I live about as far away from Europe as it's possible to live, but I do have European roots - my mother's family is Dutch, and my father's family is English.
As far as I'm concerned, yes the colonial era was far from ideal, but it's long in the past and has no bearing on the people of today. Yes, we should study and remember such times, so that the same mistakes are not made again, but what is important is what happened, not who did it.
QuoteThat's why most people know about colonialism and very few know about the wars, occupations and miseries that happened within Europe, it's simply not that relevant for their history.
Yep this is generally the case. I've got relatives form Vietnam and they had really bad times too that I really did not know about. Actually in my country we barely study anything about Asia.
@Gian-Reto you're right about the vocal minorities. the problem that I have with comments like that is little by little, drop by drop they kind of make negative moods out of nothing.
20 hours ago, KostadinPetkov said:I really dislike discussing history on forums and probably non us will gain anything
Why not. Actually discussing history should be encouraged, as long as nobody is trying to smear/hide what actually happened no matter how dark and bleak.
Since I have never lived in Europe, and the longest period I have ever put my feet on European soil was just over one week, here's what I think (and was taught) happened in Europe chronologically:
1. Greek Philosophy and democracy happened.
2. Then the Roman Empire happened. Lots of the blood spilled, lots of war, but in the end, several hundred years of Roman civilization. The Romans kind-of took the Greek's philosophy and democracy into practice at a larger scale. Also, administration and aqueducts.
3. Roman Empire collapsed, then nothing happened for close to 1000 years (?) except misery, the Black Plague, and corrupt Catholic Church, until the Renaissance.
4. Renaissance happened, lots of paintings and sculptures, science, and also the crusader wars with the Ottoman.
5. Then the colonization happened, where Europeans suddenly got rich from enslaving dozens of countries. If you want to talk about politics, this is where the "white man's fault" or "whitewashing of history" practically begins its history. As someone with Asian background, we all knew that the Asians (not just the Chinese, but also Indians, Persians, Middle Eastern) had explored and traded with other continents (including America) and countries long before the Renaissance happened, but none of us really had the urge to invade or colonize at the scale of what the Europeans did (one major exception is the Mongols and the Huns, although the Huns were more barbaric in nature and cared less about building an empire).
Now back to present.
Many people outside of Europe still believe that Europeans are still reaping the rewards of the colonization until today. The whitewashing of history, the identity that 'white people are better looking', racial stereotypes, and so on and so forth. So much wealth and resources were earned during the colonization period that some may argue that it's still going even until today. Many countries in Europe got their 'developed' status despite their lack of natural resources, while the richer (colonized) countries who had received their independence many still stuck at the 'developing' status. They argue that this is because the Europeans purposely prevented the locals (the colonized) from receiving education because they were meant to be kept as slaves. When you give people with lack of education, lack of wealth, lack of identity, and lack of power a sudden possession of power like a country, they will turn corrupt. A typical characteristic of a 3rd world country (many of which were colonies) is a corrupt and authoritarian government but does not know how to run a country.
Anyway, that's what I think of Europe, and many other people perhaps more-or-less share this view. I am not labeling the present Europeans evil, but do think that they are enjoying many benefits that they are taking for granted from the colonization era. Because of this, any white person (European/America/Australian) who formed strong and vocal but distasteful opinions of how other race look, or how people in other countries live, or (appropriation of) their culture, can receive backlash due to the assumed ignorance from living in a privileged life at the expense of others. Kind of like an ex-master who criticized how an ex-slave should live when the master himself had imposed so much damage physically and psychologically to the slave.
I also think this is why the White-Black relations in America is taking a very long time to heal. You don't cripple someone then make fun of them for sitting on a wheelchair.
@alnite
Well after 3 one other major thing is that that around 800 and later a lot of tribes and countries started to convert to Christianity(some were forces and some converted willingly), the majority were polytheists. My country did that for 2 reasons:
1 - to ensure a longer peace with the Byzantine (Eastern Roman Empire)
2 - to unite the people, because the country had 3 different majorities with different languages and religions.
After that was non-stop wars against each-other and against the invading Arabs.
There were crusades before the Ottoman Empire, as far as I know only the last one crusade was formed against them.
The renaissance did not happened in the *majority Eastern Europe at all.
22 hours ago, KostadinPetkov said:@Gian-Reto you're right about the vocal minorities. the problem that I have with comments like that is little by little, drop by drop they kind of make negative moods out of nothing.
Look, I see where you are coming from, and I myself have though long about the topic, because if ANYTHING worries me about the current state of things (I might be on the verge of turning into an old geezer, but as of now I don't think the "everything was better back in the day" has any merit as a general statement), its how the extremes seem to get louder and louder and the reasonable people in the middle seem to get quieter and quieter.
While there IS a lot of people kinda flocking to the extremes because of different external factors, mostly these extremes have demagoges leading them very effective at what they do. They are loud, and often much louder than the more reasonable people. I think for every extremist movement, left or rightwing, we can come up with some names that are feeding the fire. Sometimes to see the world burn, sometimes in an false attempt to "fight fire with fire", not recognizing that all they do is to burn the woods down.
These demagoges often live from conflict. They will take EVERYTHING and spin it into an attack on their side and incite their sheeps to fight back. Thus, as much as it hurts, as long as these sheeps are not herded into attacking the civil rights of other people, or even worse, attack them in the virtual or physical world, the best thing to do is to ignore them. Don't feed the trolls that have taken over our media, and often enough our political landscape. Hopefully their campaign of hate will run out of fuel, and they sink back into the obscurity from where they came.
If more than just the usual hatemob trolling forum posts or comment sections, there is a point where its time to report to the police and let them handle it. Sure, not much can be done against anonymous attackers on the internet. But then that is the price we pay for freedom of speech on the internet. People will voice opinions you disagree with (which is something that is good), and some will go totally overboard with it (which is bad).
10 hours ago, KostadinPetkov said:Well after 3 one other major thing is that that around 800 and later a lot of tribes and countries started to convert to Christianity(some were forces and some converted willingly), the majority were polytheists. My country did that for 2 reasons:
Well, I still don't know what country you are from, so I am just going to assume somewhere in Eastern Europe. At least for me, there wasn't much historical coverage on Eastern European history. And to this day, I would still find interesting bits of facts about that region.
All the things I have said about European colonization I guess would apply to western Europeans (starting from Germany-ish), e.g UK, Belgium, France, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal.
I think Eastern Europe and Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, the -stans) is where the east truly meets the west, a true blend of cultures. Here in America, they would typically use "East meets West" when there's a white actor in a Jackie Chan movie, or a dating ad.
On 4/7/2017 at 4:58 PM, LennyLen said:As far as I'm concerned, yes the colonial era was far from ideal, but it's long in the past and has no bearing on the people of today. Yes, we should study and remember such times, so that the same mistakes are not made again, but what is important is what happened, not who did it.
Hm, I'm not sure how one can seriously claim that the past has no bearing on the present. Did the wealth that was gained from colonization got vaporized? It didn't got transferred from generation to generation? First of all, colonization or the scramble for Africa don't go *that* way back; it's not like we're talking about the Greek-Persian wars. They're only a few generations ago. In 1870 10% of Africa was under European control, in 1914 it was 90%. 1914. It's not that far back. That's roughly 100 years ago. 100 years are pretty much 3 generations.
Today's developed nations and former colonial powers such as Britain, France or USA did extract a lot of wealth from regions such as Africa, South America, Asia. This accumulation of wealth boosted their industrialization and modernization a great deal. Didn't that happen? How does that not have any bearing today? What exactly do we mean when we say "it has no bearing"? That today's people of former colonial powers don't inherit the "guilt" of their ancestors crimes, or that they don't inherit the wealth that was accumulated in their country due to those very crimes? Because you can certainly claim the former, but you'd have a hard time claiming the latter.
I mean, imagine a simple example : There are 2 islands, and one island for 100 years systematically enslaves and extracts wealth and resources from the other island. Using this wealth, they build great things in their island - electrified factories, roads, railroads, hospitals, schools. The other island stays in an underdeveloped stage - economically, politically, intellectually.
Now let's assume that, after those 100 years, suddenly they stop, and say "ok, you're free now". Great, so now the formerly enslaved island and presently severely underdeveloped island has to has to compete and play perpetual "catch-up" with the rich island, which of course isn't going to halt its development to wait for its former slaves to catch up. But, since the enslavement now is nominally over, it has no bearing on anything, and we shouldn't talk about it, or rather point out that the present riches and high development of the rich island is the result of the past enslavement of the poor island.
I mean, the way I see it, it's not like the past has no bearing on the present; it's pretty much the exact opposite - the injustice that happened can't possibly be rectified other than inventing a time machine and stop it from happening(and when you return to the present, you probably find out that the people of the rich island don't have as good lives as they have now).
It's not about saying that the today's people of the rich nation are "bad people" - it's not about morality or laying blame to someone. It's simple cause and effect. It's about saying that much of the riches they enjoy now *are* a result of a past injustices, it's about saying that the people of the poor, formerly exploited nations are expected to compete in the global economy starting from a handicapped position - and, you know, given those circumstances, significant reperations from the rich to the poor nations they used to exploit, such as from Britain to India, from France to Haiti, from European colonial powers to Africa, or from USA to African Americans shouldn't be out of the question just because "these are things out ancestors did when we weren't even born".
11 minutes ago, mikeman said:Hm, I'm not sure how one can seriously claim that the past has no bearing on the present.
I did not write that very well.
What I was trying to say is that the fact that probable ancestors of mine (I actually have no idea who my ancestors at that time were and I really don't care that much) did some bad things in no way means that I am going to do bad things because I'm descended from them.
As I went on to say we do need to keep studying the past, and that is precisely because the actions of the past do shape our present and future. We need to learn from the past, but we need to do that universally as humans first, rather than as white people, or brown people, or English people, or Muslim people. The lessons are equally important to all of us if we want to live more peacefully together.
35 minutes ago, LennyLen said:I did not write that very well.
What I was trying to say is that the fact that probable ancestors of mine (I actually have no idea who my ancestors at that time were and I really don't care that much) did some bad things in no way means that I am going to do bad things because I'm descended from them.
As I went on to say we do need to keep studying the past, and that is precisely because the actions of the past do shape our present and future. We need to learn from the past, but we need to do that universally as humans first, rather than as white people, or brown people, or English people, or Muslim people. The lessons are equally important to all of us if we want to live more peacefully together.
Yeah, but that doesn't actually answer the question, or address the actual issue of the former colonies having to play perpetual catch-up in a competivive global economy, starting from a handicapped position. It's just more "let's not have bad feelings, no matter if we're rich or poor we're all human". Great. Is that of any solace to former colonies that live in constant poverty, like Haiti? Or even African Americans in USA that, just a couple of generations ago, were excluded by force from fully participating in economic, political, academic life? Can you say to them "hey we're all brothers now, let us compete; me starting from 50% and you starting from 10%". I'm..not so sure.
Colonial powers *did* extract huge wealth and resources from colonized areas. They *did* use that wealth to develop themselves and grow stronger. Those colonial powers still exist today - Britain, France, USA are still around and world-leaders, while their former colonies are playing catch-up in the global economy from a severely handicapped position. You don't have to trace the ancestors of individuals around the world, it's not what we're talking about - you guys make it about the individuals when it's not about that. These countries still exist as formal entities, those governments exist, leading the world, operating from the same parliaments and congresses their great-great-grandfathers did. Do these countries owe something to the nations they colonized, in the form of material reperations(or even including technological and scientific know-how), or are we going to put everything under the carpet and go "hey, we'll all brothers now, even if the reason we're rich and you're poor is because our great grandfathers pillaged the villages of your great grandfathers"?
I mean, if I steal from you now, use the plunder to invest and build my fortune, to send my children and grandchildren to great schools, can my great-granchildren say to your great-grandchildren in 100 years "hey, we're all brothers and equals now, doesn't matter that I'm rich and you're poor, we're all brothers, and btw I didn't steal from your great-grandfather, my great-grandfather did, you can't hold me responsible for that, so it's not like I owe you anything. You like my house? Yeah, it goes back 3 generations. I'm building a new wing now. I don't know why you still live in such a small slump, you gotta be entrepreneurial man" 
(Note, in all of the above, I make the extremely charitable assumption that any kind of oppression or discrimination is completely eradicated today, and the formerly oppressed are now completely free to compete and develop, just starting from a severely handicapped position. To paraphrase Malcolm X, the knife has completely been drawn out, all that remains is the gaping wound. I don't actually believe this is true at all, but for the sake of the argument let's pretend it is).
Just now, mikeman said:Do these powers owe something to the nations the colonized, in the form of material reperations, or are we going to put everything under the carpet and go "we'll all brothers now, even if we're rich and you're poor because our great grandfathers pillaged the villages of your great grandfathers"?
I can only speak for the country I live in (New Zealand) where large amounts of land and resource reparations have been made. The majority of the public do seem to realize that early social policies seriously disadvantaged the Maori people, and the effects of that are still felt today.
Things are better than they were, but not yet ideal. I'm sure better system could be in place, and these are interesting questions that need answering, but I'm not even sure how to answer them. I sometimes wonder if part of the reason that Maori figure so highly in statistics is due in many places to an over reliance on social welfare systems. I've been in the social welfare system myself, battling mental illness and addiction and when you're getting free money every week it's very hard to get motivated to do anything else. I at least was lucky in that I had memories of what life could be like to get me to start over again.
I'm sure there are many more factors, but I'll leave those to the sociologically inclined to deduce. Human nature is unfortunately, rather foreign to me. I stick to things that make sense, like machines and plants.
