoa in the 1100s to the 1300s came from selling and facilitating the selling
of Slav war prisoners (i.e. slaves) captured and transported from the Northern
shores of the Black Sea to the Constantinople area (i.e. on the Southern
shore).

~~~
asa4akj
The word slave actually comes from Slav

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
I had the same reflex, but the OP did not write that "Slav" means "slave",
they worte that "war prisoner" signified "slave".

~~~
paganel
It's still kind of disputed, that's why I left that out of the conversation.

Forgetting for a moment about the English term "slave", it's interesting that
in Italian slaves are called "schiavi", with the singular "schiavo", while in
old Romanian we used to called Slav people (who were different from us,
Romance-speaking people) as "șchei", with the singular "șchiau/schiau", the
second form at singular pretty similar to the independently formed "schiavo"
from Italian (which means "slave", like I said).

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
And in Greek, we say "Σλάβος" (Slav) which is only one word away from
"σκλάβος" (sclave) so I've always thought that the two were connected, until
very recently, when I checked wikipedia just to be sure and found out that I
was probably wrong.

------
jimmynopension
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
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.

------
EdwardDiego
> 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_Is...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_conquest_of_the_Banda_Islands)

~~~
raarts
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
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
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)

------
pessimizer
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
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
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.

------
openasocket
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

------
luord
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.

------
renewiltord
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.

------
mensetmanusman
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

------
trabant00
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...

~~~
jccalhoun
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.

~~~
trabant00
> SOME people thought that the British were fairer. We don't know how many

It's right there in the quote: "many"

> And we don't know if they were right or wrong.

That's your other quote "He is convinced, and has good reasons to be, that he
can always get better treatment from the white man" \- the author's opinion,
who was not an illiterate obviously: "has good reasons".

Being right or wrong has nothing to do with it. Their lives, their country,
their right to decide. You think you know better what's good for them, don't
you?

------
tomohawk
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.

------
zzzeek
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
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
certainly not a _favorable_ light! the lack of ethics in this community is
just depressing to me

~~~
haecceity
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.

~~~
zzzeek
> Not wanting to offend anyone.

he failed! suggesting the psychological appeal of knowing that I grew up in a
town that was violently ripped from native americans makes me feel _AWFUL_ ,
what kind of psychotic asshole do you need to be to actually _know_ about the
genocide you live on top of and then to feel _pride_ in that? People are
generally not bothered by their own colonialist history because they're
shockingly ignorant of what it actually means to go somewhere and eradicate an
entire culture. But to suggest that these people are actually intimitely aware
of such conquest and that it there is "undeniable appeal" to feeling "proud"
of that is revolting.

~~~
haecceity
But I don't think he's suggesting he's reporting his experience with Britons.
I'm pretty sure they evade the bad parts of empire in their education. Just
like the Civil Rights Movement is sanitized in US.

