Another racist at National Review: "The world was better under colonialism"

[Dusty Bake Activate]

National Review Contributor: 'Most Of The World Worked Better In Colonial Times' | ThinkProgress

The National Review has repeatedly found itself in hot water over the past several months. In April, the conservative publication fired John Derbyshire for a “webzine” which crossed the line into outright racism. But the magazine’s editors continue to welcome contributions from white nationalist, and noted Islamophobe, David Yerushalmi, as well as anti-Muslim advocates Robert Spencer, David Horowitz, and Daniel Pipes. And in a column published on July 4th by Conrad Black, the magazine took a bizarre turn into defending the mission of European colonialists in Africa and Asia.

Black, a publisher, columnist, and Canadian-born member of the British House of Lords declared that, “most of the world worked better in colonial times,” and went on to list the colonial accomplishments of the British, the Belgians and the Dutch. He surmises:

No one could seriously dispute that almost all of sub-Saharan Africa, all of North Africa except Morocco, all of the Middle East except Israel and Jordan and most of the oil-rich states, and the entire former British Indian Empire were better governed by Europeans.

Black’s casual defense of colonialism fails to even hint at the humanitarian costs of colonial projects in Asia and Africa or the long-term destabilizing heritage left by Europeans in their former colonies.

During the British Raj, Indians suffered some of the worst famines ever recorded. In the Great Famine of 1876-78, approximately 10.3 million people died. During the Indian famine of 1899-1900, between 1.25 and 10 million died. Professors Mike Davis and Amartya Sen explain those catastrophies as stemming from British colonial policies.

Black mildly chastises the Belgians for being “inexcusably heavy-handed in the Congo,” but defends them for “never generat[ing] the horrific casualties that have routinely occurred in the civil strife in that country in 50 years of independence, much less the approximately 1 million dead in a single month in the Rwandan massacres of the Tutsi in 1994.” That claim overlooks the Belgian government’s own admission that half the population died during the Congo Free State period of 1885 to 1908, implying a death toll of approximately 10 million.

And while Black admits “the Dutch were no joy in Indonesia, but the natives did not run amok,” he is either unaware, or willfully chooses to ignore, the deaths of Indonesians during the Indonesian National Revolution between 1945 and 1949. During this period, an estimated 45,000 to 100,000 Indonesians died fighting the Dutch and civilian casualties ranged between 25,000 and 100,000.

The National Review took a principled stand in denying outright racists, such as John Derbyshire, access to their magazine. They should show a similar sensitivity toward columnists who celebrate European colonialism while overlooking, and in some cases denying, millions of deaths in Africa and Asia.

 

[TLR Is Mental Poison]

I dont even know where to begin with this one. I bet TWISM read dude's column like "well he kind of has a point, we were all in alignment culturally"

 

[88m3]

How is that racist?



It's too bad there aren't colonies in some cases. It would have saved a lot of trouble over the years. If America remained a colony there would have been no slavery, no civil war. Imagine that.

 

[VerbalIntercourse]

Certain places were indeed made better off during colonialism. Rhodesia, south Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada are examples of that. Even Indochina benefited.

But Indonesia, India and China were worse-off during and after colonialism. The Europeans simply extracted wealth and productivity that these countries had already developed. In the former cases, the Europeans developed the countries themselves. The euros simply had the opportunity of the last 2000 years. If it had been 200-100 years earlier, they would not have been able to conquer Indonesia, China and India.

 

[VerbalIntercourse]

It's too bad there aren't colonies in some cases. It would have saved a lot of trouble over the years. If America remained a colony there would have been no slavery, no civil war. Imagine that.

^^^I don't even think such treacherous words should even be legal, but thankfully i believe in free speech.

 

[88m3]

^^^I don't even think such treacherous words should even be legal, but thankfully i believe in free speech.

treasonous? you mean


You don't think my words should be legal, but you believe in free speech?

 

[Type Username Here]

The National Review might as well change its name to "CAC Review".

That being said, on a semi related note, England has done great under colonialism. They have been conquered and colonized since this:

William the Conqueror - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

Certain places were indeed made better off during colonialism. Rhodesia, south Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada are examples of that. Even Indochina benefited.

But Indonesia, India and China were worse-off during and after colonialism. The Europeans simply extracted wealth and productivity that these countries had already developed. In the former cases, the Europeans developed the countries themselves. The euros simply had the opportunity of the last 2000 years. If it had been 200-100 years earlier, they would not have been able to conquer Indonesia, China and India.

China was better off under Japanese occupation during WWII.

 

[88m3]

The National Review might as well change its name to "CAC Review".

That being said, on a semi related note, England has done great under colonialism. They have been conquered and colonized since this:

William the Conqueror - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Do you think the statements are racist?

 

[88m3]

Beginning in 2005, Black was the subject of a highly publicized prosecution in the United States. Black has maintained his innocence since the beginning of the legal saga. Having initially faced 17 charges of misconduct and of defrauding the company he led, Hollinger International, of $60 million, he was convicted of three counts of fraud and one count of obstruction of justice in a U.S. court in 2007[5] and sentenced to six and a half years' imprisonment. On July 19, 2010, Black was granted bail following a unanimous judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States in which Black succeeded in having the scope of the honest services fraud statute narrowed. Subsequent to that decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit overturned two of the three remaining mail fraud counts against Black in October 2010. The sole remaining mail fraud count was in the amount of $600,000, of which Black’s share was $285,000. On June 24, 2011 he was re-sentenced on the one remaining count of mail fraud and on the one count of obstruction of justice to a prison term of 42 months and a fine of US$125,000. As the 29 months Black had already served were included in this sentence, he returned to prison on September 6, 2011, to serve his remaining term of thirteen months. Black was released on May 4, 2012. As he renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2001, Black was granted a one-year temporary resident permit to re-enter Canada upon his release from prison. The permit is valid until May 2013.

On the author in the comments section

 

[Type Username Here]

Do you think the statements are racist?

You know that's what he is implying.

He had the nerve to say Israel is doing better now than under colonialism, and I ask, in who's case? Surely not the Palestinians.

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

No one seems to give a shyt about what Belgium under King Leopold did to the Congo. I didn't even learn about it until I read about it when I was about 21. They killed 10 MILLION PEOPLE. That is a holocaust of epic proportions. Nobody even knows it happened.

 

[88m3]

You know that's what he is implying.

He had the nerve to say Israel is doing better now than under colonialism, and I ask, in who's case? Surely not the Palestinians.

There wasn't an Israel before.

No one seems to give a shyt about what Belgium under King Leopold did to the Congo. I didn't even learn about it until I read about it when I was about 21. They killed 10 MILLION PEOPLE. That is a holocaust of epic proportions. Nobody even knows it happened.

What the Belgians did was on some other shlt you would be hard pressed to find anything comparable in modern history. Besides what the Japanese did... If you made a chart of the effects colonialism has had on countries the positives will always outweigh the negatives. The only holocaust was the one carried out by the Nazi's on the Jews in 1940's Germany.

 

[Type Username Here]

There wasn't an Israel before.

Not sure if serious

 

[No1]

No one seems to give a shyt about what Belgium under King Leopold did to the Congo. I didn't even learn about it until I read about it when I was about 21. They killed 10 MILLION PEOPLE. That is a holocaust of epic proportions. Nobody even knows it happened.

I learned about that freshman year

They were cutting off hands as examples and had a great role in promoting the image of Africans as animals.