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Spain can obviously be blamed for a large portion of Native American genocide.
However, left out of the story is that Spain tried to reform its colonial system to be kinder and gentler in the 17th & 18th centuries.
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Originally Posted by Listener2307
If any colonialism is worse than Belgium, I would be stunned - and a large portion of that occurred in the 20th century. 1885 - 1910. We're talking about as many as 12 million native Congolese being worked to death or murdered. It was a time when enforcers were sent out with bullets and they had to return with the same number of bullets or an equal number of hands, which had been cut off the slaves they had killed with those bullets.
The horrific story is told in "King Leopold's Ghost". Much of the story was not known until the mid/late 20th century.
When you look at the larger empires, the British, the Spanish, the French and Russian etc., you are going to find both the bad and the good. After all, even the Ottoman Empire, one of the "more bad" empires IMO, did have some good qualities.
The thing is that the sins of the larger empires and nations tend to be more well known then the smaller nations. For example, people know about the African slave trade into the British, Spanish and French colonies but how many people know that for a time Denmark and Sweden had colonies and forts along the African coast engaged in the slave trade?
I agree with Listener about Belgium. The Belgian Congo stands out pretty badly, partially because of how bad it was at a time when other colonial nations were starting to get better.
The British were able to establish an Empire based on monarchy, democratic principlese that date back to Magna Carta which are the common basis for laws of Britain, laws of the USA and laws for many former British terrortiories. If you live in an English country like the USA, Canada, New Zealand, you most likely live in a free society thanks to British Empire. British created an Empire based on free capital, and representation of people.
Don't get me wrong. The British were oppressive, and committed plenty of atrocities. Also when British colonies became free like the United States and South Africa. These countries committed acts of crime against their own people. After the decline and fall of the British Empire. It's child colony the United States picked up where the British left off and continue empire building in the Anglo Saxon light. Also the British Empire left unresolved legacy such as the issues of Northern Ireland, the division between Jews and Palestinians and remember Israel was once a British Mandate and part of the British Empire, and allowing the 2nd class Bores to dominate South Africa with racial policies that went against British moral codes. The child colony of the US, like the British has invaded hundreds of countries, control the flow of trade with its navies, and can out gun every country on earth.
We are not talking about "Comecon" here, just Soviet Union.
Dead weight? Yes, it was the "dead weight" from the point of view of part of Soviet nomenclature,that thought that NOT sharing any natural resources with the rest of republics would put more money in their own pockets. That was NOT what Soviet population wanted ( as the vote shows,) but that's what the World bank and Harvard economists wanted. And that's how it went ( as crucial as keeping the ties between Republics was for the region's economy at that point in time.)
Now look at the results of cutting that "dead weight" - look at what's going on with Ukraine, look what's going on with Central Asian republics, be that Tajikistan or Uzbekistan.
It was the logical, rational solution. If the soviet leaders pilfered and had a fest with URRS's commodities, blame leadership, blame Russians.
Anyways...who do you think it was first, the egg or the chicken?
Do you think that the Russian Mafia and cronyism, that ended owning most important resources, just appeared out of thin air during "capitalism"? They already existed before.
According to popular wisdom, the only period without mafia in the Russian history was during Stalin, but really, better mafia than stalinism.
Russians should forget abot Ukraine and foreign republics, not their business.
But really, I think that the apparatchniks and intelligentsia were centuries above Russian people.
How can the people really worship Stalin?
Last edited by farinello; 11-08-2017 at 03:53 AM..
Every empire that has come and god in history has contributed in shaping our world. When assessing the footprint of empires we tend to look at the negatives brought forth by those nations. Historically speaking, Empire has always had a pejorative connotation associated with it. I guess it’s because empires by definition were vast, which is something that can only be achieved by engaging in territorial expansion.
Saying that one was the worst would imply that there is an objective way of assessing “bad”. How does one view such a polarising question? Is bad defined by how many people died during the empire’s tenure? Is it a matter of cultural imposition or the destruction of certain cultures by conquest?
If it weren’t for European colonialism who knows how long it would have taken to bridge the Western Hemisphere with the Eastern one.
The Russian Empire and its follow up the SU for example, were very brutal regimes by all measures, yet they were able to achieve industrialisation at a rapid pace as well as be the first nation to send satellites into space.
Every empire that has come and god in history has contributed in shaping our world. When assessing the footprint of empires we tend to look at the negatives brought forth by those nations. Historically speaking, Empire has always had a pejorative connotation associated with it. I guess it’s because empires by definition were vast, which is something that can only be achieved by engaging in territorial expansion.
Saying that one was the worst would imply that there is an objective way of assessing “badâ€. How does one view such a polarising question? Is bad defined by how many people died during the empire’s tenure? Is it a matter of cultural imposition or the destruction of certain cultures by conquest?
If it weren’t for European colonialism who knows how long it would have taken to bridge the Western Hemisphere with the Eastern one.
I don't think you can assess the definition of "good" and "bad" in this case, unless you put it all in religious context. What it looks like, is that the age of colonization involved European powers, invariably of Christian background ( although of different denominations,) taking over non-Christian, less advanced nations, and dealing with them in a different manner.
What is this "manner" and what's the ultimate purpose behind colonization one might ask. Is it predominantly missionary work/Christianization of the "lesser people" and their assimilation, is it their ultimate destruction, or the exploitation of their lands as much as the inhabitants themselves?
I think you'll get different answers in each and every case, but overall I think that at the end, the "success" should be measured by the amount of people absorbed/included in *European\Christian* mainstream, because if you remember after all, even in Belgian Congo it were not the Belgians who were chopping the limbs off and eating their "adversaries" alive, but the local tribes hired for this purpose.
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The Russian Empire and its follow up the SU for example, were very brutal regimes by all measures, yet they were able to achieve industrialisation at a rapid pace as well as be the first nation to send satellites into space.
Russian Empire ( as much as the USSR) are rather an exception in each and every case for their own reasons. But they were rather successful in absorbing and russifying minorities.
Russian Empire ( as much as the USSR) are rather an exception in each and every case for their own reasons. But they were rather successful in absorbing and russifying minorities.
Tell me whether the Chechens or the residents of the "-stans" were Russified?
Tell me whether the Chechens or the residents of the "-stans" were Russified?
The umpteenth time; when it comes to Chechens, ( and North Caucasians overall,) that was the only time when Russians were involved in genocide for real already back in history; you can see the reasons why;
( I already explained that Russians had their own approach/understanding of who is fit for assimilation and who is not.)
As for the "stans" - these people were definitely russified (for the most part) during Soviet times.
I think the question depends on what you'd value now. The British were decent at instituting rule of law....and then using said laws to roll-over native populations very harshly (India, China, back-fired in America) while using their Navy to impede the progress of others. The French initially would trade with some of the native populations, but also had no problem instituting slavery. The Spanish were all about forced religious conversion, and lead military and gold raping expeditions. Smallpox helped all three. The Japanese were certainly not the world's most loved imperialists. Portugal certainly punched higher than their weight class during the period. The Belgium and German imperialists never really got things moving. The Italians were a joke...and late to the party anyway.
However, it seems clear that those that the Commonwealth members in general have outperformed the others. While it was horridly pompous, establishing the means of ruling through laws gave a construct that could also carryforward to those areas later. Contrastingly, those that were set up mainly for exploitation passed on the means for continued exploitation of the native population.
As you can see indigenous peoples of Russia survived at a higher rate than in Anglophone America. Of course natives of Russia were immune to old world diseases so didn't have to deal with massive depopulations, but still a huge difference. Though if you look at Siberian population and Native Canadian population it is somewhat comparable in totals, though I doubt there is a first nation that has as many people as the Yakuts, Buryats or Tuvans. Then if you account for the populations in the post soviet republics it doesn't even come close.
I believe the largest surviving concentrations of Gypsies (Roma speaking or otherwise when including the "counterfeits", swarthy Euro peasantry that was forced into the Gypt category) were in Communist Balkan (i.e. Titoististas) and U.S.S.R. The Lenistas wanted the nationalities (what now would be called minority ethnic groups) to develop themselves culturally, they wanted federation not elimination, though even Lenin noted the problems of chauvinism, feudalism & bourgeois pseudo-nationalism.
Tell me whether the Chechens or the residents of the "-stans" were Russified?
Russians only got to the caucuses in the 1700s and didn't have full control until the mid 1800s around the same time the Civil War in the US was happening. So Russia didn't have as much time to integrate these people. But there are many other groups through out Russia that have been completely integrated, so much so that many of these people don't even know that they trace their roots so such groups. I'm mainly talking about the Uralic, Finnic and Turkic peoples of central and northern Russia.
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