Why Colonialism Was Bad (Part 2)

Perhaps the easiest way to understand why colonialism was horrific is to imagine it happening in your own country. Visualise you are invaded, conquered, and occupied by a foreign power. Existing governing institutions are dismantled and replaced by absolute rule of the colonizers. A strict hierarchy separates the colonized and the colonizer; you are treated as an inconvenient subhuman who can be abused at will. The colonists commit crimes with impunity against your people. Efforts at resistance are met with brutal reprisal, sometimes massacre. The more vividly and accurately you manage to conjure what this scenario would actually look like, the more horrified you maybe.

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One may think this revulsion was now universally shared. But that is far from being the case. The majority are still proud of colonialism and the Empire. Americans continue to show an almost total indifference to the lasting poverty and devastation inflicted on the indigenous people in the U.S. Harvard historian Niall Ferguson has long defended the British Empire as a force for good in the world. And, Princeton PhD and Portland State University professor Bruce Gilley has published an unapologetic “Case for Colonialism” (in Third World Quarterly) in a respected academic journal (Nathan J. Robinson reviewed Bruce Gilley’s article on 14 Sep 2017, www.currentaffairs.org).

Gilley’s article takes a very clear stance: not only was colonialism a force for good in the world, but anti-colonial sentiment is “preposterous.” What’s more, Gilley says, we need a new program of colonization, with Western powers taking over the governing functions of less developed countries. Gilley’s article is a truly extraordinary piece of work.

Gilley’s argument is, roughly: opposition to colonialism is reflexive rather than reasoned. This has caused terrible consequences, because postcolonial governments have hurt their people by attempting to destroy beneficial colonial institutions. The “civilizing mission” of colonialism was valuable and had a positive effect. Colonialism was legitimate because it helped people and many were willing to tolerate it. Anti-colonial arguments are often incoherent, blaming colonial governments for all ills rather than examining what would have occurred in the absence of those governments. And colonialism should cease to be a dirty word; in fact, it should be re-instituted, because many developing countries are incapable of self-government.

If you are unfamiliar with history, Gilley’s argument could appear superficially persuasive. But a moment’s examination of the record reveals why the case he makes is abhorrent. Gilley says he is simply asking for an unbiased assessment of the facts, that he just wants us to take off our ideological blinders and examine colonialism from an empirical perspective. But this is not what he has done. Instead, in his presentation of colonialism’s record, Gilley has deliberately excluded mention of every single atrocity committed by a colonial power. Instead of evaluating the colonial record empirically, he has distorted that record, concealing evidence of gross crimes against humanity. It is morally tantamount to Holocaust denial.

First, Gilley says he is making a “case for colonialism,” to rescue Western colonial history’s “bad name.” But he restricts his examination to “the early nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries.” He does so because if he were to include the first 300 years of Western colonialism (i.e. the majority), it would be almost impossible to mount any kind of case that the endeavour benefited indigenous populations. The civilizations of the Americas were exterminated by colonialism. Disease, displacement, resource depletion, one-sided warfare, and outright massacre, and their populations suffered a “catastrophic collapse.”

Next, Gilley’s method of defending colonialism is through “cost-benefit analysis,” in which the harms of colonialism are weighed against the “improvements in living conditions” and better governance. Where colonial rule had, on balance, a positive effect on training for self-government, material well-being, labour allocation choices, individual upward mobility, cross-cultural communication, and human dignity, compared to the situation that would likely have obtained absent of European rule, then the case for colonialism is strong. Conversely, in times and places where the effects of foreign rule in these respects were, on balance, negative compared to a territory’s likely alternative past, then colonialism is morally indefensible according to Gilley.

This is a poor way of evaluating colonialism. It is favoured by colonialism’s apologists because it means that truly unspeakable harms can simply be “outweighed” and thereby trivialized. Gilley and other colonial apologists are like the husband telling his wife that while she may not like being hit, she should remember who provides for her. To exonerate colonial powers by suggesting that enough economic growth could somehow make a “strong case for colonialism” even if there had been constant mass rape and torture is unconscionable.

But even if we assume that “cost-benefit” analysis is the correct way to examine colonialism, Gilley has to distort the evidence in order to prove his case. For example, he says “since gaining independence, Congo has never had at its disposal an army comparable in efficiency and discipline” to that it had under the Belgians. “Maybe the Belgians should come back.” If one knows anything about the history of the Belgian Congo, one knows that this statement is equivalent to saying “Maybe the Nazis should come back”. Belgian King Leopold created possibly the most infamous colonial regime in history. Contemporaries called it “legalized robbery enforced by violence,” and Leopold “turned his ‘Congo Free State’ into a massive labour camp, made a fortune for himself from the harvest of its wild rubber, and contributed in a large way to the death of perhaps 10 million innocent people.” Belgian rule in the Congo was a reign of terror that scandalized the world.

What happened in India under British rule: the horrific Amritsar massacre, the mass famines that killed millions, and the horrors of the partition are real costs. French crimes in Algeria, Indo-China, and other places; German genocide in Namibia are other examples. One of the cruellest aspects of colonialism is the way it forces the colonized into servility and obedience. This is a “cost” and not a benefit.

What does it take to restore warm, cordial relations between former colonials and the ones who were colonized?

On 1 September 2019, the 80th anniversary of the start of the Second World War, the German President apologised to his Polish counterpart for the Nazi invasion of Poland. Earlier in the year, on the 100th anniversary of the Amritsar Massacre, Theresa May expressed ‘regret’ for what had happened, but stopped short of an outright apology.

“A simple sorry would do” (as Shashi Tharoor puts it).

But beyond being ‘sorry’, genuine remorse could lead to:

       i.         ‘A Day of Atonement’, one day in the year when everyone colonised and the colonisers remember the atrocities perpetrated. It is like a Memorial Day for WW1 or WW2;

     ii.         An unvarnished account of the ‘Colonial Era’ taught in schools of both the colonisers and those former colonies;

    iii.         An education/ scholarship fund which is enough to educate 100,000 students annually from former colonies;

    iv.         A health assistance programme to bring modern facilities into former colonies;

     v.         A poverty eradication scheme to help people in former colonies have self-sustainable lives.

There could be many more ideas to bridge peoples if there is genuine feeling of compassion and love. And that truly is Christmas!

 

Reference:

1.     Nathan J. Robinson, A Quick Reminder Of Why Colonialism Was Bad, 14 Sep 2020 www.currentaffairs.org

2.     Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British did to India