Colonialism: ah, ye olde glorie!

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

1 hour ago, Leap said:

We really didn't learn that much about colonialism in school. Hell, I still don't know much about it.

There is some good to be said of English history lessons though, they did let us watch Blackadder as part of our section on WW1. 

 

I'm pretty sure watching Blackadder is a mandatory part of the History curriculum in England.  Astonishing that the last 30 minute episode of that series is more effective at conveying how fucking tragic the war was than any history lesson I ever attended.

[Veltigar]

7 hours ago, Grand Maester Mithrandir said:

Shit explains Chris Patten's response to some Oxford students calling for the removal of Rhodes' statue.

I never got that demand personally. I mean removiving the statue erases parts of this unsavory history and honestly, were would it end? If you take down that statue, there's a lot of others that should fall as well. I think the smart thing to do would be to contextualize, hang a plack next to it or something were the man's atrocities are put in context.  

8 hours ago, Tijgy said:

In Belgium our colonial history and his big atrocities is told to us at school (the whole is history is more complicated than Congo was a colony of Belgium. Technically Belgium did not want a colony so that part of Africa was given to our king as his private property who did there a lot of monstruous things (which were in fact addressed by the Britons, just saying). So much that Belgium was forced by the international communities to annex Congo as their colony with as result that the atrocities were lessened and that the Belgian did some good (railroads) and paternalizing stuff. But we did learn about it during high school. I remember we saw certainly some hours of video about Congo and the violence past by the Belgian. 

The atrocities certainly didn't end when the Belgian state took over. It wasn't as bad as under Leopold that's true, but we sure as hell haven't accounted for our colonial past, not in the slightest. And awareness is close to zero I think. I had a lot more history than most in high school, but we saw next to nothing about our own colonial past.

David Van Reybrouck's Congo (a great book and it's been translated in English for those of you who aren't native Dutch speakers) has really opened my eyes on that front. Anyway, as a nation we would be advised to show some contrition. I might not agree with things like the call to remove the Rhodes statue, but at least things like this are being discussed in the UK. Belgium still has a lot of distance to cover on that front. 

8 hours ago, Tijgy said:

I And at the same side Britain also committed a lot of atrocities in Europe (f.e. Ireland) and in Belgium during the 19th century the Dutch speaking population were also treated as inferior to the French speaking population. 

This is actually a pretty harmful representation of our nation's history which should be addressed I think, since parties like the N-VA manage to sucker people into voting for them partly as a result of perpetuating these kind of lies. As always the truth is much more complicated. If we have to boil it down though, it would be far more accurate to state that the primary difference was one of class and not one of language.

The elites of our country did indeed mostly speak French (understandable given our long and complicated history with our southern neighbours and the fact that French was simply the most prestigious language of its time) but French was also the native tongue of a considerable chunck of the common people. The elites needed human livestock to toil away in their mines, brickworks and factories and they really couldn't care less about the language these industrial quasi-serfs spoke amongst each other. 

The language issues were just the elite capitalizing on a historic difference to drive a wedge between the common people. Better to have them resent each other than have them unite against their true enemy. Over time of course, this difference was internalized and started to live a life on its own, leading to all the other language related problems we have had and still have today. 

[Tijgy]

23 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

I never got that demand personally. I mean removiving the statue erases parts of this unsavory history and honestly, were would it end? If you take down that statue, there's a lot of others that should fall as well. I think the smart thing to do would be to contextualize, hang a plack next to it or something were the man's atrocities are put in context.  

The atrocities certainly didn't end when the Belgian state took over. It wasn't as bad as under Leopold that's true, but we sure as hell haven't accounted for our colonial past, not in the slightest. And awareness is close to zero I think. I had a lot more history than most in high school, but we saw next to nothing about our own colonial past.

David Van Reybrouck's Congo (a great book and it's been translated in English for those of you who aren't native Dutch speakers) has really opened my eyes on that front. Anyway, as a nation we would be advised to show some contrition. I might not agree with things like the call to remove the Rhodes statue, but at least things like this are being discussed in the UK. Belgium still has a lot of distance to cover on that front. 

This is actually a pretty harmful representation of our nation's history which should be addressed I think, since parties like the N-VA manage to sucker people into voting for them partly as a result of perpetuating these kind of lies. As always the truth is much more complicated. If we have to boil it down though, it would be far more accurate to state that the primary difference was one of class and not one of language.

The elites of our country did indeed mostly speak French (understandable given our long and complicated history with our southern neighbours and the fact that French was simply the most prestigious language of its time) but French was also the native tongue of a considerable chunck of the common people. The elites needed human livestock to toil away in their mines, brickworks and factories and they really couldn't care less about the language these industrial quasi-serfs spoke amongst each other. 

The language issues were just the elite capitalizing on a historic difference to drive a wedge between the common people. Better to have them resent each other than have them unite against their true enemy. Over time of course, this difference was internalized and started to live a life on its own, leading to all the other language related problems we have had and still have today. 

First of all, I said the atrocities lessened not that they disappeared entirely. And while Belgium might not technically have the power in Congo, I feel Belgium as a state is certainly responsible for the atrocities by King Leopold because they just closed their eyes for the things which were done in King Leopold's name. And to be honest we are probably involved in one way what happened after the colonization afterwards. 

Like I said, I had classes about it during high school. This might of course depend on my history teacher.

Yeah, the problems between the two communities in Belgium are probably too difficult to explain it in one sentence. So did Belgium start to exist because Willem I wanted impose Dutch as the main language in the south while (indeed) the elite spoke French there. And like everywhere in Europe the not-elite were treated just as bad in the south as in the north. 

This however do not diminish the fact one of the leaders of the revolution said he considered the dutch as an inferior language. While the majority of the population spoke Dutch, Dutch was not considered as an official language in Belgium. People had to speak French to get out of their lower class: universities were French-speaking, the elite spoke French, public offices were French, ... People were unjustly convicted because they could not defend themselves in courts because they spoke Dutch and not French. There was a language division between the Dutch and French speaking population in which the Dutch speaking population had an inferior position thanks to the position was giving to French in the constitution and other places in the public places. This language problem became later more and more a problem between the south and the north with not only a social and language dimension but also economic, ... 

[Veltigar]

13 minutes ago, Tijgy said:

First of all, I said the atrocities lessened not that they disappeared entirely

Well, I never claimed you did. That's why I said "t wasn't as bad as under Leopold that's true"

 

14 minutes ago, Tijgy said:

. And while Belgium might not technically have the power in Congo, I feel Belgium as a state is certainly responsible for the atrocities by King Leopold because they just closed their eyes for the things which were done in King Leopold's name. And to be honest we are probably involved in one way what happened after the colonization afterwards. 

Not to mention the gigantic profits the Belgian people got out of this early fase of the colonization. Leopold II was a wretched, bloodthirsty loon (an abomination even by Saksen-Coburg standards), but he was also a man of great architectural taste. He financed the construction of many of Belgium's finest structures with blood money stolen from the Congo and yet there is hardly any public awareness about this. Antwerp Central Station, the Antwerp Zoo, the Royal Galleries in Ostend, the Royal Greenhouses of Laeken or Le Parc du Cinquantenaire in Brussels and the list goes on for a while. 

30 minutes ago, Tijgy said:

Like I said, I had classes about it during high school. This might of course depend on my history teacher.

Definitely. There is no official curriculum that deals with our colonial quagmire in any kind of structural way. Usually, Belgian's colonial history is mentioned, but in general more time is spent on the plight of Belgians fleeing from the Congo after the country gained independence than into plight of the native population.

History teachers usually spin the old yarn about the Congo Free State, how Leopold II was kind of a visionary in acquiring the Free State, did some bad stuff (they usually underplay this) and how the Belgian state magnanimously stepped in to take over in 1908. After that they move to 1960s and the Belgian refugees returning home.

Pretty much the entire period inbetween is skipped, from the coragious involvement of Congolese troops in WWI and WWII to the introduction of vile concepts like the 'Evolué' and other abuses by the state. And of the period after the independence movement, in which Belgian companies and government officials played their part in the Katanga independence crisis, the murder of Patrice Lumumba and propping up Mobutu's regime pretty much nothing is said.

44 minutes ago, Tijgy said:

 So did Belgium start to exist because Willem I wanted impose Dutch as the main language in the south while (indeed) the elite spoke French there.

Not quite. Or at least, it's yet another gross simplification Belgians are fed time and time again by our biased and quite frankly outdated history classes. You have to realize that Belgium is basically an accident of history. It's a state that was never meant to be. In fact for most of its history, the Southern Netherlands can be best described as highly regionalistic in nature.

And I'm not saying regionalistic as in the anachronistic notion of Flanders we use today, when I say regionalistic I mean really regional with basically a division into self-governing States (basically the size of provinces) which together formed a confederation. In fact as recently as 1790 we had the Brabantine Revolution, which aimed to topple Habsburg rule and return to the old Ancien Régime model led by Van der Noot and his statists.

Anyway, back to the actual causes of the Belgium revolution. These were both religious, politcal and economic in nature. All of which contributed to the eventual uprising. New linguistic policies alone aren't enough of an explanation, since those first pro Dutch laws were signed into effect in 1823. If those were the sole smoking gun, people would have rebelled then and there, but they waited until 1830.

A first important historical truth to take into account is the fact that the Southern Netherlands at the time had a much bigger population than the Dutch part of the Kingdom. And yet, they got the same amount of representatives in the legislative body of the Kingdom. On top of that, there was a distinct lack of Southerners in the government and in the army. All of this combined meant that you had a populace (and especially an elite) which was significantly underrepresented in the rule of their own country, which was of course a considerable source of grief for the inhabitants of the Southern Netherlands.

On top of that, there was a religious rift that neatly followed the north-south divide. The Southern Netherlands were Catholic and I mean hardcore Catholic, in fact at that time the Southern Netherlands was probably one of the most devoutly Catholic places in the world. In contrast, the North was dominated by calvinists and so the Southern Bishops and the influential Catholic party weren't exactly fond of Willem I. And then he made mathers worse by insisting on relgious freedom, which the Catholics down south really didn't like. They saw it as the first step in a ploy to force Calvinism on the population and they responded badly to that. 

The other important faction among the elites in the Southern Netherlands were the liberals. They were really the only faction that could sort of stand up to the Catholics. In the beginning they were pretty much all on Willem's I side (eventhough they weren't very fond of the Dutch language laws, as liberals tended to be more francophile than most). They supported Willem I mainly on the economic front, since the guy helped to start the Cockerill steel plants which capitalized on Belgium's historic assets by bringing them up to date (Willem' wanted to link up the industrial potential of the Southern Netherlands with the Dutch trade and colonial empire). He also founded the Sociète Generale, a company that has caused a lot of grief over the years (very involved in Congo).

Anyway, they were liberals and after a while they started to think of Willem I as tyranical. He didn't allow freedom of press or education and they greatly resented that. However, as long as the money kept flowing in they grudgingly supported in. After a while though, progress on that front came to a halt. His policy against trade tariffs, while good for the North were bad for the south. And the import of grain brought grief to the regions of the Southern-Netherlands that relied heavily on agriculture. 

This lead to a monster alliance between Southern Catholics and Liberals. All that was needed was a spark to get things going. And that happened in 1830, one of the years famous for the fact that many revolutions took place that year (think a sort of Arab Spring kind of year really). You had the July Revolution in France, but also revolutions in places like Poland and Italy.

These embroideled most of the major powers of the time, meaning that Wilhelm had to fend for himself (IIRC, the Polish uprising in particular hurt Willem I, because he was counting on Russian troops to help restore his rule). The French July Revolution in particular was seen by many in the Southern Netherlands as a source of inspiration, which eventually lead to the powder keg exploding and the Revolution breaking out. 

After that there was a whole lot of mismanegment from Willem I. Instead of settling for peace, he chose to do battle and got his ass kicked. Instead of returning with an army, he chose to wait for the major powers to respond, which they did by recognizing Belgian independence. Instead of capitalizing on orangist feeling in places like Antwerp, he had a commander bomb the streets of Antwerp, further enraging the Southern populace. And when he finally did return with an army, the French came out to play and chased him back over the border. 

2 hours ago, Tijgy said:

This however do not diminish the fact one of the leaders of the revolution said he considered the dutch as an inferior language.

A pretty understandable quote when you take the heat of the moment into account. I mean, given the resentment born towards the Dutch based on the reasons (religious, economic, etc.) I laid out above and of course the fact that they were waging a war against a Dutchspeaking enemy.

This one quote and the unfortunate implications don't diminish the massive accomplishments of these Revolutionaries in the first few months of Belgium's history. The Belgian constitution is hailed as a masterpiece of constitutional camouflage and was very liberal for its time. And while the revolutionaries didn't get everything they wanted (e.g. they were forced to swallow a monarchy to secure British and French support), it was generally quite succesful.

2 hours ago, Tijgy said:

While the majority of the population spoke Dutch, Dutch was not considered as an official language in Belgium. People had to speak French to get out of their lower class: universities were French-speaking, the elite spoke French, public offices were French, ... People were unjustly convicted because they could not defend themselves in courts because they spoke Dutch and not French. There was a language division between the Dutch and French speaking population in which the Dutch speaking population had an inferior position thanks to the position was giving to French in the constitution and other places in the public places. This language problem became later more and more a problem between the south and the north with not only a social and language dimension but also economic, ... 

Most of this was a logical result of the anti-Dutch fervour that spread through the Southern Netherlands in 1830. If you factor in the class divisions along the higher elite of which I talked earlier (and really, justice was never fair for the poor in those times), you get that particular clusterfuck.

Also, in light of the previous quote you cited, it is worth pointing out that that particular leader wasn't without merrit in claiming the inferiority of Dutch at that time. Mainly, because there was no such thing as Duth in the Southern Netherlands in that period. People spoke all different types of dialects (with different grammar, vocabulary, accents, spelling, you name it), there simply was no golden standard of Dutch in the Southern Netherlands that could be used as an official language. If you compare that to France, which was well-structured and the international lingua franca, it's quite understandable that those early revolutionaries saw "Flemish Dutch" as chaotic and unfit for government. 

It's also worth pointing out that those early problems were addressed relatively quickly. There was a law in 1873 that made sure that Dutch could be used in the Flemish justice system, in 1878 there was a law about the use of Dutch for administration, in 1883 for education  and in 1898 the two languages were put on the same level. Generally speaking, constantly harping on the language issues diverts our attention away from the real struggle of that time, namely achieving the right to vote for every citizen (in stages of course). The struggle for language rights was merely a subsidiary of that much greater early battle.  

[Arkhangel]

Like a lot of things, I imagine the answer you'd get to that question would vary a great deal depending on how you framed it, in terms of wording and also the questions which came immediately before it. "How do you feel about that time we invaded a lot of countries and subjugated, dispossessed or slaughtered a lot of the local people" is going to get a different reaction to "how do you feel about that time we ruled most of the world".

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

16 hours ago, SeanF said:

Genghis Khan must have been one of the cruellest men in his history.

But, his record as a commander, statesman, politician, and ruler was extraordinary.  His entire career reads like a far-fetched historical novel.

Worth noting that the Mongol empire didn't reach its greatest extent until over 50 years after Genghis Khan had died, though. He united the Mongols, created their army organization, and initiated the wars in Central Asia and China and so on. However, most of the actual conquering was done by his successors. 

As for the topic, I don't think it is much different from any other people being proud of a time in their past when they were powerful and influential. It's not like the Romans, Greeks, Persians, or other historical powers large or small became powerful by being nice to other people. Whether you call their expansions "Colonialism" or not is quite irrelevant since it in practice tended to include similar kinds of atrocities as that did, if not worse. Is it then wrong for say an Italian to be proud of his country's Roman past, or a Persian in his?

The Viking Age, which is the typical "being proud of" period in my country as well as in the rest of Scandinavia, also involved a ton of killing and destruction in foreign countries. I doubt it was any less brutal than what the 18th-19th century colonial powers did. 

 

[SeanF]

18 minutes ago, Khaleesi did nothing wrong said:

Worth noting that the Mongol empire didn't reach its greatest extent until over 50 years after Genghis Khan had died, though. He united the Mongols, created their army organization, and initiated the wars in Central Asia and China and so on. However, most of the actual conquering was done by his successors. 

As for the topic, I don't think it is much different from any other people being proud of a time in their past when they were powerful and influential. It's not like the Romans, Greeks, Persians, or other historical powers large or small became powerful by being nice to other people. Whether you call their expansions "Colonialism" or not is quite irrelevant since it in practice tended to include similar kinds of atrocities as that did, if not worse. Is it then wrong for say an Italian to be proud of his country's Roman past, or a Persian in his?

The Viking Age, which is the typical "being proud of" period in my country as well as in the rest of Scandinavia, also involved a ton of killing and destruction in foreign countries. I doubt it was any less brutal than what the 18th-19th century colonial powers did. 

 

Certainly most people prefer to be a Who than a Whom.

WRT the Mongols, Genghis Khan is revered in modern Mongolia.

[arya_underfoot]

British colonial rule in the Indian subcontinent alone resulted in a body count comparable to that inflicted by Stalin, Mao or Hitler. Once you add in Africa, North America and Oceania.....

How many British schoolchildren are taught that?

[lessthanluke]

17 minutes ago, arya_underfoot said:

 

How many British schoolchildren are taught that?

Zero

[David Selig]

Why wouldn't they be proud of such great history full of stuff like this - http://yourstory.com/2014/08/bengal-famine-genocide/ ?

[SeanF]

40 minutes ago, arya_underfoot said:

British colonial rule in the Indian subcontinent alone resulted in a body count comparable to that inflicted by Stalin, Mao or Hitler. Once you add in Africa, North America and Oceania.....

How many British schoolchildren are taught that?

Assuming, purely for the sake of argument, that you are correct, there are millions of people today who regard Stalin and Mao as national heroes.

[David Selig]

Speaking of this, the fact that Churchill is still the biggest national hero of Britain despite his role in Bengal famine of 1943 which lead to the death of about 4 mln. people, is pretty disgusting.

[TrueMetis]

53 minutes ago, arya_underfoot said:

British colonial rule in the Indian subcontinent alone resulted in a body count comparable to that inflicted by Stalin, Mao or Hitler. Once you add in Africa, North America and Oceania.....

How many British schoolchildren are taught that?

Canadian, so somewhat different curriculum but I do remember a fair bit of talk on the deaths in North America, Oceania, and something about the opium wars. But yea a lot of the shit in Africa and India was glossed over.

[SeanF]

7 minutes ago, David Selig said:

Speaking of this, the fact that Churchill is still the biggest national hero of Britain despite his role in Bengal famine of 1943 which lead to the death of about 4 mln. people, is pretty disgusting.

Given that he led the UK to victory in WWII, that's neither surprising nor disgusting to 90%+ of British people.

[Horza]

British colonial rule in the Indian subcontinent alone resulted in a body count comparable to that inflicted by Stalin, Mao or Hitler. Once you add in Africa, North America and Oceania.....

How many British schoolchildren are taught that?

Assuming, purely for the sake of argument, that you are correct, there are millions of people today who regard Stalin and Mao as national heroes.

This is a good point. Empire can be truly bizarre like that.

Local officials in Henan, one of the provinces worst affected by the Great Leap Forward just put up a huge gold Mao statue far too tacky for Beijing to permit.

The Great Famine of 1931-1933 is regarded by many Ukrainian nationalists as genocide on Stalin's part, but this opinion is much more strongly held in the western regions that were part of Poland at the time than the eastern regions that actually suffered it.

[sologdin]

On ‎1‎/‎20‎/‎2016 at 8:55 AM, DireWolfSpirit said:

 

I'm not sure who the British equivalent of Zinn may be? But i'm sure I would like to become familiar with him/her.

people's history, to the extent it can be said to have 'originated' in the cappy west, is traceable to morton's people's history of england.

[Disturber of Peace]

Obviously, everyone should be put in a virtual reality where, in a modern world, the state/country/whatever they are rooting for still holds as much territory as it did during its maximum extent.

[sologdin]

8 minutes ago, Disturber of Peace said:

Obviously, everyone should be put in a virtual reality where, in a modern world, the state/country/whatever they are rooting for still holds as much territory as it did during its maximum extent.

hearts of iron II allows me to crimson over the entire world with stalinist hegemony, starting with the fascists and continuing on through the genocidal monarchists and apartheid cappies ostensibly in the anti-axis alliance.

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

25 minutes ago, sologdin said:

people's history, to the extent it can be said to have 'originated' in the cappy west, is traceable to morton's people's history of england.

Very nice, thank you.

[TerraPrime]

21 hours ago, ThePrunesThatWasPromised said:

Impressive no doubt.

Are Mongolians constantly shamed for it?

I honestly don't know.

 

I am not asking the UK citizens to be "constantly ashamed" for the atrocities committed during their imperialistic expansion period. But perhaps a half hour or so once in a while reflecting on the ills that this period had wrought would not be amiss.

 

 

General:

One of the reasons why colonialism of the UK, France, etc., are being examined critically today whereas former empires like the Ottoman or Mongolian are not is that the impact of European colonialism is still with us today, from the schism in Pakistan and India to the destabilized countries in Africa, not to mention the seemingly eternal strife between Israel and the rest of the Middle East. These are all  consequences of European colonialism that we live with today. There are Indians who are alive today who lived through the independence movement that ended in 1947.

Another reason why it is talked about so much is demonstrated in this thread - sometimes the countries that colonized other places don't really teach the full extent of the actions of these colonizations. If the rest of the world doesn't talk about it, then we end up erasing the history of the people who were subjugated. Most of us see that as a form of added persecution. Much like how in the united states, the history of slaves is an important subject to investigate, because without an active academic interest in it, we would have lost much of those records, and then it would have been an added layer of injustice on top of the evil of chattel slavery.