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I certainly agree that the default position of Europe and the US is as stated – we don’t equate colonialism with the other two… And I’m not sure that the colonialized world does either. My guess is that the majority of Indians would not, nor South Americans… In most places Colonialism brought significant benefits along with its woes… and I suspect that most people agree. With today’s hindsight, I wouldn’t make the same statement for fascism or communism – it would be interesting to hear how the people of Cuba and Venzuela feel in 100 years…

Another said it better but I can’t find the quote so I’ll have to paraphrase. Those that the West invaded in the project called colonialism respected the West’s superior weapons technology rather than its ideas.

I don’t think it’s apples and oranges. It’s the same authoritarian element in all three -isms which caused the problems. That’s the real scourge: certain people using [insert ideology here] to kill, maim or rob their neighbors.

So if we compare the badness of the three, we’re basically comparing the effectiveness of each ideology’s particular pool of despots, which is really not a measure of the ideologies themselves. It’s like saying “Which will kill you quickest: alcohol, cigarettes or speed?” Each one can kill you, it’s just a question of the user’s predilections with it.

Colonialism was a rather ruthless and destructive ideology in the last 3 centuries (1700-today) which worshipped and centered around greed, specificially the pursuit of capital. Power and influence were of course also important motivators, much like they were with communism and fascism.

Leopold’s greed in the Congo, the Dutch (and Japanese) in Indonesia, England in India during the late Victoria El Nino famines, Germany in South-west Africa, France in Indochina, Americans among native Americans, etc, etc. The death toll from these combined atrocities may not match communism or fascism, nor may the mutation, perversion and occasional outright destruction of cultures equal the ravaging effects communism and fascism have had, but we live with it today.

A majority of the problems and crises we face in the world today relate to colonialism and its failings, from the delusions of Europeans in the Middle East and Africa to the cancerous racism and corruption of the elites in Latin America.

I think I agree with Mr. Green. Could someone speak to the rectitude of Aztec colonization of its region, or the Arab/Turkish colonization of the Greek Mediterranean, or the Han Chinese colonization of the western regions,...? Have these colonization not led to modern difficulties? I sense that the Persistence of Memory is missing (has someone taken it, or are we not able to view it in through the correct lens).

It appears to me that colonization is driven by monetary benefit via the acquisition of valuable resources or land. It is not a phenomenon that is attributable only to modern industrialized nations, viz. the ongoing colonization of southern Sudan by the Arabized north, Persian reacquisition of western territory. I believe that only the Western industrialized nations are self-critical for operating in the framework (I specifically indicate that Japan, curiously enough, does not belong to this group of self-critical nations).

I think that while Joe has a good point about measuring the effects of these three “isms” from the point of view of those who have suffered, to understand them better as phenomena LG’s point is probably a prudent one. Colonialism is fundamentally different (I will not get into better or worse here) then the other two.

Fascism I have seen called something like “placing of the concept of “nation” – what Benedict Anderson called an “imagined community” above all other loyalties.” I have also heard it used to refer to state capitalism. Some have even said that Stalin’s USSR was a fascist, not a communist, regime.

I think that in the way that we most often think about it, fascism is basically an ideology where the concept of nation is used as a force to weld togther a kind of state captialism, where the whole nation-state can be engaged in industrial production, and where ethnic minority rights are limited.

The USSR, China, and other communist states exhibited many of the same features.

Communist excesses were different from fascist ones fundamentally, however.

The goal of the elites in the communist states was really to modernise agrarian societys quickly, and the methods used to do it were brutal. They essentially compressed the centuries of human tragedy that were involved in the transition from agrarian to industrial society in Western Europe into a much shorter period, and the effects were magnified.

The fascist states of the 20th century were already modern, but again were concerned that they would fall behind behind in the race to catch up to Britain and the United States. Again, in playing catch-up, this time geopolitical catch-up, brutal methods were employed. The ends justified the means.

At the end of the day, it seems that when ends justify means, we end up with systems that allow brutality. Something to keep in mind for those plotting the course of the world.

It is curious that we are sometimes admonished for self-criticism. The only reason I say that is that is that the main thing Western civilization has to offer the rest of the world stems from the Enlightenment, all that humanism and science that went with it, all that critical thinking. Without that, we might as well go back to old-style empire-building.

“The colonization of the world by Europe and the U.S. killed tens of millions, just as many people as fascism and communism.”

Millions? I call bullshit. I also hardly think that colonialism by the West (ignoring the ‘colonialism’ practiced by many or most cultures throughout history) as being the equivalent to communism and fascism. Brutality was(is) the norm throughout human history and the West also used such practices, but as with slavery, the West (in terms of nation-states) got into the game late and left it early.

Such claims sound like the moral equivalency meme I’ve often heard from people who hate the West. I’m always suspicious of people who make such claims because often they have a less than honorable hidden agenda.

I think the biggest difference betwen the Western colonialism of the 16th to late 19th centuries, and facism/communism, is the difference between involuntary manslaughter and 1st or 2nd degree murder. Particularly in the Americas the colonizers and explorers were responsible through the (usually) accidental introduction of diseases to groups that had no natural resistance, especially smallpox.

The greatest danger to the rest of human society was when the 20th cent. “isms” combined with colonialism and nationalism to form regimes like the Nazis and the Japanese military regime of WWII. These countries had the worst of both worlds. The competence and drive of the facsists and the almost missionary zeal to spread their doctrine by the sword and wipe out all who didn’t fit with it. Remember the invasion of the Soviet Union wasn’t just a fight for supremacy in the traditional European sense of the 16th through the 19th centuries. It was a war to create lebensraum for the German people at the expense of the unter-menschen of Poland and the Soviet Union.

Lirelou,
An even better question than,

Yet even the paths chosen often reflect the colonial experience. Could Ho Chi Minh have been communist had Indochina not been French?

, is “Would Ho have been communist if Vietnam had been granted ints independence after WWII?” Could he have been swayed towards the west? He claimed during the late forties I believe that he loved Thomas Jefferson and thought the Declaration was one of the great documents of history.

von Kaufman,

I agree 100% when you say that self-criticism is the greatest gift the West has for the world. It is the best way to improve oneself and country.

“The main point, though, is “colonialism”Â? is not sufficiently similar to 20th totalitarian ideologies in power to make a comparision between them meaningful or useful.”

Lex,

Tell that to the Africans, the Indonesians, the Latin Americans or the Indians. The drawbacks of colonialism in Sub-Saharan Africa and the MENA is enough to approach the level of historical meaning various 20th Century ideologies have had. Communism’s effects linger on in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, but perhaps we should view them as colonial victims of Imperial Russia (in the guise of the Soviet Union). Fascism has new fans as of late but cannot and will not approach the level of damage and unaddressed upheaval caused by colonialism in its various forms.
We’ll be dealing with the nightmares of European arrogance and ignorance for decades to come around the world.

Eddie, In re: “Tell that to the Africans, the Indonesians, the Latin Americans or the Indians. ”

And the names of African countries who are better off now than they were under colonialism? Perhaps South Africa, only because they still have enough residue of the colonial experience to keep the economy going.

THe Indonesians. Agreed. Whatever kleptocracy they may have developed on their own, they are running their own affairs and count as a major sovereign nation.

The Latin-Americans? Which Latins should we ask? The Chileans, Argentines, Uruguayans, and Paraquayans have no problem with their Spanish colonial experience. Indeed, they are the result. The Brazilians? Brazil’s break with Portugal was amicable. Indeed, they left a royal family in their wake. As for the “colonial” experience in Brazil, it was extremely varied, differing greatly from region to region. (Salvador da Bahia versus Florianopolis, for example) The Andean Ridge countries. Ah, you’ve hit paydirt there. Indian masses, mixed race middle class, white upper class. Colombia and Venezuela? Again, they are the products of their colonial experience. Other then the extreme left, you’ll get no anti-colonial sentiment there. Central America? Their “Giant from the North” is Mexico. Costa Ricans are largely descended from Spanish and other European peasants. Nicaragua? They were a colonial outpost of the Aztecs before the Spanish arrived. Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador? Similar to the Andean Ridge, except the Indian masses were Mayan. Yet they count themselves “mestizo” nations, though millions of pure Mayans are alive and well in Guatemala. Mexico? Yes, much anti-colonial sentiment there, and much residue. Indeed, modern Mexican nationalism is founded upon: The Spanish did this to us (we were a nation before the “gachupines” arrived), the Americans did this to us, and the French did this to us. Occasionally, an erudite few will note that perhaps Mexico and Mexicans are to blame for their own problems. (no accident that the “manual del perfecto idiota latinoamericano” was publlished in Mexico long before it was translated into English)

And the Indians? I presume you refer to the subcontinental variety. Yes, they suffered much during partition (i.e., after colonialism). But I note that they retained much of their colonial institutions. Indeed, when the British arrived, India was a plethora of feuding and warring mini-states. They left a (largely) unified India which has remained a democracy. My gad, man: They even play cricket! Yes, India is governing itself very well. But one may ask if they would be doing that well had they never experienced the British Raj.

“We’ll be dealing with the nightmares of European arrogance and ignorance for decades to come around the world.”Â?

Yes, and like it or not, the modern world is a European construct. Without European colonialism, East Asia would be a hermetically sealed 16th century entity where the masses dare not question their social betters, the Americas would still be neolithic, tribal wars, genocide, cannibalism, and slavery would be the order of the day in Africa south of the Sahara. As for the Muslim world, it would probably be pretty much as it is today. Their civilization also borrowed from the Greeks.

Michael,

In re: “This isn’t comparing apples and oranges; it’s comparing a whole produce section!”

Amen. And I rather admired the Soviet’s creation of buffer states. Pity that so many have collapsed. And Yugoslavia was better off for Tito, however short-lived that proved to be.

As for a “Jefferson-admiring Ho Chi Minh”, my earlier post presents my views on that. (Balderdash!) If you go to Vietnam, a trip through Ba Chuc will pretty much explain why the Viets turned on their Khmer Rouge allies. Ba Chuc lies south of Chau Doc, towards Ha Tien. They have a display of skulls and bones of those massacred during KR incursions. Of course, the KR were conducting such attacks precisely because the entire Mekong River delta used to be Cambodia’s, and they had irredentist ambitions to recover it. Several hundred thousand (at least!) ethnic Cambodians continue to live in the delta, and up until 1975 their primary loyalty was to the government in Phnom Penh. In 1945-46, the Royal Cambodian government was anxious to get the French back into Indochina, as they perceived the Indochinese Communist Party’s aims to be cleverly disguised Vietnamese expansionism. Indeed, they volunteered two battalions of troops to fill the undermanned French Army, drafting one battalion from within Cambodia, and the other battalion within Soc Trang (legally, Vietnam), which shows that an underground Cambodian government was in operation there. (You can find this in Henry-Jean Loustau’s book “Les Deux Bataillons”. Loustau was a platoon leader in one of the Cambodian battalions, and later switched to a North Vietnamese battalion.

And, you are spot on in that all three had their true believers, and contained their share of idealists. (even if some were apples, others oranges, and yet others grapes)

Not sure about anyone “getting angry”, however. The views presented seem pretty civilized, even when poles apart.

Colonialism should not be in this list. It accomplished more good than it did bad …..and had it been better done would have allowed the smaller places to be a part of something greater than their own selves.

What would be better to decry is the idea that every little chunk of real estate on the planet needs to be independent. A world with 224 nations is just stupid.

All of the former colonies of the British Empire are better because of the British presence. Rule fo law, English language, respect for other nations was a result of British influence. One cannot say that about the other two isms.

In my perfect world, the British Empire would still exist.

Without regard to whether colonialism “did more good than bad”, as Skippy-san says, or was a force for murder and evil to the degree which Eddie says it was—my point is that ANALYTICALLY you get nothing out of lumping these phenomena together. The one thing that holds them together is that they all had high body counts associated with them. But they are not the same kind of “-isms” and your understanding of any of them is not enhanced by lumping them together. Specific historical phenomena should be looked at with sufficient distinction to make sense of them.

Now, analytical clarity may not be the goal. If the goal is to make a rhetorical point for a political reason, then this may make sense. To suggest that “the West” is defined by its colonial past, and in turn that this colonial past is the moral equivalent of totalitarian mass-murder is to condemn the West as morally despicable, and to deny its institutions any positive value. This then would support various political positions that are currently relevant. But that would be a gimmick, not an argument. Unfortunately, some people are convinced by gimmicks of this type.

Thanks for a thoughtful answer.lirelou.
But then again if you try to show some document or couterargument aginst the hype in English,you will pretty much follow the passage of Gerry Bevers and Yoko Kawashima Watkins….
Follow your advice and I’ll stay away from the minefield.
Down with the colonialism!

OK,I missed some of your comments on Japanese colonialism.

Alexander Augustinius said
“I specifically indicate that Japan, curiously enough, does not belong to this group of self-critical nations”

Now what do you know about Japanese self criticism on colonialism.Alexander Augustinus?I think Japan did pretty much apology and tried it’s best to mend the relatioship in last half century,at least with South Koreans.

It took 16years of negotiation just to normalize the relationship with Seoul,ï¼·ï½”¦ paid nearly 30% worth of our entire foreign currency deposit of 1965.Send them foreign aids for more than 30 years long.Gave them the best steel mill knowing that will boomerang at our industries,Saved them from the abyss of national bankruptcy during Asian finacial crisis,Shared the world cup game in 2002,directly apologized every president from Chun Doo Hwang til current bastard.Trying to ignore every kind of insult on us including illegal occupation of our territories.
We kept silenced only because we wanted to be friends with Koreans ,maybe not in our generations but in the future.And look what we ‘ve got in return.
Somehow both Koreans and outside world doing their best not to recognize these fact and demanding more and more and more and more.

Henrik Krog said
“If really charitable, people will include Japanese as honorary Europeans.”
That was what South Africans were saying about Japanese when Nelson Mandela was still in prison.Henrik.

Yes, you’re correct, Lirelou. The Annals aren’t comprehensive in that they do not cover the entire period of Korean history; I will call them “the most extensive.” By “minefield,” I meant the ongoing debate on one thread at Occidentalism, not bilateral disputes, which will probably never be resolved.

Lirelou, you may be right about Ho Chi Minh and his true loyalties and motivations; I’m not in a position to judge. My point was less to glorify or exhonerate the Vietnamese than to point out the sheer diversity amongst the different strands of Communism; as bad as most of them were, your average Communist dictatorship was a playground compared to what I’ve heard about the Khmer Rouge.

As for my comment about people getting angry: to the extent I applied it to this list, I apologize. I was tired, glancing through the other comments revealed the usual strong rhetoric on these subjects, so I made assumptions that a re-read reveals to be false.

It wasn’t entirely aimed at this list, though. My reaction was based in part on reading far too many political threads on partisan political blogs as well as Slate’s Fray. A discussion like this on one of those sites would quickly have degenerated into a round of name-calling and dogmatic rhetoric.

This was my larger point. People hear words like these and automatically attach their own associations (positive or negative). Too often, they then judge others by whether they share the same associations—unaware of, or indifferent to, the larger and more complex reality of the subject at hand.

Eddie, well said, particularly your last paragraph.

I would even say that colonialism was great for the populations of the European countries in that after 1850, the gap between the ordinary workers of those countries and the colonized ones really took off. The foundations for a world system were laid. For more on that increasing gap as a “tectonic stress” that we will have to face, I do reccomend looking at Thomas Homer Dixon’s “Upside of Down” (which does not talk about colonialism, but points out some of what I would regard as the effects of the system that has developed over the last two centuries).

Eddie, some good points and thank you for the cites. I’m not sure I understand your second point: (“if we’re just going to dismiss the countries in E. Asia, Africa & India to perputal ruin and rot because they weren’t “colonized”Â?.”) East Asia and India seem to be doing very well, and can hardly be described as being consigned to perpetual ruin and rot, but then they were well developed cultures to begin with.

As regards Africa states: “Many of them, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, are doomed to fail, and that is directly the result of European colonialism.” I agree, but see colonialism as “directly” responsible only in that their legacy was a state to begin with. Perhaps Africans would have been better served to have been split up into ethnic enclaves? First impression makes than an attractive idea, but reflection makes me a doubter. I see no African ethnic enclaves turned “modern” states as having been possibly more attuned to the needs of their populations, or any less inclined to ethnic warfare.

Saying that colonialism was “bad” is a moral judgment best left for polemecists and sohpmores. Colonialism was, that’s all. But uderstanding its positive and negative contributions to the development of any former state certainly helps to lay the basis for figuring out why things developed as they did, and what one is dealing with.

From a historical perspective, I see no viable alternative for Africa in the 19th Century other than some international covenant by which the European powers declared the entire continent south of the Mediterranean littoral a vast ecological zone in which Europeans were not allowed more than an occasional safari to shoot and collect exotic species. Had that been possible, I believe that the lives of modern Africans would be for the worse: Nasty, brutish, and short.