i.e., I'm not getting any sense of "fundamental inferiority" from his statements. Rather, he's been saying that the resident populations have generally been more peaceful, and more prosperous, during British colonial rule. The bits of world history that I've been reading lately would support his case. (I keep flipping through my books in the background here trying to locate the specific examples that I know I've read.)

You're also right that the British colonization tended to be exploitative, but that's a different argument altogether.

For me, I'm resolving the two arguments by comparing the violent anarchy of the Congo to the oppressive British rule in, say, Burma. If I had to choose to live as a native of one of those countries in the relevant time period, I would definitely choose British colonial Burma over modern Congo, and if I had to go in as a female, I would beg for Burma. That's not to say that Burma would be ideal, but just that I would be less likely to experience as much misery.

So if Britain was really concerned with stability, why didn't they just leave China alone? Britain did create stability yes, but only after they invaded a nation and remade it in their own image. Who knows how many African "Zexus" were suppressed by the British? Could African nations have created stable governments for themselves if left alone? The only reason why know about Lin Zexu is because China was powerful enough to resist complete control by the British.

I guess I'm not really challenging the fact that some countries were more stable under British colonial rule. I definitely understand the idea that British Burma is preferable to anarchist Congo. But these aren't the only two possibilities. China proves it was possible to govern without British rule. The Qing Dynasty (and subsequently) the Republic of China are evidence of this. It's not clear what kind of governments could have developed in Africa had the British not enslaved millions of the resident population right off the bat. If we extend our thinking to before the British actually colonized Africa, we no longer have to choose between British Burma and anarchist Congo

EDIT: So this gets at where the sense of inferiority comes from. In lionhearted's argument either we assume British colonization as acceptable and a given OR we assume that the African nations could not have developed a stable government on their own. If neither of those two assumptions are made then we don't have to choose between only British stability and general anarchy.

Our notions of altruism now weren't prevalent at that time, so of course Britain would remake a country in its own image. They were terribly arrogant and had little to no respect for indigenous cultures (and I never meant to argue otherwise).

And, of course nations can potentially create stability on their own, and without British influence. Many have done exactly that throughout history. That said, I wouldn't tend to argue for the colonization of peaceful, well-organized countries.

I do think that colonization, under modern approaches and with the intentions of being present in a country only temporarily, is a reasonable approach to countries which can't seem to govern themselves.

> It's subtle, but it feels like the argument you put forth implies the colonized were lesser than the British in a fundamental sense.

Ah, this is not at all my sentiment. Perhaps because I chose England people feel this way? I did it because it's a common frame of reference, anyone discussing on this site in English knows about the British Empire. But I just as much love studying histories of other periods, and am greatly impressed with people like Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu during Sengoku Japan, Sejong of Korea, Ismail of Morocco, Mehmed of the Ottomans, Mustafa Ataturk of Turkey, Cyrus of Persia, Shah Jahan of India, Saladin of Arabia, Trajan, Augustus, Marcus Aurelius of Rome, the eight great builder-kings of the Khmer Empire, Deng Xiaoping of China, Washington, Jefferon, Franklin, and Jackson of America, and many more really. I've spent most of my time learning the history of the Americas, Western Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia with less about other places, because I've spent most of my time in the Americas, Western Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, and I usually learn about the cultures I'm in. So I was finding it kind of strange to get accused of a bias for Euro-dominance - people are reading something I'm not saying into what I'm writing. I picked the British Empire because everyone knows the basic story. People are probably less familiar with the Roman territories, their names, and the relative prosperity of them during different eras of Roman rule. And still less so about the Ottoman Empire, or the Carthaginians, or the Khmer, and so on.

> But it's important to remember the native population had no role in government. They never were taught how to govern by the British or allowed to develop their own methods of governing, because it was the British intention that their colonies always be dependent on Britain. The collapse after British withdrawal backs this up I think.

Yes and no. One of the largest checks and balances on nations in history has been that a grossly misgoverned country could be conquered by its neighbors. It made rulers need to keep the progress of science, commerce, civil order, and general health of the population so that they could have the resources to make an adequate defense. If a place gets corrupt, incompetent, or backwards, it falls to its neighbor. For instance, Rome goes more corrupt and falls to the Vandals. Then, almost always, the conquering side installs their own governors. It's how the world has worked for a long time, really up until mutually assured destruction actually. The Korean War is probably the last "this place near us is mismanaged, let's take it over" war on a large scale.

> There's also the fact that the British enslaved millions while building their empire. The military that created the stability you admire was paid for by the lives of millions of Africans. Seems like there is something wrong about glorifying that stability, given how it came about.

I'd be sympathetic to that point of view, except the British conquered Africa from Shaka Zulu, a brilliant but extraordinarily viciously brutal man. Like, Shaka makes Genghis Khan or Alexander look mild at times. It's really pretty inarguable that the British ruled a hell of a lot better than utter brutality, genocide, and massacre that was Shaka.

> I guess what I'm trying to get at is that the stability provided by the British Empire was a false and immoral stability.

They took over by force - this is questionable, but it's the history of the world of that era. It's what pretty much everyone was trying to do, everywhere; just, Britain succeeded. But anyways, that part is morally grey.

Once they were in charge though, they were generally pretty good and stable administrators. They built a lot of infrastructure, had pretty low taxes outside of wartime usually, in most places took a live-and-let-live approach with the natives, brought education, sanitation, and industry with them, and the people usually got wealthier, healthier, and more prosperous in places they governed.

> I'm not sure. I think there is something important to what you are saying, but it is difficult to frame it without implying that the colonized are inferior.

Well, this is a good point. I'm not sure how I'd do it, but I should bear it in mind. Mind you, I've got some Polish blood in me, I've got some Irish blood in me, I've got some French blood in me. I've got ancestors who were enslaved and kicked around by the English, Germans, and Russians. But none the less, I'm generally an admirer of the good English, German, and Russian governments, and not a fan of the bad English, German, and Russian governments. I'm just a fan of good government.

But I understand what you mean about inferiority. I was never too proud of my Irish or Polish heritage in particular until I learned of certain people I greatly admired - Derek Gleeson who rebuilt the Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra, and a Polish-Jewish woman in Los Angeles whose relatives were Polish resistance fighters against the Nazis, and later black market smugglers during the Soviet Occupation.

Yeah, some places my ancestors hail from got their asses kicked by other nations. That's history, we were an incredibly violent and warlike species until recent history, the winners won, and any of our ancestors who lost would've done it similarly to the other side if they could. But I've come to this conclusion with lots of reading and lots of time, so I should be more sensitive that a lot of people don't feel the same way. I'm not sure how to carefully pick my words on a topic to not hit at someone's emotions, but I'll think about it. Thanks for the feedback.

There are a bunch of other ways the world worked for a really long time too: no civil rights, jailing or killing your political opponents is acceptable, no equality between gender or races. Just because the world has always worked one way doesn't mean it's the right way. In fact, quite the opposite. History suggests almost everything we've done in our past is wrong. Like you said Korea suggests we could have been wrong about this idea.

I'd be sympathetic to that point of view, except the British conquered Africa from Shaka Zulu, a brilliant but extraordinarily viciously brutal man. Like, Shaka makes Genghis Khan or Alexander look mild at times. It's really pretty inarguable that the British ruled a hell of a lot better than utter brutality, genocide, and massacre that was Shaka.

Well sure, but you have to remember once upon a time the British Isles were tribal as well. I'm sure they had their own Shaka Zulu equivalents. For example Diodorus Siculus on the Celts:

"They cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle and attach them to the necks of their horses. The blood-stained spoils they hand over to their attendants and striking up a paean and singing a song of victory; and they nail up these first fruits upon their houses, just as do those who lay low wild animals in certain kinds of hunting." [1]

Yes, when British colonization was happening Britain had outgrown that stage, but perhaps they were able to outgrow it because they were allowed to develop independently as a people? I'm not sure justifying colonization because of people like Shaka is valid. Colonization might have slowed down Africa's growth out of the tribal stage.

Once they were in charge though, they were generally pretty good and stable administrators. They built a lot of infrastructure, had pretty low taxes outside of wartime usually, in most places took a live-and-let-live approach with the natives, brought education, sanitation, and industry with them, and the people usually got wealthier, healthier, and more prosperous in places they governed.

The issue here is that everything the British did was based on their own worldview. It's not clear the British worldview is what is right for Africa. The nations they conquered were not allowed to develop their own systems of government and methods of education. From my perspective that seems like a contributing factor for the current instability in the region.

But I understand what you mean about inferiority. I was never too proud of my Irish or Polish heritage in particular until I learned of certain people I greatly admired - Derek Gleeson who rebuilt the Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra, and a Polish-Jewish woman in Los Angeles whose relatives were Polish resistance fighters against the Nazis, and later black market smugglers during the Soviet Occupation.

That's not quite what I meant. It just seems that you aren't open to the possibility that the colonized nations could have grown to govern themselves. I know there is evidence to support this, but I think you might be minimizing the role that colonization itself played in the long term instability of these areas. Like I said in the beginning, if we looked at the British Isles during the time of the Celts (or even before that), we might also conclude that they could never grow to govern themselves.

--

This line of conversation has been really interesting for me and I'm definitely going to think about it more as well.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts#Head_hunting

Although the Britons weren't exactly allowed to develop independently. They were alternatively conquered by many stronger cultures, starting with the Romans and continuing through to the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings and eventually the Normans. As far as cultural shifts go, that's quite a bit more extreme than that experienced by colonies during 19th and 20th century European colonialism, with British cultures being not only shocked by exposure to outside forces but in some cases completely obliterated. But they turned out ok. Strong cultures have been invading weak cultures for nearly all of human history, it has traditionally been one way for cultural innovations to spread.

If a culture is strong enough to be able to so comprehensively conquer another, it's obviously doing something right. I've often thought that the optimal strategy for a conquered territory in that sort of scenario might be to assimilate their victor's culture as far as possible, gradually take over the reigns of power and build up strength locally so as to eventually present the reigning power with a fait accompli. See for how example how the Boers (called Afrikaners later) in South Africa went from being mostly ill-educated and rural farmers who badly lost a war with Britain in 1902 to running most of the government when the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910 and being dominant enough to declare the creation of an independent republic by 1961 without significant opposition and no bloodshed. Ignoring apartheid and all the rest, that has always struck me as a particularly smart way to go about achieving independence. Whether the same approach would have applied in all situations is an open question, but it must surely have been better than overthrowing an external authority without any kind of viable replacement ready for it.

Lewis Lapham on a rather nasty defeat of the Romans in the Teutoburg Forest around a.d. 9: "In the Teutoburg Forest, tribesmen led by a chieftain named Arminius surprised and annihilated three Roman legions -- 15,000 men plus camp followers. Arminius had the heads of his victims nailed to trees: it provided a telling psychological message that was not lost on Rome. Violence became its own reward. The empire retreated behind the Rhine and, except for occasional forays, left Germany alone." Among other fun things, the Cherusci (the "barbarian" group that carried out the attack) were known for nailing defeated-but-living enemies to the trunks of "sacred oak trees".