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A world without colonialism?

Do you understand that your claim that those empires "obviously benefited" is a claim unsupported by evidence?

If you doubt they benefitted militarily by acquiring land, just answer the following question:

Compared to the original city state of Rome, could the Roman Empire:

a) field larger and more powerful armies
b) field armies of about the same power
c) field less powerful armies

Yes, the British-led Indian troops fought in WW2. Would they have fought if Britain was the aggressor in its empire-building mode? I doubt it.

Why do you doubt historical fact?

For 200+ years Indian troops fought for Britain in Empire building mode all over the world, including India.

India was overwhelmingly colonised using Indian soldiers with a small number of British troops alongside.

Did you not know that?
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
For example the East India Company takeover of India was instigated and paid for by Indian Bankers, the Jagat Seths, and mostly done with Indian troops. They preferred to deal with a corporation than unpredictable and capricious Mughal emperors so they bribed the EIC to depose them. Many Muslims in Bengal also preferred company rule than taking their chances with Hindu Marathas.
And they also brought great suffering that undoubtedly outweighed any potential gains. Yeah, rich people supported it to get richer, and the cost was barbaric and inhumane to those in the way.
Indian soldiers would fight for whoever paid them best, as they had done for centuries. For the most part, the EIC paid them better, so they were better off.
Many have been that. It seems possible even that larger warmongering states (especially empires) drove many to mercenary work as their cultures became more militarized in response to the empire.
For the majority of Indians though, it made little difference who their rulers were, they were subsistence farmers.

But trade is something that benefits greatly from stability, and stability tends to result from powerful Empires. Just as the Romans were able to crack down on piracy in the Med, the British made the seas much safer than they would otherwise have been in a more 'multipolar' world - the Pax Britannica (of course only possible after a lot of bellum Britannica).
We have plenty of examples of such stability without empires, such as among the Iroquois in the Americas.
Then you have things like the ending of the slave trade, which was only really possible because Britain was rich and powerful so it could bribe people to support the ban or bully them into submission, just as America has often been able to do since WW2 when it wants to get its way. Imperial might can be used for helping as well as harming.
They ended slavery largely and mostly where they imposed it and freed mostly their own slaves.
And the becoming so rich and powerful thing, this frequently comes with creating the excuses and reasons, such as Uncle Sam supporting Al Qaeda, fermenting the Iranian Revolution, or supporting the Contras. Sure, be takes care of the commies and terrorists, but he played a large role in creating them.
Empire create common language which facilitates cultural and scientific exchange and concentrations of wealth that support scholarship, for example the 'Golden Age' after the Arab conquests as parts of the Roman and Persian Empires were combined along with a lingua franca and rich patrons for scholarship.
That also conforms thinking and impedes progress. When everyone thinks like a Roman, you lose the insights of the Gauls and the Cherusci.
Long distance trade, cultural exchange, scientific progress, etc. all benefit from empire, and a less imperial world would have been a more fragmented and parochial world. People would still be moving around, but fewer, and with more trepidation.
That can't be states with any certainty.
It's impossible to do a "balance sheet' for any empire, especially as many of the 'good' things are only possible due to 'bad' things like prior violent conquest. "Good" is also far too subjective to be meaningful, you could legitimately argue the spread of industrialisation is among the best thing in human history, or among the very worst.
That's pretty much what we've been doing, and you say it can't be done but Monty Python did an excellent job at it.
 
And they also brought great suffering that undoubtedly outweighed any potential gains. Yeah, rich people supported it to get richer, and the cost was barbaric and inhumane to those in the way.

Who do you think supported the Mughals? Poor people? The question is whether you prefer a merchant and business elite or an aristocratic, feudal elite. You seem to be have a lot of faith in the benevolence of the aristocrats to assume their rule would "undoubtedly" have been better.

The Mughals have even been accused of committing the greatest genocide in human history, it's total bollocks, but so are many things people believe about the EIC.

So "undoubtedly" based on what? Every regime from this era is "barbaric and inhumane" by modern standards, including all of the alternatives to EIC rule.

It's like saying the Roman Empire was "bad" and everything it did everywhere outweighed any potential gains.

Why do you think whichever Indian Emperor or Warlord who eventually won would have been more better? (or even that someone would have won without decades or centuries of internecine warfare)

You can only judge things by their realistic alternatives, a far worse outcomes were certainly a real possibility at the time. Things may have been better or worse, there is no way to tell, so saying "undoubtedly" is just an empty ideological assertion.

The EIC weren't altruistic do gooders and they weren't the Nazis, just another regime who did both good and bad.

The view of one of the leading Indian historians, Tirthankar Roy:


Economic historians have offered a third alternative to the imperialist orthodoxy and Cambridge revisionism, a shift that historians of South Asia are yet to notice. This third view says that the Company played the strategic game of creating a strong state better than its rivals. My book An Economic History of Early Modern India (2013) made the case that the successor states to the Mughals had too little time and too few resources to get their tax systems in shape, which pushed them into making unreliable alliances and adopting extortionate tactics. The battles that followed further eroded their fiscal capacity. The Company followed another strategy. Most Indian states relied on military-cum-feudal lords for both taxation and the supply of soldiers. Such loyalty often failed. The British raised an army of paid soldiers. They did it while reforming the land tax system, which reform turned the village landlords from military agents into landowners. In the process of this gradual transfer of power from the warlords to the state, the Company created a state that could collect more tax per head and operated a more powerful military machine...

Far from being anarchic, the Company created a modern state machine which their rivals failed to do. Other works directly and indirectly confirm that view. Anand Swamy and Mandar Oak have shown that the Company offered its Indian allies more credible deals than did its rivals (Explorations in Economic History, 2012). A test of misrule is the extent of economic stress it causes. The economists Jeffrey Williamson and David Clingingsmith claim that the famines of the last years of the eighteenth century were the result of climatic factors and not misrule directly (Explorations in Economic History, 2008). Estimating the average real income of India, Stephen Broadberry, Bishnupriya Gupta and Johann Custodis show that income fell between 1600 and 1750 when the Mughals ruled India and did not change in the next fifty years when the so-called anarchy ruled (Explorations in Economic History, 2015).

It is a cliché that the Company was a foreign force that imposed itself on Indians, and using its corporate power established an evil rule. The problem with that argument is that many wealthy and influential Indians wanted the Company’s rule. Most Bengalis of the time would not even have seen the British as any more foreign than was the Persian-speaking Nawab. Of course, corporate power helped the Company. But this organization was nothing without Indian help. Its trading operation could never have survived without the collaboration and partnership of thousands of Indian merchants, agents, artisans, bankers and transporters. The Company was the biggest business firm in the world of its time. Some of the most famous entrepreneurs and business families of nineteenth-century India made their money trading with the Company or with European merchants. The Indian merchants and intellectuals of the port cities almost unanimously welcomed Company rule. That support – and not Robert Clive’s plunder or intrigues – helped British power survive in India.


archive.ph

Many have been that. It seems possible even that larger warmongering states (especially empires) drove many to mercenary work as their cultures became more militarized in response to the empire.

They had been part of militarised empires for centuries, if not millennia already.

Soldiering has always been seen as a good option for many, it doesn't require people to be driven into it

That can't be states with any certainty.

You can't state with any certainty that security impacts movement and trade, or that cultural exchange, common language and greater wealth impacts scientific progress?

Ok, you can at least state it with a very high degree of probability based on what actually happened in the past.

We have plenty of examples of such stability without empires, such as among the Iroquois in the Americas.

In a completely different geographic, political and technological environment.

What happened when it met the same force that existed in the old world?

They ended slavery largely and mostly where they imposed it and freed mostly their own slaves.
And the becoming so rich and powerful thing, this frequently comes with creating the excuses and reasons, such as Uncle Sam supporting Al Qaeda, fermenting the Iranian Revolution, or supporting the Contras. Sure, be takes care of the commies and terrorists, but he played a large role in creating them.

No, they enforced it far beyond their Empire. They basically bullied/bribed much of Europe into accepting it, Brazil, West Africa, etc. They also didn't create it, although Europeans did increase demand which others were always happy to supply.

It wasn't the nice, simple heroic narrative often promoted, but imo, ending the slave trade is a good thing and a country spending a huge amount of money and resources to do this is a good thing.

The only thing that made this possible was financial and naval dominance, which was the product of empire.

That also conforms thinking and impedes progress. When everyone thinks like a Roman, you lose the insights of the Gauls and the Cherusci.
That's pretty much what we've been doing, and you say it can't be done but Monty Python did an excellent job at it.

Highlighting what things empires did is not a balance sheet.

A balance sheet requires one to work out if the empire is in "profit/loss".

How do you measure stability, technological progress, urbanisation, increased prosperity, etc against lost diversity and cultural traditions, detachment from the land, etc?

How would you even begin to measure the Roman Empire against the alternatives that never happened?

It's just meaningless speculation, which can be fun but is entertaining rather than substantial.
 
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amorphous_constellation

Well-Known Member
I'll offer the cause of colonialism as the ego-driven need to feel superior to others which results in arrogant human behavior. If the cause of arrogant human behavior never existed, we'd have a truly wonderful world.

There is part of it that is about that, but another is just that our European ancestors, or cultural tradition, never seemed to really establish how property should be distributed, among those who seem to need it. It was largely about about cordoning off important areas to be economic zones, so that the housing that appeared adjacent to them, seemed incidental. And so then, when a town (economic area) dried up, it seems that the mere fact of the area being 'peopled,' often could not allay the discomfort of the physical displacement of economy

I don't know that other cultures had this problem quite as much as we have had. I think that maybe sometimes, they found meaning in other places than economy and gdp, and so this seems like it would have diffused their want of being great colonizers themselves?

I also think that religion played a role in the european case, but it's hard to tell if it was just riding atop of economic drive. Christianity seems like it is the original religion with the motivating factor of expansion as being central. Though of course, it probably competed with other religions that were trying the same thing, but it won out. It ended being another sort of tool in toolkit, parallel to the need for an expanding economy, and the need for land to live on, which followed the economy around.
 

Debater Slayer

Vipassana
Staff member
Premium Member
How do Egyptians view this? After being a great power during the various Egyptian Empire, being ruled by 'foreign' elites for over 200 years.

There is considerable variance in Egyptians' views on the different periods of colonization in the country's history, and I have no studies or similarly rigorous evidence of the majority's opinions. However, I think most view the period of British colonization, for example, as a prominent time of decline for Egypt, both due to the large-scale and comprehensive exploitation of Egypt under British rule and due to the war crimes and violence that British forces engaged in.

On the other hand, the period of Ottoman rule is quite polarizing, and this has increased in the last several years due to the tense relations with Turkey and an impression some have that Turkey is vying for regional leadership and a return to the "glory days" of the Ottoman Empire. Some view the Ottoman period as much better than the present situation even if they concede that it had many problems of its own, while others view it as a dark spot on a path of decline that spanned a few centuries.

On the whole, though, aside from some ardent nationalists and a subset of wealthier people, many Egyptians are thoroughly dissatisfied with the current status of Egypt and its noticeable deterioration from a regional and, at some points, global power to a shadow of its former self and a country struggling with mounting debt as well as low standards of living.

Whereas some nationalists tout the thousands of years of Egyptian civilization as evidence that Egypt is an exceptional or admirable country that is doing better than it has in decades, many critics of the country's status quo instead see the country's historical and cultural riches as even more reason that its current situation is markedly unbecoming of its historical status. Views on the causes of the present situation and potential solutions to it are quite varied as well, but profound discontent looms above most of them.

What is the 'idea of Egypt' as a distinct entity during these periods (at least pre-19th C)? Are there any regimes that are seen as 'more Egyptian'? How 'Egyptian' are the Mamluks for example? Is the Mamluk Empire seen as an Egyptian Empire or a Turko-Caucasian one (or something else)?

I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts on this :)

This is again a controversial subject, and there are four main camps when it comes to the question of "what is Egypt?" which in itself is unavoidably linked to the question of what Egyptian identity is:

• Those who see "real Egyptian identity" as exclusively made up of ancient Egypt and identities that can be traced back to it and consider all subsequent foreign rulers—such as Greeks, Arabs, and Ottomans—as invaders or colonizers. Currently, this tends to have a focus on Arab presence in Egypt, since Egypt remains part of the Arab world and retains an Arab identity to this day, whereas it doesn't retain an Ottoman or British identity from the period when it was ruled by either.

Fatima Naoot is an example of a relatively popular (or notorious, depending on where you stand) public figure among this camp. This is a brief video where she outlines her views. MEMRI has some questionable subtitles on other videos, but I watched this one and can confirm that the subtitles are pretty accurate:

Egyptian Poet Fatima Naoot: Egypt Was Conquered by the Arabs, Coptic Language Changed By Force

• Those who see Egypt as an Arab, Islamic entity and denounce ancient Egypt as a "pagan" and "non-believing" culture. Many in this camp believe that Egypt was destined by Allah to be conquered by Muslims and become an Islamic nation and a beacon of Islam. Islamists tend to fall within this camp, albeit to varying extents—for example, some of them express admiration for ancient Egyptian achievements in architecture and language but strongly denounce its religious identity and polytheism.

• Those who see Egypt as a Coptic country, where Coptic language and identity can supposedly be traced back to ancient Egypt (the "original" or "real" Egypt), and view Arabs as invaders and Islam as the religion of the invaders. You won't find many Coptic Christians who publicly or explicitly state this view, mainly because it is unsafe to do so owing to the strong opposition to Islam inherent therein.

Fatima Naoot has been embroiled in a lot of controversies over the years because of espousing a similar view, but being Muslim (at least nominally) gives her at least a thin layer of protection that a Christian wouldn't have when publicly stating such an opinion. Even then, she has faced some lawsuits and charges of "insulting religion" before.

• Those who see Egyptian identity as being made up of the sum of all or most cultural elements it has absorbed from different rulers and periods in its history, including ancient Egyptian, Greek, Arab, Ottoman, and even British as well as French. However, many in this camp also lean toward embracing one or more of these cultures over the others, whether due to religious considerations or ethnic identity (e.g., identifying more with Arabs or Ottomans than the British or French, due to geographical proximity or perceived cultural similarities).

Personally, I'm closest to the fourth view out of the abovementioned positions: I think our present identity is the product of all historical events that have preceded it and contains elements from almost all cultures that have ruled Egypt. This doesn't mean I view all of those events as positive or desirable; I just see it as arbitrary and historically untenable to draw a line at a specific period and declare that all that came after it has no relation to the "real" Egyptian identity that supposedly only existed before that line.

I already find almost any sort of national identity to be lacking in rigor in terms of definition or delineation, much less one describing a country that has been under the rule of various cultures over a few millennia.

How is the 19th C (Ottoman) Egyptian colonisation of the Sudan viewed in Egypt in relation to other 19th C colonialism?

This is not a subject I have been interested in or explored in any meaningful amount of detail, so I can't answer the question other than to say that, as I mentioned above, reception to Ottoman rule of Egypt in general as well as the policies enacted during that time is widely polarized and mixed.
 
There is considerable variance in Egyptians' views on the different periods of colonization in the country's history, and I have no studies or similarly rigorous evidence of the majority's opinions. However, I think most view the period of British colonization, for example, as a prominent time of decline for Egypt, both due to the large-scale and comprehensive exploitation of Egypt under British rule and due to the war crimes and violence that British forces engaged in.

On the other hand, the period of Ottoman rule is quite polarizing, and this has increased in the last several years due to the tense relations with Turkey and an impression some have that Turkey is vying for regional leadership and a return to the "glory days" of the Ottoman Empire. Some view the Ottoman period as much better than the present situation even if they concede that it had many problems of its own, while others view it as a dark spot on a path of decline that spanned a few centuries.

On the whole, though, aside from some ardent nationalists and a subset of wealthier people, many Egyptians are thoroughly dissatisfied with the current status of Egypt and its noticeable deterioration from a regional and, at some points, global power to a shadow of its former self and a country struggling with mounting debt as well as low standards of living.

Whereas some nationalists tout the thousands of years of Egyptian civilization as evidence that Egypt is an exceptional or admirable country that is doing better than it has in decades, many critics of the country's status quo instead see the country's historical and cultural riches as even more reason that its current situation is markedly unbecoming of its historical status. Views on the causes of the present situation and potential solutions to it are quite varied as well, but profound discontent looms above most of them.



This is again a controversial subject, and there are four main camps when it comes to the question of "what is Egypt?" which in itself is unavoidably linked to the question of what Egyptian identity is:

• Those who see "real Egyptian identity" as exclusively made up of ancient Egypt and identities that can be traced back to it and consider all subsequent foreign rulers—such as Greeks, Arabs, and Ottomans—as invaders or colonizers. Currently, this tends to have a focus on Arab presence in Egypt, since Egypt remains part of the Arab world and retains an Arab identity to this day, whereas it doesn't retain an Ottoman or British identity from the period when it was ruled by either.

Fatima Naoot is an example of a relatively popular (or notorious, depending on where you stand) public figure among this camp. This is a brief video where she outlines her views. MEMRI has some questionable subtitles on other videos, but I watched this one and can confirm that the subtitles are pretty accurate:

Egyptian Poet Fatima Naoot: Egypt Was Conquered by the Arabs, Coptic Language Changed By Force

• Those who see Egypt as an Arab, Islamic entity and denounce ancient Egypt as a "pagan" and "non-believing" culture. Many in this camp believe that Egypt was destined by Allah to be conquered by Muslims and become an Islamic nation and a beacon of Islam. Islamists tend to fall within this camp, albeit to varying extents—for example, some of them express admiration for ancient Egyptian achievements in architecture and language but strongly denounce its religious identity and polytheism.

• Those who see Egypt as a Coptic country, where Coptic language and identity can supposedly be traced back to ancient Egypt (the "original" or "real" Egypt), and view Arabs as invaders and Islam as the religion of the invaders. You won't find many Coptic Christians who publicly or explicitly state this view, mainly because it is unsafe to do so owing to the strong opposition to Islam inherent therein.

Fatima Naoot has been embroiled in a lot of controversies over the years because of espousing a similar view, but being Muslim (at least nominally) gives her at least a thin layer of protection that a Christian wouldn't have when publicly stating such an opinion. Even then, she has faced some lawsuits and charges of "insulting religion" before.

• Those who see Egyptian identity as being made up of the sum of all or most cultural elements it has absorbed from different rulers and periods in its history, including ancient Egyptian, Greek, Arab, Ottoman, and even British as well as French. However, many in this camp also lean toward embracing one or more of these cultures over the others, whether due to religious considerations or ethnic identity (e.g., identifying more with Arabs or Ottomans than the British or French, due to geographical proximity or perceived cultural similarities).

Personally, I'm closest to the fourth view out of the abovementioned positions: I think our present identity is the product of all historical events that have preceded it and contains elements from almost all cultures that have ruled Egypt. This doesn't mean I view all of those events as positive or desirable; I just see it as arbitrary and historically untenable to draw a line at a specific period and declare that all that came after it has no relation to the "real" Egyptian identity that supposedly only existed before that line.

I already find almost any sort of national identity to be lacking in rigor in terms of definition or delineation, much less one describing a country that has been under the rule of various cultures over a few millennia.

This is not a subject I have been interested in or explored in any meaningful amount of detail, so I can't answer the question other than to say that, as I mentioned above, reception to Ottoman rule of Egypt in general as well as the policies enacted during that time is widely polarized and mixed.

Thank you for such a detailed reply, I found it really interesting :)

• Those who see Egypt as a Coptic country, where Coptic language and identity can supposedly be traced back to ancient Egypt (the "original" or "real" Egypt), and view Arabs as invaders and Islam as the religion of the invaders. You won't find many Coptic Christians who publicly or explicitly state this view, mainly because it is unsafe to do so owing to the strong opposition to Islam inherent therein.

I have seen some attempt by people try to promote "de-Arabification" of identity and history in other countries. I wonder if this will ever become more mainstream.

Maybe wokesters will try to decolonise the curriculum :D
 

Aštra’el

Aštara, Blade of Aštoreth
…a country that has been invaded and/or colonized by the Greeks, Arabs, Ottomans, French, and British

How do Egyptians view this? After being a great power during the various Egyptian Empire, being ruled by 'foreign' elites for over 200 years.

What is the 'idea of Egypt' as a distinct entity during these periods (at least pre-19th C)? Are there any regimes that are seen as 'more Egyptian'? How 'Egyptian' are the Mamluks for example? Is the Mamluk Empire seen as an Egyptian Empire or a Turko-Caucasian one (or something else)?

What makes Egypt such an easily conquerable target?
 
What makes Egypt such an easily conquerable target?

Not sure that it was particularly, it's just an old country so has existed longer.

The Eastern/Southern Med was wealthy and hard to defend as there are few natural barriers to hold back a successful army though. Rather than "Europe' and the "Middle East", the natural unit was a Mediterranean civilisation that included Southern Europe, the Levant, North Africa, etc.

So as you see, it's often not just Egypt changing hands, but entire empires changing.

 
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