How bad was colonialism really?

Dinner · February 17, 2008, 15:30

It's clear that the colonial rulers were exploiting resources to further the wealth of the mother country but they also did a lot of good. They built cities, railroads, plantations, and provided the rule of law. This development improved the standards of living for people in colonial territories, provided employment, and provided access to vitally needed technologies.

Sure, life was not all milk and honey but the rapid decline of living standards in post colonial Africa also proves that things could get a lot worse. Just ask the people of the Congo. Corrupt kleptocratic governments have robbed the people of everything of value and society has gone backwards in a great many ways since the end of colonialism. Here is an interesting article from Time Magazine:

Come Back, Colonialism, All is Forgiven

Le Blanc and I are into our 500th kilometer on the river when he turns my view of modern African history on its head. "We should just give it all back to the whites," the riverboat captain says. "Even if you go 1,000 kilometers down this river, you won't see a single sign of development. When the whites left, we didn't just stay where we were. We went backwards."

Le Blanc earns his keep sailing the tributaries of the Congo River. He's 40 years old, and his real name is Malu-Ebonga Charles — he got his nickname, and his green eyes and dark honey skin, from a German grandfather who married a Congolese woman in what was then the Belgian Congo. If his unconventional genealogy gave him a unique view of the Congo's colonial past, it is his job on the river, piloting three dugouts lashed together with twine and mounted with outboards, that has informed his opinion of the Democratic Republic of Congo's present. "The river is the artery of Congo's economy," he says. "When the Belgians and the Portuguese were here, there were farms and plantations — cashews, peanuts, rubber, palm oil. There was industry and factories employing 3,000 people, 5,000 people. But since independence, no Congolese has succeeded. The plantations are abandoned." Using a French expression literally translated as "on the ground," he adds: "Everything is par terre."

It's true that our journey through 643 kilometers of rainforest to where the Maringa River joins the Congo at Mbandaka, has been an exploration of decline. An abandoned tug boat here; there, a beached paddle steamer stripped of its metal sides to a rusted skeleton; several abandoned palm oil factories, their roofs caved in, their walls disappearing into the engulfing forest, their giant storage tanks empty and rusted out. The palms now grow wild and untended on the riverbanks and in the villages we pass, the people dress in rags, hawk smoked black fish and bushmeat, and besiege us with requests for salt or soap. There are no schools here, no clinics, no electricity, no roads. It can take a year for basic necessities ordered from the capital, Kinshasa, nearly 2,000 kilometers downstream, to make it here — if they make it at all. At one point we pass a cargo barge that has taken three months to travel the same distance we will cover in two days. We stop in the hope of buying some gasoline, but all we get from the vessel are rats.

Even amid the morbid decay, it comes as a shock to hear Le Blanc mourn colonialism. The venal, racist scramble by Europeans to possess Africa and exploit its resources found its fullest expression in the Congo. In the late 19th century, Belgium's King Leopold made a personal fiefdom of the central African territory as large as all of Western Europe. From it, he extracted a fortune in ivory, rubber, coffee, cocoa, palm oil and minerals such as gold and diamonds. Unruly laborers working in conditions of de facto slavery had their hands chopped off; the cruelty of Belgian rule was premised on the idea that Congo and its peoples were a resource to be exploited as efficiently as possible. Leopold's absentee brutality set the tone for those that followed him in ruling the Congo — successive Belgian governments and even the independent government of Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled from 1965 to 1997 and who, in a crowded field, still sets the standard for repression and corruption among African despots.

Le Blanc isn't much concerned with that history; he lives in the present, in a country where education is a luxury and death is everywhere. Around 45,000 people die each month in the DRC as a result of the social collapse brought on by civil war, according to a study released in January by the International Rescue Committee. It estimated the total loss of life between 1998 and April 2007 at 5.4 million. For many Congolese like Le Blanc, the difficulties of today blot out the cruelties of the past. "On this river, all that you see — the buildings, the boats — only whites did that. After the whites left, the Congolese did not work. We did not know how to. For the past 50 years, we've just declined." He pauses. "They took this country by force," he says, with more than a touch of admiration. "If they came back, this time we'd give them the country for free."

http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...713275,00.html

I think the best hope for the future of Africa is good governance combined with international cooperation. Free trade, truly free, without rich nation subsidies distorting trade flows. Along with humanitarian assistance and an end to the robber state the people of Africa might actually have a chance to improve their standards of living. The question is how to achieve it.

Heraclitus · February 17, 2008, 15:32

White man’s burden

SlowwHand · February 17, 2008, 15:33

I think you should move to Africa and teach them.

Heraclitus · February 17, 2008, 15:38

Originally posted by SlowwHand
I think you should move to Africa and teach them.

Or we could move them here.

We could give them food and work and some education. Now in order to make sure their culture remains intact we should invent a special legal status and to increase efficiency we should probably relinquish control over their allocation to the market.

Geronimo · February 17, 2008, 15:40

how bad is genocide and murder really?

Heraclitus · February 17, 2008, 15:50

Can I let you in on a little secret? Not that much.

Barnabas · February 17, 2008, 15:53

Colonies are not all the same, a farm colony like Australia or much of the USA in thirteen colonies time, whith european populations transplanted to places not that different from Europe, who lived quite similarly to European Farmers, are very different from sugar plantation or mining colonies like Haiti, Jamaica or Peru where a small number of white men ruled a much higher number of natives (or imported blacks) to work for things which could not be produced in europe.

The first type may sound better, but I think that one was the worst type for the natives, think of how natives were seen in the 13 colonies, or the bushmen in south africa, or aborigines in Australia, (or even in the most european parts of the spanish empire like Argentina) pretty much like useless pests to be exterminated or pushed to worse places.

In colonies where a big number of natives were exploited by a small number of whites (Like most of africa), at least the natives were seen as useful.

Kidicious · February 17, 2008, 15:53

Originally posted by Oerdin
Free trade, truly free, without rich nation subsidies distorting trade flows.

Do you think colonialism was free trade?

Dinner · February 17, 2008, 16:00

i think the situation in Africa is bad and has been getting worse for nearly half a century. My point is that Africa has more to gain by international cooperation then by continuing the destructive policies of the past. The worst of which was the invention of the robber state and the next worst was the dimenishing of international trade in the name of national self sufficiency. Every state wanted to import nothing and build everything themselves which resulted in huge cost increases for the average African and fewer business opportunities in each country.

Free trade, combined with some international pressure to force good governance (or at least weed out the worst robber states) will improve the lives of most Africans. I do believe that one of the few good things to come out of colonialism was that it hugely expanded world trade, generating much wealth, and improved standards of living across the globe. That can be done again without the negative effects of colonialism if enlightened rulers can move to the forefront.

Elok · February 17, 2008, 16:23

Sorry, civilizing the negro savages is old hat now. It's all about civilizing the swarthy Mohammedans at the moment.

Kidicious · February 17, 2008, 16:28

Originally posted by Oerdin
i think the situation in Africa is bad and has been getting worse for nearly half a century. My point is that Africa has more to gain by international cooperation then by continuing the destructive policies of the past. The worst of which was the invention of the robber state and the next worst was the dimenishing of international trade in the name of national self sufficiency. Every state wanted to import nothing and build everything themselves which resulted in huge cost increases for the average African and fewer business opportunities in each country.

Free trade, combined with some international pressure to force good governance (or at least weed out the worst robber states) will improve the lives of most Africans. I do believe that one of the few good things to come out of colonialism was that it hugely expanded world trade, generating much wealth, and improved standards of living across the globe. That can be done again without the negative effects of colonialism if enlightened rulers can move to the forefront.

I don't think the problem has been the prices in Africa. The problem has been the world prices for their exports. Granted the US should stop subsidizing cotton, but that just one crop. What else are they going to export? I think places like the US have all the imports they can take right now.

onodera · February 17, 2008, 16:38

Mugabe

Rhodes

Preservation of local culture

Technological progress

Kidicious · February 17, 2008, 16:40

Originally posted by Elok
Sorry, civilizing the negro savages is old hat now. It's all about civilizing the swarthy Mohammedans at the moment.

Funny but true. We do like to have our favorite savages.

Whoha · February 17, 2008, 16:57

Neither Europe nor the United states will be re-doing colonialism.

Heraclitus · February 17, 2008, 17:24

Originally posted by Whoha
Neither Europe nor the United states will be re-doing colonialism.

Has this been confirmed by the devs? Colonialism 2.0 realy won't be as fun as the original.

DaShi · February 17, 2008, 17:38

Originally posted by Whoha
Neither Europe nor the United states will be re-doing colonialism.

Sure, now that they think there's no life on mars.

VetLegion · February 17, 2008, 17:44

Africa has skipped a few centuries of society development. They've been thrown into a phase of multinational superstates without passing through a phase of nationstates first. Almost every African state is an equivalent of the EU. Obviously that can't work.

Lacking nationalism, African states also lack the consensus and widespread mutual trust needed for contract enforcement and successful capitalism.

I think that colonialism was, all things considered, good for Africa. You can define good and bad in various ways, but today about a billion (I didn't check) people live in Africa. If the West stayed out completely, there would be perhaps only 50-100 million.

Darius871 · February 17, 2008, 17:45

Originally posted by Whoha
Neither Europe nor the United states will be re-doing colonialism.

Yeah, we'll leave that up to China.

LordShiva · February 17, 2008, 17:56

Originally posted by Oerdin
the rapid decline of living standards in post colonial Africa

Kidicious · February 17, 2008, 18:01

Oerdin is teh crazy.

SlowwHand · February 17, 2008, 18:17

I think you'd accomplish a lot more by going there.
I'm serious, Oerdin. Peace Corps is calling.

Blake · February 17, 2008, 19:10

It all depends on the methods used.

GePap · February 18, 2008, 02:00

Originally posted by Oerdin
Free trade, combined with some international pressure to force good governance (or at least weed out the worst robber states) will improve the lives of most Africans. I do believe that one of the few good things to come out of colonialism was that it hugely expanded world trade, generating much wealth, and improved standards of living across the globe. That can be done again without the negative effects of colonialism if enlightened rulers can move to the forefront.

what are you talking about? Africans under the colonial system had NO access to the free markets - they were mercantalist outposts. That Africa still makes most of its money from rseource exports if that most of those railroads and ports were built for the express purpose of taking resouces out.

Increasing African access to free tarde has nothing to do with direct 'Western' governance of Africa. And in most of Africa standards of living are better now than 60 years ago anyways.

GePap · February 18, 2008, 02:05

Originally posted by VetLegion

I think that colonialism was, all things considered, good for Africa. You can define good and bad in various ways, but today about a billion (I didn't check) people live in Africa. If the West stayed out completely, there would be perhaps only 50-100 million.

BULL.

Western advances in medicine and sanitation and new crops would have made it into Africa regardless of direct "Western" control, and those are the things responsible for mass population growth. You of course would also have to figure a slower advance in the West, given that Western economic dominance was built in part by massive exploitation of African resources and African labor (and earlier exploitation of the Americas)

The West did not just gift anything to Africa. All those railroads in Africa that people mention - they were built by Africans and paid in full by the explotaition of African resources extracted by Africans.

Bosh · February 18, 2008, 02:10

A bit strange that you picked the Congo when talking about "how bad was colonialism really." If you want to know how bad colonialism could get, read up a bit on the history of the Congo, it makes the Congo of today look like happy pony land.