For all the current talk about the brutality of colonization there seems to be a purposeful oblivion of how barbaric and cruel some tribes were before they were colonized.
This point of view is a useful corrective to the current conventional wisdom about imperialism, especially by referring to the countless non-Western imperial regimes. But there's such a thing as going too far. The primary goal of imperial governments, including Western ones, has always been collective self-interest, not altruism. Imperial regimes foster the acquisition of wealth in addition to exploration, scientific research or even personal adventure.
Some empires, in any case, were better than others. Moreover, some Western empires were better than others. After 1857, the British ruled not through the rapacious East India Company but directly from Parliament in London. In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Parliament gradually began to prepare India for home rule (by absorbing Indians into the civil service and military services) and eventually for independence. The latter was made inevitable only by two world wars, which left Britain heavily in debt. Some notable lapses notwithstanding, it's true that British or French colonial rulers were generally more enlightened and less corrupt than other colonial rulers were--or, as you say, much more enlightened and much less corrupt than local rulers would have been--but only a few administrators (along with Queen Victoria) and missionaries, along with a few physicians, teachers and scholars, were truly interested in the welfare of the colonized peoples. Fewer still were actually altruistic.
The British and French did leave behind countries that were better prepared for modernity (the rise of which was inevitable in any case), although even these countries faced wrenching adjustments nonetheless. The best example is India, which remains a democracy on the British model (albeit a shaky one), and has become much more prosperous than many other former colonies. India is indeed better off in many ways than it would have been without the British Raj, but it's better off also that the British finally left. I'm not sure that the same could be said of what was the Belgian Congo, say, or the German colonies in southern Africa or the Portuguese colony of Angola.
India, for all its poverty, had a tradition of intellectual accomplishment: writing, architecture, commerce, and a complex system of deities, so it certainly was in a better position to take advantage of what the British had to offer. The same cannot be said of Africa, which remained primitive except for Egypt, whose glories, still, were much farther back in the past and didn't count for much by the time the 1600s rolled around.
Quite so. If only more people read history, most of this would be apparent to them. It's unsurprising that the decolonisation myth has been perpetrated in former colonies, as a way of manipulating electorates, but I am still shocked that such idelogically-driven drivel has succeeded so spectactularly in Western countries, and even our 'best' universities.
Not convinced. Colonization is driven by pursuit of money and riches. VOC (Dutch East Indies company) and the British East India company are businesses, with the backing of the kingdoms army and their guns, bayonets and frigates. To put colonization in the light of removing corrupt local government is arrogant. It is also a sign that the colonizers still feels like colonizing.
For all the current talk about the brutality of colonization there seems to be a purposeful oblivion of how barbaric and cruel some tribes were before they were colonized.
This point of view is a useful corrective to the current conventional wisdom about imperialism, especially by referring to the countless non-Western imperial regimes. But there's such a thing as going too far. The primary goal of imperial governments, including Western ones, has always been collective self-interest, not altruism. Imperial regimes foster the acquisition of wealth in addition to exploration, scientific research or even personal adventure.
Some empires, in any case, were better than others. Moreover, some Western empires were better than others. After 1857, the British ruled not through the rapacious East India Company but directly from Parliament in London. In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Parliament gradually began to prepare India for home rule (by absorbing Indians into the civil service and military services) and eventually for independence. The latter was made inevitable only by two world wars, which left Britain heavily in debt. Some notable lapses notwithstanding, it's true that British or French colonial rulers were generally more enlightened and less corrupt than other colonial rulers were--or, as you say, much more enlightened and much less corrupt than local rulers would have been--but only a few administrators (along with Queen Victoria) and missionaries, along with a few physicians, teachers and scholars, were truly interested in the welfare of the colonized peoples. Fewer still were actually altruistic.
The British and French did leave behind countries that were better prepared for modernity (the rise of which was inevitable in any case), although even these countries faced wrenching adjustments nonetheless. The best example is India, which remains a democracy on the British model (albeit a shaky one), and has become much more prosperous than many other former colonies. India is indeed better off in many ways than it would have been without the British Raj, but it's better off also that the British finally left. I'm not sure that the same could be said of what was the Belgian Congo, say, or the German colonies in southern Africa or the Portuguese colony of Angola.
India, for all its poverty, had a tradition of intellectual accomplishment: writing, architecture, commerce, and a complex system of deities, so it certainly was in a better position to take advantage of what the British had to offer. The same cannot be said of Africa, which remained primitive except for Egypt, whose glories, still, were much farther back in the past and didn't count for much by the time the 1600s rolled around.
Quite so. If only more people read history, most of this would be apparent to them. It's unsurprising that the decolonisation myth has been perpetrated in former colonies, as a way of manipulating electorates, but I am still shocked that such idelogically-driven drivel has succeeded so spectactularly in Western countries, and even our 'best' universities.
Not convinced. Colonization is driven by pursuit of money and riches. VOC (Dutch East Indies company) and the British East India company are businesses, with the backing of the kingdoms army and their guns, bayonets and frigates. To put colonization in the light of removing corrupt local government is arrogant. It is also a sign that the colonizers still feels like colonizing.