Colonialism, Exploitation and Independence

[Thorgalaeg]

Anything can be "twisted", if people have zero knowledge on what they are arguing about, or are willing to ignore it to "win".

But all right - I can post a different chart.
Spain vs certain former colonies.
Strange how quite a few were doing better than Spain for most of XX century...
View attachment 746242

Yep. Not only that, even before independence several Spanish cities in the Americas were richer than Madrid itself. Doesn't fit very well in the relate I would say.

Real problem with former Spanish 'colonies' is/was they are too close to USA and too far away from Spain.

 

[Senethro]

Yes.
How unfortunate they were never able to recover from that.
Oh, wait...

I wasn't expecting this response. What do you think it means?

 

[Snowygerry]

The interpretation here would be that the USSR provided protection of property rights, efficient institutions and/or the ability to commit to an economic policy that was absent in Venezula.

Hardly - the Russian/Soviet colonization of of the steppe people is proverbial, it is just the Russians lack the the postcolonial guilt complex that exists in the US and UK, and so the exploitation continues to to this day.

The Lexicon of Kazakh Decolonisation

Over thirty years after the Soviet Union's collapse, colonial influences persist in Kazakhstan. Russian remains widely spoken and serves as the primary language for interethnic communication. As language is a vital symbol of national identity, the enduring prominence of Russian poses a...

novastan.org

"If you have a Russian friend, best keep a good axe ready."

Since the conquest of the Kazakh steppe in the 19th century by tsarist forces, the lands and the people inhabiting the territory of modern-day Kazakhstan were shaped by imperial rule. First by the Russian Empire, then by the Soviet Union.

Russia’s colonial war against Ukraine has sent shockwaves throughout Central Asia. Moscow’s emphasis on historical, cultural and linguistic connections makes other former Soviet republics feel increasingly uncomfortable.
Especially in Kazakhstan, home to a sizable ethnic Russian population, many fear that their country could be next on the Kremlin’s list. These concerns are not unfounded. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russian propagandists have repeatedly voiced thin-veiled threats about annexing parts of their southern neighbour.

And there is the Chinese of course :

The Manchu army destroyed everything in its path, methodical extermination of the Dzungars was carried out, nomads escaped, leaving the borders of the Russian borders. The Oirat people, the number of which, according to various estimates, numbered from 600 thousand to one million people, was almost completely exterminated. Only fourty thousand Dzungars managed to escape.

The Chinese exterminated everyone on their way - they killed men, raped women, spared no children, burned houses, slaughtered livestock. Soon famine reigned in the country, some began to die of starvation, while others died of smallpox. Dzungaria was literally littered with corpses, its waters were reddened by human blood shed, and the air was full of smoke from burning ulus, forests and grass. Oirat princes led bloody man-made wars. This took advantage of the enemy neighbors. Thus, according to a prominent scientist Barthold, the last nomadic empire of Central Asia perished. The Chinese historian Shang Yue noted that this victory was won by the most ruthless, almost total extermination of the population of Dzungaria. In the heyday of Dzungaria, more than two hundred thousand families, or more than six hundred thousand people, lived, after the military defeat, thirty percent were destroyed by Ching troops, forty were extinct from smallpox, and the dzhungars escaped from death and were forced to flee to the Kazakhs and within Russia. So by resorting to bloody terror, the Manchus seized the northern part of the Tien Shan.

On How Kazakhstan Ended up as part of Tsarist Russia

The Russian colonization of Kazakhstan began long before the official adoption of the citizenship of Russia by the Kazakhs in the seventeenth century.

e-history.kz

It is beyond silly that any discussion of colonialism and its lasting effects would be restricted to just European (Western) colonisation, no historical reason exists for that, just contemporary political ones.

 

[r16]

uh-huh , another set of people who fail to make the distinction between 150 million Russians and 1,5 billion Chinese . Not maybe statistically correct but thereabouts . Perfectly capable of matching each other in application of brutality , one does not have the power for total assimilation and lets people mind themselves eventually as long as the guidelines are followed in a classic imperial format . The other one has a very deep sense of history , perhaps the most keen of current nations of the world ; you will be consumed in short order , a blink on the historical scale .

against this , the West offers ONLY Sunni Jihadism . To fight Russians , or Chinese , or both , or Martians if they land . No Democracy , no liberal rules , no free market . The Communist cadres all had their transition plans , with timetables for transtion stamped for the last time by people in Moscow , a relevant number being Turkics in ghat classic imperial format . All they got was schools by Congregation , opened by CIA orders and supported/ protected by the same . They would have still followed the path to Western style stuff but for the war between the Azeris and the Armenians . The latter to be crushed by Turkish intervention , direct land contact with the West , a new big brother in the form of a NATO army , to provide security assurances against those lot to the East . All they got was a bunch of heroically talking lot , all civilians , who took control of bars and br.thels in Baku and enyojed the good life . Protected from Armenians by the Azeri forces getting drummed regularly . The West sold them , the Central Asians , as future Sunni jihadists , to be infiltrated from the South by Pakistan's newest creation , the Taliban .

the West runs the oil business allright ; nobody wants the West , until perhaps America marches an army of three millions there .

edit: Uh-huh , if it was at the fingertips , why did the Chinese oppession needed r16 to be edited in ? The thread goes on like the West is guilty and no , it is not and we Brown people should have no idea that the Colonialism goes on very much the same or like be "unique" to point out the rosy pictures in preparation for Democracy are like naive if not already based on bad intentions ?

 

[Samson]

Hardly - the Russian/Soviet colonization of of the steppe people is proverbial, it is just the Russians lack the the postcolonial guilt complex that exists in the US and UK, and so the exploitation continues to to this day.

The Lexicon of Kazakh Decolonisation

Over thirty years after the Soviet Union's collapse, colonial influences persist in Kazakhstan. Russian remains widely spoken and serves as the primary language for interethnic communication. As language is a vital symbol of national identity, the enduring prominence of Russian poses a...

novastan.org

"If you have a Russian friend, best keep a good axe ready."



And there is the Chinese of course :

On How Kazakhstan Ended up as part of Tsarist Russia

The Russian colonization of Kazakhstan began long before the official adoption of the citizenship of Russia by the Kazakhs in the seventeenth century.

e-history.kz

It is beyond silly that any discussion of colonialism and its lasting effects would be restricted to just European (Western) colonisation, no historical reason exists for that, just contemporary political ones.

I do not see that this is contradictory at all. In places where white people could work the land genocide of the natives was common, and in those places got protection of property rights, efficient institutions and/or the ability to commit to an economic policy. From this point of view places like Kazakhstan and Dzungaria are like North America and Australia.

It seems to me that places like Ukraine, Estonia and perhaps Korea are different, in that the colonisers could work the land but the native population was too numerous and/or valuable for full on genocide to be a viable option. It would be interesting to apply the methods used to compare western colonisation targets to those of Russia, China and Japan. I wonder if it has been done.

 

[r16]

borderlands are not places where you can apply too much power . If they rebel they will get foreign intervention real quick .

 

[Akka]

Please explain?

"it's hypocrital and revealing how some people only focus on a very specific group of countries when it comes to put blame about the evil of colonialism"
"that's what a nazi would say !"

No, mate, I don't have to explain that water is wet. If you can't manage to* understand the most basic difference in concepts (though, unsurprisingly, also only in very specific cases), just keep shouting "nazi" at everything and claim that not letting an intruder enter your home is the same thing as keeping someone locked in your basement. I've no obligation to dumb myself down to play your bad faith games.

* don't want to

 

[Yeekim]

I wasn't expecting this response. What do you think it means?

The Irish can not say "we are poor and underdeveloped because of how the evil British colonizers treated us".

Because despite having been treated very poorly indeed, the Irish GDP per capita is ~ twice that of the UK today.

 

[Senethro]

The Irish can not say "we are poor and underdeveloped because of how the evil British colonizers treated us".

Because despite having been treated very poorly indeed, the Irish GDP per capita is ~ twice that of the UK today.

And did you read various posters pointing out the role of the EU and development funds in that?

 

[Snowygerry]

I do not see that this is contradictory at all. In places where white people could work the land genocide of the natives was common, and in those places got protection of property rights, efficient institutions and/or the ability to commit to an economic policy. From this point of view places like Kazakhstan and Dzungaria are like North America and Australia.

It seems to me that places like Ukraine, Estonia and perhaps Korea are different, in that the colonisers could work the land but the native population was too numerous and/or valuable for full on genocide to be a viable option. It would be interesting to apply the methods used to compare western colonisation targets to those of Russia, China and Japan. I wonder if it has been done.

Seems to me that the "colonization-is-the-source-of-all-evil" meme exists only in half a dozen West (European) countries, and exploitation and depopulation of neighbouring lands is still in full swing in other parts of the world.

As it always was. Where are the Chinese historians exploring the lasting negative effects of Chinese colonisation ? Right, nonexistant. The New Silk Route.

As Africa deepens ties with China, a shadow economy of scams, crime and exploitation is rising

As Africa deepens ties with China, Chinese-linked scam syndicates and criminal networks are taking root, fueling a shadow economy of crime and exploitation across the continent

africa.businessinsider.com

Israel anyone - let's kill the natives and replace them by "settlers" ? New Rivièra.

 

[r16]

uh-huh , the Nigerian Prince ... ı was once honoured by him asking me for help .

 

[Lexicus]

Not as a gotcha question, but how would you characterize the disparity between those countries that were not conquered—namely Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Japan, Thailand, and Turkey? I guess I could include China in this list, despite the unequal treaties, none of which forbade economic development (unlike the Qing dynasts…!)

What disparities are you referring to?

 

[Lexicus]

And did you read various posters pointing out the role of the EU and development funds in that?

The reason Irish GDP per capita is higher than the UK isn't because Irish citizens are better off than UK citizens but because a large number of multinational corporations are domiciled in Ireland (and book income there) due to it being a tax haven.

 

[Senethro]

The reason Irish GDP per capita is higher than the UK isn't because Irish citizens are better off than UK citizens but because a large number of multinational corporations are domiciled in Ireland (and book income there) due to it being a tax haven.

Is this one of the situations where the median wealth is more revealing than the mean?

 

[Lexicus]

Israel anyone

This game of pass the buck is highly amusing. Criticize Israel? Antisemitic double standard! Criticize a European country? You're not criticizing Israel enough!

 

[Lexicus]

Is this one of the situations where the median wealth is more revealing than the mean?

Well, wealth is a stock and GDP (income) is a flow, so the comparable variable would be median income, not median wealth. Irish median income is slightly higher than the UK's (as best as I can tell from some preliminary googling) but my guess is this is due in large measure to the parasitic (one might even say quasi-colonial) relationship between the City of London and the rest of the UK. From what I know of UK economic history the UK has been suffering from chronic underinvestment at least since the end of the 60s. None of this is inconsistent with the general point that imperialism is important for understanding global economic history, though. The observation that capitalists treat their own countries in ways that parallel the imperialist subjugation of foreign lands is not a new one.

 

[Samson]

Is this one of the situations where the median wealth is more revealing than the mean?

This is a classic example where median is a better position metric than the mean, because the distribution is so skewed. The problems for GDP is much more than that, because it is not really measuring what is important for anyone.

 

[Snowygerry]

This game of pass the buck is highly amusing. Criticize Israel? Antisemitic double standard! Criticize a European country? You're not criticizing Israel enough!

Yup, the chosen people, Belgians, Jews, Jehova’s witnesses, time will tell