How are colonial practices alive today?
According to Bernstein, colonialism is “the direct political control of a people by a foreign state”. Further, colonialism has been defined as “an empire that was developed for settlement by individual communities or for commercial purposes”. To sum up, a colony is a territory that is controlled by a foreign state that uses the colony for among others economic purposes.
From the Ottoman Empire (based in the western part of Turkey nowadays) that conquered land all over the Balkans and Asia during the sixteenth and seventeenth century to the thirteenth century Mongolian Empire of Genghis Khan, the feature of colonialism is a common thread running through history. Nowadays, colonization and its negative aspects seems something from decades ago that isn’t relevant anymore, when in fact it is. In this essay the way in which colonial practices are alive today will be explained first by the views of the scholars Kate Manzo and Sankaran Krishna. After that, the way in which colonialism is alive today will be explained by the example of the case about the Falkland Islands in South-America, followed by the view of the writer of this essay. The end of the essay will be formed by a conclusion that will highlight the concrete arguments and will give a clear answer to the question on how colonial practices are alive today.
To understand how colonial practices are alive today, we are first going to have a look at the view of Kate Manzo at the contemporary form of colonialism. According to Manzo, the way in which colonial practices are alive today can be declared by looking at the concepts of deproletarianisation, modern slavery and structural adjustment. Deproletarianisation and structural adjustment show how “the fundamentally uneven and hierarchical character of colonial power relations remain invested in contemporary theories and practices of development”. First, because of the fact that structural adjustment most of the time results in dependence of the development country on the structural financial support of the supporting country. To illustrate this, Manzo studies the case of Ivory Coast that became a French colony in the nineteenth century. As a result, Ivory Coast had a plantation based agricultural system completely controlled by France. After Ivory Coast became independent in 1960, the French companies and traders still retained their influence on Ivory Coast. In sum, even after the independence of Ivory Coast, the former French colony was still dependent on the financial support of its former colonialist. Due to interference in markets by the Ivorian government and worldwide economic crises the economic development of Ivory Coast stopped and the former colony even got in high dept. To find a solution for the dramatic economic situation of Ivory Coast the Ivorian government went to the International Monetary Fund where the Ivorian history of structural adjustment began.
Second, Manzo addresses deproletarianisation as one of the key concepts whereby we can diagnose colonialism nowadays. Deproletarianisation is “shorthand for a Marxist view of regression or reversal, whereby forced labour is reintroduced as a method of worker discipline and a way to cut costs under capitalism”. The fact that nowadays the concept of deproletarianisation rises is according to Manzo the result of the structural adjustment programmes. Because of the fact that first world countries tried to export their capitalistic system to former colonies, these former colonies – such as Ivory Coast – complain that their domestic economy is not strong enough to compete on the global market. As a result, the economy of the former country is more sensitive to global economic crises and because of this farmers and planters change their labour regimes to save on loan costs. To clarify, farmers and planters want to guarantee a healthy economic situation for themselves during times of global economic crises and because of that they simply hold slaves to work for them. In conclusion, colonialism nowadays is expressed by means of deproletarianisation and slavery as a result of a capitalistic system and the structural adjustments.
Manzo concludes with saying that “labour exploitation and unequal exchange are not naturally occurring phenomena. They are political outcomes and the effects of global relations of power involving states and, increasingly, the agents of the ‘informal empire’”. This brings us to the writings of Krishna, who states that the main reason for the division of the world in ‘first’ and ‘third’ world countries is the result of colonialism. We can observe a division in the world between well developed countries and underdeveloped countries. The main reason for this, according to Krishna, is the history and impact of colonialism. The division in the world started to appear after 1492 when Columbus discovered America, because from that moment on improvement in seafaring techniques enabled the US, Japan and several European powers to rule over colonies on other continents. This phenomenon is defined as ‘modern colonialism’. Thus, from the moment that modern colonialism arose, the countries that became later on the well-developed western countries had hegemony in the world. Something that emphasized the division between (former) colonies and colonialists in history is the industrialisation as an expression of capitalism: while western countries such as the US were undergoing huge changes and were confronted with an increase of wealth as a result of the industrialisation, the former colonies didn’t had the capability to join the process of industrialisation and thus for emerging economic growth within their domestic economy. Besides that, the western countries used their colonies for their resources and their inhabitants that they could use as slaves.
Further, we can explain the influence of colonialism nowadays by looking at Latin America. A big part of Latin America was used as a settler colony, which means that European colonialists used the territory as a place to settle communities consisted of European individuals. The fact that Latin America was a settler colony is nowadays expressed in the way that the elite of Latin America mostly consists out of people with European ancestry, while the lower classes consist out of people with an Asian or African ancestry. This makes painfully clear that – as Krishna puts it – “the higher one moves up to the class ladder in Latin America, the whiter the population and the lower one moves down that same ladder, the darker the people”. Thus, nowadays the colonial practices of the history are expressed in the genetic structure of the elite of the former colonies. To conclude, the influences of former colonialists are still noticeable in the contemporary world, because of the fact that former colonies are still subordinate to their former colonialists (there is still a western hegemony in the world) and that in most former colonies the elite still exists out of individuals with western ancestry.
To illustrate the way in which colonialism still exists in today’s world, we are now going to look at the case about the Falkland Island. Nowadays, there are sixteen territories that are defined by the United Nations as ‘non-self-governing territories’. One of these territories is the Falkland Islands, a south-American archipelago located in the south-west Atlantic Ocean off the Argentinian coast. The colonial history of the Falkland Islands as a British colony goes back to 1833, when Britain held unchallenged possession of the archipelago. Before that year, the Falkland Islands have also been a possession of the Spaniards and the Argentinians. The role of the Falklands Islands as a colony in that days was a bit extraordinary, because of the fact that the Islands had no indigenous inhabitants, were geographical isolated and had no economic value. Therefore, the British colonialists had to search for an economic intended purpose of the islands to make the colony profitable and they had to make the islands attractive for people to live to create a permanent population at the Islands. The first economic intended purpose of the islands was found around the 1850’s with the trade in provision and reparation of ships. Besides that, the British intend to support the development of agriculture on the Islands. Further, the Falkland Islands counted at that time around 500 inhabitants as a result of the British efforts to make the Islands attractive for potential residents. Eventually, the British colonialists gave rise to the development of the Falkland Islands that resulted into the fact that – as Royle puts it – “by the end of the third quarter of the century, the Falkland Islands were self-sufficient, almost fully occupied with a new planned capital and a fine harbour, had had an important role in ship repair and provisioning, and had then developed a profitable agricultural economy, and they were at peace”. Although the story about the colonialization of the Falkland Islands seem to be one of success for the British colonialists, throughout the twentieth century the situation changed and the Islands provided headaches to the British government in the seventies. The population shrunk, the only economic power on the Islands came from sheep farms and “the only town, Stanley, was run down”. Nevertheless, the rock-bottom in the history of the Falkland Islands as a British colony wasn’t reached until 1982. In that year, “Argentina, largely for domestic political reasons, decided just to take the Malvinas (as the islands are called there) and invaded.” For this reason, Britain started a successful counter attack to maintain their prevalence over the archipelago. Until now, there is still tension between Great-Britain and Argentina around the possession of the Falkland Islands. To clarify, Argentina claims that they should possess the Islands because of the fact that the Islands are from a geographical prospect close to the mainland of Argentina and because of the fact that it has inherited the Islands from the Spaniards. Britain claims that it should possess the Islands because of the fact that the residents are almost all originally Britain and because of their attendance at the Falkland Islands that goes back to the nineteenth century. Britain especially doesn’t want to lose the Falkland Islands as part of its territory, because of the presence of oil underneath the coastal waters of the Islands.
Thus, by looking at the case of the Falkland Islands, it becomes clear that Britain has a lot of political influence on the Islands. Besides that, the British government that takes advantage of among other things oil. The Falkland Islands are subordinate to Britain that uses the Islands for their resources.
To conclude, colonial practices are alive today in several ways. At first, according to Kate Manzo colonial practices are alive today by means of deproletarianisation (and modern slavery) as a result of structural adjustment programmes for former colonies provided by former colonialist countries. According to Krishna, colonial practices are alive today by means of a division in the world between ‘first’ and ‘third’ world countries. Throughout the centuries, a western hegemony over underdeveloped countries has developed, for example as a result of the industrialisation process whereby western countries abused their colonies and their resources and inhabitants for their own economic benefit. Another proof of the contemporary attendance of colonialism is the case about the Falkland Islands. The Islands possess a reserve of oil that is interesting for both Argentina and Britain, so there is tension between two states about the possession of a territory. The fact that two states are arguing against each other because they both want to prevail over the archipelago is a signal of contemporary colonialism: just as was the case during the eighteenth century, states battle against each other to get the most influence in the world as an expression of power and to possess as much colonies as possible to gather resources. Also the big amount of influence that Britain has on the governing of the Islands reflects how colonial practices are alive today.
Although colonialism seems something from the past, it is crystal clear that colonialism is definitely a modern phenomenon.
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