Again, I won’t argue that colonial wealth didn’t contribute to the rise of Western Europe, but it was Europeans who invented the steam engine, developed thermodynamics as a science and put half a continent’s worth of resources and intellect into the industrial revolution. Colonialism is only a contributing factor that came after the start of the industrial revolution. Hell, France for example barely had any colonies during the early industrial revolution and that didn’t at all impede its industrialization or rise to power. If you look at, say, Ottoman history you’ll see that the thing European countries had and the Ottomans didn’t wasn’t wealth but rather ideas.
Which is why many in the developing world feel that China’s rise to prominence is the West’s chickens coming home to roost.
As someone from the developing world (specifically the Middle East), we are salty about colonialism, but many of us also recognize that if we don’t learn from the history of colonialism and what allowed Europe to conquer half the world (including us) we’ll always be on the bottom rung of the world. There’s a lot more to learn from the rise of Europe than “fuck colonialism”.
Colonialism is essentially theft with a pretty red ribbon on top to make it look good so we can all unequivocally say fuck colonialism.
But my point is beyond that. It’s that the progress that’s been achieved through those ideas you’re celebrating was predicated on theft from and suffering of people in developing countries. In a sense those in developing countries have an ownership stake in Western industrialization and China is the first previously developing nation that’s coming to take back what is, in part, theirs. The West needs to come to terms with the fact that they won’t be the last to do so.
Again, I won’t argue that colonial wealth didn’t contribute to the rise of Western Europe, but it was Europeans who invented the steam engine, developed thermodynamics as a science and put half a continent’s worth of resources and intellect into the industrial revolution. Colonialism is only a contributing factor that came after the start of the industrial revolution. Hell, France for example barely had any colonies during the early industrial revolution and that didn’t at all impede its industrialization or rise to power. If you look at, say, Ottoman history you’ll see that the thing European countries had and the Ottomans didn’t wasn’t wealth but rather ideas.
As someone from the developing world (specifically the Middle East), we are salty about colonialism, but many of us also recognize that if we don’t learn from the history of colonialism and what allowed Europe to conquer half the world (including us) we’ll always be on the bottom rung of the world. There’s a lot more to learn from the rise of Europe than “fuck colonialism”.
Colonialism is essentially theft with a pretty red ribbon on top to make it look good so we can all unequivocally say fuck colonialism.
But my point is beyond that. It’s that the progress that’s been achieved through those ideas you’re celebrating was predicated on theft from and suffering of people in developing countries. In a sense those in developing countries have an ownership stake in Western industrialization and China is the first previously developing nation that’s coming to take back what is, in part, theirs. The West needs to come to terms with the fact that they won’t be the last to do so.