The "Best" Possible History

Somebody's got to take responsibility for making those decisions; it's why human societies have leaders. Arrogance only figures in if you deny that other people's ideas may have as much merit as your own - and anyways, in cases where an action can be defined as "stupid" purely by objective means, other viewpoints wouldn't have any merit at all.

The fact is, outside of Europe and the colonial nations mainly populated by Europeans, the world tended towards backwardness, especially outside of Eurasia. Africa, Australia, the Pacific, the Great Plains - none were in a position to industrialize and rapidly advance in technology. Imperialism did confer benefits upon conquered peoples, even if only through exposure to modern medicines, knowledge, and governing.

You don't have to take over a country and exploit it to spread technology there or trade with them.

The empires had to end. They could have been broken up better though. Situations like Nigeria, Zimbabwe or Somalia could've been avoided.

In my opinion, you do. The natives, for the most part, are far too backwards/corrupt/plain uneducated to do the job properly.

Didn't some tribes/ethnic groups actually like the Empires in Africa, as it reduced inter-ethnic warfare?. Obviously after the Europeans left it all reverted back, but worse.

I haven't heard anything too horrifying come from Portugal. Their regime seems to have been relatively benign, at least in Africa. Though I say that only from the standpoint of knowing next to nothing about the Portuguese empire.

We really do teach far too little about the colonial era in school.

CanadianCommie said:

Didn't some tribes/ethnic groups actually like the Empires in Africa, as it reduced inter-ethnic warfare?. Obviously after the Europeans left it all reverted back, but worse.

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Depends on the area. Sometimes certain groups were support by the colonial administration in order to divide and rule. Sometimes the colonial administration increased the tension, exaggerated differences between the groups in order to destabilize the opposition. Most common example is Hutu and Tutsi.

Imperialism record by European power is not too god, mix at the best, it also usually disastrous for the native. Compare it with the country that never got colonized at all Japan, China (only minor part got colonized), Thailand (still decent compare to lot of Africa country), Ethiopia (the only one that worse, Communism failed?).

We would never know what will happen if Africa never got colonized at all, but i doubt it will be much worst than now. Ethiopia have it share of civil war but at least it doesn't have something like Rwandan Genocide.

CanadianCommie said:

Didn't some tribes/ethnic groups actually like the Empires in Africa, as it reduced inter-ethnic warfare?. Obviously after the Europeans left it all reverted back, but worse.

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This gets complex:
a) The European slave trade was one of the main contributing factors of the conflicts between African tribes. By the time the Scramble for Africa occured, said trade had mroe less ended, but its legacy remained in a number of ways.
b) The Europeans, in the process of their imperliasm, used divide and conquer (they are not alone in this, of course). You see examples of this in the Tutiss vs the Hutus and many other ethnic/tribal vendettas that were either used or created by the Europeans.
c) As an extension of b, the Europeans would use local authorities quite often: they would co-pot part of the native populaiton to run the imperilist system for them. This both gave that populaiton an intrest in the continuation of the empire (since they tended to be a minority), and also bred resentment among the various groups.

In short, it wasn't just what the Europeans did when they *left* that made, e.g. Africa such a mess, but very much what they did while they were there. Nor should this be surprising. No group of people in history has ever completley aquesed to being governed by people they see as foreign outsiders. The foreign outsiders must either assimilate (as the Timurids did to an extent), assimilate the people on a large scale (as the Romans did to the other Italian tribes), eliminate and/or disperse the natives to such a degree that they are for all intents no longer present (the fate of Carthage, the Native Americans in Canada/the US, the Aborigines) or find themselves eventually kicked out (see: the Mongols in China, elsewhere, Europeans most everywhere they conquered.. eventually).

*Because* people don't like to be governed by outsiders (even if we are to grant that these outsiders are, by any definition, "superior"), the outsiders *must* use violence, barbarism, and stratgeiges that are not good for the long term health of the society they have conquered to rule. Given that the military necessary to govern a populace in such a manner, in the long run, empires tend not to be economically worth it: it turns out occupying a people is expensive, and people don't like to die in any significant numbers to keep control over some far distant province whose "value" to their personal live and livelihood is purely nominal/theoretical.

In the end, that's why the European empires fell: as the countries who had them became more democratic, the costs in lives and money for these empires become something the public had to vote for and agree to do, while the native populace, just as they always had, resisted their rule on way or another, altough they eventually found ways in alot of instances which were difficult for the countries in question to fight back against (see: India & Ghandi).

Since then, imperalism has had to become more sophisticated and indirect: relying on "private contractors" paid by the government so that casualties don't raise public outcry, or using financial and other instruments to force adherence to the desires of the more powerful nations (see: Latina America in the 80's onward).

NapoleonComple said:

I haven't heard anything too horrifying come from Portugal. Their regime seems to have been relatively benign, at least in Africa. Though I say that only from the standpoint of knowing next to nothing about the Portuguese empire.

We really do teach far too little about the colonial era in school.

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In America and Africa, it was characterized by the usual exploitation of the natives when we could, and alliances with the natives when we couldn't. A pinch of massacres here and there. Nothing as overblown as the Spanish though. The usual stories of colonists knowingly passing diseases to the native Indians is also known in Brazil. The Indians themselves were exceedingly protected by the Church though (There was a subtle conflict between the clergy, who saw the Indians as prospective converts and sought to protect them, and the common landlords, who exerted their utmost influence into getting as many Indians into slavery as possible)

In India in the beginning, the Portuguese were originally known as seasonal pirates. They arrived in the Summer, raided and pirated as much as possible and departed in the Winter. Here's a nice event of those initial years, by one of our Portuguese national heroes and phreaps the most famous Portuguese historical person, on pair with Magellan, from wikipedia:

September 29, 1502 - After prowling around Mt. d'Eli for nearly a month with little success (they captured only one minor ship), captain Gil Matoso (on the São Gabriel), spots a large merchant ship carrying Muslim pilgrims returning from Mecca (or going to it, chronicles contradict). The ship, the Miri, is identified as belonging to a certain al-Fanqi, one of wealthier men of Calicut and said by some to be the Meccan factor in Calicut. Matoso chases the pilgrim ship down, which surrenders rather quickly, probably imagining that its master had enough money to ransom it off. But Vasco da Gama shrugs off all the offers. As the Portuguese crew plunder the ship and transfer its cargo, it quickly becomes evident that Gama intends to burn the ship with all its passengers - men, women and children - on board. When Gama proves deaf to their pleas for mercy, the passengers frantically attack the Portuguese men-at-arms with their bare hands. To no avail.

October 3, 1502 - a day, eyewitness Thomé Lopes states, "I will never forget for the rest of my days". The pilgrim ship thoroughly plundered, on Gama's orders, the passengers are locked in the hold and the ship burnt and sunk by artillery. It takes several days to finally go down completely. Portuguese soldiers row around the waters on longboats mercilessly spearing survivors.

The sinking of the Miri is an act that will instantly cement Gama's cruel and fearsome reputation, and generate a great deal of hatred for the Portuguese in India. Gama defended his act as "vengeance" for the Calicut massacre of 1500, arguing that the ship's owner, as a prominent person in Calicut, was 'doubtlessly' responsible for the sinister counsel to the Zamorin that led up to it.

So the Portuguese overseas personelle weren't exactly the ordinary gentlemen. What is most curious about this event is how a lot of the Portuguese captains were against the massacre of helpless folks, even if Muslims, which is surprising on its own since all Portuguese sailors by that time had a healthy aversion towards Mohammedians.

When the Portuguese started getting bases on their own across the Indian Ocean, the idea shifted from seasonal pirates to permanent pirates, albeit with enough force and resources to establish land bases.

Going further East, you can also have our first encounters with China.

A few years after the initial contacts and trade which happened between Portuguese traders and the Chinese (Most of which was originally illegal and carried out as smuggling operations), and when there was already an embassy on Guangzhou, one of the captains leading the expedition to China decided on his own initiative build a fort in present-day mainland Hong Kong, carry out justice on his own, assaulting Chinese people, and abuducting Chinese people to be sold off as slaves. That is besides their usual activity at piracy and raiding coastal settlements. After seeing that we couldn't push the Chinese around, we started playing nice.

And in the Indonesian islands, we were as meddling and exploitative as we could. So we weren't really an example of good behaviour or good management at colonial empires.

DoomBunny said:

In my opinion, you do. The natives, for the most part, are far too backwards/corrupt/plain uneducated to do the job properly.

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Your 'arrogance' can easily be mistaken for being a troll and a racist.

So be a bit more carefull in the wording of your posts.

I apologise if I annoyed someone. I had no intention of being a troll, or being racist, although I can see how it might come across as such for some. I'd like to make it clear that the way I referred to a good bulk of the native population is also the way I would refer to a good bulk of humanity, and that a persons place of birth, race or whatever doesn't come into it.

Veldmaarschalk, I hope I didn't waste too much of your time or cause you too many problems.

Again, sorry to anyone I annoyed.

DoomBunny said:

I'd like to make it clear that the way I referred to a good bulk of the native population is also the way I would refer to a good bulk of humanity, and that a persons place of birth, race or whatever doesn't come into it.

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If that's so, why do Europe need to recolonise former colonies? If the rest of humanity is equally corrupt and backwards what would they have to teach?

Well, there is generally less backwardsness in the developed world, as those who wish to learn usually have an opportunity to. In Afrika, a lot of potentially bright people don't get to go to school.

Three things: Arab promises in WWI honoured, Nationalist victory in Chinese civil war and linguistic rather than religious partition in India. The first resolves the middle east crisis, replacing the patchwork of feeble anti-western states with a democratic united Arab nation. The second prevents the mass death and destruction of the Cultural Revolution and Chairman Mao's reign. The third lessens the violence of the Indian partition and creates a real balance of power in the subcontinent, rather than the sectarian cold war we have in RL.

How about a strong socialist movement in the US? And I mean actual socialism, not that stupid notion of Obama being a socialist when, in reality, he's almost as far to the right as Romney. It's entirely likely that a more socialist-minded USA would be much less inclined to be the policemen of the world.

Or if the Europeans had never colonized and wiped out the native American populations, allowing the tribes to develop and civilize at their own pace. Is no one curious about how a modern-day, 100% Cherokee, Iroquois, etc. nation would have developed? My bet is that they'd have been innovators in green energy and such.

Rauchen said:

How about a strong socialist movement in the US? And I mean actual socialism, not that stupid notion of Obama being a socialist when, in reality, he's almost as far to the right as Romney. It's entirely likely that a more socialist-minded USA would be much less inclined to be the policemen of the world.

Or if the Europeans had never colonized and wiped out the native American populations, allowing the tribes to develop and civilize at their own pace. Is no one curious about how a modern-day, 100% Cherokee, Iroquois, etc. nation would have developed? My bet is that they'd have been innovators in green energy and such.

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Didn't stop..well.. most of Europe, really. The presence of something resembling true democratic socialist movements, that is.

Although I'll grant that the use of the "s word" to describe Obama is... amusing, even while I'll quibble that he's "almost as far to the right" as Romney.

Not sure the Native Americans tribes would have been "more environmentally conscious", that tends to be a stereotype that is, when examine closely, not all that accurate. Of course, ti would *still* have been better, as the Americas were very much a training ground for European colonialism.

This just made me think, however, of something that would have made a difference: a group of settlers arriving in the Americas sometime during the stone age or early bronze age who carry small pox and thereby make the populations there less susceptible to the disease. This alone would save millions of lives and might ahve made the diffrence bewteen the Americas lookins more like Asia vs what actually occurred, if nothing else.

The October Revolution going Global :nods:

Chilango2 said:

This just made me think, however, of something that would have made a difference: a group of settlers arriving in the Americas sometime during the stone age or early bronze age who carry small pox and thereby make the populations there less susceptible to the disease. This alone would save millions of lives and might ahve made the diffrence bewteen the Americas lookins more like Asia vs what actually occurred, if nothing else.

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Endemic smallpox is going to kill millions too, just on a longer time scale... It may change the politics somewhat, but for that, see the other thread.

Avernite said:

Endemic smallpox is going to kill millions too, just on a longer time scale... It may change the politics somewhat, but for that, see the other thread.

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Yes, but the difference in the politics might have saved millions in and of itself, by making the civs in America capable of resisting.

Chilango2 said:

Yes, but the difference in the politics might have saved millions in and of itself, by making the civs in America capable of resisting.

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As Professor Sarma explained in a thread devoted to that subject alone, resistance to European ills would necessitate regular and widespread contact between the 2 continents, and assuming that throws such a big wrench in History that any guess work becomes useless.