"An Unnecessary War?" Topic

Why is it OK for non-white people to move around the world and settle in other areas, but the moment British people settle in undeveloped areas (and drag them out of the Iron Age), you have a problem with it?

It's not just the colonial British, I have a problem with anyone who has a sense of imagined superiority to Indigenous people and any behavior reflecting that. Like when the Europeans thought Africa was up for grabs because it had not been "settled" by Europeans.

Do you believe that the British of the 19th Century considered black Africans to be their equals? Is an area undeveloped because Europeans don't live there? Does that give Europeans a right to come in and "drag them out of the Iron Age" as you said? What percentage of Africa did Europeans wind up controlling?

I just think colonialism in general was a bad thing. If you think otherwise we can agree to disagree.

Do you believe that the British of the 19th Century considered black Africans to be their equals? Is an area undeveloped because Europeans don't live there? Does that give Europeans a right to come in and "drag them out of the Iron Age" as you said? What percentage of Africa did Europeans wind up controlling?

I'm sure they didn't think of them as equals anymore than the American setlers did judging by their treatment of the native Americans, which not to put too fine a point on it amounted to ethnic cleansing. With respect to Africa you have to remember that in much of it all was not sweetness and light. Africans were raiding their fellow countrymen for slaves and selling them on to Arab slaver colonies dotted round the coast. So if nothing else the Europeans put a stop to that.

I just think colonialism in general was a bad thing. If you think otherwise we can agree to disagree.

I don't think anyone regards colonialism as a good thing, but it has been going on for centuries – after all the Jewish occupation of the promised land as outlined in the bible is a story of colonialism. No what annoys the Brits is Americans in particular, banging on about the evils of colonialism when:-
(a) They clearly benefited from colonialism – their country wouldn't exist in its current form without it.
(b) Their own treatment of the indigenous peoples and black slaves is far from blameless.
(c) Their subsequent economic imperialism, exploiting local work forces for the benefit of the US is arguably worse – exploit the economy and natural resources, but give nothing back in return. Read USMC general Smedley Buttler's thoughts on his time as high class muscle for Wall Street.

If the British wanted to keep their empire at the very least they should had granted home rule everywhere and the truly proper thing to do would had been to make all colonials British subjects with representation in Westminster.

Unlikely to have worked. Currently there are arguments about whether Welsh and Scottish MP's have undue influence in Westminster over English interests given they have their own assemblies!

Interesting topic…..full of promise.

I'd like to address one colonies, if they were that bad why do they ask France and Britain to help run them? Sudan has asked to be taken back into the fold and just see the news for Niger.

I don't think a colony base empire was as bad as some make out.

after all the Jewish occupation of the promised land as outlined in the bible is a story of colonialism.
------------
I think that the 12 tribes came from the area in the first place though so not exactly colonialism as they were not Egyptians after all.

I think that the 12 tribes came from the area in the first place though so not exactly colonialism as they were not Egyptians after all.

IIRC it was only the 12 brothers and their families when they moved to Egypt. A lot more when they went back to Palestine and of course there were people living there already.

I doubt if it was called "Palestine" back in the day Fred…

Fred, all fair points you make, although I don't know anything about the Biblical times part myself, so I'll take your word for it on that aspect.

No what annoys the Brits is Americans in particular, banging on about the evils of colonialism when:-
(a) They clearly benefited from colonialism – their country wouldn't exist in its current form without it.
(b) Their own treatment of the indigenous peoples and black slaves is far from blameless.
(c) Their subsequent economic imperialism, exploiting local work forces for the benefit of the US is arguably worse – exploit the economy and natural resources, but give nothing back in return.

No argument from this Yank. But please remember that not every Yank is an idiot who spews 'those evil Brits' at the drop of a hat.

Read USMC general Smedley Buttler's thoughts on his time as high class muscle for Wall Street.

'Pithy' is the only word I know of that describes those thoughts without profanity. Then again, the US Colonial Marines have a verse about "spill our blood for a sheaf of green," so I'm not sure it's all that uncommon.

and what annoys Americans are Brits who go on and on about the evils of America while viewing their own past through altruistic glasses.

The European powers had fatally compromised themselves by the falling out that brought about WW1. Up until then they ran the bulk of the world. WW1 created Soviet Russia and a world aware USA.
In Europe it became clear in the late 30s that either the USSR would dominate or Germany. As Hitler reassembled the German and Austro Hungarian empires it looked like there would be two states or agglomerations of states with around 150 million people each. France and Britain were never going to be able to defeat either of these powers on their own and weakening Germany would only risk Russia taking it over. Thus the appeasement policy of the 1930s was rational.
The holocaust did not come into the reckoning in the 30s and was not a cases belli. The elites in Britain and France had no love for the Jews and had no mandate to go to war to prevent persecution. Had the facts of the mass murder that occurred from 1941 onwards been known it is till unlikely that the Western Powers would have declared war if they had not already done so over Poland.
Churchill was an unrealistic warmonger who consistently pushed his country into commitments that it old It deliver on alone. ( Dardanelles, n Africa, Singapore He seems to have lived comfortably with the idea that Britain could fight a war for democracy in Euope and yet hold millions around the world in a situation where they had limited or no political rights. This was clearly untenable. If the British fought for democracy and freedom then the empire had to go. If they fought for the Empire then Germany was the wrong enemy and it would have been better to have supported Hitler against Russia whose revolutionary ideology was destabilising colonies such as India. A policy aligned to the Reich would have enabled the British to supply fuel and minerals to Japan to help with its war in China, whereas , once engaged in a war against Germany, Britain was forced to toe the American line against Japan, embargoing oil supplies and thus making war with Japan inevitable. The loss of Singapore which Churchill had , in his usual arrogant manner just assumed could be held, destroyed British prestige in the Far East. His subsequent abandonment of Australia was a disgrace.
Whilst Churchill was undoubtedly a great man Britain finished the war in ruins, in hock to the USA and no longer a world power. Yet he was avowedly most interested in keeping the Empire. (I am not saying that I agree with his objective btw, just pointing out that he achieved the opposite) One would have to question whether he won the war at too great a cost.
No doubt Churchill will have his defenders , but the verdict of his soldiers on him in the 45 election is telling.

GNREP8

You will note that I have not tried to defend the colonial policies of other nations – I am always amused that, whenever people seek to criticise the British Empire, they suddenly start speaking about the Belgian Empire…

I completely agree that the Colonial record of other nations is somewhat more mixed, but don't quite know what you mean by them not settling in under-developed areas. Are you suggesting that, eg, the Congo was a flourishing First World paradise before the Belgians arrived?

But yes – in general I would say that 'the African natives' generally fared much better under British rule than under other Colonial rule, including that of Arabs / other African tribes.

Steve Wilcox

But you tried to defend the Matabele Empire in your initial post, so I cannot believe you have 'a problem with anyone who has a sense of imagined superiority to Indigenous people' – otherwise you'd have recognised that the Matabele were recently arrived 'imperialists' too, and that their reign of terror was much more savage / unfair / undemocratic than anything the British could have come up with.
You also said that it was OK for other Africans to dominate their fellow Africans, which also flies in the face of your more recent statement to be against all such things.
You might not be aware that hundreds of Mashona and Bechuana warriors (as well as Matabele dissidents) assisted the Rhodesian forces in the destruction of the Matabele Empire – were they 'wrong' to do that? What is it you know that they did not?

Yes – huge areas of the world were undeveloped until the Colonial period. Do you deny this?

I note you never answered my question about why the Bechuana and Basutho people pleaded for years to be given Protectorate Status.

Africans under British rule enjoyed a lot more equality than under their previous tribal rule in that they were protected by law, slavery was out-lawed and there were no colour-bars to voting in the British territories of South Africa: one qualified to vote on the basis of education and tax-paying. Arguably a far better system that what we have today.
Cecil Rhodes himself said he believed in 'equal rights for all civilised men' and the electorate of the Cape Colony (for example) was 15% non-white by 1900.

Do you think the Matabele considered the Mashona their equals?

Having lived and worked all over 'the Dark Continent' for many years (have you?) I think British colonialism was in general a very good thing for Africa. You are welcome to 'agree to disagree' but your views seem to be formed much more by modern-day political correctness than the reality of the age.

Colonialism was something that just happened, almost because it could. At first the Europeans just wanted trade and established colonies and ports to facilitate trade. Then , as there were wars in Europe the wars spilled into the colonies as new powers sought to take the prime positions, New York, The Cape, bits of India, Malacca that other powers had taken earlier. Then, for the British particularly, the problem became that to trade successfully you had to have order. Broadly native rulers were very poor at providing order and given the disparity in military and naval technology it was easier to beat down the local ruler and install someone more ageeeable in his place. As this happened it was often easier to directly rule these places. British Colonialism was driven by the desire for trade on advantageous terms. Where local rulers were replaced it mostly represented an advance in the rule of law. It was also an opportunity to push Christianity on the natives. How kind that was depends upon whether you view Christianity as a true religion and superior to the original beliefs of the inhabitants or just another superstition. At the time nearly all the colonisers would have subscribed to the belief that Christianity was better than religions which ripped people's hearts out and legitimised annual wars on tribes kept weak so that they could be victimised.
Were Mexicans better off without the Aztecs or Chileans without the Incas? Were Indian Hindus better off without Muslim jihad and without widow burning?

But the civilising mission was not a cloak for greed, it occurred alongside it because it was what Europeans did at the time, it was hard wired into their culture.
There is a good case that the Zulu War of 1879 was inevitable because the Zulu were predatory on the tribes around them and those tribes sought British protection. At the time both the Zulu and the British thought a reckoning inevitable, possibly not under Cetewayo, but at some time. Similarly the Boer Wars were not just a matter of British desire to get at gold and diamonds, but at the very real problems caused by two bankrupt republics who might well have invited the Kaiser in to stabilise their badly run economies.
Colonialism was just a phase in world history in which temporarily European nations had a vast preponderance of power and above all organisation. They could project this power round the world so they did. According to the prevalent morality of the time they were right to do so. Would the colonised areas have been better left alone?? Who knows or could ever know.

Lewisgunner

Very good and interesting post.

The only part I cannot fully agree with is this:

"Similarly the Boer Wars were not just a matter of British desire to get at gold and diamonds, but at the very real problems caused by two bankrupt republics who might well have invited the Kaiser in to stabilise their badly run economies"

While the Transvaal's economy was a full-on basket case when it was (initially) annexed in 1877, the OFS was relatively well run and stable throughout the period. Certainly neither Boer republic was bankrupt in 1899 (indeed, Kruger's Transvaal was booming thanks to the efforts of the hated and down-trodden Uitlanders) when the Transvaal and the OFS launched their attack on the territories of British South Africa (not the other way round).

Kruger's stated aim was to seize British-owned Natal and, especially, the sea port of Durban.
Steyn (the President of the OFS) stated that, by joining the invasion, he hoped his republic would be able to seize the diamond fields around British-owned Kimberley (neither Boer republic had significant diamond deposits of their own).

Interesting discussion, and one that crosses over with my day job…

I think the 'modern' period, after the enlightenment – from the mid-18th centruy to the mid 20th century if you like, produced much good – in ther form of relocating power from a small elite to 'the people', but at the same time created competition among these newly 'empowered' peoples as to who was the greatest… These hierarchies – often based on pseudo-scietific knowledge which tired to find different 'species' of humans (all that colonial head measuring) created racist attitudes… All western nations were subject to mainstream versions of this kind of thinking during that period, from slavery to the killing of indigenes in Australia, Canada, USA and Carribean, colonial action to promote commercial agriculture in Africa and Asia which created famines (some good work on that by US historian Mike Davis see link autrocities by British, German, Belgian and French colonists – all leading up to the ulimate madness of Nazism – which essentially took this kind of thinking to its logical extreme, an attempt to limit human diversity to only those considered to be of the 'best' variety. I.e. human gardning.

Of course these attitiudes still exist, but in the post-modern period (from the 1950s)they have largely been confined to the margins rather than the mainstream.. After Auchwitz is was not longer morally feasible for the western politcal mainstream, to sustain undemocratic colonial empires (in fact large tracts of both British and French empires were pretty much in open revolt from the mid-30s onwards – Nigeria and India, for example), shoot Aborigines tolerate aparteid in south Africa or racial segregation in the southern USA. So in a sense, it was all states that once shared these types of views – but they were interpreted in different ways, and to different extremes. Churchill did not go to way to save the Jews and Gypsies, he went to war to save British independance. However it was the kuilling of Jews and Gypsies by the4 nazis that ultimately brought racial predujice out of the mainstream, and let to the moral necessity of ending colonialism, racial segregation and associated civil and human rights violations on the basis of a persons identity.

From that perspective alone it was a very necessisary war.

Bulldog, What we would agree on ref the cause of the 2nd Boer War ( I assume) is that it is about Great Power rivalry as the Boers would have been mad to assume that they could beat the British without outside help. The Outlander issue is, as you say, important. The Boers wanted the taxes from these people but without giving them political rights. They feared being outvoted in their own country, by largely British new arrivals.

At the risk of being contentious the problem that the Boers ended up with was that they did not massacre the people they found there when they arrived and that these peoples were not susceptible to EurAsian diseases in the way that the South and Central American Indians were. In Australia and America the inhabitants were reduced to tiny minorities, in S Africa they remained the numerical majority because the Boers thought that separation was enough and could somehow be maintained.
I don't, I hope, suffer from knee jerk anti Americanism, but it is a bit rum that the American Rebellion has cloaked itself in human rights jargon when the main motivation behind it was to free the colonists (not the colonised Indians) from British restrictions on crossing the Alleghenies and taking over vast tracts of Indian land. When one looks at the scale of subsequent land grabs in the West and the engineered Texan rebellion in the 1830s and the aggressive war of 1846 it is apparent that the US had no grand historical moral position on colonialism and that the difference between much European colonialism and US colonialism was that the Europeans did leave the peoples they found largely still intact to take over their states later.
Similarly for Argentina to complain that Britain colonised the uninhabited Falklands whereas the massacres and displacement of aboriginal inhabitants that occurred in forming their own state were not a colonisation is a bit rum.

I have had a couple of conversations with Australians too who do not factor into their thinking that they too are living in a post colonial situation and that somehow accusing Britain, France or Belgium of something horrible is not reflected in them being where they are having lovely lives because they are by lineal descent British… and no I don't think that a Greek or Lebanese Australian or an Italian or Jewish American is anything other than in a large part British by descent, laws, customs etc. Basically, if someone breaks into a house and evicts the inhabitants and I go there and live a few months later I am still guilty, my moral position is not improved by having had someone else do the original break in and theft of their property.
That said, there must be a point at which the actions are so long ago that we just deal with the new realities. The question is at what point does time legitimise theft and conquest.
If we want to get on to that , at what point was the 'English' conquest of Ireland legitimate. How legitimate was the theft from Germany of its Eastern territories after World War2 (and Polands loss of Eastern Land)

Lewisgunner

Another good, and thought-provoking post.

I have often heard (white) South Africans remark on being lectured on race relations by Australians and Americans – both of which countries 'solved' their racial issues in much more 'effective' ways than the settlers of South Africa did… but as it was a long time ago, that is all forgotten. I do not say this to in any way excuse Apartheid, only that it is sometimes worth remembering the old adage, 'Let him who hath no sin cast the first stone'.

I'm also reminded of Sir Winston Churchill's come back to some American rapid anti-Imperialist who, in 1943, tried to have a go at him about the treatment of Indians:

'Before we proceed further let us get one thing clear. Are we talking about the brown Indians in India, who have multiplied alarmingly under the benevolent British rule? Or are we speaking of the red Indians in America who, I understand, are almost extinct?'

Re. the Boers being mad to think they could win – I think that was, in fact, the problem. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that – based on their victory over a few penny-packets of redcoats in 1880/81, and the regular thrashings they always gave to the 'natives', the Boers had nothing but utter contempt for the British army in 1899, and thought the war would be a cake-walk – they spoke of fighting the British as being 'sport' and that it would be even easier than fighting tribesmen. It should not be forgotten that they also significantly outnumbered the Imperial garrison when they launched their attack.
Men like Kruger and Joubert were so completely out of touch with reality that Kruger died believing that the earth was flat – despite travelling vast distances to Europe and back on several occasions. Joubert thought that the easily obtainable 'Army Lists' (which showed British army officers in order of seniority) actually named every man in the British army. There was also a genuine belief that 'the oppressed colonies' of Canada, Australia, Rhodesia, New Zealand etc, would be inspired by the Boers and join some mass uprising against the British Empire (the opposite turned out to be the case, as anyone with half a brain would have been able to tell them). Other Boer generals were convinced that, as the Boers were the 'Chosen people', God would ensure they won the war, and capture whatever they fancied.
The Transvaal's man in Europe, Dr Leyds, had told Kruger that there would be no help from that quarter, and the leader of the Afrikaner Bond in the Cape told him not to expect an uprising there… but Kruger launched his invasions in any case.

What is even more amazing is that, despite the fact that they lost, many South Africans / Afrikaners are STILL convinced today that one Boer was worth 10 / 100 / 1000 / 10000 British soldiers.

Some quotes:

'The Transvaaler, accustomed to fight against natives, welcomed the war; for them it was more sport than anything'
Count Sternberg, 1901. The Count was an Austrian traveler and war correspondent who enjoyed close contact with Boer leaders throughout much of the war

'our leaders underestimated the magnitude of the task on which they were embarked'
Boer Commando, Deneys Reitz

'he commenced the war with a firm trust in God, and the most gross negligence'
An anonymous Hollander's assessment of President Steyn of the Orange Free State

Bulldog,

I agree with you on South Africa, and have many Boer friends, 18th-19th century south African co-existence with indigenes was more benign that Austrlaian or US/Canadian versions. The problem with Aparteid is that like racial segregation in the USA it outstayed its welcome and carried on into the post-modern or probably better called "post-Auschwitz" period of western politcal thought. The issue of moral superiority over communism lay at the root of the western argumment in the cold War. It centrally relied on the concetp of "Freedom". In a post-Auschwitz world, that had to be a universal definition of freedom, and as a result there was not place for the political, economic or social segregation implicit in colonialism or race-laws.

Archeopteryx

All very interesting points, but worth remembering that Apartheid was only established in 1948… AFTER the horrors of Auschwitz were revealed to the world.

Under British rule, there was no colour-bar to the franchise in the Cape Colony and Natal, though the pre-Boer War banning of non-whites from having the vote was retained in the ex-Boer republics after they became British territory… otherwise the Bitter-Einders would not have surrendered in 1902. Britain has been pilloried for agreeing to the concession of delaying a decision on this until after independence, but the alternative was for the guerrilla war to rumble on and on for ever.

By 1948, the franchise entitlement of non-whites in Natal and the Cape had slowly been whittled away in the years since South Africa was unified and independence was granted in 1910, but those coloureds and Asians who qualified still had the vote and those black voters who qualified still got to elect a small number of (white) MPs to represent them.
It was the 1948 victory of the violently pro-Boer / pro-republic (and anti British, monarchy, Empire, blacks, Communist, Jewish, Roman Catholic and just about everything else) National Party, over Smuts' rather more forward thinking and pragmatic Unionist Party that ushered in Apartheid.

Even worse was that Smuts' Unionists actually polled far more votes than the Nationalists, but still won fewer seats.

Bulldog,

You are right of course about 1947. I suppose the point I was trying to make is that apartied RSA, UDI Rhodesia, Fascist Portugal and Spain were all "driving the wrong way up the motorway" of Western Political ideas after WW2…. whereas those ideas – or simialr interpretations – would have been pretty mainstream or at least less-contested before the war…

Archeopteryx

Yes – I think that's a fair contention, though worth noting that the treatment of blacks / coloureds in the pre-Boer War republics was widely criticised in British circles even at the time, so, while perhaps not as 'tolerant' or 'open' as today's society, it is not as though such things were laughed off even at the height of the so-called 'wicked' British Empire.

Ah, what about World War II – The Unnecessary War? This thread has taken tangent to the hyperbolic! Can we all agree that colonialism was bad for the millions of indigenous peoples who died from it of suffered under it. It was neutral to those indigenous peoples who survived but were not directly impacted by it and who had no stake in it. It was good for those indigenous peoples who cooperated with the imperial powers and the ancestors of all survivors if the imperial power had invested in education, government, industry, and infrastructure. It was very good for the colonial powers until it became too expensive to hold onto the colonies; then they bugged out.
Now what about World War II and its necessity or lack thereof?
Rod Robertson

I completely agree that the Colonial record of other nations is somewhat more mixed, but don't quite know what you mean by them not settling in under-developed areas. Are you suggesting that, eg, the Congo was a flourishing First World paradise before the Belgians arrived?
--------------
No – but in the context of your phrase being 'undeveloped '(not under-developed) and comments about the Bushmen etc i thought your point was the that initial colonisation of South Africa was effectively in areas where there were few people living anyway with the arrival of the Zulus etc only being later. I think there were already well developed societies in other parts of Africa when the likes of the Belgians or Portuguese turned up and that it was the locals misfortune to draw the short straw in effect and be administered by countries like those (with due respect to any Belgian or Portuguese readers – as a Lusophile myself – I always remember how a Portuguese army trainer in Mozambique in the 90s said that them training the locals was one wounded man helping another)

Rod, I think the point veered to colonialism partly because the war was being justified on the grounds that it ended colonialism and , had it not been fought Colonialism would have continued longer and that is possibly true. Had Britain and France done a deal with Germany then they would have been left pretty much alone. Russia would have been defeated, Japan would have won in China. The Brits, French, Portugese, Spanish, Italians could have done pretty much what they wanted in their colonies. In the UK the BUF would have potentially had a powerful role and labour would have been treated in a way, perhaps less harshly than in Germany, but the many Communist sympathisers in the trades Unions, schools, universities would have been repressed, dealt with etc.
If being a part of a system that has at its pinnacle a belief in a superior Aryan race with a right to rule the world had been a prerequisite for membership of the elite club of Empires then the Reich, Japan, Britain, Germany England, France, the USA etc would have had carte blanche to deal with any independence movement as they saw fit. THat probabaly means with complete brutality. Let's not forget eithere that in WW2 African Americans fought in separate units and could not sit on the same bus seats as whites in certain states. It would have been possible for the US to swing easily into the new direction.
Ina way the necessity of selling their population a bill of goods to justify the war forced the Democracies to live up to the promise after the war. With just one clear winner, militaristc Fascism there would not have been the post war competitive plurality that supported resistance movements all around the world.The tide of History is not inevitable.
Indeed, but for the USA we would either have Hitler's totalitarian world or Stalin's.
Because of WW2 I probably have a higher standard of living in a p;easant country . Otherwise I might be running Bechuanaland. Either way I am a lucky winner.

But you tried to defend the Matabele Empire in your initial post, so I cannot believe you have 'a problem with anyone who has a sense of imagined superiority to Indigenous people' – otherwise you'd have recognised that the Matabele were recently arrived 'imperialists' too, and that their reign of terror was much more savage / unfair / undemocratic than anything the British could have come up with.

Here's what I said:

Yes, I am aware of the history of the area and I'm not saying that the Matabele were the good guys or that I'm okay with what they did, I'm saying that I don't think that Africa was there for the European powers to carve up. I'm actually not trying to be "politically correct" about this, I just figure the Europeans had Europe, why couldn't they leave Africa for the Africans?

Hardly a defense of the Matebele and I would consider all black Africans to be indigenous to the continent.

You also said that it was OK for other Africans to dominate their fellow Africans, which also flies in the face of your more recent statement to be against all such things.

My saying "leave Africa for the Africans" is not the same saying it's okay for Africans to dominate their fellow Africans. It's saying leave them alone. Would you have been happy if someone conquered Europe because Europeans fought among themselves?

You might not be aware that hundreds of Mashona and Bechuana warriors (as well as Matabele dissidents) assisted the Rhodesian forces in the destruction of the Matabele Empire – were they 'wrong' to do that? What is it you know that they did not?

That always happens. Divide and conquer. The same would have happened anywhere. There is always someone willing to side with the outsider, sometimes in the interest of settling scores, sometimes for more justified reasons.

Yes – huge areas of the world were undeveloped until the Colonial period. Do you deny this?

Yes. Absence of European culture, religion and technology does not make a place undeveloped in my opinion.

I note you never answered my question about why the Bechuana and Basutho people pleaded for years to be given Protectorate Status.

I would suspect they wanted help against their enemies. Doesn't everyone?

Africans under British rule enjoyed a lot more equality than under their previous tribal rule in that they were protected by law, slavery was out-lawed and there were no colour-bars to voting in the British territories of South Africa: one qualified to vote on the basis of education and tax-paying. Arguably a far better system that what we have today.

How strange then that a white minority ruled a black majority for so long.

Cecil Rhodes himself said he believed in 'equal rights for all civilised men' and the electorate of the Cape Colony (for example) was 15% non-white by 1900.

Note the word "civilized." What percentage of the Cape Colony was non-white? Were the majority disenfranchised?

Do you think the Matabele considered the Mashona their equals?

I would suspect they considered them their enemies and rivals, without the notion of racial superiority.

Having lived and worked all over 'the Dark Continent' for many years (have you?)

No, I have not been to Africa, though I would consider your experiences in Africa to be more meaningful in this discussion had it occurred in the time of which we speak.

I think British colonialism was in general a very good thing for Africa. You are welcome to 'agree to disagree' but your views seem to be formed much more by modern-day political correctness than the reality of the age.

And to me your views would seem to have a certain longing for the days of empire when whites ruled Africa and the world. I will agree to disagree. Good day, sir.

Rod I Robertson, you described the situation very well! Sorry for the off-topic tangent.

Lewisgunner:
It's good to be back on topic! In your last post above you argued that had Britain and France done a deal with Germany then they would have been left alone and the Germans could have concentrated on Soviet Russia and conquered it. If I understand you correctly then the flaw with this scenario is that the Germans were very concerned with avoiding a two front war. Had the Western Allies struck a deal with Nazi Germany they could very easily attack Germany later and open a two front war once Germany was deeply committed to its Soviet invasion. I do not think the German High Command would have risked such an adventure unless France was totally neutralized as a potential threat and I don't think France would have accepted such an emasculation of its armed forces as would have been necessary to give Germany the confidence to begin such an eastern adventure. Therefore I do not see the invasion and defeat of the Soviets Union as feasible unless France is defeated first.
Rod Robertson.

Rod, the German General Staff would have been much happier with peace in the West. Hitler's view was that Russia was the target and that it was in the Western Powers interest to leave Germany alone. In fact I remember reading that he old not understand why the British did not just agree with him to the reunification of Germany.
As to Alsace Lorraine, there is an analogous situation in Italy. There the South Tyrol region is German speaking and of German culture. It had been taken by Italy after WW1 and there was a good case or its reunification with the now combined Reich. Hitler , however, made no such move although he could have coerced Mussolini. If France had dealt on the basis of integrity for its borders then Hitler would most likely have forgotten about Alsace. After all, he was going to get the entire West of Russia for his new Empire. He might , of course, have offered the inhabitants of Alsace Lorraine free land in the East.
Even after victory in 1940 hitler treated France with a degree of respect leaving the Vichy govt. to administer its area and taking over the zone that faced the remaining belligerent, the UK. Hitler Did not insist upon the surrender of the French fleet or of the provision of a French expeditionary corps for the Russian campaign. So I think that peace with France would have suited Germany well. As it turned out the French utterly failed to attack whilst the Germans were engaged in Poland. One imagines that they would have been delighted to leavevGermany's Western border alone.

It's unnecessary only if both sides don't want a fight, or take what the other side has.

To Steve W
I did try to explain why the European Powers moved into Africa. Bases were established for victualling ships going to Asia to trade , then those bases were expanded to take in local trade or supply food and sadly slaves. We should be careful with the slave trade because the Europeans took over an Arab run business in which black kings captured and enslaved other blacks for sale and meanwhile Barbary slavers from Africa raided Western Europe and took thousands of captives to be worked to death in North Africa.
Anyhow, the Europeans then expanded their area of intros, often because local African rulers were so ineffective or hostile that it was made sense to the Europeans that they should impose rulers or take direct control. In this clash of cultures we cannot reach back and impose modern PC views on the past. The technological, cultural and organisational gradient between the Europeans and the locals in Africa was such that this conquest was relatively easy . This was the world in which mot of the colonialists lived , those with the strength took what they wanted and many of the conquered people's were no different. If they had the power they terrorised the tibes or kingdoms around them.
Yes there were those in Europe who felt that Africa should be left alone for moral reasons, but I suggest that this was a tiny minority. Most were indifferent.
As to it being good or bad for Africans or Indians when Europeans took over, it is all too easy to imagine Africa a s some giant Eden. Actually war was endemic, had Europeans simply traded in Africa then they would have supplied guns and Africa would have seen an escalation of bloodshed in continuous warfare. One benefit of colonisation and then African independence appears to be that Africa has relatively few international wars , most are by tribal groups within African states.
To return to topic, had there been no WW2 Europeans would have held their African colonies much longer and hopefully left more slowly leaving a better infrastructure and sounder institutions?

Steve Wilcox

What you actually said was that the whites shouldn't have been there in the first place, which implied you thought the recently arrived Matabele some how had more right to dominate, enslave, murder and pillage from the Mashona than the recently arrived white settlers. You did not say: 'the Matabele shouldn't have been there in the first place' and have since twisted yourself in knots to try and explain why the Matabele Empire is somehow different / better / more acceptable than the much more benign British Empire.

If Europe in 1890 had been a patchwork of warring, un-developed Iron-age tribes, and my people existed under the constant terror of enslavement, murder or whatever, then yes – of course I would have welcomed the arrival of an outside, benevolent Empire to put a stop to all this, and introduce stability, law and order.

By claiming that the Bechuana and Mashona joined the war against the Matabele because of 'divide and conquer' shows a complete lack of understanding of the conflict, and suggests once more that you are motivated purely by political correctness. King Khama Bechuana's had lived in terror of the Matabele since they had arrived on the scene a generation or two earlier. Khama's desire to be rid of a regime that murdered and raided them had nothing to do with 'divide and conquer'. Such a shame you were not on hand to point out the error of his ways and to tell the King that the Matabele had the right to be there (and murder / rape / pillage as they saw fit) purely because they were 'African', and that he shouldn't back the 'evil' whites and their crazy ideas of law and order, education, development and ending slavery.

The Matabele referred to the Mashona as 'dogs' and considered them to be inferior to themselves in every way, enslaving them, stealing their women, children and cattle as and when they saw fit. Do not let the modern-day, PC notion that African 'blacks' are one heterogeneous grouping confuse you – even today, any black Zimbabwean will tell you his tribe first, not his nationality. The Matabele, like the Zulu, considered themselves (and still consider themselves) a cut above their neighbours. But I guess you'll say that's somehow different than if a white settler thought that.

Of course the majority in the Cape Colony were disenfranchised – just as they were in the UK, USA, France and everywhere else at the time. The point is that there was no colour bar to qualify for the vote.
The reason that a white minority was able to dominate the non-white majority for so long was because British colonial rule ended in South Africa in 1910, and an Afrikaans-dominated government replaced it and started whittling away at the non-white franchise rules. You might have heard of something called 'Apartheid' which was then introduced by hard-line Afrikaners in 1948. Interestingly, these people – rather like yourself? – hated the British Empire and its liberal ideas that 'kaffirs' should have some sort of rights / opportunity / access to a vote.

Rhodes' definition of civilised was a man 'with sufficient education to write his name and who is not, in fact, a loafer'. Hardly a very restrictive definition.

I am amused that you think a people that hasn't even invented the wheel to be developed. This extreme political correctness seems to prevent you being able to view Africa through objective eyes.

I certainly think – and have made no secret of this – that 99% of Africans in British territories would have been better off had colonial rule continued for another generation or two.

Lewisgunner

More interesting posts from you.

Yes – I think had Britain not been bankrupted by WW2, the Empire would have lasted a little longer in Africa, though (and this is often forgotten) the idea was always to make colonies stand on their own two feet and to cut ties with the Motherland as soon as practical.
One big factor which delayed this in Africa was the comparative reluctance of British settlers to opt to start a new life in Rhodesia / Kenya / South Africa etc as opposed to the tens of thousands who emigrated to Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Re. sound institutions, I think that the institutions left even in the 1960s were sound enough (in many African countries, the colonial police forces, universities, bureaucracy, railways, bridges etc are still pretty much in place, though have just been allowed to decay and collapse due to lack of investment) – the problem was giving universal franchise to a largely uneducated, tribal-based people overnight. This is not how democracy developed anywhere else in the world, so why did anyone expect it to work in Africa? Churchill voiced his concerns about this, but the indecent rush to be free of the burden of Empire meant that any such logical debate was impossible.

When I was working in the Sudan in the late 1990s, I had a fascinating chat with a University Professor who was old enough to remember British rule. He was convinced that Sudan was far better off then, that 'things worked' in those days, and they used to look at some of their neighbours – including independent Egypt – and consider themselves lucky to have the stability, rule of law, good education etc that British rule brought.
Shame Mr Wilcox (the African expert) wasn't there to tell him he was wrong.

Interestingly, the post Roman Britons proved insufficiently politically mature to govern themselves after the Romans 'withdrew' in 410 or whichever date one takes. They fell down into small component areas dominated by strongmen and were unable to protect themselves against really very disorganised invasions by Germans and Irish. So its not a colour thing. They would have been better off under Roman colonisation.
However, I would not draw from that any inference that Britain, France, Poland or Russia would have been better off under German colonisation in 1939 onwards. There is a good argument, advanced her, for them having to be stopped. However, the same argument could be advanced for 1945 and Stalin .

Lewisgunner

Absolutely – the Roman invasion of Britain was a good thing: few will argue that. I remember being taught at school that the Britons were 'running about in skins before the Romans arrived'.
I wonder if there is a teacher in the whole of the UK who would be brave enough to tell their pupils that the Mashona, for example, 'were running around in skins before the British arrived'?

Edit to my post at 10:56

… which implied you thought the recently arrived Matabele some how had more right to dominate, enslave, murder and pillage from the Mashona than the recently arrived white settlers did to live among them in peace.

Another Edit to my post at 10:56

that should obviously have been 'homogenous', not 'heterogeneous'.
It was early and I got my s and my hetros muddled up… always embarrassing when that happens.

Democracy has huge difficulties with minorities. It requires enormous political maturity for people not to vote with their tribe or religious group, but to vote on the basis of the solutions to the problems that a political party proposes irrespective of ethnic, familial or religious background. That is colour independent, Ireland and former Yugoslavia being cases. When governing groups exist to reward their families and loot the state bad rulers will create rather than solve problems. It is a moot point whether WW2 being avoided would have led to a longer period of colonisation which would have led to better governance. Some examples such as Ireland or the Shona Matabele divide that you cite earlier suggest that these conflicts take a long long time to resolve.
It is truly disappointing that the Catalans and the Scots may see their future as not part of a larger grouping, but of something more particularist and that's after hundreds of years together.
One further argument why WW2 was unnecessary is that Hitler's Reich was a ramshackle operation on economically shaky ground and with no system of succession. It might well have collapsed of its own accord in around 1960-70 when Hitler died.

I don't think iron age Britons were uncivilised, or no more than Romans (after all it was a long established culture that had trading links with the mediterranean, and Brtish art especially metalworking was exceptional at that time). It was not howevber a centralised military state and could not resist occupation.

I also have lived and worked on Africa for much of my life, and studied some of the pre-colonial political strcutures, which were not technologically advanced, in relation to Europe, but were socially and politically sophisticated. Some major errors were made by the colonists like the imposition of unelected Warrant Chiefs in West Africa, which have led to long term conflicts between groups. The sedition laws established in Nigeria led to over 60 summary executions per annum on average in the 1930s. The real impact of colonial rule was the creation of military rule in many of these states (and other places such as Burma and Pakistan), which is essentially using the instruments of colonial rule to establish a form of coercive dictatorship (rule by the bureacracy and military – which were united in colonial administration under the titular "governor-general")…..

There is no question that all people – black and white – have wanted to use force to dominate and conquer one another at different times. But ultimaterly people do not want that and they resist, despite the benefits on offer. Evidence can be found right now pretty much everywhere – from the Brits attitude towards the EU to the Afghan's attitude towards NATO. From that perspective, arguing that colonialism was a force for good is also "driving the wrong way up the motorway".

Lewisgunner

Absolutely correct. Back in the day, groups of Britons thought of themselves as 'McDonalds' or 'Campbells' or whatever – these people followed their chief and did not, by and large, think independently.
Africa was in a similar situation at the end of Empire – people by-and-large voted along tribal lines, so the larger tribe would always win the election. They would then ensure that this situation would never alter. And as the tribes were inter-mingled in many areas, it is not as though the drawing of boundaries can be blamed for this.
When I first went to Namibia at the end of South African rule, a state vet told me that the reason democracy 'doesn't work' in Africa is that, while a voter in (eg) the UK will usually cast his vote based on the issues and policies of the parties, a voter in Africa will vote on tribal lines.
A few years ago, a new political party (called COPE) was launched in South Africa. My wife asked our maid if she was pleased about this and she replied: 'yes – because now we have a choice'. My wife pointed out that there were other parties before COPE was launched, and so she already had the choice to vote DA, for example. Our maid laughed and said 'no – those are not African parties. But now we can vote either for the ANC or COPE'.
Unfortunately, this still appears to be a fairly common level of understanding of multi-party democracy – and this in the most developed country in Africa.

Archeopteryx

Not sure about your example of the EU – no one seems to be able to point out any advantages of the UK remaining a member of what it now is, rather than the free trade area which was initially offered.
However, I do completely take your point about people not always wanting what might be considered 'best' for them. By pretty much any standard, the average black person was 'better off' in Smith's Rhodesia (and they will openly tell you that), but many still struggled, fought and died to replace it with Mugabe's regime… which they now simply seem to accept.

My saying "leave Africa for the Africans" is not the same saying it's okay for Africans to dominate their fellow Africans. It's saying leave them alone. Would you have been happy if someone conquered Europe because Europeans fought among themselves?

I think you have to be carefull of projecting western C21 cultural ideas onto C19 Africans. I suspect that for most Africans it was a matter of profound indifference who was in charge, much as it would have made little difference to the average Saxon serf when the Normans invaded Britain. The irony is that those educated in western ideas of nationalism and sovereignty returned to their homelands to lead the independance movements.

How strange then that a white minority ruled a black majority for so long.

Well it was the norm at the time. The US while advocating right of representation to the European colonies wasn't giving that right to black Americans at that point.

From that perspective, arguing that colonialism was a force for good is also "driving the wrong way up the motorway".

That's an interesting one. As a post colonial myself I think of the Roman colonisation of much of my country as a good thing, but 1,600 years have passed since they left, so maybe you need time to put some perspective on it. Surprisingly though many Africans seem to bear no animosity towards the British and those who experienced both look back on British rule with a certain fondness, which suggests that while colonialism might not be a force for good, that doesn't necessarily make it a force for evil.

"I think you have to be carefull of projecting western C21 cultural ideas onto C19 Africans. I suspect that for most Africans it was a matter of profound indifference who was in charge, much as it would have made little difference to the average Saxon serf when the Normans invaded Britain. The irony is that those educated in western ideas of nationalism and sovereignty returned to their homelands to lead the independance movements."

Very good point indeed. Interestingly in Nigeria mpst of the independence movement came from the industrialized and Chirstianised south, which had taken on board what you might call modernist values. The north, which was an indirectly ruled Islamic state, took another approach which was essentially cooperating with the British so long as they did not interfere with their Islamic way of life – and as such the British had to recruit English speaking southerners, mostly Igbos, to staff the colonial administration up north. That relocation was the genesis of of the much later Biafra war.

Also in many African states the end of slavery causes economic hardship – for the rulers at least – and it was in that context that many west Africa 'states' crumbled into open warfare in the early 19th century. for example the Yoruba-speaking Oyo kingdom (inheritor of the old Benin kingdom famous for its bronzes) was under assault from a general Fulani Jihad from the 1780s to around 1880 (nigeria call it the 100 year war). British colonialism expansion was seen as helpful in bringing the Jihad to an end, although in neighbouring Benin (Dahomey in those days), French colonial expansion had the opposite effect on former members Oyo Kingdom, who were not under attack by Fulanis – and in Dahomey they fought a war of resistance against the French (as the Ashanti did Ghana and the Masai in Kenya)…

So some of it was context. It was only later when direct rule began to bite in the south, and colonial power excluded the indigenous population from politics and imposed unelected chiefs (the Yoruba-speakers has a long tradition of elected chiefs, and perhpas most importantly during the post WW2 great depression when unemployment in the colonial industries (palm oil processing, shipping, manufacturing etc.)caused more distress that the south mobilized politically against the colonists. There were mass general strikes by 1945-6. Add to that a much expanded army returning from the Far East (81st and 82nd West African divisions), and demanding a better life than going back to the farm after experiencing front line service and the writing was on the wall. Interestingly in Nigeria both the leaders of the northern and southern independence movements were direct descendents of the leaders of the Yoruba and Fulani leaderships during the 100 years war.

This thread seems to have 'morphed into "An Unnecessary Debate."

Absolutely – the Roman invasion of Britain was a good thing: few will argue that. I remember being taught at school that the Britons were 'running about in skins before the Romans arrived'.
--------------
though as a Taff with a big chip on my shoulder I would say don't believe history taught from an later Anglo-Saxon perspective! Fortunately we did Welsh history at A level which taught us a bit about our repression by Perfidious Albion/the Saes.

I've always thought about what if Britain/France don't declare war on Germany in 1939.

I doubt it would've become a world war.

Hitler was an opportunist and I suspect he would not have attacked Western Front if French hadn't showed such spinelessness in their initial foray into Germany or had the Allies shown an unwillingness to act during the Phoney War component.

Without declaration of war, you probably also don't have a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour/Philippines because Britain is still in a relatively strong position and the French Navy hasn't been scuttled.

Sucks for the Poles, but then the Western Allies sold them off to Stalin's USSR anyway.

Cripes I agree with Hobbesy!!!
:-))

ThomasHobbes

In the scenario you present, do you think Hitler would still have launched his invasion of the USSR?

Sucks for the Poles, but then the Western Allies sold them off to Stalin's USSR anyway.

Repeating something I said earlier in this thread …

This kind of statement seems, to me, to misstate rather badly the whole experience of Poland under Nazi rule.

Yes, I know that Poland suffered under the Soviet boot post-war. But Poland survived as a nation, a culture, and a people. If they had spent a generation under Nazi rule, that same would not have been said.

Being "sold off to the Soviets" did not equate to being overrun by the Germans.

The Soviets wanted Poland to be a pliable client state. The Germans wanted Poland to go away.

Here is what Hitler said to his Generals on August 22, 1939, in a briefing prior to the Polish campaign:

"Our strength lies in our speed and brutality. Genghis Khan hunted millions of women and children to their deaths, consciously and with a joyous heart. History sees in him the great founder of a state… I have issued a command – and I will have everyone who utters even a single word of criticism shot – that the aim of war lies not in reaching particular lines but in the physical annihilation of the enemy. Thus, so far only in the east, I have put my Death's Head formations at the ready with the command to send man, woman and child of Polish descent and language to their deaths, pitilessly and remorsely …. Poland will be depopulated and settled with Germans."

Read those words.

The Nazi ideology was not imperialist in the traditional sense. He did not want to rule Poland, but to erase it. So also with the peoples of the European portions of the Soviet Union.

The only reason that there ARE Poles to complain about the harshness and unfairness of 40 years of Soviet rule, is because the Soviets pushed the Germans out. If they hadn't, after 40 years there wouldn't have been any Poles left. At least not in Poland.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)