Chapter 20

What struck me about the first part of the chapter was the different ways lands became colonized. In India for example a company, the British East India Company, rather than the British government directly took the leading role in turning India and other parts of South Asia into a colony of England. As in India when the Dutch took over Indonesia the fact that there was no strong Indonesian state made it easier for the Dutch to take over. Colonization in India and Indonesia evolved over a long period of time with traders players a major role. In the second half of the nineteenth century, in Africa colonization came much more quickly as European powers went against each other trying to get as much of the continent as they could for their country. The European powers negotiated about who got what and then used force in Africa to take over and dominate their various territories. In contrast, the colonization of Australia and New Zealand followed more closely the pattern of colonization of North America. There was massive European settlement. Like in the US the Europeans brought diseases that wiped out most of the Native populations. What is most surprising to me about this second wave of colonization is not this speed of which it happened or the different paths that the European take over took. What is almost shocking is the assumption by the European powers that they had a complete right to go around the world taking over completely different populations and their lands. They had a belief that it was there right to exploit the colonized countries and to turn people into second class citizens in their own lands. The Europeans had no problem with using force against the Native peoples to keep control. The Europeans could only believe it was their right to rule over African and Asian people because they were superior beings. It is disgusting that Europeans were called African men "boy" just like slave owners in the US called their African adult male slaves "boy". Colonialism was built on racism. With no thought of European rule could be destroying ancient cultures. The Europeans used every device they could think of to impose their own structure on to the colonized society. They brought a completely different way of life that included global trading, tax collecting and bureaucracy. In Africa, the Europeans took the idea of a tribe and used it for their own good sometimes even creating tribes and making them hostile to each other. In some colonies the Europeans wanted to keep a tribal or traditional structure so that they could use the features such as the Caste System to justify putting the colonized people into different groups based on birth. In some ways, I see echoes of this type of colonization in our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have tried to shape these societies and engage in "nation building" but in fact have kept the true benefits that the west could offer such as working schools, hospitals, highway systems, electrical power and clean water that could really help people not get done while the money went to the defense contractors and to promoting blood shed.