Why Decolonization Theory is False

Guest Post by Luke Eastwood

In recent years it has become popular to discuss and promote decolonization as a concept and it has become somewhat of a “buzzword” in certain political and educational circles. While it is true that white people from Europe led the colonization of much of the world in the 15^th century onwards – this is a distortion and mispresentation of history. As part of a larger agenda of creating division and discord  between people, this has become one of the main planks of the plan, along with Critical Race Theory and Gender Theory. Of course, Decolonization Theory is a straw man and can be easily deconstructed, with just a few examples from actual history.

Throughout known human history there have been empires and pretty much every country has colonised somewhere else at some point in the past. The truth is that every culture has influenced and affected other cultures, for better or for worse – only perhaps the Aboriginal Australians lived in splendid isolation for tens of thousands of years, due to its vast distance from other countries, until the British arrived and began brutally taking over.

It’s true that the Americas (the European name given to this huge landmass) was colonized by the Portugeuse and Spanish from the early 15^th century onwards but it was already colonized. Following on for this arrival, other maritime nations – England, France and Netherlands took pieces for themselves, all leading to the decimation of the indigenous peoples and the importation of both slaves (from Africa) and indentured servants from Europe and China.  However, if we look closer we can soon discover that the Americas already suffered from colonialism – in particular the Aztecs, Mayans and the Incas. In reality the worst example is perhaps the Aztec Empire –  one of terror, human sacrifice and inhumane ruthlessness that was arguably worse than the regime of the Spanish that replaced them.

In Africa, slavery existed long before the Europeans arrived. It was common for Africans to sell captured enemies from war as slaves and there is evidence of slavery in the Egyptian empire of up to five thousand years ago. Also, on the eastern coast of Africa, the muslim Arabs were stealing Africans as slaves in the late 7^th century CE onwards, around 800 years before the Europeans got started! Not only that, but the Arabs had the barbaric habit of sterilising Africans (by castration) so that they could not have children and would be more docile. In Saudia Arabia slavery was only abolished until 1962. No you did not misread that, yes that’s right 1962!

The Ottoman Empire, based in Turkey, used slaves extensively since its rise (from 1299CE), often from Europe, as did their North African predecessors the Moors. The once famous Barbary Pirates, stole people all across coastal Europe. In Britain, between the 1500s and the mid-1800s, pirate thefts of people were a huge problem – for instance hundreds of Cornish families were captured by Barbary Pirates with villages around Cornwall repeatedly invaded and men, women and children shipped off to North Africa to be sold as slaves – entire villages were stolen. This, and other, uncomfortable truths have been conveniently forgotten because it does not fit with the current anti-European decolonization narrative.

In China the Han people took over places that were once other countries, to make China the huge country it is today – entire peoples and cultures were eradicated, in some cases with no evidence of their existence apart from the former name and a few ancient graves. In Japan there is a similar story of colonialism with its empire invading Russia, China and Korea in particular, plus many other countries in Asia during World War II.

Interestingly, Japan is perhaps the one country that the Mongols failed to successfully invade – after two failed invasions in the late 13^th century CE (at great cost of men, horses and ships), the Mongols gave up and turned their attentions elsewhere. However, the Mongols succeeded in creating the largest empire ever known. The Mongols were notoriously ruthless, flattening entire cities and killing every one of the residents, except for 1 or 2 witnesses, as an example to other cities. This was a tactic designed to force capitulation in the subsequent targets without a fight, and it was so terrifying that it worked very effectively.  The Mongol Empire reached from the Eastern Russian coast down into India, Arabia and as far west as modern Serbia in Europe – an area far bigger than the British Empire ever achieved.

Of course, if we go back prior to medieval times we see Europe invaded by the Persians (modern Iran/Iraq) as well as the Greeks and Romans invading the Middle East. Various empires across North Africa and the Middle East fought it out, including in parts of Europe, for millennia in a somewhat insane struggle for power. This long inter-empire struggle culminated with the rise of Islam in the 7^th century CE and the gradual demise of the Bizantine Empire from then onwards.

New Zealand was populated by the Maori people from polynesia around 14^th century CE, but their own legends tell of a people that were there before them – who seemingly no longer exist. The Maoris have a proud warrior tradition and it’s quite probable that they wiped out the indigenous population of the islands, just as Europeans (e.g. Columbus) did in the Caribbean region not much more than a century later.

In truth there has been massive social, cultural and ethnic interchange, migration and extermination over many millennia – the history of humanity is an extremely violent one, but also one of knowledge and culture.  If we look a Europe as one example, we can see the influence of Persia being absolutely massive, from gardening and writing to the rediscovery of Helenic philosophy. We can thank the Arabs for our modern number system, based on angles, that actually originated in India. We can also look to India for huge influences on modern European culture – ketchup through to Yoga and much more besides. Europe itself is a hotbed of repeated colonization and waves of invasions from Asia and North Africa as well as internally within itself, as well as eventually birthing nations that colonized much of the world.

Amazingly Ireland, one of the least colonial countries that we know of had two colonies at one time – coastal Wales and the western half of Scotland. It’s not well known that long before the English colonized and ruled Ireland the Irish were raiding, conquering and then settling in western Britain. The Irish also kept slaves at a time when it was no longer common in post-Roman Britain and captured foreign people (St. Patrick for instance) were often kept as slaves in Ireland.

So… the truth is not simple, the truth is actually highly complex and not what we might think it is. Colonialism is a horrible, unjust, cruel and savage form of conquest and rule, but it is not owned by or created by white Europeans – it is a worldwide horror that has existed for millennia, across a vast number of cultures, countries and different races.  Every culture and race is in some way tied up and linked with another one or several others, over centuries and even thousands of years – we have all been guilty.

While the desire to shed ourselves of these outdated, cruel and inhumane ways of living is a good thing, we cannot lay the blame for what has gone before on one race, one people or one country. Terrible atrocities have been committed by pretty much every country and race at some point in the past, to grab more land, more resources, wealth and workers. It’s clearly wrong and we need to acknowledge the past, but more importantly we need to ensure that such evils do not pollute our future.

However, dwelling on the past obsessively, laying endless blame on one race or one culture (it’s usually white people who get blamed for this) is unfair when it has been a problem across the world for thousands of years. Perhaps instead we should look at the current injustices in a world where slavery is now supposed to be illegal – the illicit trafficking of children, sex workers and manual labour slaves that still goes on now? Right now there are an estimated 40 million people around the world who are living in slavery conditions.

Perhaps we should also look at the covert colonization of countries by economic or political pressure and by greedy corporations – where people are mistreated and horribly exploited even though they are not (technically speaking) in slavery? Although many people in countries across Africa, Asia, Central and South America are employed, in reality their pay is so low, and their dependence on employer loans makes them no better off than actual slaves. Meanwhile prison inmates in USA and other countries are forced to work for pennies per hour or even for no reward at all – the very definition of slavery, even though slavery is illegal.

Decolonization theory is not about healing the past, it is about using a version of the past to create division and continued strife and hostility between peoples and races, while distracting us from the real problems we face. We need to look beyond this – we cannot go back and erase empires or free long-dead slaves. All this blaming and shaming does not change anything of the past, only obscure current obscenities, although acknowledging the true past does have intrinsic value. Rather than just crude blaming, perhaps we should acknowledge the flawed logic and shared cruelty of past generations across the whole human world and aspire to something better? Perhaps if we focus on where we are now, and the eradication of modern slavery and trafficking, here in the 21^st century, then we have some chance of creating a better, truly humane and fair world for future generations yet to come.

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