FYI: 10 Surprising Upsides To Colonialism

Steven Schear schear.steve at gmail.com
Tue Dec 6 09:46:36 PST 2016


Reminds me of the "What have the Roman's ever done for us?" skit in Monty
Python's "Life of Brian"
https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DExWfh6sGyso

Warrant Canary creator

On Dec 5, 2016 8:15 PM, "Razer" <rayzer at riseup.net> wrote:

> I think I've found the worst article of 2016...
>
> Illustrated: https://listverse.com/2016/12/03/10-surprising-upsides-to-
> colonialism/
>
> "Colonialism gets a bad rep these days, often with good reason. You’d have
> to be a madman to look at King Leopold’s adventures in the Congo, for
> example, and conclude that the Belgians were awesome imperial overlords.
> Same deal with the slave-trading powers.
>
> But that’s not the whole story of colonialism. Move beyond the headline
> atrocities, and a more nuanced picture begins to emerge. Far from being a
> nonstop cavalcade of horrors, colonialism often resulted in some seriously
> awesome, surprising stuff.
>
>
> 10 Spreading Good Government
>
> Most of us kind of take democracy and functioning government for granted.
> But a largely democratic world was by no means inevitable. For most of
> human history, “government” meant a military dictator or crazy king telling
> you precisely where to live, what to wear, and when to die in battle for
> some pointless cause.
>
> So why does most of the world now at least pay lip service to democratic
> norms? For that, you can thank the European colonial powers. Wherever the
> British went, they instituted governments that looked like their own. That
> meant parliaments, an efficient civil service, and a basic package of
> democracy. The French, meanwhile, folded their conquered territories into
> France itself, promoting Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite.
>
> When decolonization finally rolled around, many of those democratic
> institutions remained in place.
>
>
> 9 Creating Modern Medicine
>
> For colonial powers, tropical diseases were a constant pain in the
> derriere. Asia, Africa, and South America were swimming in bugs that had a
> nasty tendency to kill colonists and subjects alike. That meant unnecessary
> expenditure, time and men lost, and a problem extracting that sweet, sweet
> natural wealth.
>
> The solution? Throw everything modern medicine had at the problem.
>
> Europe was at the vanguard of modern medicine in the 19th century. The
> British discovered the antimalarial properties of quinine, which is still
> our only effective antimalarial. The French became specialists in tropical
> medicine thanks to their North African holdings. Public health in general
> received a massive boost thanks to techniques learned in the chaos of the
> colonies.
>
> Even conquered natives benefited from this, in the form of hospitals and
> new treatments pioneered in Europe. It’s no stretch to say modern medicine
> is a by-product of imperialism.
>
>
> 8 Economic Booms
>
> Of course, colonialism isn’t something that exists only in that fairy tale
> land we call “the past.” Welcome to Africa, where the Chinese are engaging
> in a massive exercise in 21st-century colonialism. According to Zambian
> economist Dambisa Moyo, the resulting economic boom has been the best thing
> to happen to the continent in decades.
>
> Her data shows that this new colonialism has created jobs for millions of
> Africans and lifted many out of poverty. The boon from Chinese investment
> has massively benefited the poor in Africa and China alike.
>
> That’s not to say all colonial adventures improve people’s lives. Spanish
> dalliances in the New World memorably crashed Spain’s economy. But it does
> show that imperialism can be handled well, in a way that benefits the many
> rather than the few.
>
>
> 7 Global Languages
>
> Remember the story of the Tower of Babel? Humans were getting all uppity
> with their engineering prowess, so God scrambled their languages so they
> could no longer cooperate. Well, colonialism was sort of like that in
> reverse. From hundreds of thousands of different tongues, the age of
> empires whittled humanity down to just a handful of big ones.
>
> Seriously. There are currently 106 countries where English is spoken, many
> of them former colonies. Spanish is spoken in 31, modern standard Arabic in
> 58, and French in 53. Taken together, pretty much the entire world speaks
> at least a smattering of English, Spanish, Arabic, French, Russian, or
> Mandarin—all languages associated with imperial nations. And that has
> massive advantages.
>
> The ability to communicate breaks down barriers to trade and
> understanding. It allows wildly different countries to find common ground.
> While it’s not a prerequisite, it’s certainly helpful in uniting people.
>
>
> 6 The Creation Of Modern Art
>
> Who likes Picasso? What about Art Deco architecture? Or modern sculpture?
> We’re betting that at least half of you said yes to one of those. In that
> case, you should probably be thankful for French and British colonization
> of Africa. It was the display of African tribal art in Paris and London at
> the dawn of the 20th century that inspired all of these movements.
>
> Artists like Picasso and Matisse saw the treasures from the Ivory Coast or
> Benin City and were inspired. Architects were seduced by the simple,
> powerful forms of ruined African temples. It was the imperial trade that
> brought these objects to public view and allowed them to inspire everyone
> from designers to artists to architects.
>
> It’s incredible to think that, without African art, something like Art
> Deco wouldn’t exist. New York would look completely different. The cultural
> benefits of colonialism are all around us.
>
>
> 5 The Development Of Infrastructure
>
> Over the last few years, parts of Africa have been undergoing an
> infrastructure boom. Great railways have unrolled across the plains of
> Nigeria, the mountains of Ethiopia, and along the lakeside shores of Uganda
> and Kenya. The projects are expected to send local economies booming,
> lifting millions out of poverty.
>
> These vital new railways didn’t appear out of nowhere. They’re the remains
> of colonial infrastructure, being updated for the first time in decades.
> Ironically, the economic boom these railways will bring is partly thanks to
> Africa’s former colonizers.
>
> Wherever the great empires went, they left robust infrastructure in their
> wake. India still uses Raj-era rolling stock today, transporting millions
> across the subcontinent. Old colonial roads are still in use alongside
> ports, hospitals, schools, and universities. While the infrastructure
> initially benefited the colonizers, it has been repurposed to help the
> colonized.
>
>
> 4 Removal Of Brutal Occupying Powers
>
> The story of the Spanish conquest is portrayed as one of bloodthirsty
> Europeans super-murdering millions of Aztecs. While that definitely
> happened, there is one part of the story that gets left out: The Aztecs
> themselves were occupiers who were in the middle of conquering neighboring
> states when Cortez arrived. And you’d better believe they were brutal.
>
> The Aztecs worked captured enemies to death. They sacrificed them by
> ripping out their hearts. They forced prisoners into cannibalism. They
> murdered children to appease the Sun. The Spanish, too, were mega-jerks,
> but most of their jerkiness came from accidentally importing smallpox and
> running off with people’s gold. Compared to the bloodthirsty Aztecs, they
> were practically saints.
>
> You see this time and again in colonial societies. Before the British
> arrived, the Mughals had marched over India and razed Delhi to the ground
> eight times in eight centuries, building skull pyramids from its
> inhabitants’ remains. Even at the Raj’s most brutal, no massacres touched
> the mass murder and enslavement of those times. And while we’re on the
> subject . . .
>
>
> 3 Increased Peace
>
> For the vast majority of human history, life wasn’t fun. Competition for
> resources forced tribes into a nearly perpetual state of warfare. In
> Central America, for example, various Maya cities were only one failed
> harvest away from massacring one another.
>
> Steven Pinker has identified the creation of nation states as integral to
> ending this violence. In some places, the rise of those states was the
> result of fierce battles and endless politicking. In others, it was a
> direct result of colonization. Suddenly, once-competing tribes were bunged
> together and told to get along and swear allegiance to France, Britain,
> Spain, or wherever. While that created a ton of resentment, it halted the
> almost continuous cycle of killing, forging brand new national identities
> that still exist today (like Indian or Ghanaian).
>
> Sure, in some cases, like the Belgians in the Congo, the murder rate went
> up after colonization. But the overarching story is one of enforced peace,
> which isn’t great, but it’s still better than no peace at all.
>
>
> 2 The Creation Of Modern Tourism
>
> One peculiar side effect of the age of empires was the creation of modern
> tourism. Before the 19th century, going abroad was restricted to the rich
> and the scientifically curious. Middle-class people in Britain who wanted
> to go somewhere exciting went to the pub.
>
> Then the British Empire arose, bringing with it tales of adventure in
> far-off places with exotic, romantic names like India, Egypt, Jamaica, and
> Australia. Realizing the public hunger for these places, a guy named Thomas
> Cook started offering package tours to the empire’s outposts. In one fell
> swoop, the concept of the modern tourist was born.
>
> According to the Journal of Tourism History, empires provided the perfect
> vector for the development of a global tourist industry. By repackaging
> places like Australia from a convict island to a “Down Under paradise,”
> people like Cook changed how we thought of these places forever.
>
>
> 1 It Saved Millions Of Lives
>
> While their rulers and leaders were off gadding about the globe, it’s
> worth remembering that Europe’s masses were living through hard times. Mass
> famines were common. France alone suffered 40 devastating nationwide
> famines between 1500 and 1800. Millions were dying every decade.
>
> Into this chaos stepped an unlikely savior: Peru. Spanish conquistadors
> had brought back a wonderous foodstuff from the colonized nation. It was
> durable, easy to farm, full of nutrients, and nearly always gave a bumper
> harvest. It was the potato.
>
> Incredible as it may seem, introducing the potato to Europe saved millions
> of lives. Suddenly, crops no longer failed en masse. Starvation rates
> plummeted. Populations in rural economies like Ireland exploded, and rates
> of stuff like scurvy dropped off. Without Spain’s imperialism in the New
> World, this continent-transforming food would have never been adopted, and
> your family tree would probably be a heck of a lot emptier."
>
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