RE#7: WW20 - Colonial Encounters

As I continue reading these chapters, I realize more and more what horrible things Europeans have done in the past. Not to be an anti or racist, it's just the way the history book explains it in reference to their colonialization/industrial/trade acts - when you read page after page of how Europeans brought diseases killing 90% of native populations, introduced alcohol and killer machinery whose smoke contributes greatly to the depleting ozone layer problem we have today, and their (somewhat selfish?) desire for political, territorial, religious conquest resulted in massacres, wars, drastic demographic changes ... it's hard NOT to say that the Europeans back then have, well, behaved horribly. Lol.

"Every soul was either shot or bayoneted... We burned all the huts and razed the banana plantations to the ground."- 1902, British soldier in East Africa.

This quote from page 594 prompted those thoughts up above. Especially with the Industrial Revolution added to the mix and the creation of guns, firepower, and weapons of mass destruction, the use of force and threats with these kinds of military tools against the innocent natives generate such dreadful images in my head. The picture I drew up while reading the 1902 quote was even more devastating. The natives live so humbly, their huts and their plantations are literally all they have. What kind of human being could have the heart (or lack of) to do those kinds of things to entire villages, communities, countries?

It is explained that the motives of the Europeans consists of many things, such as the need for resources, trading routes, and even a genuine belief that natives are in dire need of God, and some form of structure and law. But really, who are they to say "No, your ways are wrong and yes, our ways are right, so convert"? With the use of force and through introducing all those diseases, they've killed off most of the native peoples like in Australia and New Zealand (p. 592). Colonization and advancement is, of course, a beneficial thing and the Europeans may have argued that what they are doing will immensely benefit the natives - it's for the greater good. But how are the new Europeans ways supposed to help the greater good if the greater good is dead and gone? Furthermore, they've caused a severe disruption of cultural practices that have peacefully and successfully fostered and governed individual lands for centuries.

It makes me wonder though: would these lands be better off without European influence and colonization? It's hard to argue against such things though, since our adaptation to those ways and the luxuries we are used to as a product of them are so ingrained in our everyday lives that it is impossible to think of a life without it. Colonization, in our eyes now, was and is necessary to sustain the comfortable life we live now.

The conversion of certain African/Asian states to European colonization differed in each case, but a successful one was in the case of Ethiopia and Siam who could avoid complete European takeover through their strong diplomatic and negotiating skills.  Also in the Mughal Empire territories where the people had nothing and there was an "absence of any overall sense of cultural or political unity" (p. 592), it seems right and even necessary for outside European powers to colonize it. It's the stable, rightfully governed, peaceful states that should be left alone, or at least consist of peaceful negotiations that don't include killing off most of its native population.

The global world would be pretty boring if each country had the same European culture, government, and people.