The Reality of Colonialism

 

European empires as of 1945

This essay, originally published in the Journal of Third World Studies, has been the cause of much controversy. Half the editorial board of the journal resigned over its having published it, and the article was ultimately yanked after protest. The author has gotten death threats

It has also become an issue in the current Ontario municipal elections, because one candidate for the Hamilton School Board linked to it. This has been seized upon by one of her opponents to attack her.

If there is a demand that something be suppressed, it is not because it is untrue. There is no call to suppress Von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods, or Gavin Menzies’s 1492: The Year the Chinese Discovered America. There is no call to suppress the discredited works of Sigmund Freud, or Margaret Meade. 

A demand that something be suppressed can only mean that 1. It is true, so that opponents cannot hope to convincingly argue against it, and 2. It threatens some established power.

This article’s thesis threatens many Third World regimes and elites, as well as a huge academic “anti-colonialism” establishment.

Some quotes:

“A sobering World Bank report of 1996 noted: ‘Almost every African country has witnessed a systematic regression of capacity in the last thirty years; the majority had better capacity at independence than they now possess.’”

“The rapid spread and persistence of Western colonialism with very little force relative to the populations and geographies concerned is prima facie evidence of its acceptance by subject populations compared to the feasible alternatives.”

“Despite cries of ‘exploitation,’ colonialism was probably a money loser for imperial powers. …  European powers embarked on ruinously costly and ultimately money-losing colonialism for largely non-economic reasons. That is why they gave up their colonies so easily.”

So much for claims of oppression; so much for claims of exploitation and plunder.

Certainly some colonial regimes were deeply oppressive; but not colonialism as such. No more than when a business calls in an outside management consultancy to right an unsteady enterprise.