Would post-colonial nations be better or worse off if they had never been colonized?

Great Debates
21

Thailand has similar neighbors in not just Burma, but also Laos, Malaysia, Cambodia (all which border Thailand) and Vietnam and Indonesia, which don’t quite border Thailand. Let’s throw in the Philippines, too, for good measure.

Laos was ceded to the French by Thailand in a move to avoid French colonisation. The adjacent part of Thailand is the poorest and most drought stricken part of Thailand, so maybe the Thais got the better deal there. Laos is still a poor country and went through some tough times during the Communist insurgency in neighboring Vietnam.

Burma was colonised by the Brits, as previously noted, and in a more perfect world would get a lot more attention for their crazy military junta, which for some reason is just not as trendy as North Korea’s Sun Jung Il these days. Maybe if they develop a nuclear capability we’ll here more about them.

Vietnam seems to be a fairly stable and dynamic country these days. Not sure how much of that is attributable to the changing climate in China, but no one can argue that it was a tough place from WWII to at least 1975.

Malaysia is seen as a fairly decent model of a moderate, democractic state, despite their history with the British. There are some Muslim insurgency groups there, but they seem to focus their efforts on destabilizing the southern parts of Thailand which have a higher than average sized Muslim population.

Indonesia was a Dutch colony and also went through some nasty dictatorships and social upheavals. They seem to be leaning a bit more towards democracy these days but there is still a lot of relgious and ethnic tension directed towards minority (see: E. Timor) groups.

The Philippines was fairly stable through most of the 20th century, maybe owing ot the relatively early departure of the Spanish, but then they inherited a lopsided relationship with the USA. DiMarco kept the country stable but poor. The people power revolutions that followed have not done much to eradicate some of the systemic poverty in the country, but this might be as much about their diffuse geography as anything else. I’ve not heard much about the Muslim rebels in their south lately, but that’s likely as much about bigger headlines as anything else.

Thailand has been a relatively stable country, but hardly a force or beacon in wilderness to these other countries. They seem to have established a balance between corrupt democracy and military rule over the past several decaces, maybe aided by the country’s respect for their King who has now been on the throne for 60 years. He has no actual constitutional powers yet exerts a very strong influence on the country’s politics.

22

In many circumstances, the problems are a result of the outside intrusion we are talking about.

23

I don’t know how much ownership/control it has over its own oil, which is part of the problem. (Africa has oil and diamonds and all sorts of goodies, but they are owned/controlled by foreigners, and the profits don’t stay in the country.)

Another problem colonialism caused was the disruption of existing social/cultural/institutional systems (like imposing new governmental structures and installing people who are friendly to the colonial powers, or even imposing political borders without respect of existing cultural borders). This has certainly affected the Middle East very negatively. Not only do the imposed structures often not work (because they are inappropriate to the society they are in) but they also build huge resentment among the colonized towards the colonizers. And, they obscure systems which did actually work, and make them inaccessible to the colonized.

(Sorry, I usually think about this w.r.t sub-saharan Africa; similar tensions exist in MENA but no doubt have their own flavour. The influence of Islam as opposed to Christianity is a huge one, but I expect the dynamics work in a similar way.)

Ultimately, there is very little cultural memory of an African system which worked for Africans in the absence of colonialism. Even if they can become nominally independent, and even if they could own their own resources in fact (and not just in name), it is an uphill battle to build strong communities and societies.

For instance, a lot of “traditional” Africans are conservative Christians, for whom anti-colonial revolution would mean a “return” to a more patriarchal and homophobic society. It is impossible for anyone living today to imagine what Africa looked like before the imposition of Victorian values.

Even if we (they) could start from the best possible standpoint, it would be very difficult to build a just and equitable African society, because of the massive and complicated influence of the West.

24

Also, I’ve been reading Kipling lately. And missing one of my favorite cuisines, Indian – no Indian restaurants in Homestead, Florida!

If the topic of this thread interests you, The Years of Rice and Salt, an alternate-history novel by Kim Stanley Robinson, is well worth a read. The Black Death of the 14th Century wipes out not a third, but nine-tenths, of the population of Europe; the Arabs eventually move in and colonize the emptied territories. The results – well, I won’t spoil it, but see the Wiki article linked.

25

A lot depends on which colonizing power was involved, especially in reference to Africa. If it was the Belgians or Portuguese - well, you were essentially screwed – your colonial experience was one big negative. If it was the British or the French, you had to put up with condescending, racist attitudes, theft or resources and oftern outright violence - but there was a least a patina of good intentions on the part of many of the colonial authorities… they may have wanted to “civilize” the wogs, or made them into darker Frenchmen, but there was investment in infrastructure, the training of locals to administer the state apparatus, some attempts to establish schooling for at least part of the population. When independence came, there is a marked difference between those countries where the colonial power had actually invested in infrastructure and training (think Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria) and those that were simply abandoned (think Zaire, Angola, Mozambique). I don’t want to come off as defending colonialism by any European power, I just want to point out that some were much worse than others.

26

The Maori didn’t really have much that the Europeans wanted… sure, there may have been limited trade in timber, fish, and trinkets, but there are only so many greenstone Tikis you can buy before you start to wonder if it’s really worth sailing all the way from England or Australia for it…

27

I wasn’t suggesting full-on commercial trade, just enough for cultural leakage. There is no place that traders won’t go, in hope of making some small profit. Plus, didn’t NZ make a stopover for someone rounding the Horn to get to Australia?. I can see a Cape Town-style trading post.

28

That’s how the Colonisation of New Zealand started, at a place called Kororareka (now Russell) .

Kororareka could best be decscribed as the Victorian equivalent of the Mos Eisley Spaceport, and the British found themselves getting involved after concerns of lawlessness and the possibility that, if they weren’t careful, they could end up with smugglers operating out of there.

It’s quite a fascinating place… the church and cemetary are pock-marked with musketball holes after the frequent skirmishes between, well, pretty much everyone in the area with a firearm, and the British authorities. Well worth visiting if you’re ever heading to New Zealand!

29

If Canada kept its oil and diamonds and minerals and timber and whatever else it exports, for itself, it pretty clearly would not be better off today.

30

Sorry, I don’t understand. I guess I wasn’t clear enough in my original point: if Africa got to keep its resources and dispose of them as they pleased (ie sell them and reinvest the profits in its own infrastructure, or something) it would be better off. Canada does sell its own resources and keep the profits to reinvest in itself. African countries, by and large, do not.

31

The difference is, Canada has always been able to sell its exports at a fair price and keep the proceeds. African nations were in no position to do that until about the '60s (and even now, they’re saddled with debt to G-8 countries, and economically crippled by “austerity” regulations imposed by the World Bank and IMF).

32

Not true. Plenty of profits on Canadian resources go to a large number of foreign owned companies and investors.

Keep in mind that the colonial period in Africa (with the exception of South Africa)was relatively short for about 70 years, over by 1960. The rate of resource extraction at the time can in no way compare to the rate of resource extraction that exists today. I just can’t see resource extraction being responsible for Africa’s woes today.

33

A big part of the problem in the Middle East, AIUI, is that the oil wealth goes to a very small subset of the population. Those fortunate few then use their wealth in various ways to keep the rest of the people from trying to get it from them (oppressive governments, painting foreigners and especially Americans and Europeans as enemies, repressive forms of religion, and so on). The profits from oil could be invested in infrastructure, but instead they’re invested in making life even more luxurious for the minority that get them.

ISTR reading somewhere (don’t remember where, so no cite) that that’s not an uncommon path for a country rich in natural resources but with few educated citizens to take. I was thinking that something like that might have happened in parts of Africa if it hadn’t been colonized by Europeans.

34

Sorry … what? Many parts of Africa were not independent until well after 1960. There are too many to research independently, but off the top of my head I know that Zimbabwe’s independence was 1980. Many would argue that they are still not independent, as the vast majority of land and resources are foreign owned and controlled.

I don’t know if it’s so easy to separate the constraints of the colonial period from the debt situation, since the debts began during the 1960s too. As soon as they gained (nominal) control over their resources, they immediately had to start servicing these debts. They haven’t had a shot at reaping the benefits of their own resources in the way that Canada or Australia has.

Also, many possibilities that are available to countries like Canada are not available to them because of GATT/WTO/international debt restrictions. Nations were obliged to privatize many, many resources and services in order for nations to qualify for international financial “assistance,” leading not only to profits flying out of the country, but also to large numbers of citizens losing access to things like water and electricity (which would make them less productive as citizens). This AFAIK has never happened in Canada.

35

Rhodesia (as it was known) became independent in 69’ Illegally from the British Crown lead by Ian Smith, which prompted the Zanu PPF militia to overthrow that White minority government and restore a black majority government which was then in turn manipulated by Robert Mugabe.

Erm, most of the ‘debts’ were for these governments to either, consolidate their power of their populations (since most were either Western backed dictatorships or Soviet leaning countries) and then invest in the infrastructure to repress them, that’s why the militaries of various African countries count so much. I don’t think Colonialism comes into this, more the situation of the post Colonialist situation was thrown into the midst of the Cold War. So what happens if the Cold war never existed, would African development be so bad without it?

Canada had a influx of Western immigrants, who had the same culture and values of that of their former countries, and also had a population who had the contacts to bring trade and development to Canada, same applies to Australia.

Huh? AFAIK, most third/second world governments, have massive bureaucratic restrictions on foreign investment and development of countries natural resources,
like Bolivia and Venezuela for instance, tax energy companies up to 50% of what they’ve sold in order to remain doing business there. Which is why the climate of investment goes down.