I lived and worked in 6 African countries over 30 years. I was in Zambia from 1972 to 1975 at the rural research station Magoye. I returned to Zambia in 1992. Talking to some of my old Zambian friends I asked "How is Zambia after 20 odd years of freedom from colonialism?" One of my elderly Zambian friends looked up from his beer saying "When is the Queeny Elizabeth coming back? "
One of the reasons that the talk of the evils of the British empire is steadily increasing is because those who truly remember are dying off. That includes those in the judiciary, universities and civil service, as well as the children of first generation immigrants.
I was shocked that a Lefty like him even showed it, but one of Anthony Bourdain's travel shows had the folks in the Congo saying the same about the Belgians.
@@colinelliott5629 The main reason is because they are Marxist scum. They never care about freeing the locals to rule themselves. They just want zero competition for Marxist Colonization.
No, thank you. Leave us alone with our hunter gatherer life styles. We don't need yo presence any more, don't assume you are the originators of modern science, technology or civilisation. You have contributed thru the industrial revolution but don't for one bit that others will not contribute anything. Chinese, Indians are alreading making significant contributions whilst you continue waging wars all over the world😢
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us!? -Reg, spokesperson for the People’s Front of Judea
Do you get your information about colonialism from a comedy movie Monty Python's Life of Brian or you are being sarcastic? You do understand everything said on that movie is just jibes and jokes, don't you?
@@andyhorne9747 No. I read Dr. Gilley's article, and I have lived in a former British colony (Burma) for many years. Also I have read other things, like James Frazer's Golden Bough, so I know something about the cannibalism, headhunting, and human sacrifice that European colonialism ended. I know Burma was the wealthiest country in SE Asia during colonialism, and became the poorest shortly thereafter.
@@andyhorne9747 Nobody that I know of insists that modern European colonialism was 100% good. What people like Dr. Gilley are arguing is that it was more good than bad. I'm of the opinion that it was at least 50% positive, with colonialism being a convenient way for progressives to blame Whitey for the failures of non-white populations.
@@pannobhasa Unfortunately, very few people in this world believe Dr. Gilley's argument, which is his article has got him into a lot of trouble.Most of the historical facts against colonialism are either omitted or twisted by him, so you need to read the article I forward you earlier. In fact, a lot of rebuking articles against Gilley's speeches are on line. I think he's free to express his opinion, but don't dress it as so research he's done to fool people that hasn't had history lessons. And I don't also agree with you that there is a general failure of "non white populations" in this world, I think people are living very well in Japan, China and many middle east countries. However, the old colonial countries like USA, UK, France, Spain, Italy etc are in serious political, social and economic turmoil. So what do we do now, should China and Japan go colonise USA, France and UK first? Putin has certainly tried to colonise the USA and in my mind, he's succeed.
@@andyhorne9747 Well by golly if you believe that Putin has colonized the USA (or that the Chinese are living well), then that goes a long way to explain why you think Dr. Gilley is wrong, and why the hysterical attacks against him have some justification. As I've said before, I've lived in a former British colony, namely Burma, and I have often considered the greatest disaster ever to have befallen the Burmese to be independence from the British Empire.
Good stuff Bruce. A New Zealand citizen here, where all the anti-colonialization nonsense is ramping up at the political level. The problem is the radicals have found it easy to sieze the 'moral' highground by perpetuating a few ideas... and in a democracy, ideas tend to carry the day. The antidote has to be the reading of history.... but who reads these days? : (
Indeed, especially in New Zealand 🇳🇿, the Māori literally killed and cannibalized the other indigenous tribe, but somehow the white colonizers are the truely evil ones in that story.
I never believed that colonialism could be beneficial to the people on the receiving end. Then I looked at South Africa. This guy makes a lot of great points. I wish the people that disagreed had the maturity to debate the issue.
As a Russian a support it 100%! Had it not been for America, a British Empire creation, Russia wouldn’t have received their land lease of $11 trillion during the WW2 and wouldn’t have defined the Nazi with the help of America, Canada and Britain itself. My Jewish ancestors would have been killed, I would have never been born, and the whole world might’ve easily been submerged under the Nazi rule. Thank you, British colonialism. Thank you, America and Canada. Thank you, Britain. And thank you very honest and brave historian Bruce Gilley!
@@2russo.phobic4u Not quite the same thing, though, is it? The Russians just sort of "oozed" across Siberia like a particularly hungry amoeba, swallowing everything in their path. The British planted a very few colonies (America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa -- a Brit-Dutch joint venture :) The rest were territories they simply ruled over, largely with the cooperation of the natives, who preferred the law-based British rule to the tyrannical rule of their own kings, maharajas, or chiefs. If it had not been so, the British would have been kicked out pretty quickly, being grossly outnumbered in every case. In the Indian Rebellion of 1857, for example, the majority of the fighting on the British East India Company's side was done by Indian soldiers.
Thank you for putting your case so well. With professionally articulated argument, you provide invaluable information from which I continue to ascertain and study the facts. I hope that your argument wins hearts and minds, as I believe in the rule of law, which, when implemented well, provides a framework in which I feel I can live with trust and hope for the future. I believe the strength in your argument comes not only from wisdom and dedication but from a sincere belief in what you put forward. Many thanks for standing for what has required courage and fortitude. Best wishes to you.
This. I'm sick of the Roman hate. Life of Brian had a good reference to how they improved life in Judea but that's the onpy mainstream reference I'm aware of.
@@christopherkelley1664 The British of course adopted the role of coloniser just as the Romans were to them. "What did the British ever do for us?" works just as well haha
@@myamdane6895 It's almost as if the Romans passed the torch of Western civilization to the British, who spread it to far corners of the earth. The non-Western people of the world are buttmad that the Western civ cat is out of the bag and they're trying to stuff it back in. Strange times.
@@Ravi9A If you are living in the US and enjoying the good life, you might like to remember that you are on Native American land using their natural resources. You may also like to remember that the US would not exist had it not been for England (87% of the white colonial population were British at independence) , and it is English liberty that allows you to make such comments, self righteous and bigoted as they are, without fear. If you are from the sub-continent, you may want to remember your own ancestors dark imperial history of invasion and slavery. You are not the ones who stamped out slavery, cannibalism, etc. across the world. The irony I hope is not lost on you, but alas! 🤔
@@MB-sd9oz irony of what, the made up stories you barbarians tell each other to cope with being the literal worst people on the planet? I am not losing my sleep over the garbage jihadis believe either, and you belong in the same place.
Prof. Gilley was clearly speaking to a crowd of people who were either quietly hostile, (or more likely) SCARED to be canceled if they gave slightest hint that they could be interpreted as having enjoyed this talk. Note how few clap at the end. SCARED. Unlike HIM.
I am an Indian and I fully support Bruce....and I tried to get the journal article the "Case for Colonialism" and found the publishing *cowards'* feeble declaration...Here it is, "WITHDRAWAL NOTICE This Viewpoint essay has been withdrawn at the request of the academic journal editor, and in agreement with the author of the essay. Following a number of complaints, Taylor & Francis conducted a thorough investigation into the peer review process on this article. Whilst this clearly demonstrated the essay had undergone double-blind peer review, in line with the journal's editorial policy, the journal editor has subsequently received serious and credible threats of personal violence. These threats are linked to the publication of this essay. As the publisher, we must take this seriously. Taylor & Francis has a strong and supportive duty of care to all our academic editorial teams, and this is why we are withdrawing this essay."
Good to know that Taylor & Frances has such a commendable and laudable commitment to the safety of their academic teams....while not exhibiting the slightest care for Truth and the free expression of thoughts and ideas. And THAT, my friends, is how one political party goes about building an authoritarian state. "Ve are only trying to protect you! Now, get in zee showers!".
Read about Criminal tribes act introduced by the Britishers in 1871 that stigmatized entire tribal communities as "born criminals". Read about the land lord system that was abolished after independence .Read about the freedom fighters who were sent to cellular jail in Andaman simply for opposing the empire. This speaker talks as if global trade did not exist in pre colonial times while in reality even Ancient Rome had robust trade relations with India. He also conveniently ignores the numerous tribal and peasant uprising that happened during the British rule .
As a Guyanese who enjoyed life in a former British colony I endorse what Mr. Gilley says here. After independence, the country was ruined. It just makes commonsense that having resources does not make a country rich without adequate development and marketing.
After the British Raj took over India, in 1858, colonizers added a special new twist to the previous "tax-and-buy system". As the East India Company's monopoly broke down, Indian producers were allowed to export their goods directly to other countries. But Britain made sure that the payments for those goods nonetheless ended up in London. How did this work? Anyone who wanted to buy goods from India would do so using special Council Bills -a unique paper currency issued only by the British Crown. And the only way to get those bills was to buy them from London with gold or silver. So, traders would pay London in gold to get the bills, and then use the bills to pay Indian producers. When Indians cashed the bills in at the local colonial office, they were "paid" in rupees out of tax revenues - money that had just been collected from them. So, once again, they were not paid at all; they were defrauded. Meanwhile, London ended up with all the gold and silver that should have gone directly to the Indians in exchange for their exports. This corrupt system meant that even while India was running an impressive trade surplus with the rest of the world - a surplus that lasted for three decades in the early 20th century - it showed up as a deficit in the national accounts because the real income from India's exports was appropriated in its entirety by Britain. India was the goose that supplied golden eggs to the British Banksters. Meanwhile, the induced "deficit" meant that India had no option but to borrow from Britain to finance its imports. So, the entire Indian population was forced into completely unnecessary debt to their colonial overlords, further cementing British control. The "tax-and-buy system" in the context of colonialism refers to a practice used by colonial powers to extract wealth from their colonies. Here's a breakdown of the system: How it worked: Taxation: Colonial authorities imposed various taxes on the colonized population, including land taxes, income taxes, and indirect taxes on goods and services. Forced production: The colonies were often forced to specialize in the production of certain raw materials or cash crops, which benefited the colonizers' economies. Monopoly control: Colonial powers often set up monopolies on the trade of these raw materials, buying them from the colonies at artificially low prices and selling them at high profits in their own markets. Limited exports: Restrictions were placed on the exports from colonies to other countries, forcing them to rely on the colonizers for manufactured goods. Import dependence: The colonies were forced to import manufactured goods from the colonizers at inflated prices, further draining their resources. Consequences of the system: Exploitation of resources: The tax-and-buy system resulted in the depletion of natural resources and the exploitation of labor in the colonies. Economic stagnation: The colonies were unable to develop their own industries and remained dependent on the colonizers for manufactured goods. Poverty and inequality: The system led to widespread poverty and inequality in the colonies, as the vast majority of the wealth generated went to the colonizers. Examples of the system: British India: The British imposed a land tax (zamindari system) on Indian farmers, which they then used to buy Indian goods at low prices and sell them at high profits in Britain. French West Africa: The French forced African colonies to produce cash crops like cotton and peanuts, which were then sold in French markets. Belgian Congo: The Belgians forced Congolese people to work in rubber plantations, under brutal conditions, to meet the high demand for rubber in Europe. Overall, the tax-and-buy system was a key tool used by colonial powers to exploit the resources and labor of their colonies. It had devastating consequences for the economic and social development of many colonized countries. How delightfully erudite to extol the virtues of the British Empire's supposed altruistic magnanimity in eradicating the very institution of slavery, conveniently disregarding their own financial self-interest and centuries of profiting from the deplorable trade. Yes, surely the suppression of such a heinous practice necessitated the prowess of an imperial behemoth, replete with military might and fiscal clout. How utterly unique and unparalleled this achievement, achieved solely by the hallowed British Empire, as they gallantly pat themselves on the back while conveniently neglecting to mention the immeasurable suffering and exploitation they imposed on indigenous peoples across their vast dominions. The laws passed by Britain to end slavery did not end the practice immediately. While the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 abolished slavery in most British colonies, it came with several limitations and delays: Gradual Abolition: The Act did not free enslaved people instantly. Instead, it implemented a system of "apprenticeship" lasting six years for field workers and four years for skilled workers. Though not technically slaves, these apprentices were still bound to work for their former owners under conditions that were often harsh and exploitative. Exemptions: The Act exempted several areas from immediate abolition, including the territories in the possession of the East India Company, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and Saint Helena. Slavery continued in these areas for several more years. Compensation: The Act awarded significant financial compensation to slave owners for the loss of their "property." This raised ethical concerns and further burdened the British government financially. Colonial Resistance: Some colonies resisted implementing the Act and even enacted additional restrictions on the rights of former slaves. This meant that the reality of freedom differed greatly across the British Empire. Enforcement Challenges: Enforcing the Act effectively proved difficult, especially in remote areas. This led to continued instances of slavery and exploitation even after its official abolition.
But, the British were awful compared to who? I feel a lot of the criticism of the British doesn’t come from a genuine place, it always feels a lot more like a points scoring game of ‘your people were evil compared to my people’ 🙄
@@CB-dl1vg You talk as if atrocities must be weighed on some global scale to decide if they’re really that bad. It is crass to minimize colonial exploitations just because someone else may have done something worse in some other time in history. Purposefully starving millions of men, women and children to death, is one of the worst crimes, you do not need to rank it to some other tragedy and say "it wasn't that bad". Should we compare British atrocities like torturing and killing men, women and children in concentration camps to, say, the Mongol Empire’s brutality and somehow conclude, "Oh well, at least the British didn’t build pyramids of skulls"? That kind of thinking is the intellectual equivalent of playing in a moral sandbox, where the goal isn’t justice or accountability but merely finding the least dirty shovel to wave around. It reduces the very real suffering of colonized peoples to a perverse historical game of "who was worse" rather than grappling with the profound and lasting harm inflicted by imperialism. Criticism of the British Empire stems not from some juvenile need to one-up history’s other villains but from the very real, systematic, and deliberate subjugation, exploitation, and devastation that was inflicted on colonies for centuries. Being evil is not a comparative exercise. It's about accountability for the consequences of empire, irrespective of how others behaved. Surely, you can't shrug at the suffering of millions in concentration camps with a dismissive "Could’ve been worse!"
@@arunnaik3375 Yes actually I would prefer it if people started to mention all of atrocities of non white empires so people can be intellectually free from the false presumption that it is only white people who have subjugated others. The bias in which I hear people talk about empire is unbelievable, if somebody isn’t white they automatically talk as if they’re morally superior when speaking about the topic, a ‘look at what you did’ attitude not realising their people at some point in history will have almost guaranteed done the same thing. I don’t care about a ‘who was worse’ I care about intellectual honesty and that doesn’t involve ignoring 50% of the story and using one group as the scapegoat for all the evils of history. Its tiresome. The entitlement this attitude is giving some people is tiresome. And if you’re really honest with yourself, how many non white empires are you writing scathing paragraphs about? Probably non. Hence my point.
I'm very grateful to people like Dr. Gilley who speak up. Far too many University graduates are closed minded and not willing to hear anything except what-ever-nonsense is fashionable.
@@lawratify Do you need to signal virtue by enlightening us about how evil former colonialists were and how much better YOU are? I´m afraid, you are wrong in that. You are NOT automatically better than the colonial Brits or Belgians or French or others many years ago, we don´t buy that, sorry to disillude you !😭 - However, thanks for information on Congo, we already knew about it.
@@lawratify My god you ppl are ignorant. There are endless accounts of individuals who lived in former European colonies & who talk of being LUCKY to have been colonized.
@@danniwilder2198?? Where do you get that info from. I happen to know a few people from former colonies and there is a strong anti British sentiment there I can assure you. No1 is happy about beeing invaded. Why do you think most colonies eventually revolted and kicked out the colonial powers?
Thank you for defending something worthwhile. Has anyone written about what Africa wold have looked like if no Collonialists had set foot on the continent?
That would be "alternate history," a sort of fantasy science fiction. It would all be guesswork, as the factors are too numerous to make realistic predictions: it could have gone in any one of a couple of dozen different directions.
Well, there's a comic book called Black Panther. I prefer real heroes (and villains) over super ones, but it appears the fantasy of Wakanda is worthwhile to many. Magical thinking has its fans.
All he said doubly applies to Ireland. Economic immiseration has closely stalked ethnic chauvinism here. Just scratch the surface and it's seething below with anglophobia, atavistic blame and fat cats who know how to navigate it and thrive off it. But my country will never get truly rich while it drags this sack of heavy resentments. The most hackneyed and ridiculous totems and idols of national culture are subsidised long after they should be flying by themselves. The old language, dances, national cinema, everything is an open ended bleeding liability on the taxpayers pious but futile intentions. These thing should be making a profit but never will while Gov't charity hoses them with dollars.
Why does China call their colonisation '100 years of humiliation' and why did they go from being the worlds leading economy for thousands of years to one if the poorest. To again the second biggest economy in the last 100
My understanding is that all the worlds economies used to be agriculture based. The main thing that determined a country's total GDP during these times was how many workers & how much land you have to produce agricultural goods. China & India were considered rich because they had so many people & large amounts of land for them to work. GDP per capita was not higher than other countries, but total output was high due to population size= high agricultural output. When western countries went through the industrial revolution & started to mechanize farming they really pulled ahead. China also suffered from communism, famine, & poor leadership. When China started to industrialize and opened up to some free market reforms the economy boomed leading to its position today. Ethnic Chinese Hong Kong & Taiwan were insulated from the negative effects of communism because they were colonized & received development aid from the west. They are much richer than the rest of China today. "The century of humiliation" describes the Chinese governments military and territorial losses during this period. it's more of a government sentiment than a sentiment of the people. 90% of Chinese peasants lived away from affected areas & would not have experienced any changes in their daily lives. The fracture between Communist China & Taiwan was largely due to internal conflict rather than colonialism. The fracture between Hong Kong & China was due to colonialism but it likely didn't negatively effect the people living in these areas, it was just humiliating for the Chinese government. Hong Kong eventually benefitted from this separation up to modern times. Japanese conquests & British opium wars were certainly negative for China to some extent. I think the latter should be weighed against positive effects that Western trade & influence had on China. 1. Chinas economy didn't fall due to European colonialism as you implied. Western countries just pulled ahead relative to the rest of the world via industrialization. 2. British opium had a negative effect on China. Western trade, industry, & protection from communism more than makes up for it, & the western colonies were more successful.
I think the difficulty with this issue arrives when you move from the general to the particulars of colonialism. In a broad sense, it is true that the domination of less advanced societies by more advanced ones is a positive thing, thus rendering calls to end "neo-colonialism" emotional and fanciful ideology rather than a logical evaluation of how things are on the ground. However, colonial injustice and unwarranted brutality can't be denied. During the colonial era, harsh, cruel and completely unethical methods were used to suppress dissent, such as the large scale torture and internment in Kenya for example. The victims of these atrocities should not be forgotten and it should be understood that these abuses are the reason praising colonialism is frowned upon today. Despite the reality of this clearly unacceptable behaviour by colonial authorities, it should be recognised that a system of government should be evaluated in relation to the alternatives in the same era and location rather than with philosophical or modern conceptions of how governments should be run. Until very recently (and in many places this is still the case), almost every political and social system was held together by cruel violence against dissidents and rebels, as well as enemy powers, and unnecessary discrimination and barbarity was standard practice. This was the case everywhere in the world before colonialism just as much as after it. It is therefore dishonest to condemn colonialism on those grounds. I think the only way to rationally engage with colonial history is to evaluate fairly the aspects that had positive effects and those with negative effects without discarding either, then draw lessons from each to shape policy in the future. Anything else is an abuse of history.
True, but as the talk said the history of the oppression of those people before colonialization was not generally recorded, and some testimonies that have been show that the colonial rule was a relief from far worse injustices. Comparison in this case is important considering you’re weighing the overall benefit of colonialism. The unaccountable tribal rule sounds horrendous.
an observation ive found was that america was mostly wiped by disease not colonialism the bengal famine during ww2 was not churchills fault and he even requested food from the americans nearing the end of the war and while colonialism was brutal thats not saying much considering if I gave the ottomans european technology in an alternate timeline while europe was backwards lets say I guarantee the ottomans wouldve raped europe harder than nanking, and conquer most of the world
@@wesparsons5331 True, the regimes that European colonisers replaced weren't the utopias that modern day leftists and nationalists like to pretend they were, but to attribute benevolence to European powers or absolve them of serious human rights abuses would be dishonest.
@@alexrothwell2053 true, but back then every regime had serious human rights abuses. In other words as the speaker pointed out there were places that improved for the masses when the English colonised. I’m not saying this was because of benevolence but more likely the result of their judicial and governmental systems bang far superior to tribalism or other such prima systems.
The most hilarious, ironic and absurd thing about post-colonial studies, is that this movement emerges from theory out of the European academy in the French school. In other words, even the instruments, the vocabulary and the theory that has enabled the post structuralist critique of Europe was an act of extreme self-criticism by Europe. And almost all the debates are not happening in China or in Africa itself but in the English language in the anglosphere largely amongst the immigrant populations which are in those countries precisely because those countries are not what they accuse them of being. There's nothing funnier to watch then a indigenous person who is a professor at a university as a sign of protest spelling her name with all small letters, in order, as she claims, to resist white supremacist, colonial and patriarchal standards imposed on her by the oppressive systems of the colonizer, then putting "Ph.D." at the end of her name. If people wish to be truly decolonized then they should have been done the institutions that grant them authority and power and through which they demand everyone else shut up, which are, as they say, oppressive instruments of patriarchal colonial white supremacy. Go off and start your own. Dont be citing Badieu and Foucault, etc, do it in your own language, in your own academy, in your own institutions and in your own language. See who cares.
“But eventually, I got out of his headlock. And now, where are you, Father Eamonn Hunter? Working with some pygmies in the South Seas. And where am I? Here accepting a Golden Cleric award for being a top priest.”
Western civilization, is in the midst of a slow unstoppable suicide. All of its contributions to prosperity and humanity have been taken for granted, or at worst, even looked down upon in a tragic misinterpretaion. It is sad to see.
#1 people to blame is White Western Women. #2 is elite Jewish people. This is why I have higher hopes for the "smarter Asian" nations like Korea, Japan, Taiwan, India, Singapore, etc
African Proverb: Only a fool believes that the clouds obscure the splendor of the moon .The mind of fool is like a broken pot , it will hold no wisdom or matter the pouring of the Lord's Rain.
What needs to be looked at is how successful have ex colonial countries been since gaining their so called "freedom". In particular sub Saharan African countries?
How good would the west be without exporting all the wealth of these countries? Europe was a shithole continent, that’s why nobody wanted to invade and Europeans were desperate to leave.
@@davruck1 that’s not true, considering the times it was perhaps the most advanced country on earth. How do you think it was able to become one of the largest empires in history? It was making very good use of its own resources so was able to look abroad. If you think living under tyrannical chieftain rule sounds good why don’t you move to a nation that is run that way, instead of sitting in the luxury of the system you denounce?
@@wesparsons5331 lmao. Europe was not the most advanced. That’s why they had crippling plagues, filthy and malnutrition. There was feudalism and most people were dirt poor. Africans Indians and Americans welcomed the Europeans because they had plenty of resources to share. Europe stole wealth from these countries to become wealthy. They got many of their ideas about freedom and equality from the natives. Lmao Europe was in constant state of warfare because of their tyrannical leaders. All then wealth was hoarded by Royal families. The only reason Europe isn’t a current shithole is because of NATO. Now they meddle in African politics and install corrupt leaders while continuing to steal resources.
@@davruck1 so you’re saying a tiny country less advanced than most, desperately poor and sick conquered most of the world, ok cheers for the history lesson;)
Anyone is free to refute his statement, but what is not right, is to suppress freedom of speech on something that you dont agree with. That wouldn't be freedom of speech at all, we wouldn't have learnt anything.
Wrong on Amritsar! The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre at Amritsar was a result of the draconian Rowlatt Act which allowed the British colonial government to arrest anyone without trial who was suspected of sedition. Although, the culprit, General Dyer received no further employment in India, the butcher of Amritsar enjoyed a luxurious life in Britain where he was regarded as some kind of a hero. He never faced any trial for ordering the killing 500 innocent Indians and injuring another 1500 in a massacre which took just 10 minutes !!!
One of the biggest lies told about history is that before European colonists came, the native peoples were all peaceful, living in harmony. In reality, they were often at war with each other, tribe vs tribe. The Europeans weren't perfect either, but there is no denying that they brought a lot peace and prosperity to the places they colonized.
Although i understand the points made in this video, I believe the findings are inadequate...you cannot use an example on one woman's experience generalise it's the experience of many, if colonisation was so welcomed many indigenes it wouldn't have been resisted eg Ashanti, Igbos, Ethiopia, and many more. Hausa is just one part of Nigeria, there are 250 ethnic groups in Nigeria alone, and Africa has many more. I also believe to endorse colonisation is to promote a colonial mentality which was very wrong. Let's be clear imperalist's didn't come to develop societies, they came to exploit! And most of the structural developments was to aid the exploitation process. Kind of like how former empires like the romans did. Tipo Tip was evil but King Leopold was equally as evil. However I agree that Africa should learn from colonisation not ignore it. And definitely the introduction of christianity (which isn't European by the way, it's God's religion) and education were positive things. However, Colonisation was not a good thing, alot of evil and racism occured because of it, there're better ways to help societies develop than enforcing "effective occupation". However, diverse opinions and ideas should be encouraged i see no reason why his article should be taken down.
@@mil1330 not for all Africans maybe for the Hausa but the Benin empire didn't need Europe the Igbos too. Africa is so diverse and tbh Europeans brought many problems to Africa, I'm not stating that Africa was some Utopia but colonisation was not a better alternative. All Africa needed was trade and maybe more exposure to the global scene
@@spikefunakoshi5667 really? Do some research then you'll find out there are millions of Africans with a different story....colonisation was evil end of story.
@@spikefunakoshi5667 yes and this is one scenario in a very complex situation. Do you know colonisers built structures to harvest Africa's natural resources for their industries to the detriment of our development? If you read further you would find that there was a time Africans were prevented from developing their own products and were pressured to buy European products. Again, the problem I have with most people today is their inability to read widely and understand different perspectives. That's an interesting conversation you had with the woman however, did you stop to think why would they react that way? There is always a reason and by asking the question why one begins to uncover these complexities. From my research, former colonisers benefit from Africa's underdevelopment and they use dodgy means to keep it that way by meddling with our politics. The problem with Africa is that we have a history of bad leadership since the colonial times. All our good leaders were murdered and I have a very strong suspicion Europeans had something to do with it (see the case of Patrick Lumumba). It is even evident with the culture and progress Africans are able to make in foreign countries, for example Nigerians. Nigerians are the most educated and successful minority in the USA and one of the most educated and successful in the UK. So Africa is fine on it's own; we have the resources, we have the population, just terrible leadership, we don't need or want China. So, the truth is, we are all human beings and everyone has the ability to develop on their own, it would be ignorant to assume otherwise.
Professor Guiley if 10% of academia had your bravery and honesty we would live in a much less chaotic world. Agenda over truth is ugly. Most academics are living way below their moral potential. A couple mean ideologues push them and they bow the knee.
If you went to India 40 years ago when there were people alive who remembered the Raj, almost all had a very good impression of the colonial period and how well organised things were, and how much less corruption and honest were the courts.
Incredible !! Seeing white people still justifying colonialism, apartheid, slavery as a "good will" expedition! I was born right after the independence of my home country from a ruthless colonialism that killed part of my family, tortured, gazed, took over 99% of the land ..to enrich the colonials and export to Europe, while my uncles were forced either to work on their own land for pennies or to immigrate and be exploited to rebuild Europe after their "world" war ..where my uncles were drafted to go die ..for the empire that enslaved them back home. Colonialism did not end in the 60s. Neocolonialism took over after that, through the dollar, through the CFA franc, thtough imperialistic interventions destroying whole countries and impoverishing millions of people ( as the war criminal Allbright said " it's worth it") "Western " UNCIVILIZED Imperialism works this way: it strangles whole countries and regions with muderous embargos and sanctions killing millions of people. If those don't work or if those countries revolt the "civilized waste" organizes " humanitarian- military"( go figure) expeditions to "free" the people it strangled. Then those people flee...or come to the waste to avoid being killed. Then the waste complains it is invaded by "migranta" ..while its coporations cheer up for the new cheap labour and for the "reconstruction opportunities" . Here are a few books for those who are curious enough to go beyond the "good will colonial project " 1) How Europe underdevelopped Africa by Walter Rodney 2) Superimperialism : the origin and fundamental of US dominance ( by Michael Hudson) 3) Capitalism and slavery by Eric Williams ... 4) Killing hope by William Blum. 5) Rogue State by William Blum 6) How to hide an empire by Daniel Immerwahr 7) The Jakarta method by Vincent Bevins.
I applauded the bravery of Dr Gilley for continuing to speak out and write about the truth of Colonialism. This despite the credible death threats made against him. For free speech is another of those fundamental values bequeathed to us by our forefathers, and we should guard it jealously. I've read both Dr Gilley's paper: The case for Colonialism, and his biography on Sir Alan Burns: The last Imperialist. Both show that Colonialism had far more benefits than it did downsides, that's why the citizens of many former colonies look back on them as their golden age, because for the first time their families had opportunities to advance and thrive.
@@shebsheb8850 If we are to look at Colonialism objectively, we must acknowledge both the bad and the good. Its foolish to deny the good and exaggerate the bad just to satisfy our own political bigotry.
Aren't we all confusing colonialism with imperialism here ? Colonialism as in colonies are set up with large amount of people going from the mainland to the colony, and imperialism being the integration (and/or exploitation) with/by the empire's economy.
This is what I find quite ironic. Your opponents, Dr Gilley, refuse to allow anything good to be said about European nations colonizing in Africa and India... At the same time they call what was actually "colonialism' of the Iberian Peninsula by the Umayyad Caliphate in the early 8th century...a Golden Age.
I find this presentation mostly persuasive, but I urge every fair-minded listener to seek out and read or listen to the other side, the scholars and others whom the professor is attacking.
Sachenbush was totally backward until they put in the road to Templehall shops. It took them sometime to master the use of money and the concept of public decency but once the bus service went in they eventually learned how to assemble without stealing from each other.
Re-colonization can not be done due to demographics alone. The west is much smaller today and the 3.rd world much larger. Look at the last 20.years of western presence in Afganistan, how costly it has been and little support among the populations of the west for the presence of troops. Then scale it up 50.times. Re-colonisation will not happen.
I think when he talks about "re-colonizing", he's not talking about whole swaths of territory but rather small city-states. Hong Kong or Singapore-scale colonies.
@@MrJm323 No, he mentions specifically letters he have got from people in African countries. Nothing about city states.BTW. we have almost a semi-colonial policy though the aid and UN system. 50% of the African counties state budget comes as aid. 90% of the state budget in Ethiopia come from outside.
@CNN is Fake News What country is this? And I’m curious how this conversation would help address that problem? Is there any foreign influence at this point? If not, would learning about the benefits of colonialism really inspire another country come in and help attempt to colonize the region solely to impose human rights? Rather than for any other reason, say, oil?
@CNN is Fake News not necesaryly the islamic golden age happened while I certainly dont like the religion and maybe can be called somewhat of an islamophobe ackknowledge reality
Thanks for the virility of witness provided by Baba. As you say none of us would have expected to defend the witness of our mentors- to run so many kindergarten classes, It seems to me the lack of genuine experience of economic development is part of what keeps many in the West in the childish chains of thinking they think like scientists when they have tested nothing but a screen shot. Let me suggest, as an ecologist who supports the idea of colonization, that we avoid the untidy witness of our own antecedents ignorance and the overly ambitious industrial approach to sensitive ecosystems and RATHER assert that the reactionary idealists have chosen an action which is not bad.( ie finding more food) As usual monists fail to recognize that they can't name the evil ,( by just badgering us with colonization ) and therefore can't grow to let others to see the important joys of finding productivity in HOW to do things better , together. It"s OK mate to go search for food ( to set up a colony ) and to do it together or by sharing technology and custody of the resources used.The rest is as you well point out whether we share justly and bring to justice those who truly trespass. ... Let's be among the first moderns to remind ourselves that Yahweh has no territory and that we are only custodians as the first peoples of any country ( if not stuck in the last century Marxists ) can also accept. ecomia.blogspot.com
I will give you an example: In Zambia the colonial fisheries and wildlife dept had a law that limited the size of river fishing nets to 100mm square. Within a couple of years of independence the locals were using nets with mesh size of 10mm, cleaning out the rivers of all fish. This took place because the fisheries officer was taking bribes. I know this to be true because I was working in Zambia at the time. The fishing net law was common sense and conservation, nothing to do with colonial exploitation.
Most of the non-Western world is acutely aware that they didn't achieve scientific and industrial revolutions and that almost literally everything around them is due to these imported foreign achievements- the understanding is widespread and there's much respect for westerners.
It might be worth considering what your life would be like, and in fact the lives of millions of western individuals, if your/our life and the culture you know were in fact colonized. You are of a western persuasion. Do you still defend colonization if, say, the U.S. or parts of Canada are colonized by Chinese forces, thereby forced to adopt a new language, dress, education, belief system, government, alphabet, etc. Not to mention the military forces used to colonize your land that you would be called to defend militarily. No doubt the Chinese (or some other world power) could justify such colonization the same you are justify western colonization. The fact is, you don't know what you might lose as a result of being colonized. While I applaud your effort to defend the western front, you might imagine what your life would be like if you were the colonized.
The whole point is that Western colonizers were morally right and beneficial to the colonized. By contrast, non-Western imperialism has always been murderous and with little redeeming value.
Danny Gutierrez: ...."...You might imagine what your life would be like if you were the colonized." Why would you need to 'imagine' it? How do you think northern Europeans were civilized to begin with? (Or the Romans themselves -- the people of Latium. Was conquest by the Etruscans a long term benefit to them? I think it was; even though they would kick them out a couple centuries later. The Etruscans brought ideas they themselves received from the Greeks.) The fact is not all imperial actions are harmful to the conquered. In the case of the Peoples Republic of China, one would ask if Chinese conquest of North America would bring improvements -- whether in terms of culture, science and scientific methodology, political rights and procedures, etc. I wonder if your mistaken premise is actually the popular multiculturalist nonsense that "all cultures are equal" (of equal value, and that no one can learn from another nor should they appropriate the alien's culture). ....But, you might still ask, "why would this require CONQUEST -- or the imposition of force by the allegedly superior society?" The answer (at least in some cases) is that the weaker society is often ruled by a clique who would not allow the beneficial ideas to be introduced, or simply fear the loss of their own power and status. (Example: Who abolished chattel slavery in Africa? Not the Africans and not the Muslims. Gordon of Khartoum was killed because he was interfering with the "right" of Muslims in the Horn of Africa to continue acquiring and selling slaves seized from the interior of Africa. Local African rulers often benefited from the slave trade and resented do-gooders like Dr. Livingstone.) Does a local ruling clique have the right to prevent others in their society from trading with outsiders or from appropriating the new ideas? ...And, if you say, "Yes!", then WHY would these local rulers have a right to interfere with the flow of ideas or trade goods? Is it just because the local rulers are of the same race as the their oppressed subjects? When we speak of "rights", who is it that is entitled to invoke "rights": the local rulers or is it individual persons living within each society? What entity ultimately has rights -- in the most fundamental sense? Collective groups or individual human beings?
Bruh literally every square inch of the western world was conquered and colonized and handed between occupying forces. Just like every other civilization before it across the whole world. You act like the west doesn't get. The west gets it most of all.
As someone whose hometown was colonized by opportunistic economic immigrants I have some idea what it's like. Replacement and colonization are of course different things, however.
I personally dont think colobialism OVERALL WAS GOOD. BUT the idea that anything could never possibly be good if it has ties to colonialism is also an emotional anti critical way of thinking.. Even if u disagree you have to learn the ideas and ideologies and intentions behind things like this or you will never really know why what u think is wrong is wrong. In law the aaying is -A lawyer who knows only his side Of the case knows very very little of that. This saying is perennially true.
Any act, such as colonialism, that violates an individual’s fundamental rights and freedoms-whether through the imposition of foreign domination, the exploitation of resources, or the subjugation of a people-is *inherently malevolent* The deliberate plundering of wealth, cultures, and identities for the benefit of the oppressor is a grievous moral transgression. When such acts are further compounded by atrocities like pillaging, which strips communities of their dignity and livelihoods, or the establishment of concentration camps, where human suffering is institutionalized on an industrial scale, the *evil becomes undeniable* These violations represent a complete disregard for the sanctity of human life and autonomy. They reduce individuals to mere commodities or obstacles in the pursuit of power, profit, or territorial expansion, stripping them not only of their freedom but also of their humanity. Systems like colonialism are sustained by violence, coercion, and the dehumanization of the oppressed, and they inherently perpetuate suffering, inequality, and trauma that resonate across generations. Infringing on someone’s liberty or subjecting them to degradation through war crimes and systemic abuse is not only ethically indefensible, but it also stands as a crime against the very essence of human civilization. Such actions, whether in the guise of political control or economic exploitation, are not mere aberrations of history but serve as stark reminders of what happens when empathy and justice are replaced by greed and domination. True evil lies not just in the brutality of these acts but in the systems that normalize and justify them under the guise of "progress," "civilization," or "security."
Here's how I see it: I'd hate to denigrate any ethnic group. We're all God's Children. But if we're going to advance, we need to pick the best ideas from the widest array of peoples from all around the world. Learn from everyone and absorb their best ideas, and reject their worst ideas. Many Europeans after a certain point became seafaring and trading peoples, and absorbed a lot of good ideas. They also learned a great deal about what didn't work, not least from the mistakes they made in their own stupid wars. But they learned. And they learned a lot. And they shared. And so if we're talking about later colonialism, it should be regarded as undeniable that there were many, many good things that the European peoples knew, that could be shared with third world peoples. That's not to say that some wisdom from aforesaid peoples was ignored or rejected. And since all men are sinners, of course there were inexcusable depredations and exploitations against third world peoples. But our historical assessments should be based on a fair examination of all the evidence. And we should reject judgments based primarily on knee-jerk condemnations of Europeans by virtue signaling ideologues just because Europeans are white.
It reminds of the *What have the Romans done for US?* sketch in Monte Python's Life of Brian. To twist an old saying of Descartes' is a mass movement of people who believe, I'm outraged, therefore I am.
Being less evil than our contemporaries also doesn't. But trying to judge good from bad using modern values and anti-European propaganda is equally bad.
I am a Marxist, and I like Gilley's argument. But I think he's wrong in some deep ways here. Let's grant the better outcomes of colonialism compared to sultanates and feudalism, and let's grant the tragic foolishness of anti-colonial nationalism. I see Gilley's work as an understandable reaction to the narrowness, myopia, moralism and factual errors of postcolonial studies. But 3 points. One is "likely" alternatives. The empires had the tech and education to cooperatively collaborate with the less developed societies. That was very unlikely on both sides, but the core of political aspiration and freedom is what is physically possible, and that is the alternative people want. Saying only what likely would've happened otherwise side steps this problem and can be used to defer all social progress at all times. Many great, crucial things were unlikely. Second, and following from this is the idea of advanced helping primitive. In the big picture, yes of course, but crucially we are now finding as we face extinction and many social and psychological problems of modernity, that the primitive culture also had something to teach the empire. That it may be less than vice versa, doesn't make it less crucial to humanity's long term survival and happiness. The superior culture was not superior in all aspects, and we are paying for it now. FInally, and biggest of all, what is wrong is revealed when he tried to counter the claim of stealing resources. He says, hey, there is no other way to develop the economy but to do this. You need exploitation if you want the tech and infrastructure and skills to get the wealth in the first place, so objecting to this is not only nonsense- it' s ungrateful. But, you only need to think of the american revolution against the British to see the problem here. Without monarchy , taxation, british education, and empire, there would be no US to free from King George, nor the skills to make it work. But the Americans looked at what this process of colonization was making possible, as it was happening, and realized this means there is a third option now, and insisted on that. That's because it was physically possible even if politically unlikely. So Gilley really misses marxism's point and confuses it with simple nationalism or xenophobia ,where the locals just don't like outsiders benefiting from their stuff. But that very encounter, the very combined ideals and resources of the cultures, especially the empire's- gives rise to a third better possibility. This cooperative possibility is overlooked by the empire, both its greedy and altruistic agents, because it won't disproportionately benefit a small class of people who run the thing. Fast forward to 2022 ,and at this late date we now know there were many different ways to development. Basically every system of the 20th century built literacy, infrastructure, wealth, health in terms of development- though they were warped by war. You could've even had worker owned (rather than capitalist) enterprises in a market. Nowadays, we could have a non market economy planned democratically and via AI and computers. Or, a capitalist economy with a massive universal income wage. There is not only one way to skin a cat. Just as Gilley correctly points out there are many bad forms of sovereignty and local rule, and bad ways out of being a colony, so are there were and are ways to develop and keep the peace without being subject to foreign exploitation and domination.
It is not clear what he is saying. Nobody has seriously argued that colonialism achieved nothing worthy. That has never been the issue. The issue is more that colonialism was not motivated by philanthropic agendas, that its policies were not uniformly applied everywhere, or fair, that it created as many divisions among peoples as it developed new institutions, that it overwhelmingly advanced notions of racial and ethnic hierachies, that it took it upon itself to define, with such dubious terms as "Bantu", etc etc. Colonialism has a mixed record because it was born of a conflicted agenda, to exploit, and to develop, to emancipate, and to settle, to redeem, and to condemn. Examples that are used, such as endemic corruption, "tribalism", and bad governance in former colonies, should be viewed, to some extent, as an inevitable consequence of bad colonial and neo colonial policies. Finally, it is ridiculous to accredit Singaporean economic and social success to colonialism. Their success is the outcome of a uniquely South East Asian kind of willpower and discipline in leadership and which can as well be seen in Japan, South Korea, North Korea, China, and increasingly, in Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and Malyasia.
The question then becomes why all this "uniquely South East Asian kind of willpower" did not occur before European non-settler colonialism (or the American occupation of Japan)?
As noted. Nobody can argue that European colonialism achieved nothing commendable. The issue is how much credit should be given to European colonialism for current successes, and similarly, how much responsibility European colonialism should accept for negative outcomes in former colonies. These are useful discussions to have if their intention is to arrive at truth and reconciliation. That is not an easy task given the delicacy of the subject matter for all concerned. Nobody wants to be thought of as an oppressor, anymore than does one enjoy the sense of inferiority that comes from being a subject people. I find that a focus on human dignity helps to guide the manner in which these subjects can be handled usefully. For example, it is bound to lead to antagonism if we restrict history to the past 500 years. If we create awareness about the achievements of all humans over thousands of years, it becomes plainly obvious that at different moments, some cultures are in the ascendancy whilst others are in decay or stasis. It is also important to emphasize how interconnected everything is. In reality, all cultures and civilizations feed off each other. What matters is discerning the best ideas, from wherever they have arisen, and universalizing them. Japan went from feudalism to industrialization in record time, about 40 years, before American occupation. Japan was fielding aircraft carriers, fighter jets, and submarines , in World War 2. An unbelievable feat. They were a formidable power. Of course, they were implementing European ideas, however, absolutely nobody has the degree of high organization and capacity for productivity and excellence of Japan. They are entirely unique. You cannot teach their level of all round excellence and perfectionism. It is cultural.
Colonialism destroyed Egypt, Nubia, Timbuktu, Poland (for a brief period), India, Vietnam, and many more civilizations. If colonization were so great why did Spain fight so hard to expel the moors in 1492 after 700 years of peace, prosperity, and cultural advancement? If you love colonialism so much, why don't you allow yourselves to be colonized and exploited, the way you did others? It's tragic how many people are ignorant about real history, and not the propaganda that they have been force-fed. That's why it is so easy mislead people and give them a false sense of superiority and morality.
Minus the economic exploitation especially from the Netherlands and Belgium who literally lost one third of their annual revenue when they lost their colonies.
"Which ran from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s." I see. So that's from roughly 1805-06 to roughly 1905-06, eh? An odd period of time to choose. Or, perhaps, Prof. Gilley actually means to say: "...from the middle of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century?" Answer this: If "1800s" means 1800-1899, how do we describe the ten-year period from 1800 to 1809, given that ALL subsequent ten-year spans are labelled after the starting year, viz. the 1810s (eighteen tens), the 1820s (eighteen twenties) etc. etc.?
@@MrJm323 "Eighteen-hundreds" is what we called the period 1800-1809 up until a few years ago. (The year 1800 is termed "the year eighteen-hundred.") Just as the following decade is pronounced "eighteen-tens." The decade after that is the eighteen-twenties (1820s). I repeat my original question: if people have decided to call the 19th century the "eighteen hundreds," WHAT do we call the decade 1800-1809? I was born in 1949. For most of my life people would have said I was born in the mid-20th century: only recently have people started saying "mid-1900s." No, no: it was my grandfather who was born in the mid-1900s.
@@DieFlabbergast No. It is just as I explained (two years ago, apparently). In fact, when I was a kid in primary school (the 1970s), history teachers still frequently used the expression "1800s" when they were speaking of the 19th century. ...It's true, that they would frequently refer to the years of the first decade of a century as the "...hundreds" (such as the "1900s" for 1900-1909), which would cause some confusion. Sometimes, to avoid such confusion, they would speak of the "nineteen-aughts". So, if you told me, cold, that your grandfather was born in "the mid-1900s", I would assume you mean the 1940s or '50s, perhaps. To be clearer, you'd have to say, "he was born sometime in the first decade of [the twentieth century] or [the first decade of the 1900s]." ...Otherwise, I'd ask for clarification on that.
@@MrJm323 Well, I was in primary school in the 1950s, and I went on to a grammar school in the 1960s and to St. Catherine's College of the University of Oxford in 1969-1971, and I can tell you that no educated person during that time frame would have used anything other than "the 19th century" to describe the 100 years from 1800 to 1899. I have lived since 1976 in Japan, so I don't speak modern English, I speak 1960s-1970s English. This is one of the linguistic changes that have occurred when I was away, so to speak. Yes, of course, languages change (you don't have to tell me that; spoken Japanese and even written Japanese have changed quite a bit since I arrived here). But the fact remains, this is a particularly illogical and annoying change. Other than declining standards of education, I can't see any good reason for it. And I will continue to complain about it, for my own amusement, if nothing else.
actually in multiple cases europe actually brought some semblance of stability, and secondly saying that could also refer to africa which was infighting each other to take slaves to sell to europe
This occurs in every country. There are downsides but also developments in medicine and improved trade and agricultural advances were often introduced, allowing increased quality of life in the long term.
I see you have a Muslim name. Tell us about islamic jihad around the Mediterranean area. Also of islamic jihad in North Central Africa in 2024 Nigeria, Cameroon, Centre Afrique, Kenia, Uganda and South Sudan. Come come don’t be shy.
Yeah we killed a few by bringing in guns and few more by taking away food. But see, the rail roads we built to do that *made you rich*. Makes great sense. And there's no point in arguing about the accuracy of data, when the expert specializes in systematic distortion of data.
@@darwinkilledgod they definitely went down because they replaced our food crops with cash crops and people starved to death. If you die of malnutrition and disease, you can't die by violence, can you?
@@reddipallisharath7273 😂😂 if you can't defeat them with logic, or appealing to their sensibilities, smite them with some heavy sarcasm. Hats of to you, wise sage! It's impossible to get any logic across to these colonial apologists.
@@sca8217 you boys stick to your sarcasm and the adults will keep speaking in terms of logic and evidence. When you learn how to engage with those things you can leave the kids table and join the discussion.
@@sca8217 problem is, he isn't defeating anyone because there is no logic behind insisting food crops were replaced by cash crops and so people starved. Why? Because how do you continue to grow cash crops if your farmers have starved to death? And if you grow cash crops doesn't that means you get cash for your crop and go from subsistence farming to earned income? Then there is the embarrassing fact the India's population absolutely exploded under British rule thanks to improved agricultural practices which led to vastly more cultivated land which in turn led to population growth. Populations don't grow in times of famine, they do grow in times of plenty. So drop your RSS propaganda and get some facts and logic.
Courageous. Please improve your essay and publish it, after all! I guess that - contrary to actual holocaust deniers - Noam Chomsky won't speak up in favor of your freedom of speech.
Is this man being threatened with imprisonment? Or even been arrested. Is he facing a legal battle after recieving a summons? Has he been sacked from his job? No. You just can't tell the difference.
There is an argument to be made that representative government is not all that great as it is made to be. Representative government at the level of extrinsic factors such as religion, race, language and region have the effect of turning neighbour against neighbour and making it profitable for people to be defiant of one another and entrench and intensify their differences as opposed to building bridges. This is because representative government as conceived by the British is structured so that people can subscribe to benefits from the state independent of their association with their neighbours, based on extrinsic factors such as religion, sect, language etc. Not only does this form of representative government encourage people to turn on their neighbour, it encourages people to invest in standing out as far from their neighbours as possible. Curiously, under British rule and the system of representative government which was their idea, people started parading their orthodoxies more intensely - why - because it was more profitable to do so. You could, in a way, directly trace the rise of extremely orthodox Islam in the present day such as that of the Wahabbists and the Tablighis, and the power and agency given them under the guise of communally representative government. To the colonial authority sitting above, this may seem as an affirmation of diversity! “See, all my people are proudly showing off their distinctiveness under my benign rule!” But in reality, this is merely people being entrenched in their distinctiveness from and defiance of one another and pressing their separate demands from the state which rules over them all. This is not a cooperative society but an internally competitive one. Representative government makes separatism - and communal competition - profitable. There is an argument to make that colonial government without representative government based on extrinsic communal factors may have been more convivial than colonial government with representative government. While the autocratic government prior to European colonial governments may have been variously brutal and primitive, it cannot be used as an excuse in those several cases in their multitude where neighbour did not turn on neighbour due to the warped incentives of representative government based on extrinsic differences. So, mixed bag.
Wake me up when “the case for slavery” is published. Using a utilitarian approach ANYTHING can be defended… unfortunately the pesky details of morality get in the way… sorry guys
Colonialism has always caused more problems than it solved. Colonialism is responsible for the violence from the get go. The borders of Africa made in 1885 were not designed to be independent nation-states, of course, because they were meant to be exploited for rubber, sugar, coffee, cocoa, diamonds, gold, and white settlement. The Middle East had minority leaders who would brutally repress the majority. Studies have shown that colonized territories had retarded economic growth, as by definition the profits from any economic activity would go to the host nation. In fact, during the period of 1815-1870, half the Dutch annual budget came from taxes in Indonesia alone, where farmers were forced to plant one fifth of their fields with export crops (sugar, coffee) and harvest for the Dutch. It's hard to imagine the Dutch were not better off from this arrangement, and therefore the Indonesians were worse off. This apologetic argument is the same the South made to justify slavery in the 19th century, the same Spaniards made to enforce Indians into plantation labor way back in the 16th century (we give you Christianity, education, European cultural goods and values, you give us your unfree unpaid labor and we pocket all profits in perpetuity).
They take free speech seriously in Texas. The "Draw Mohammed" contests are testament to that. They defended it with guns. Definitely not messing around down there.
The end justifies the means. All ethics are situational. It's just collateral damage no worries. You can't make an omelette with breaking the eggs. Who better than a descendant of the colonizers to explain that to us. I like that it's being held in Texas. It's very fitting
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
I lived and worked in 6 African countries over 30 years. I was in Zambia from 1972 to 1975 at the rural research station Magoye.
I returned to Zambia in 1992. Talking to some of my old Zambian friends I asked "How is Zambia after 20 odd years of freedom from colonialism?"
One of my elderly Zambian friends looked up from his beer saying "When is the Queeny Elizabeth coming back? "
One of the reasons that the talk of the evils of the British empire is steadily increasing is because those who truly remember are dying off.
That includes those in the judiciary, universities and civil service, as well as the children of first generation immigrants.
I was shocked that a Lefty like him even showed it, but one of Anthony Bourdain's travel shows had the folks in the Congo saying the same about the Belgians.
@@colinelliott5629 The main reason is because they are Marxist scum.
They never care about freeing the locals to rule themselves. They just want zero competition for Marxist Colonization.
Isn’t China now building infrastructure in Zambia? And I hear the Chinese don’t steal from the Africans the way the British did.
No, thank you. Leave us alone with our hunter gatherer life styles. We don't need yo presence any more, don't assume you are the originators of modern science, technology or civilisation. You have contributed thru the industrial revolution but don't for one bit that others will not contribute anything. Chinese, Indians are alreading making significant contributions whilst you continue waging wars all over the world😢
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us!? -Reg, spokesperson for the People’s Front of Judea
Do you get your information about colonialism from a comedy movie Monty Python's Life of Brian or you are being sarcastic? You do understand everything said on that movie is just jibes and jokes, don't you?
@@andyhorne9747 No. I read Dr. Gilley's article, and I have lived in a former British colony (Burma) for many years. Also I have read other things, like James Frazer's Golden Bough, so I know something about the cannibalism, headhunting, and human sacrifice that European colonialism ended. I know Burma was the wealthiest country in SE Asia during colonialism, and became the poorest shortly thereafter.
@@andyhorne9747 Nobody that I know of insists that modern European colonialism was 100% good. What people like Dr. Gilley are arguing is that it was more good than bad. I'm of the opinion that it was at least 50% positive, with colonialism being a convenient way for progressives to blame Whitey for the failures of non-white populations.
@@pannobhasa Unfortunately, very few people in this world believe Dr. Gilley's argument, which is his article has got him into a lot of trouble.Most of the historical facts against colonialism are either omitted or twisted by him, so you need to read the article I forward you earlier. In fact, a lot of rebuking articles against Gilley's speeches are on line. I think he's free to express his opinion, but don't dress it as so research he's done to fool people that hasn't had history lessons. And I don't also agree with you that there is a general failure of "non white populations" in this world, I think people are living very well in Japan, China and many middle east countries. However, the old colonial countries like USA, UK, France, Spain, Italy etc are in serious political, social and economic turmoil. So what do we do now, should China and Japan go colonise USA, France and UK first? Putin has certainly tried to colonise the USA and in my mind, he's succeed.
@@andyhorne9747 Well by golly if you believe that Putin has colonized the USA (or that the Chinese are living well), then that goes a long way to explain why you think Dr. Gilley is wrong, and why the hysterical attacks against him have some justification. As I've said before, I've lived in a former British colony, namely Burma, and I have often considered the greatest disaster ever to have befallen the Burmese to be independence from the British Empire.
Good stuff Bruce. A New Zealand citizen here, where all the anti-colonialization nonsense is ramping up at the political level. The problem is the radicals have found it easy to sieze the 'moral' highground by perpetuating a few ideas... and in a democracy, ideas tend to carry the day. The antidote has to be the reading of history.... but who reads these days? : (
Indeed, especially in New Zealand 🇳🇿, the Māori literally killed and cannibalized the other indigenous tribe, but somehow the white colonizers are the truely evil ones in that story.
Please keep the faith dear professor , God bless you for seeking truth ...
I'm Nigerian. I came here for a different perspective and civil discourse around colonialism. People manufacture fragility.
I never believed that colonialism could be beneficial to the people on the receiving end. Then I looked at South Africa. This guy makes a lot of great points. I wish the people that disagreed had the maturity to debate the issue.
As a Trini, I endorse this
Professor Gilley is a brilliant, brave man. THANK YOU for speaking truth to shady powers.
He’s a brilliant academic this bloke. Far braver than I.
Colonialism should be defended. It works. It helps backwater primitive regions become modern productive countries.
As a Russian a support it 100%!
Had it not been for America, a British Empire creation, Russia wouldn’t have received their land lease of $11 trillion during the WW2 and wouldn’t have defined the Nazi with the help of America, Canada and Britain itself.
My Jewish ancestors would have been killed, I would have never been born, and the whole world might’ve easily been submerged under the Nazi rule.
Thank you, British colonialism.
Thank you, America and Canada.
Thank you, Britain.
And thank you very honest and brave historian Bruce Gilley!
Russian likes imperialism and colonialism... Now that is a stereotype confirmed.
And Australia!
@@2russo.phobic4u Not quite the same thing, though, is it? The Russians just sort of "oozed" across Siberia like a particularly hungry amoeba, swallowing everything in their path. The British planted a very few colonies (America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa -- a Brit-Dutch joint venture :) The rest were territories they simply ruled over, largely with the cooperation of the natives, who preferred the law-based British rule to the tyrannical rule of their own kings, maharajas, or chiefs. If it had not been so, the British would have been kicked out pretty quickly, being grossly outnumbered in every case. In the Indian Rebellion of 1857, for example, the majority of the fighting on the British East India Company's side was done by Indian soldiers.
Thank you for putting your case so well. With professionally articulated argument, you provide invaluable information from which I continue to ascertain and study the facts. I hope that your argument wins hearts and minds, as I believe in the rule of law, which, when implemented well, provides a framework in which I feel I can live with trust and hope for the future.
I believe the strength in your argument comes not only from wisdom and dedication but from a sincere belief in what you put forward. Many thanks for standing for what has required courage and fortitude. Best wishes to you.
I wished he did one on Roman colonization of Europe and what they brought to Europe.
This. I'm sick of the Roman hate. Life of Brian had a good reference to how they improved life in Judea but that's the onpy mainstream reference I'm aware of.
@@christopherkelley1664 The British of course adopted the role of coloniser just as the Romans were to them. "What did the British ever do for us?" works just as well haha
@@myamdane6895 It's almost as if the Romans passed the torch of Western civilization to the British, who spread it to far corners of the earth. The non-Western people of the world are buttmad that the Western civ cat is out of the bag and they're trying to stuff it back in. Strange times.
I'm a british soldier. Thank you for returning our honour to us. It's been too long, that what we brought to the world, is viewed as an eternal evil.
You should also thank Pakistanis for teaching white British kids sex education with their gangs.
You can't have what's imaginary, bud. Your soul will have to deal with the eternal dishonor.
@@Ravi9A If you are living in the US and enjoying the good life, you might like to remember that you are on Native American land using their natural resources. You may also like to remember that the US would not exist had it not been for England (87% of the white colonial population were British at independence) , and it is English liberty that allows you to make such comments, self righteous and bigoted as they are, without fear.
If you are from the sub-continent, you may want to remember your own ancestors dark imperial history of invasion and slavery. You are not the ones who stamped out slavery, cannibalism, etc. across the world. The irony I hope is not lost on you, but alas! 🤔
@@MB-sd9oz I am not. Meaningless gotcha anyway.
@@MB-sd9oz irony of what, the made up stories you barbarians tell each other to cope with being the literal worst people on the planet? I am not losing my sleep over the garbage jihadis believe either, and you belong in the same place.
Prof. Gilley was clearly speaking to a crowd of people who were either quietly hostile, (or more likely) SCARED to be canceled if they gave slightest hint that they could be interpreted as having enjoyed this talk. Note how few clap at the end. SCARED. Unlike HIM.
I noticed this also.
refreshing to hear a different perspective on this topic and with a mountain of previously ignored evidence
German togoland was described as "the perfect colony" due to the fact they treated them well and improved and made the land much better
in german-east Africa they had the best colonial schools out of every European empire I think
In deutsch-süd-west they did a genocide.
So wow.
The Germans committed
genocide in Africa
I am an Indian and I fully support Bruce....and I tried to get the journal article the "Case for Colonialism" and found the publishing *cowards'* feeble declaration...Here it is,
"WITHDRAWAL NOTICE
This Viewpoint essay has been withdrawn at the request of the academic journal editor, and in agreement with the author of the essay. Following a number of complaints, Taylor & Francis conducted a thorough investigation into the peer review process on this article. Whilst this clearly demonstrated the essay had undergone double-blind peer review, in line with the journal's editorial policy, the journal editor has subsequently received serious and credible threats of personal violence. These threats are linked to the publication of this essay. As the publisher, we must take this seriously. Taylor & Francis has a strong and supportive duty of care to all our academic editorial teams, and this is why we are withdrawing this essay."
sam here
cancel culture moment
tragic. gangster activism
Good to know that Taylor & Frances has such a commendable and laudable commitment to the safety of their academic teams....while not exhibiting the slightest care for Truth and the free expression of thoughts and ideas. And THAT, my friends, is how one political party goes about building an authoritarian state. "Ve are only trying to protect you! Now, get in zee showers!".
Read about Criminal tribes act introduced by the Britishers in 1871 that stigmatized entire tribal communities as "born criminals". Read about the land lord system that was abolished after independence .Read about the freedom fighters who were sent to cellular jail in Andaman simply for opposing the empire. This speaker talks as if global trade did not exist in pre colonial times while in reality even Ancient Rome had robust trade relations with India. He also conveniently ignores the numerous tribal and peasant uprising that happened during the British rule .
It’s just as well there are honest and courageous people like Prof Gilley to be found in academia. Sadly, all too few of them.
Thank you, Dr Gilley.
Tell us where he is being dishonest.
"What did the Romans ever do for us? "
Are you the Judean peoples front?
As a Guyanese who enjoyed life in a former British colony I endorse what Mr. Gilley says here. After independence, the country was ruined. It just makes commonsense that having resources does not make a country rich without adequate development and marketing.
Thank you for your work. I'd like to see such analysis on N. America too. You're saying a lot of what I've been thinking for a long time.
After the British Raj took over India, in 1858, colonizers added a special new twist to the previous "tax-and-buy system". As the East India Company's monopoly broke down, Indian producers were allowed to export their goods directly to other countries. But Britain made sure that the payments for those goods nonetheless ended up in London. How did this work? Anyone who wanted to buy goods from India would do so using special Council Bills -a unique paper currency issued only by the British Crown. And the only way to get those bills was to buy them from London with gold or silver. So, traders would pay London in gold to get the bills, and then use the bills to pay Indian producers. When Indians cashed the bills in at the local colonial office, they were "paid" in rupees out of tax revenues - money that had just been collected from them.
So, once again, they were not paid at all; they were defrauded. Meanwhile, London ended up with all the gold and silver that should have gone directly to the Indians in exchange for their exports. This corrupt system meant that even while India was running an impressive trade surplus with the rest of the world - a surplus that lasted for three decades in the early 20th century - it showed up as a deficit in the national accounts because the real income from India's exports was appropriated in its entirety by Britain. India was the goose that supplied golden eggs to the British Banksters. Meanwhile, the induced "deficit" meant that India had no option but to borrow from Britain to finance its imports. So, the entire Indian population was forced into completely unnecessary debt to their colonial overlords, further cementing British control.
The "tax-and-buy system" in the context of colonialism refers to a practice used by colonial powers to extract wealth from their colonies. Here's a breakdown of the system:
How it worked:
Taxation: Colonial authorities imposed various taxes on the colonized population, including land taxes, income taxes, and indirect taxes on goods and services.
Forced production: The colonies were often forced to specialize in the production of certain raw materials or cash crops, which benefited the colonizers' economies.
Monopoly control: Colonial powers often set up monopolies on the trade of these raw materials, buying them from the colonies at artificially low prices and selling them at high profits in their own markets.
Limited exports: Restrictions were placed on the exports from colonies to other countries, forcing them to rely on the colonizers for manufactured goods.
Import dependence: The colonies were forced to import manufactured goods from the colonizers at inflated prices, further draining their resources.
Consequences of the system:
Exploitation of resources: The tax-and-buy system resulted in the depletion of natural resources and the exploitation of labor in the colonies.
Economic stagnation: The colonies were unable to develop their own industries and remained dependent on the colonizers for manufactured goods.
Poverty and inequality: The system led to widespread poverty and inequality in the colonies, as the vast majority of the wealth generated went to the colonizers.
Examples of the system:
British India: The British imposed a land tax (zamindari system) on Indian farmers, which they then used to buy Indian goods at low prices and sell them at high profits in Britain.
French West Africa: The French forced African colonies to produce cash crops like cotton and peanuts, which were then sold in French markets.
Belgian Congo: The Belgians forced Congolese people to work in rubber plantations, under brutal conditions, to meet the high demand for rubber in Europe.
Overall, the tax-and-buy system was a key tool used by colonial powers to exploit the resources and labor of their colonies. It had devastating consequences for the economic and social development of many colonized countries.
How delightfully erudite to extol the virtues of the British Empire's supposed altruistic magnanimity in eradicating the very institution of slavery, conveniently disregarding their own financial self-interest and centuries of profiting from the deplorable trade. Yes, surely the suppression of such a heinous practice necessitated the prowess of an imperial behemoth, replete with military might and fiscal clout. How utterly unique and unparalleled this achievement, achieved solely by the hallowed British Empire, as they gallantly pat themselves on the back while conveniently neglecting to mention the immeasurable suffering and exploitation they imposed on indigenous peoples across their vast dominions.
The laws passed by Britain to end slavery did not end the practice immediately. While the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 abolished slavery in most British colonies, it came with several limitations and delays:
Gradual Abolition: The Act did not free enslaved people instantly. Instead, it implemented a system of "apprenticeship" lasting six years for field workers and four years for skilled workers. Though not technically slaves, these apprentices were still bound to work for their former owners under conditions that were often harsh and exploitative.
Exemptions: The Act exempted several areas from immediate abolition, including the territories in the possession of the East India Company, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and Saint Helena. Slavery continued in these areas for several more years.
Compensation: The Act awarded significant financial compensation to slave owners for the loss of their "property." This raised ethical concerns and further burdened the British government financially.
Colonial Resistance: Some colonies resisted implementing the Act and even enacted additional restrictions on the rights of former slaves. This meant that the reality of freedom differed greatly across the British Empire.
Enforcement Challenges: Enforcing the Act effectively proved difficult, especially in remote areas. This led to continued instances of slavery and exploitation even after its official abolition.
erudition likely to be wasted upon the barbarians filling this comments section. well done.
@@Ravi9A Probably true
But, the British were awful compared to who? I feel a lot of the criticism of the British doesn’t come from a genuine place, it always feels a lot more like a points scoring game of ‘your people were evil compared to my people’ 🙄
@@CB-dl1vg You talk as if atrocities must be weighed on some global scale to decide if they’re really that bad. It is crass to minimize colonial exploitations just because someone else may have done something worse in some other time in history. Purposefully starving millions of men, women and children to death, is one of the worst crimes, you do not need to rank it to some other tragedy and say "it wasn't that bad".
Should we compare British atrocities like torturing and killing men, women and children in concentration camps to, say, the Mongol Empire’s brutality and somehow conclude, "Oh well, at least the British didn’t build pyramids of skulls"? That kind of thinking is the intellectual equivalent of playing in a moral sandbox, where the goal isn’t justice or accountability but merely finding the least dirty shovel to wave around. It reduces the very real suffering of colonized peoples to a perverse historical game of "who was worse" rather than grappling with the profound and lasting harm inflicted by imperialism.
Criticism of the British Empire stems not from some juvenile need to one-up history’s other villains but from the very real, systematic, and deliberate subjugation, exploitation, and devastation that was inflicted on colonies for centuries. Being evil is not a comparative exercise. It's about accountability for the consequences of empire, irrespective of how others behaved. Surely, you can't shrug at the suffering of millions in concentration camps with a dismissive "Could’ve been worse!"
@@arunnaik3375 Yes actually I would prefer it if people started to mention all of atrocities of non white empires so people can be intellectually free from the false presumption that it is only white people who have subjugated others. The bias in which I hear people talk about empire is unbelievable, if somebody isn’t white they automatically talk as if they’re morally superior when speaking about the topic, a ‘look at what you did’ attitude not realising their people at some point in history will have almost guaranteed done the same thing.
I don’t care about a ‘who was worse’ I care about intellectual honesty and that doesn’t involve ignoring 50% of the story and using one group as the scapegoat for all the evils of history. Its tiresome. The entitlement this attitude is giving some people is tiresome. And if you’re really honest with yourself, how many non white empires are you writing scathing paragraphs about? Probably non. Hence my point.
'A Short Guide to the History of South Africa' is a necessary read on Colonialism.
"Ama Bhulu" by Harry Booyens is also awesome.
God Bless you Bruce.Godspeed.
I'm very grateful to people like Dr. Gilley who speak up. Far too many University graduates are closed minded and not willing to hear anything except what-ever-nonsense is fashionable.
starts at c. 4.00.
Overdue this topic!
Good job Bruce.
Excellent excellent excellent - he´s right right right !! (he won´t receive death threats otherwise). He shouldn´t be the only
to speak out
@@lawratify Do you need to signal virtue by enlightening us about how evil former colonialists were and how much better YOU are? I´m afraid, you are wrong in that. You are NOT automatically better than the colonial Brits or Belgians or French or others many years ago, we don´t buy that, sorry to disillude you !😭 - However, thanks for information on Congo, we already knew about it.
@@lawratify My god you ppl are ignorant. There are endless accounts of individuals who lived in former European colonies & who talk of being LUCKY to have been colonized.
@@danniwilder2198?? Where do you get that info from. I happen to know a few people from former colonies and there is a strong anti British sentiment there I can assure you. No1 is happy about beeing invaded. Why do you think most colonies eventually revolted and kicked out the colonial powers?
But he indeed is right right right. Far right Infact.
@@canisxv9869 "...he is indeed right right right. Far right in fact."
But that's all right.
Thank you for defending something worthwhile. Has anyone written about what Africa wold have looked like if no Collonialists had set foot on the continent?
That would be "alternate history," a sort of fantasy science fiction. It would all be guesswork, as the factors are too numerous to make realistic predictions: it could have gone in any one of a couple of dozen different directions.
Well, there's a comic book called Black Panther. I prefer real heroes (and villains) over super ones, but it appears the fantasy of Wakanda is worthwhile to many. Magical thinking has its fans.
All he said doubly applies to Ireland. Economic immiseration has closely stalked ethnic chauvinism here. Just scratch the surface and it's seething below with anglophobia, atavistic blame and fat cats who know how to navigate it and thrive off it. But my country will never get truly rich while it drags this sack of heavy resentments.
The most hackneyed and ridiculous totems and idols of national culture are subsidised long after they should be flying by themselves. The old language, dances, national cinema, everything is an open ended bleeding liability on the taxpayers pious but futile intentions. These thing should be making a profit but never will while Gov't charity hoses them with dollars.
"Making a profit" says it all.
@@ceoltoirgaolach5277 Go to Cuba.
Why does China call their colonisation '100 years of humiliation' and why did they go from being the worlds leading economy for thousands of years to one if the poorest. To again the second biggest economy in the last 100
My understanding is that all the worlds economies used to be agriculture based. The main thing that determined a country's total GDP during these times was how many workers & how much land you have to produce agricultural goods. China & India were considered rich because they had so many people & large amounts of land for them to work. GDP per capita was not higher than other countries, but total output was high due to population size= high agricultural output. When western countries went through the industrial revolution & started to mechanize farming they really pulled ahead. China also suffered from communism, famine, & poor leadership. When China started to industrialize and opened up to some free market reforms the economy boomed leading to its position today.
Ethnic Chinese Hong Kong & Taiwan were insulated from the negative effects of communism because they were colonized & received development aid from the west. They are much richer than the rest of China today.
"The century of humiliation" describes the Chinese governments military and territorial losses during this period. it's more of a government sentiment than a sentiment of the people. 90% of Chinese peasants lived away from affected areas & would not have experienced any changes in their daily lives. The fracture between Communist China & Taiwan was largely due to internal conflict rather than colonialism. The fracture between Hong Kong & China was due to colonialism but it likely didn't negatively effect the people living in these areas, it was just humiliating for the Chinese government. Hong Kong eventually benefitted from this separation up to modern times. Japanese conquests & British opium wars were certainly negative for China to some extent. I think the latter should be weighed against positive effects that Western trade & influence had on China.
1. Chinas economy didn't fall due to European colonialism as you implied. Western countries just pulled ahead relative to the rest of the world via industrialization.
2. British opium had a negative effect on China. Western trade, industry, & protection from communism more than makes up for it, & the western colonies were more successful.
I think the difficulty with this issue arrives when you move from the general to the particulars of colonialism. In a broad sense, it is true that the domination of less advanced societies by more advanced ones is a positive thing, thus rendering calls to end "neo-colonialism" emotional and fanciful ideology rather than a logical evaluation of how things are on the ground. However, colonial injustice and unwarranted brutality can't be denied.
During the colonial era, harsh, cruel and completely unethical methods were used to suppress dissent, such as the large scale torture and internment in Kenya for example. The victims of these atrocities should not be forgotten and it should be understood that these abuses are the reason praising colonialism is frowned upon today. Despite the reality of this clearly unacceptable behaviour by colonial authorities, it should be recognised that a system of government should be evaluated in relation to the alternatives in the same era and location rather than with philosophical or modern conceptions of how governments should be run. Until very recently (and in many places this is still the case), almost every political and social system was held together by cruel violence against dissidents and rebels, as well as enemy powers, and unnecessary discrimination and barbarity was standard practice. This was the case everywhere in the world before colonialism just as much as after it. It is therefore dishonest to condemn colonialism on those grounds.
I think the only way to rationally engage with colonial history is to evaluate fairly the aspects that had positive effects and those with negative effects without discarding either, then draw lessons from each to shape policy in the future. Anything else is an abuse of history.
True, but as the talk said the history of the oppression of those people before colonialization was not generally recorded, and some testimonies that have been show that the colonial rule was a relief from far worse injustices. Comparison in this case is important considering you’re weighing the overall benefit of colonialism. The unaccountable tribal rule sounds horrendous.
an observation ive found was that america was mostly wiped by disease not colonialism the bengal famine during ww2 was not churchills fault and he even requested food from the americans nearing the end of the war and while colonialism was brutal thats not saying much considering if I gave the ottomans european technology in an alternate timeline while europe was backwards lets say I guarantee the ottomans wouldve raped europe harder than nanking, and conquer most of the world
@@wesparsons5331 True, the regimes that European colonisers replaced weren't the utopias that modern day leftists and nationalists like to pretend they were, but to attribute benevolence to European powers or absolve them of serious human rights abuses would be dishonest.
@@alexrothwell2053 true, but back then every regime had serious human rights abuses. In other words as the speaker pointed out there were places that improved for the masses when the English colonised. I’m not saying this was because of benevolence but more likely the result of their judicial and governmental systems bang far superior to tribalism or other such prima systems.
There's no such thing as peaceful oppression.
I love nuance so I love this
The most hilarious, ironic and absurd thing about post-colonial studies, is that this movement emerges from theory out of the European academy in the French school. In other words, even the instruments, the vocabulary and the theory that has enabled the post structuralist critique of Europe was an act of extreme self-criticism by Europe. And almost all the debates are not happening in China or in Africa itself but in the English language in the anglosphere largely amongst the immigrant populations which are in those countries precisely because those countries are not what they accuse them of being. There's nothing funnier to watch then a indigenous person who is a professor at a university as a sign of protest spelling her name with all small letters, in order, as she claims, to resist white supremacist, colonial and patriarchal standards imposed on her by the oppressive systems of the colonizer, then putting "Ph.D." at the end of her name. If people wish to be truly decolonized then they should have been done the institutions that grant them authority and power and through which they demand everyone else shut up, which are, as they say, oppressive instruments of patriarchal colonial white supremacy. Go off and start your own. Dont be citing Badieu and Foucault, etc, do it in your own language, in your own academy, in your own institutions and in your own language. See who cares.
Britain modernised the world , it’s history move on .
Gilley is a brave man!
Aaah…. Complexity and nuance, how you are missed, in most public discourse.
Fascinating talk! Thank you!
“But eventually, I got out of his headlock. And now, where are you, Father Eamonn Hunter? Working with some pygmies in the South Seas. And where am I? Here accepting a Golden Cleric award for being a top priest.”
Western civilization, is in the midst of a slow unstoppable suicide. All of its contributions to prosperity and humanity have been taken for granted, or at worst, even looked down upon in a tragic misinterpretaion. It is sad to see.
Good.
#1 people to blame is White Western Women. #2 is elite Jewish people. This is why I have higher hopes for the "smarter Asian" nations like Korea, Japan, Taiwan, India, Singapore, etc
African Proverb:
Only a fool believes that the clouds obscure the splendor of the moon .The mind of fool is like a broken pot , it will hold no wisdom or matter the pouring of the Lord's Rain.
You get my vote Bruce.In schools I often taught the merits of the British Empire.
Anyone with eyes to see can see it.
What needs to be looked at is how successful have ex colonial countries been since gaining their so called "freedom". In particular sub Saharan African countries?
How good would the west be without exporting all the wealth of these countries? Europe was a shithole continent, that’s why nobody wanted to invade and Europeans were desperate to leave.
@@davruck1 that’s not true, considering the times it was perhaps the most advanced country on earth. How do you think it was able to become one of the largest empires in history? It was making very good use of its own resources so was able to look abroad. If you think living under tyrannical chieftain rule sounds good why don’t you move to a nation that is run that way, instead of sitting in the luxury of the system you denounce?
@@wesparsons5331 lmao. Europe was not the most advanced. That’s why they had crippling plagues, filthy and malnutrition. There was feudalism and most people were dirt poor. Africans Indians and Americans welcomed the Europeans because they had plenty of resources to share. Europe stole wealth from these countries to become wealthy. They got many of their ideas about freedom and equality from the natives. Lmao Europe was in constant state of warfare because of their tyrannical leaders. All then wealth was hoarded by Royal families. The only reason Europe isn’t a current shithole is because of NATO. Now they meddle in African politics and install corrupt leaders while continuing to steal resources.
@@davruck1 so you’re saying a tiny country less advanced than most, desperately poor and sick conquered most of the world, ok cheers for the history lesson;)
Anyone is free to refute his statement, but what is not right, is to suppress freedom of speech on something that you dont agree with. That wouldn't be freedom of speech at all, we wouldn't have learnt anything.
How to refute when he gives facts.
Wrong on Amritsar! The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre at Amritsar was a result of the draconian Rowlatt Act which allowed the British colonial government to arrest anyone without trial who was suspected of sedition. Although, the culprit, General Dyer received no further employment in India, the butcher of Amritsar enjoyed a luxurious life in Britain where he was regarded as some kind of a hero. He never faced any trial for ordering the killing 500 innocent Indians and injuring another 1500 in a massacre which took just 10 minutes !!!
Right on! Thank you!
I was looking forward to rhis -- shame about the apallimg audio quality...
One of the biggest lies told about history is that before European colonists came, the native peoples were all peaceful, living in harmony. In reality, they were often at war with each other, tribe vs tribe. The Europeans weren't perfect either, but there is no denying that they brought a lot peace and prosperity to the places they colonized.
Although i understand the points made in this video, I believe the findings are inadequate...you cannot use an example on one woman's experience generalise it's the experience of many, if colonisation was so welcomed many indigenes it wouldn't have been resisted eg Ashanti, Igbos, Ethiopia, and many more. Hausa is just one part of Nigeria, there are 250 ethnic groups in Nigeria alone, and Africa has many more. I also believe to endorse colonisation is to promote a colonial mentality which was very wrong. Let's be clear imperalist's didn't come to develop societies, they came to exploit! And most of the structural developments was to aid the exploitation process. Kind of like how former empires like the romans did. Tipo Tip was evil but King Leopold was equally as evil. However I agree that Africa should learn from colonisation not ignore it. And definitely the introduction of christianity (which isn't European by the way, it's God's religion) and education were positive things. However, Colonisation was not a good thing, alot of evil and racism occured because of it, there're better ways to help societies develop than enforcing "effective occupation".
However, diverse opinions and ideas should be encouraged i see no reason why his article should be taken down.
I don't think he's arguing for colonialism to return. He's saying European colonialism was preferred to local colonialism at the time.
@@mil1330 not for all Africans maybe for the Hausa but the Benin empire didn't need Europe the Igbos too. Africa is so diverse and tbh Europeans brought many problems to Africa, I'm not stating that Africa was some Utopia but colonisation was not a better alternative. All Africa needed was trade and maybe more exposure to the global scene
@@spikefunakoshi5667 really? Do some research then you'll find out there are millions of Africans with a different story....colonisation was evil end of story.
@@spikefunakoshi5667 yes and this is one scenario in a very complex situation. Do you know colonisers built structures to harvest Africa's natural resources for their industries to the detriment of our development? If you read further you would find that there was a time Africans were prevented from developing their own products and were pressured to buy European products. Again, the problem I have with most people today is their inability to read widely and understand different perspectives. That's an interesting conversation you had with the woman however, did you stop to think why would they react that way? There is always a reason and by asking the question why one begins to uncover these complexities. From my research, former colonisers benefit from Africa's underdevelopment and they use dodgy means to keep it that way by meddling with our politics. The problem with Africa is that we have a history of bad leadership since the colonial times. All our good leaders were murdered and I have a very strong suspicion Europeans had something to do with it (see the case of Patrick Lumumba). It is even evident with the culture and progress Africans are able to make in foreign countries, for example Nigerians. Nigerians are the most educated and successful minority in the USA and one of the most educated and successful in the UK. So Africa is fine on it's own; we have the resources, we have the population, just terrible leadership, we don't need or want China. So, the truth is, we are all human beings and everyone has the ability to develop on their own, it would be ignorant to assume otherwise.
@@spikefunakoshi5667 and also a colonial style administrator wouldn't have minded oppressing the locals to satisfy his is colonial agendas
Professor Guiley if 10% of academia had your bravery and honesty we would live in a much less chaotic world. Agenda over truth is ugly. Most academics are living way below their moral potential. A couple mean ideologues push them and they bow the knee.
Yes.
If you went to India 40 years ago when there were people alive who remembered the Raj, almost all had a very good impression of the colonial period and how well organised things were, and how much less corruption and honest were the courts.
anti colonialism in my oppinion has a lot in common with marxism, an ideology seemling not as dead in the west as thought.
Incredible !! Seeing white people still justifying colonialism, apartheid, slavery as a "good will" expedition!
I was born right after the independence of my home country from a ruthless colonialism that killed part of my family, tortured, gazed, took over 99% of the land ..to enrich the colonials and export to Europe, while my uncles were forced either to work on their own land for pennies or to immigrate and be exploited to rebuild Europe after their "world" war ..where my uncles were drafted to go die ..for the empire that enslaved them back home.
Colonialism did not end in the 60s. Neocolonialism took over after that, through the dollar, through the CFA franc, thtough imperialistic interventions destroying whole countries and impoverishing millions of people ( as the war criminal Allbright said " it's worth it")
"Western " UNCIVILIZED Imperialism works this way: it strangles whole countries and regions with muderous embargos and sanctions killing millions of people. If those don't work or if those countries revolt the "civilized waste" organizes " humanitarian- military"( go figure) expeditions to "free" the people it strangled. Then those people flee...or come to the waste to avoid being killed. Then the waste complains it is invaded by "migranta" ..while its coporations cheer up for the new cheap labour and for the "reconstruction opportunities" .
Here are a few books for those who are curious enough to go beyond the "good will colonial project "
1) How Europe underdevelopped Africa by Walter
Rodney
2) Superimperialism : the origin and fundamental of US dominance ( by Michael Hudson)
3) Capitalism and slavery by Eric
Williams ...
4) Killing hope by William Blum.
5) Rogue State by William Blum
6) How to hide an empire by Daniel
Immerwahr
7) The Jakarta method by Vincent Bevins.
In a few decades, Dr Gilley will receive the credit he deserves. I'm sorry he may not be around to see it.
I applauded the bravery of Dr Gilley for continuing to speak out and write about the truth of Colonialism. This despite the credible death threats made against him. For free speech is another of those fundamental values bequeathed to us by our forefathers, and we should guard it jealously.
I've read both Dr Gilley's paper: The case for Colonialism, and his biography on Sir Alan Burns: The last Imperialist.
Both show that Colonialism had far more benefits than it did downsides, that's why the citizens of many former colonies look back on them as their golden age, because for the first time their families had opportunities to advance and thrive.
Citizens of former colonies look back on them as their golden age? Lmao, believe me, that’s not true in the SLIGHTEST
@@shebsheb8850
If we are to look at Colonialism objectively, we must acknowledge both the bad and the good. Its foolish to deny the good and exaggerate the bad just to satisfy our own political bigotry.
At last someone talking sense
Aren't we all confusing colonialism with imperialism here ?
Colonialism as in colonies are set up with large amount of people going from the mainland to the colony, and imperialism being the integration (and/or exploitation) with/by the empire's economy.
They are intertwined.
Good point
This is what I find quite ironic. Your opponents, Dr Gilley, refuse to allow anything good to be said about European nations colonizing in Africa and India... At the same time they call what was actually "colonialism' of the Iberian Peninsula by the Umayyad Caliphate in the early 8th century...a Golden Age.
this is heavy. did not know all this
I find this presentation mostly persuasive, but I urge every fair-minded listener to seek out and read or listen to the other side, the scholars and others whom the professor is attacking.
Sachenbush was totally backward until they put in the road to Templehall shops. It took them sometime to master the use of money and the concept of public decency but once the bus service went in they eventually learned how to assemble without stealing from each other.
Poor acoustics.
Needs good label mic.
Re-colonization can not be done due to demographics alone. The west is much smaller today and the 3.rd world much larger. Look at the last 20.years of western presence in Afganistan, how costly it has been and little support among the populations of the west for the presence of troops. Then scale it up 50.times. Re-colonisation will not happen.
I think when he talks about "re-colonizing", he's not talking about whole swaths of territory but rather small city-states. Hong Kong or Singapore-scale colonies.
@@MrJm323 No, he mentions specifically letters he have got from people in African countries. Nothing about city states.BTW. we have almost a semi-colonial policy though the aid and UN system. 50% of the African counties state budget comes as aid. 90% of the state budget in Ethiopia come from outside.
A great talk, even if you disagree with the thesis.
@CNN is Fake News What country is this? And I’m curious how this conversation would help address that problem? Is there any foreign influence at this point? If not, would learning about the benefits of colonialism really inspire another country come in and help attempt to colonize the region solely to impose human rights? Rather than for any other reason, say, oil?
@CNN is Fake News not necesaryly the islamic golden age happened while I certainly dont like the religion and maybe can be called somewhat of an islamophobe ackknowledge reality
@CNN is Fake News no the house of wisdom was certainly one of their acjievements algebra and the "arabic numerals" and others
@CNN is Fake News thats why I put it in quotation marks lol
Nah man, its pathetic.
Thanks for the virility of witness provided by Baba.
As you say none of us would have expected to defend the witness of our mentors- to run so many kindergarten classes, It seems to me the lack of genuine experience of economic development is part of what keeps many in the West in the childish chains of thinking they think like scientists when they have tested nothing but a screen shot.
Let me suggest, as an ecologist who supports the idea of colonization, that we avoid the untidy witness of our own antecedents ignorance and the overly ambitious industrial approach to sensitive ecosystems and
RATHER assert that the reactionary idealists have chosen an action which is not bad.( ie finding more food)
As usual monists fail to recognize that they can't name the evil ,( by just badgering us with colonization ) and therefore can't grow to let others to see the important joys of finding productivity in HOW to do things better , together.
It"s OK mate to go search for food ( to set up a colony ) and to do it together or by sharing technology and custody of the resources used.The rest is as you well point out whether we share justly and bring to justice those who truly trespass. ...
Let's be among the first moderns to remind ourselves that Yahweh has no territory and that we are only custodians as the first peoples of any country ( if not stuck in the last century Marxists ) can also accept. ecomia.blogspot.com
The primary purpose of colonialism is to benefit the colonial power, but sometimes the conquered gains in infrastructure and knowledge transfer.
I will give you an example: In Zambia the colonial fisheries and wildlife dept had a law that limited the size of river fishing nets to 100mm square. Within a couple of years of independence the locals were using nets with mesh size of 10mm, cleaning out the rivers of all fish. This took place because the fisheries officer was taking bribes. I know this to be true because I was working in Zambia at the time. The fishing net law was common sense and conservation, nothing to do with colonial exploitation.
Quite interesting indeed
A lot of Afghan women would say now what Baba said then about rule by a foreign superpower
Yes, I’m sure they appreciate the Reagan administration giving the Mujahideen power, which later regrouped as the Taliban
Most of the non-Western world is acutely aware that they didn't achieve scientific and industrial revolutions and that almost literally everything around them is due to these imported foreign achievements- the understanding is widespread and there's much respect for westerners.
It all depends on who's doing the colonising.
collonials abandoned everything and the Chinese have stepped in and taken over - with great vigor and ruthlessness
It might be worth considering what your life would be like, and in fact the lives of millions of western individuals, if your/our life and the culture you know were in fact colonized. You are of a western persuasion. Do you still defend colonization if, say, the U.S. or parts of Canada are colonized by Chinese forces, thereby forced to adopt a new language, dress, education, belief system, government, alphabet, etc. Not to mention the military forces used to colonize your land that you would be called to defend militarily. No doubt the Chinese (or some other world power) could justify such colonization the same you are justify western colonization. The fact is, you don't know what you might lose as a result of being colonized. While I applaud your effort to defend the western front, you might imagine what your life would be like if you were the colonized.
The whole point is that Western colonizers were morally right and beneficial to the colonized. By contrast, non-Western imperialism has always been murderous and with little redeeming value.
Danny Gutierrez: ...."...You might imagine what your life would be like if you were the colonized."
Why would you need to 'imagine' it? How do you think northern Europeans were civilized to begin with? (Or the Romans themselves -- the people of Latium. Was conquest by the Etruscans a long term benefit to them? I think it was; even though they would kick them out a couple centuries later. The Etruscans brought ideas they themselves received from the Greeks.) The fact is not all imperial actions are harmful to the conquered.
In the case of the Peoples Republic of China, one would ask if Chinese conquest of North America would bring improvements -- whether in terms of culture, science and scientific methodology, political rights and procedures, etc.
I wonder if your mistaken premise is actually the popular multiculturalist nonsense that "all cultures are equal" (of equal value, and that no one can learn from another nor should they appropriate the alien's culture).
....But, you might still ask, "why would this require CONQUEST -- or the imposition of force by the allegedly superior society?" The answer (at least in some cases) is that the weaker society is often ruled by a clique who would not allow the beneficial ideas to be introduced, or simply fear the loss of their own power and status. (Example: Who abolished chattel slavery in Africa? Not the Africans and not the Muslims. Gordon of Khartoum was killed because he was interfering with the "right" of Muslims in the Horn of Africa to continue acquiring and selling slaves seized from the interior of Africa. Local African rulers often benefited from the slave trade and resented do-gooders like Dr. Livingstone.)
Does a local ruling clique have the right to prevent others in their society from trading with outsiders or from appropriating the new ideas? ...And, if you say, "Yes!", then WHY would these local rulers have a right to interfere with the flow of ideas or trade goods? Is it just because the local rulers are of the same race as the their oppressed subjects? When we speak of "rights", who is it that is entitled to invoke "rights": the local rulers or is it individual persons living within each society? What entity ultimately has rights -- in the most fundamental sense? Collective groups or individual human beings?
Bruh literally every square inch of the western world was conquered and colonized and handed between occupying forces. Just like every other civilization before it across the whole world. You act like the west doesn't get. The west gets it most of all.
As someone whose hometown was colonized by opportunistic economic immigrants I have some idea what it's like. Replacement and colonization are of course different things, however.
@@fab006 that's the delusion, certainly.
I personally dont think colobialism OVERALL WAS GOOD. BUT the idea that anything could never possibly be good if it has ties to colonialism is also an emotional anti critical way of thinking..
Even if u disagree you have to learn the ideas and ideologies and intentions behind things like this or you will never really know why what u think is wrong is wrong.
In law the aaying is -A lawyer who knows only his side Of the case knows very very little of that.
This saying is perennially true.
Any act, such as colonialism, that violates an individual’s fundamental rights and freedoms-whether through the imposition of foreign domination, the exploitation of resources, or the subjugation of a people-is *inherently malevolent* The deliberate plundering of wealth, cultures, and identities for the benefit of the oppressor is a grievous moral transgression. When such acts are further compounded by atrocities like pillaging, which strips communities of their dignity and livelihoods, or the establishment of concentration camps, where human suffering is institutionalized on an industrial scale, the *evil becomes undeniable*
These violations represent a complete disregard for the sanctity of human life and autonomy. They reduce individuals to mere commodities or obstacles in the pursuit of power, profit, or territorial expansion, stripping them not only of their freedom but also of their humanity. Systems like colonialism are sustained by violence, coercion, and the dehumanization of the oppressed, and they inherently perpetuate suffering, inequality, and trauma that resonate across generations. Infringing on someone’s liberty or subjecting them to degradation through war crimes and systemic abuse is not only ethically indefensible, but it also stands as a crime against the very essence of human civilization.
Such actions, whether in the guise of political control or economic exploitation, are not mere aberrations of history but serve as stark reminders of what happens when empathy and justice are replaced by greed and domination. True evil lies not just in the brutality of these acts but in the systems that normalize and justify them under the guise of "progress," "civilization," or "security."
This doesn't sound like " the message "
Here's how I see it:
I'd hate to denigrate any ethnic group. We're all God's Children.
But if we're going to advance, we need to pick the best ideas from the widest array of peoples from all around the world. Learn from everyone and absorb their best ideas, and reject their worst ideas.
Many Europeans after a certain point became seafaring and trading peoples, and absorbed a lot of good ideas. They also learned a great deal about what didn't work, not least from the mistakes they made in their own stupid wars. But they learned. And they learned a lot. And they shared.
And so if we're talking about later colonialism, it should be regarded as undeniable that there were many, many good things that the European peoples knew, that could be shared with third world peoples. That's not to say that some wisdom from aforesaid peoples was ignored or rejected. And since all men are sinners, of course there were inexcusable depredations and exploitations against third world peoples.
But our historical assessments should be based on a fair examination of all the evidence. And we should reject judgments based primarily on knee-jerk condemnations of Europeans by virtue signaling ideologues just because Europeans are white.
It reminds of the *What have the Romans done for US?* sketch in Monte Python's Life of Brian. To twist an old saying of Descartes' is a mass movement of people who believe, I'm outraged, therefore I am.
Being less evil than our predecessors does not equate to good
Being less evil than our contemporaries also doesn't. But trying to judge good from bad using modern values and anti-European propaganda is equally bad.
@@patrickkelly6691 youre right
Both islamic and british colonialism were systems of control and exploitation this lecture is about which is more progressive ? Hypocritical one ?
I am a Marxist, and I like Gilley's argument. But I think he's wrong in some deep ways here. Let's grant the better outcomes of colonialism compared to sultanates and feudalism, and let's grant the tragic foolishness of anti-colonial nationalism.
I see Gilley's work as an understandable reaction to the narrowness, myopia, moralism and factual errors of postcolonial studies.
But 3 points.
One is "likely" alternatives. The empires had the tech and education to cooperatively collaborate with the less developed societies.
That was very unlikely on both sides, but the core of political aspiration and freedom is what is physically possible, and that is the alternative people want. Saying only what likely would've happened otherwise side steps this problem and can be used to defer all social progress at all times. Many great, crucial things were unlikely.
Second, and following from this is the idea of advanced helping primitive. In the big picture, yes of course, but crucially we are now finding as we face extinction and many social and psychological problems of modernity, that the primitive culture also had something to teach the empire. That it may be less than vice versa, doesn't make it less crucial to humanity's long term survival and happiness. The superior culture was not superior in all aspects, and we are paying for it now.
FInally, and biggest of all, what is wrong is revealed when he tried to counter the claim of stealing resources. He says, hey, there is no other way to develop the economy but to do this. You need exploitation if you want the tech and infrastructure and skills to get the wealth in the first place, so objecting to this is not only nonsense- it' s ungrateful.
But, you only need to think of the american revolution against the British to see the problem here. Without monarchy , taxation, british education, and empire, there would be no US to free from King George, nor the skills to make it work. But the Americans looked at what this process of colonization was making possible, as it was happening, and realized this means there is a third option now, and insisted on that. That's because it was physically possible even if politically unlikely. So Gilley really misses marxism's point and confuses it with simple nationalism or xenophobia ,where the locals just don't like outsiders benefiting from their stuff. But that very encounter, the very combined ideals and resources of the cultures, especially the empire's- gives rise to a third better possibility. This cooperative possibility is overlooked by the empire, both its greedy and altruistic agents, because it won't disproportionately benefit a small class of people who run the thing.
Fast forward to 2022 ,and at this late date we now know there were many different ways to development. Basically every system of the 20th century built literacy, infrastructure, wealth, health in terms of development- though they were warped by war. You could've even had worker owned (rather than capitalist) enterprises in a market. Nowadays, we could have a non market economy planned democratically and via AI and computers. Or, a capitalist economy with a massive universal income wage. There is not only one way to skin a cat.
Just as Gilley correctly points out there are many bad forms of sovereignty and local rule, and bad ways out of being a colony, so are there were and are ways to develop and keep the peace without being subject to foreign exploitation and domination.
Well said, but where are the examples of successful implementation and outcomes of this third way you mention?
It is not clear what he is saying. Nobody has seriously argued that colonialism achieved nothing worthy. That has never been the issue. The issue is more that colonialism was not motivated by philanthropic agendas, that its policies were not uniformly applied everywhere, or fair, that it created as many divisions among peoples as it developed new institutions, that it overwhelmingly advanced notions of racial and ethnic hierachies, that it took it upon itself to define, with such dubious terms as "Bantu", etc etc. Colonialism has a mixed record because it was born of a conflicted agenda, to exploit, and to develop, to emancipate, and to settle, to redeem, and to condemn. Examples that are used, such as endemic corruption, "tribalism", and bad governance in former colonies, should be viewed, to some extent, as an inevitable consequence of bad colonial and neo colonial policies. Finally, it is ridiculous to accredit Singaporean economic and social success to colonialism. Their success is the outcome of a uniquely South East Asian kind of willpower and discipline in leadership and which can as well be seen in Japan, South Korea, North Korea, China, and increasingly, in Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and Malyasia.
The question then becomes why all this "uniquely South East Asian kind of willpower" did not occur before European non-settler colonialism (or the American occupation of Japan)?
As noted. Nobody can argue that European colonialism achieved nothing commendable. The issue is how much credit should be given to European colonialism for current successes, and similarly, how much responsibility European colonialism should accept for negative outcomes in former colonies. These are useful discussions to have if their intention is to arrive at truth and reconciliation. That is not an easy task given the delicacy of the subject matter for all concerned. Nobody wants to be thought of as an oppressor, anymore than does one enjoy the sense of inferiority that comes from being a subject people. I find that a focus on human dignity helps to guide the manner in which these subjects can be handled usefully. For example, it is bound to lead to antagonism if we restrict history to the past 500 years. If we create awareness about the achievements of all humans over thousands of years, it becomes plainly obvious that at different moments, some cultures are in the ascendancy whilst others are in decay or stasis. It is also important to emphasize how interconnected everything is. In reality, all cultures and civilizations feed off each other. What matters is discerning the best ideas, from wherever they have arisen, and universalizing them. Japan went from feudalism to industrialization in record time, about 40 years, before American occupation. Japan was fielding aircraft carriers, fighter jets, and submarines , in World War 2. An unbelievable feat. They were a formidable power. Of course, they were implementing European ideas, however, absolutely nobody has the degree of high organization and capacity for productivity and excellence of Japan. They are entirely unique. You cannot teach their level of all round excellence and perfectionism. It is cultural.
Onya Bruce keep it up
colonialism is good
Everyone knows that the indigenous peoples of north America spent their time dancing around with honeysuckle flowers in their hair singing kumbaya.
Colonialism destroyed Egypt, Nubia, Timbuktu, Poland (for a brief period), India, Vietnam, and many more civilizations.
If colonization were so great why did Spain fight so hard to expel the moors in 1492 after 700 years of peace, prosperity, and cultural advancement?
If you love colonialism so much, why don't you allow yourselves to be colonized and exploited, the way you did others?
It's tragic how many people are ignorant about real history, and not the propaganda that they have been force-fed. That's why it is so easy mislead people and give them a false sense of superiority and morality.
well, it's simple, he probably also believes Europeans are inherently born to rule, but dares not to vocalize it.
@@Ravi9A , exactly so.
Why did you skip to Late Colonialism?
Because it is the best one as far as colonial periods?
Minus the economic exploitation especially from the Netherlands and Belgium who literally lost one third of their annual revenue when they lost their colonies.
@@ohhhyeahhh3950 Industrialization. More applicable parallel
Was British colonialism good for Ireland historically?
Yes they learned English instead of Gaelic.
The Irish used to make coats out of each other's skin.
And what bad with gaelic ??@@johngalt3940
You want to be a superstitious dirt farmer, or live in modern times?
"Which ran from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s." I see. So that's from roughly 1805-06 to roughly 1905-06, eh? An odd period of time to choose. Or, perhaps, Prof. Gilley actually means to say: "...from the middle of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century?" Answer this: If "1800s" means 1800-1899, how do we describe the ten-year period from 1800 to 1809, given that ALL subsequent ten-year spans are labelled after the starting year, viz. the 1810s (eighteen tens), the 1820s (eighteen twenties) etc. etc.?
He meant what he said, "Eighteen hundreds", not "Eighteen aughts."
What an irritatingly stupid critique of this lecture.
@@MrJm323 "Eighteen-hundreds" is what we called the period 1800-1809 up until a few years ago. (The year 1800 is termed "the year eighteen-hundred.") Just as the following decade is pronounced "eighteen-tens." The decade after that is the eighteen-twenties (1820s). I repeat my original question: if people have decided to call the 19th century the "eighteen hundreds," WHAT do we call the decade 1800-1809? I was born in 1949. For most of my life people would have said I was born in the mid-20th century: only recently have people started saying "mid-1900s." No, no: it was my grandfather who was born in the mid-1900s.
@@DieFlabbergast No.
It is just as I explained (two years ago, apparently).
In fact, when I was a kid in primary school (the 1970s), history teachers still frequently used the expression "1800s" when they were speaking of the 19th century. ...It's true, that they would frequently refer to the years of the first decade of a century as the "...hundreds" (such as the "1900s" for 1900-1909), which would cause some confusion.
Sometimes, to avoid such confusion, they would speak of the "nineteen-aughts".
So, if you told me, cold, that your grandfather was born in "the mid-1900s", I would assume you mean the 1940s or '50s, perhaps. To be clearer, you'd have to say, "he was born sometime in the first decade of [the twentieth century] or [the first decade of the 1900s]." ...Otherwise, I'd ask for clarification on that.
@@MrJm323 Well, I was in primary school in the 1950s, and I went on to a grammar school in the 1960s and to St. Catherine's College of the University of Oxford in 1969-1971, and I can tell you that no educated person during that time frame would have used anything other than "the 19th century" to describe the 100 years from 1800 to 1899. I have lived since 1976 in Japan, so I don't speak modern English, I speak 1960s-1970s English. This is one of the linguistic changes that have occurred when I was away, so to speak. Yes, of course, languages change (you don't have to tell me that; spoken Japanese and even written Japanese have changed quite a bit since I arrived here). But the fact remains, this is a particularly illogical and annoying change. Other than declining standards of education, I can't see any good reason for it. And I will continue to complain about it, for my own amusement, if nothing else.
What good can come from killing, raping, stealing and barbarism?
actually in multiple cases europe actually brought some semblance of stability, and secondly saying that could also refer to africa which was infighting each other to take slaves to sell to europe
@@Cecilia-ky3uw Wow, how can they be so ungrateful? Sure, we killed their children and raped their women, but look! Roads!
This occurs in every country. There are downsides but also developments in medicine and improved trade and agricultural advances were often introduced, allowing increased quality of life in the long term.
The Europeans ended slave societies across the world.
I see you have a Muslim name. Tell us about islamic jihad around the Mediterranean area. Also of islamic jihad in North Central Africa in 2024 Nigeria, Cameroon, Centre Afrique, Kenia, Uganda and South Sudan. Come come don’t be shy.
Yeah we killed a few by bringing in guns and few more by taking away food. But see, the rail roads we built to do that *made you rich*. Makes great sense.
And there's no point in arguing about the accuracy of data, when the expert specializes in systematic distortion of data.
Did the rates if death by violence go up or down?
@@darwinkilledgod they definitely went down because they replaced our food crops with cash crops and people starved to death. If you die of malnutrition and disease, you can't die by violence, can you?
@@reddipallisharath7273 😂😂 if you can't defeat them with logic, or appealing to their sensibilities, smite them with some heavy sarcasm. Hats of to you, wise sage! It's impossible to get any logic across to these colonial apologists.
@@sca8217 you boys stick to your sarcasm and the adults will keep speaking in terms of logic and evidence. When you learn how to engage with those things you can leave the kids table and join the discussion.
@@sca8217 problem is, he isn't defeating anyone because there is no logic behind insisting food crops were replaced by cash crops and so people starved. Why? Because how do you continue to grow cash crops if your farmers have starved to death? And if you grow cash crops doesn't that means you get cash for your crop and go from subsistence farming to earned income? Then there is the embarrassing fact the India's population absolutely exploded under British rule thanks to improved agricultural practices which led to vastly more cultivated land which in turn led to population growth. Populations don't grow in times of famine, they do grow in times of plenty. So drop your RSS propaganda and get some facts and logic.
Courageous. Please improve your essay and publish it, after all!
I guess that - contrary to actual holocaust deniers - Noam Chomsky won't speak up in favor of your freedom of speech.
Is this man being threatened with imprisonment? Or even been arrested. Is he facing a legal battle after recieving a summons? Has he been sacked from his job?
No.
You just can't tell the difference.
There is an argument to be made that representative government is not all that great as it is made to be.
Representative government at the level of extrinsic factors such as religion, race, language and region have the effect of turning neighbour against neighbour and making it profitable for people to be defiant of one another and entrench and intensify their differences as opposed to building bridges. This is because representative government as conceived by the British is structured so that people can subscribe to benefits from the state independent of their association with their neighbours, based on extrinsic factors such as religion, sect, language etc.
Not only does this form of representative government encourage people to turn on their neighbour, it encourages people to invest in standing out as far from their neighbours as possible.
Curiously, under British rule and the system of representative government which was their idea, people started parading their orthodoxies more intensely - why - because it was more profitable to do so.
You could, in a way, directly trace the rise of extremely orthodox Islam in the present day such as that of the Wahabbists and the Tablighis, and the power and agency given them under the guise of communally representative government.
To the colonial authority sitting above, this may seem as an affirmation of diversity! “See, all my people are proudly showing off their distinctiveness under my benign rule!”
But in reality, this is merely people being entrenched in their distinctiveness from and defiance of one another and pressing their separate demands from the state which rules over them all. This is not a cooperative society but an internally competitive one. Representative government makes separatism - and communal competition - profitable.
There is an argument to make that colonial government without representative government based on extrinsic communal factors may have been more convivial than colonial government with representative government.
While the autocratic government prior to European colonial governments may have been variously brutal and primitive, it cannot be used as an excuse in those several cases in their multitude where neighbour did not turn on neighbour due to the warped incentives of representative government based on extrinsic differences.
So, mixed bag.
Wake me up when “the case for slavery” is published. Using a utilitarian approach ANYTHING can be defended… unfortunately the pesky details of morality get in the way… sorry guys
'specialist on the politics of China and Asia' I spit on that
Colonialism has always caused more problems than it solved. Colonialism is responsible for the violence from the get go. The borders of Africa made in 1885 were not designed to be independent nation-states, of course, because they were meant to be exploited for rubber, sugar, coffee, cocoa, diamonds, gold, and white settlement. The Middle East had minority leaders who would brutally repress the majority. Studies have shown that colonized territories had retarded economic growth, as by definition the profits from any economic activity would go to the host nation. In fact, during the period of 1815-1870, half the Dutch annual budget came from taxes in Indonesia alone, where farmers were forced to plant one fifth of their fields with export crops (sugar, coffee) and harvest for the Dutch. It's hard to imagine the Dutch were not better off from this arrangement, and therefore the Indonesians were worse off. This apologetic argument is the same the South made to justify slavery in the 19th century, the same Spaniards made to enforce Indians into plantation labor way back in the 16th century (we give you Christianity, education, European cultural goods and values, you give us your unfree unpaid labor and we pocket all profits in perpetuity).
@Indiansaredunkays How so?
its better than multicultralism....... inverse colon-ism that is.
Little too based, going to trigger a lot of post-structuralists
where else than Texas.
They take free speech seriously in Texas. The "Draw Mohammed" contests are testament to that. They defended it with guns. Definitely not messing around down there.
The end justifies the means. All ethics are situational. It's just collateral damage no worries. You can't make an omelette with breaking the eggs.
Who better than a descendant of the colonizers to explain that to us.
I like that it's being held in Texas. It's very fitting