Colonialism

[Nooj]

Some people like the claim that Russia was the biggest contributer of beating the Nazi's, especially in Stalingrad, allthough many schools would like you to think the US was the big victor of them all. Either way I don't think Russia would have stood a chance alone.. the only thing they had going for them was the cold weather

Dude...no. You really have no idea just how effective the Red Army became. They actually consistently out-generalled the Nazis. By 1944 and '45, they were cutting vaste swathes through Eastern Europe and annihilating German armies left and right, it could well be argued that at the end of WWII, the Red Army was the most effective military force in the world. One word: Manchuria.

Until 1944, Nazi Germany was basically fighting a one front war with Russia, with about 40% of Russian arable land and population under German occupation at one point. The Soviets did an incredible job. The Eastern Front was basically the most important theatre of war in WWII, and they weathered it like no one else could.

 

[tanzanos]

The Botswana government evicted them, not the colonialists.

Germany wasn't the most advanced society back then either and Hitlers leadership was short lived. However in many 3rd world countries this has been going on for centuries because, like I said, there is no structural progressive government.

Germany WAS technologically just as if not more advanced than Great Britain, the US, at the time. You obviously lack knowledge in history. OH What about WW1? We are talking butchery in the millions here.

The colonialists used to LEGALLY hunt them with a HUNTING LICENSE on weekends. Now be kind enough and explain how the most technologically advanced societies conducted things like: Slave trade, WW1. WW2. Holocaust, Fire-bombing civilians, etc.

Your ignorance astounds me!

I expect an answer!

 

[Braunwyn]

no, only English subtitles. It was directed by an Italian. It shows the gruesome effects of de-colonization in Africa. The gunfights at the end are pretty exciting though.

Ok, I'll give it a go later on. I thought the subtitles were in another language as well, but I wasn't wearing my glasses so I missed it.

Any way, I have little doubt that de-colonization can/has/will wreak havoc. That point isn't lost on me, but what I don't understand is the resistance of acknowledging the harm caused by colonization. I don't deny that colonization may have improved the lives of some, but it's hard to say if the cultures and societies that were colonizated would have been better or worse if left alone. Keep in mind what colonization consisted of - taking land that was often inhabited by native populations and their resources. And the measures used to obtain these prizes were often horrific. I think somebody else mentioned Leopold, but just in case...

Commentary: Exemplifying the Horror of European Colonization: Leopold's Congo

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

I really marvel at some posters' capacity for being so consistently wrong about virtually everything.

Colonialism wasn't all philanthropic developmental aid. With LOTS of good-will, we may state that access to technological advances was a beneficial (if minor) side effect of colonialism, yet hardly its main objective or result.

Native populations were enslaved, subjugated to foreign rulers, forced to grow and buy opium, driven from their own land, murdered by the millions, and bereft of their own culture and social structures - just to mention a few items on the list.
The fact that virtually ALL of the colonized nations managed to conduct their life perfectly well without the "help" of European overlords seems lost to the people of the eternal yesterday. They still think along the lines of the "burden of the white man", who supposedly went about bearing the torch of civilization to the "savages".
What BULL.

The main objective of colonialism was conquering distant lands to exploit their natural and human resources; and/or stealing the land of foreign peoples by sending settlers who murdered the natives and took what was theirs.

 

[liftmeup]

It's nonsens to condemn colonialism as bad, or to say it's good. It had both good and bad aspects. The simple fact is if it hadn't been for colonialism none of you 'Americans' would be here. Nor would anyone else probably because our entire human history in every nation on every continent has been a story of colonisation, empire and war. If you think it only applies to Africa then I am afraid you are falling prey to propaganda for one particular cause.

 

[Verv]

Maybe those of us in countries with a history of colonialism would do well to remember that colonialism has both good and bad sides? I'm sure, for example, the average Australian Aboriginal or Native American is quite happy to live in a world with TV and antibiotics... that doesn't however, mean they have to be grateful for the oppression their people have suffered in the past.

Double edged sword thing, at least.

Good and bad. I can accept that.

However, wasn't the end good?

Your argument is basically that the ends justify the means, which is hardly a morally defensible position.

Talk about that for me, please.

That's not what he's saying at all. Evil acts to obtain a good end are usually viewed as immoral, even if the end is good.

In many parts of the world that is not the case.

Most Koreans view Park Chunghee as having both good and bad sides, but being overall a good choice that the nation made even though he had to make decisions we can view as evil, such as limitations on the democracy.

Mao Tse-tung can be viewed similarly.

The Bushmen of the Kalahari (before they were colonised) lived in the open, had no technological progress; yet Murder, Rape, War, Incest, Cannibalism; were unheard of in their society. On the other hand in 1940; Germany was the worlds most advanced society technologically and had technological progress to be admired; yet they cooked humans in ovens, made soap from humans, conducted some of the worlds most heinous crimes against humanity. The US sent people to the moon yet they had no qualms on using napalm bombs on unarmed civilians in Indochina. A country that spends billions on creating technology specifically for killing humans yet has 50 million of its citizens without medical coverage.
Since when does technology make for a civilised society? You obviously do not know what the word Civilised means! Civilisation is the ability of society to conduct itself in a manner considered respectfull of others rights. A society where ethics, and culture have precedence than the technology used to subjugate and or murder fellow humans. The Bushmen did not have F-16s but they had more respect for their fellow humans.

What was the average life expectancy of a Bushman?

And furthermore, aren't humans basically the same everywhere? Bushmen, they are human, aren't they? Wouldn't there be some conflict that exists whether or not they were human?

It is the nature of things to expand. To grow. To get better. Isn't that pretty much human.

I really marvel at some posters' capacity for being so consistently wrong about virtually everything.

Colonialism wasn't all philanthropic developmental aid. With LOTS of good-will, we may state that access to technological advances was a beneficial (if minor) side effect of colonialism, yet hardly its main objective or result.

Cross-technological exchanges were a huge benefit -- imagine where others would be today if they would not have inherited the body of science and technology the Europeans were sitting on in the 18th century?

They would not be living long lives at all.

Native populations were enslaved, subjugated to foreign rulers, forced to grow and buy opium, driven from their own land, murdered by the millions, and bereft of their own culture and social structures - just to mention a few items on the list.

Most of them faced the exact same thing under their own leaders. Of course, that is not awlays true, but I would like to bring up that the Aztecs were conquered mostly by other tribes who united with the Spanish invaders.

The Incans were also imperialists.

Many native tribes massacred each other across the plains...

This was th enature of the world.

To be conquered by one group or another.

And you do know that the Zulus conquered the Bushmen.

The fact that virtually ALL of the colonized nations managed to conduct their life perfectly well without the "help" of European overlords seems lost to the people of the eternal yesterday. They still think along the lines of the "burden of the white man", who supposedly went about bearing the torch of civilization to the "savages".
What BULL.

The main objective of colonialism was conquering distant lands to exploit their natural and human resources; and/or stealing the land of foreign peoples by sending settlers who murdered the natives and took what was theirs.

And after taking their resources they made new things with them, showed the natives how to make new things; advanced technology.

I would also like to point out that all concepts of human rights you speak of now came from the Europeans who actually believed that humans had inherent worth and rights...

If you were to argue from the native, philosophical perspectives many had it would seem far more along the lines of 'might makes right.'

Europe is still the pinnacle of liberalism.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Cross-technological exchanges were a huge benefit -- imagine where others would be today if they would not have inherited the body of science and technology the Europeans were sitting on in the 18th century?

And technology cannot be proliferated unless you forcibly subjugate a foreign people and exploit them in every conceivable way (as they are only "savages", after all)?
I don't think so. Not every subjugated nation was essentially stuck in the stone age. India had a rich culture stretching back thousands of years, and they produced marvelous clothes until the British forced them to close down all native manufactures and buy nothing but British imports. Egypt, Arabia, even some pre-columbian cultures were anything but primitive, even if European propaganda of the day depicted them thus.

Most of them faced the exact same thing under their own leaders.

Which is hardly an excuse for colonialism, now is it?

And after taking their resources they made new things with them, showed the natives how to make new things; advanced technology.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the Indians were very thankful for being introduced to opium, as were the Chinese.

I would also like to point out that all concepts of human rights you speak of now came from the Europeans who actually believed that humans had inherent worth and rights...

Colonialism is irrenconcilable with the concept of human rights, so what's your point here? That others acted in a similarly beastly manner? How does that justify anything?

 

[peadar1987]

And technology cannot be proliferated unless you forcibly subjugate a foreign people and exploit them in every conceivable way (as they are only "savages", after all)?

This is about the fifth time I've gone to make a post, only to find Jane's gotten there first!

I totally agree, maybe (some) post-colonial countries have medicine and so on now, but that wasn't the point of colonialism. There was no reason whatsoever preventing the spread of technology without butchering the native population.

And I find it unbelievable that some people use the fact that some native tribes were played off against each other by the invaders as "evidence" that they were just a bunch of savages.

 

[Chesterton]

Bear in mind this was a mondo film; so the makers' priorities were, in order of importance:

1. Be shocking.
2. Be truthful.

I did like that bit where they imply that the black man got boogie-woogie music from the white man. He he.

 

[Fin12]

An intereseting point by the O.P.

However turning up in africa and saying, "here is our culture and way of things, what's yours like, maybe we can learn form eachother."

Is miles away from.

Turn up in africa and saying "YOU THEIR, YES YOU, UM BONGO, make me some tea, and stop dancing like that, it's terribly not british and uncivilised"

 

[Kharak]

The West was built on Arabic numerals, an Eastern mystery religion and Oriental developed gunpowder. Yet claiming that Westerners are culturally superior and are the heralds of an advanced and moral society is pretty pathetic.

Well no: It's absolutely pathetic.

Time is an ocean full of strife, which makes history so interesting: Nothing stays the same or maintains pace against the ebb and flow of epoch after epoch. Africans out of Nigeria had developed some of the first iron working skills; all of which relied on an impressive understanding of metallurgy and the ability to create charcoal. Yet the Westerners need to provide them better minds? As if the Europeans weren't already too busy slaughtering eachother while maintaining the illusion of a coherent belief system while Anti-Popes and multiple Popes populated their realm.

While their Middle Ages were spent in poverty and plague in mud road towns and dirt floored hovels, the Arabs and Chinese lived in relatively clean cities with millions of residents and enjoyed art and literature that no peasant could dare conceive. The world of Christendom wouldn't have even known about the Greek philosophers had the Moslems not preserved them in vast libraries. So great is this ignorance of anything beyond the Urals and Iberia, that the Empires of Middle America and South Americas are simply barbarians to be forgotten and the easterners exists as Mongols.

So the Westerners improved the world? If only for themselves. The natives were moved or exterminated, and to claim otherwise speaks of ignorance. The benefits of colonialism are screamed throughout the streets, while the greatest transmissions of human culture came through trade and travel.

Afterall: The compass used to navigate towards virgin lands was simply a trinket taken from the Orient . . .

 

[Shemjaza]

Homes? what homes were there when the colonizers arrived in the US? there weren't any buildings. The huts the Indians lived in were portable and easily put together, but there were not actual permanent homes in the vicinity.

And you realize reservations get more benefits and welfare than the average American and the people whole live there have all the right to start their own lifestyles outside the reservation..No one has claim to one whole continent and either way the Indians came through the Bering straight just like the Europeans came from the Atlantic. No one has sole claim. But for the sake of humanity people should be able to live in safe structured environments with fair policy. People don't wanna live in barbaric times with straw houses, cheapened value of life, and polluted water. So yes, as far as this case goes, the end does justify the means and the means would have not been so hard if the colonizers wouldn't of been attacked 24/7 and their families slaughtered. In fact many of the larger entities in the native tribes preferred the colonizers and signed a number of pacts with them.

Three words for you: Small Pox Blankets

Your posts are either coming from ignorance or you are wilfully ignoring that the native people did not have the opportunity to join in this new advanced culture.

The colonists didn’t come over, and trade their advanced technology. They conquered the land they wanted and drove out or destroyed the culture of the people living there.


I’ve just had a thought. Given that you are so pleased with the manifest destiny of large empires conquering and supplanting existing cultures, why should Rome have tolerated the Jewish people having their own religion (which led to Christianity developing), didn’t they have the right to just wipe out Israel and colonise it with European settlers?

 

[Kharak]

Three words for you: Small Pox Blankets

Your posts are either coming from ignorance or you are wilfully ignoring that the native people did not have the opportunity to join in this new advanced culture.

The colonists didn’t come over, and trade their advanced technology. They conquered the land they wanted and drove out or destroyed the culture of the people living there.

Selling alcohol to the natives was also a very bad decision.

Though I am not a tribalist, there is much to the claims that the quality of life among previously nomadic or semi-nomadic groups may have been greater than the reservation life of today.

If only meth and alcoholism are the benefit of colonialism. If only, if only . . .

 

[tanzanos]

Cross-technological exchanges were a huge benefit -- imagine where others would be today if they would not have inherited the body of science and technology the Europeans were sitting on in the 18th century?

They would not be living long lives at all.






And after taking their resources they made new things with them, showed the natives how to make new things; advanced technology.

I would also like to point out that all concepts of human rights you speak of now came from the Europeans who actually believed that humans had inherent worth and rights...

If you were to argue from the native, philosophical perspectives many had it would seem far more along the lines of 'might makes right.'

Europe is still the pinnacle of liberalism.

Must I kill your parents in order to vaccinate you against diseases?

 

[CreedIsChrist]

Germany WAS technologically just as if not more advanced than Great Britain, the US, at the time. You obviously lack knowledge in history. OH What about WW1? We are talking butchery in the millions here.

The colonialists used to LEGALLY hunt them with a HUNTING LICENSE on weekends. Now be kind enough and explain how the most technologically advanced societies conducted things like: Slave trade, WW1. WW2. Holocaust, Fire-bombing civilians, etc.

Your ignorance astounds me!

I expect an answer!

Oh wonderful, another Godwin..


no offense, but you belong in a 3rd world country with no electricity, I wanna see how long you'd last before you came groping back(that is, if you lived to come back). Slave trade was going on for thousands of years before the holocaust, read a history book!

And I know Germany was technologically advanced, but not the number 1 advanced society in the world like that other person was saying. Read what I say before you reply. And like I said earlier, Hitler was a very short lived event, whether in 3rd world countries this has been going on for hundreds if not thousands of years because of no civilized government.

 

[CreedIsChrist]

Three words for you: Small Pox Blankets

Your posts are either coming from ignorance or you are willfully ignoring that the native people did not have the opportunity to join in this new advanced culture.

The colonists didn’t come over, and trade their advanced technology. They conquered the land they wanted and drove out or destroyed the culture of the people living there.


I’ve just had a thought. Given that you are so pleased with the manifest destiny of large empires conquering and supplanting existing cultures, why should Rome have tolerated the Jewish people having their own religion (which led to Christianity developing), didn’t they have the right to just wipe out Israel and colonize it with European settlers?

Palestine was already a largely colonized area with many cities and towns and a semi-functional government. America on the other hand, was sparse, had no cities, no government, and was barren. The Indians made up a small sparse population of America.

Also, how can you claim that America was the Indians land in the first place when they came from Asia through the Bering straight? Technically Asia would be their homeland, not America. America itself, was a land of conquest and discovery, no one had sole ownership.

Lastly, the Indians had a habit of killing unarmed settlers, both women and children. The POWs they caught were scalped, skinned alive, or removed their innards(mostly the heart) while alive. At least Indians had a semi-chance of living if they were POWs. Pontiac's Rebellion school massacre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Also, how can you claim that America was the Indians land in the first place when they came from Asia through the Bering straight? Technically Asia would be their homeland, not America. America itself, was a land of conquest and discovery, no one had sole ownership.

Are you for real?
Their ancestors crossed the Bering street at the end of the last ice age - before the Indo-Europeans even set foot in Europe. By that "logic", people ought to regard Europe as a "land of conquest and discovery" as well, as the ancestors of the people who live there only migrated there a few thousand years ago.

 

[Chesterton]

I'm really happy that the Aztecs didn't build a navy and conquer Europe. Once in a while I'm not in the mood to go to church on a Sunday morning, but it's still preferable to watching a young girl's living heart being cut out of her chest.

 

[CreedIsChrist]

I really marvel at some posters' capacity for being so consistently wrong about virtually everything.

Colonialism wasn't all philanthropic developmental aid. With LOTS of good-will, we may state that access to technological advances was a beneficial (if minor) side effect of colonialism, yet hardly its main objective or result.

Native populations were enslaved, subjugated to foreign rulers, forced to grow and buy opium, driven from their own land, murdered by the millions, and bereft of their own culture and social structures - just to mention a few items on the list.
The fact that virtually ALL of the colonized nations managed to conduct their life perfectly well without the "help" of European overlords seems lost to the people of the eternal yesterday. They still think along the lines of the "burden of the white man", who supposedly went about bearing the torch of civilization to the "savages".
What BULL.

The main objective of colonialism was conquering distant lands to exploit their natural and human resources; and/or stealing the land of foreign peoples by sending settlers who murdered the natives and took what was theirs.

Wrong. Colonialism happens due to the ambitions of the people and the wanting to expand their empire. The small tribes has no buisnsess attacking innocent settlers who were in search of a new better life. Also you don't call someone a savage for no reason. There has to be a big reason to call someone or a group savages. In south America the reason why the Mayans were called savages was because of their sacrifice of their own children and the gruesome 'celebrations' that they had while removing the hearts from their own people and commiting cannibalism. Any civilized person would obviously see the savagry commited.

That day they had sacrificed two boys, cutting open their chests and offering their blood and hearts to that accursed idol". Díaz narrates several more sacrificial descriptions on the later Cortés expedition. Arriving at Cholula, they find "cages of stout wooden bars [...] full of men and boys who were being fattened for the sacrifice at which their flesh would be eaten". When the conquistadors reached Tenochtitlan, Díaz described the sacrifices at the Great Pyramid:

“They strike open the wretched Indian's chest with flint knives and hastily tear out the palpitating heart which, with the blood, they present to the idols [...]. They cut off the arms, thighs and head, eating the arms and thighs at ceremonial banquets. The head they hang up on a beam, and the body is […] given to the beasts of prey

Cortés describes similar events in his Letters:
“They have a most horrid and abominable custom which truly ought to be punished and which until now we have seen in no other part, and this is that, whenever they wish to ask something of the idols, in order that their plea may find more acceptance, they take many girls and boys and even adults, and in the presence of these idols they open their chests while they are still alive and take out their hearts and entrails and burn them before the idols, offering the smoke as sacrifice. Some of us have seen this, and they say it is the most terrible and frightful thing they have ever witnessed



On these altars were idols with evil looking bodies, and that every night five Indians had been sacrificed before them; their chests had been cut open, and their arms and thighs had been cut off. The walls were covered with blood. We stood greatly amazed and gave the island the name isleta de Sacrificios [Island of the Sacrifices].

The point is without colonialism of the New World, things like this would still be going on. Is this honestly something you wanna live around?



Opium? Opium was grown in East Asia and Turkey for their own profit and pleasure. Later it was used for painkillers like morphine. The native Americans had nothing to do with Opium. Where did you get that? You must be talking about tobacco.

 

[keith99]

Palestine was already a largely colonized area with many cities and towns and a semi-functional government. America on the other hand, was sparse, had no cities, no government, and was barren. The Indians made up a small sparse population of America.

Also, how can you claim that America was the Indians land in the first place when they came from Asia through the Bering straight? Technically Asia would be their homeland, not America. America itself, was a land of conquest and discovery, no one had sole ownership.

Lastly, the Indians had a habit of killing unarmed settlers, both women and children. The POWs they caught were scalped, skinned alive, or removed their innards(mostly the heart) while alive. At least Indians had a semi-chance of living if they were POWs. Pontiac's Rebellion school massacre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Such willful ignorance. read the Wiki article you cite and come back after you have figured out how the practive of scalping was introduced to the Indians.