Though 'Students for Justice in Palestine' has been around since 1993, its 'BDS' campaign failed miserably. How has it suddenly become important enough to split the Dems and cause Biden to back pedal on support for Israel? The answer, obviously, has to do with America admitting it lost the War on Terror and running the fuck away from Afghanistan. It is only fair that Israel too should be forced to eat humble pie. The other factor is memories of 'Black Lives Matter'. That stuff is still cool right?
On a more farcical note, it has been suggested that perhaps 'post colonial' ideologies have contributed to this sudden notoriety the Students for Justice are enjoying. The reverse is the case. Its adherents are repeating stupid lies and the more they do so the more there will be a backlash which benefits Trump & Netanyahu. Essentially, the bleeding hearts are objecting to Israelis because Israelis are White- like the majority of Americans- and that they are 'settlers'- like almost all Americans and that they are the victims of Islamic terror- which genuinely isn't popular in America or Europe.
Some academics don't get this. In a paper titled 'Reverberations of Empire: How the Colonial Past Shapes the Present' Julian Go writes-
Empires have fallen. The past is behind us. The past is past. So, rather than fret about symbols from the past, should we not just focus on the present?
Some people can make a little money or pass time in an agreeable manner by raking up past history. A shared historical grievance or pride in a collective historical achievement can bring people closer together. But, 'wokeness'- as Obama said- is divisive unless darkies like me actually get a big fat check from the Treasury as reparations. But, in that case, the Economy turns to shit and so that check is worthless.
Many scholars would likely respond that debating symbols of empire from the past is worthwhile because empire has shaped and continues to shape the present.
But technology shapes the present much more. People smart enough to talk about technology can dramatically alter economic and social outcomes. Pointless debates between stupid liars can only create a public nuisance.
Colonialism is over, but the colonial past has left lasting legacies that impact societies today.
Only if those societies spent money conserving and developing those legacies.
Some scholars thus readily invoke this kind of thinking when they employ terms like “vestiges” of empire, “ruins” of empire, “colonial afterlives,” the “reverberations” of empire, the “shadows of empire,” or “colonial debris.” The claim is simple: history matters. The problem, however, is while many scholars might readily concur that imperial and colonial histories are important because they shape the present, this is all too often an assumption that some scholars make.
Nothing wrong with assuming a thing before looking for evidence it exists.
Consider the body of thought known as “postcolonial theory” that initially swept the academic humanities in the 1990s; or the academic trend of “decolonial” thought that has taken on heightened import in the Northern academy more recently. For all their theoretical insights,
they had none.
neither postcolonial theory nor decolonial studies systematically demonstrate through sustained empirical investigation the means or modalities by which colonialism shapes the present.
because the thing was done by clowns. On the other hand, there are plenty of economic and legal historians who study 'hysteresis' effects going back thousands of years.
Rather than offering genealogies of colonial legacies, most of this work assumes them.
In 1902, a White guy said something nasty about Indians. This caused collapse of Mughal Empire- innit?
At most, the literature points to inequalities, institutions, or epistemes today and asserts that they are legacies of empire or that they are somehow the direct cause of past imperialism and colonialism. But it rarely shows it through historical investigation. Nor does it specify the mechanisms or processes by which the colonial past continues into the present. Imperial history matters, perhaps; but it is not always easy to clearly explain how and why.
Julian avoids the obvious conclusion. The people doing Poco shit had shit for brains. They secured tenure as part of an affirmative action scheme for the feeble minded. This contributed to an availability cascade of virtue signalling- i.e. people pretending they cared about drug addled darkies or terrorist towel-heads- whose victims were its own Graduate Students. They had taken big student loans to turn their own brains to shit and thus destroy their chance to make money and live well.
There are newer works, mostly of the popular variety (especially in Britain), that purport to expose the import of imperial or colonial history upon the present (e.g. Puri Reference Puri2021; Sanghera Reference Sanghera2023).
Boo hoo! I'm a little brown feller who studied stupid shit at Uni which is why I'm not as rich as dishy Rishi.
These works discuss a wide array of contemporary features of British society and connect them to the imperial past.
Grievance Studies is a way to get thickos sheepskins in useless shite. The problem is that those thickos can't repay their student loans and so the Government starts axing University departments which peddle that poison.
However, as these works are written for popular audiences, they are mostly impressionistic rather than systematic and robust. They catalog a myriad of examples but stop short of clarifying the different ways in which or mechanisms by which the imperial past shapes the present.
Because they are about as historically accurate as Pirates of the Caribbean. The problem is that, thanks to Bridgerton, everybody now thinks that most Queens, some Viscounts and the vast majority of Duchesses were Lesbian women of colour
They allude or assume rather than explain. Ann Stoler’s
Ann Stoler is White! That's totes triggering to me! She could at least pretend to be one sixteenth Cherokee.
(Reference Stoler and Stoler2013) skepticism of terms like “imperial legacies” or “reverberations of empire” applies well here. Such phrases, she bemoans, tend to be “deceptive terms that deflect analysis more than they clear the way” (Reference Stoler and Stoler2013: 7).
To be fair, the old Stalinist line was that countries like India hadn't really become Independent. Narendra Modi's real name is Nicholas Maugham. As for Rishi Sunak- you can't tell me the guy isn't just a Richard Smith with a spray tan.
It is exactly here, therefore, in this space of the taken-for-granted about empire and its legacies, where the present essay intervenes. The task is to explore some of the ways in which the imperial past matters in the present; that is, to consider how colonialism in the past impacts societies, social relations, institutions, economies, and polities today by uncovering the precise historical processes to which terms that we causally use – like “legacy”, “vestige,” or “reverberations” – refer.
Economic historians and legal scholars do this well enough. The thing is mathsy and deeply boring.
The related goal is to ponder how we might begin to think about, conceptualize, and study these reverberations. Which analytic categories might be mobilized or crafted to best understand imperial imports into the present?
Those of mechanism design and econometric analysis.
For the task, I draw upon a variety of work by scholars in different disciplinary formations that offers empirical investigations into colonial legacies and traces various lineages of influence upon the present.I also deploy various studies of colonialism and empire – part of the larger “imperial turn” in social science history since the 1990s and the “new” sociology of empire and colonialism – that do not directly confront the question of historical legacies but offer useful insights nonetheless Using this work, I hope to clarify, conceptualize, and catalog some of the key paths of influence of the imperial past upon the present: the primary modes of reverberation by which empire matters today.
Julian will fail. He doesn't know Econ.
My focus is upon modern colonialism, largely in its Anglo-European variety. Early modern imperialism, especially in the form of chartered trading companies, has certainly left its mark on modernity, including on contemporary economic thought . The reach, power, and influence of the Chinese, Russian, and Ottoman empires has also been important .
Actually, they too had trading companies or networks of various types which did a lot of the heavy lifting.
But it is impossible to cover all imperial legacies, all historical periods, and all empires. The analysis must be focused; hence this essay looks mainly at the legacies left behind by some of the largest Anglo-European empires (not least the British, US, French, and other European empires).
In which case, there are good data sets which are easy to access. But there is little novel that can be said.
I mean to be relatively precise when I speak of “modern colonialism.” By this term I refer to a sociopolitical relationship that is a subtype of imperialism. If “imperialism” is a modality of power by which one state or social actor exerts unequal influence and control over another society or peoples, colonialism is one particular mode of such power. As opposed to “informal imperialism” or what Nkrumah famously referred to as “necolonialism” (Nkrumah Reference Nkrumah1966), colonialism depends first and foremost upon the declaration of sovereignty and/or territorial seizure by a core state over another territory and its inhabitants who are classified as inferior subjects rather than equal citizens (Osterhammel Reference Osterhammel1999; Go Reference Go2011: 5–12; Arneil Reference Arneil2023). Colonial empires thus consist of a single core state exercising direct control and declaring sovereignty over multiple territories and people.
In which case Canada and Australia ceased being colonies once they became self-garrisoning. But some- like New Zealand- very strongly felt themselves colonies sent out by the mother country. They owed allegiance and loyalty to the old country. The Australians may have been more assertive but they fought bravely for the mother country in Gallipoli and elsewhere. On the other hand, plenty of Irish Americans enlisted with the Boers to get a chance to kill British soldiers. Ireland didn't have colonies but people of Irish descent cherish their ancestral homeland in a manner second to none.
While we could say that colonial empires have existed throughout history, colonialism has been a dominant mode of imperialism largely from about the eighteenth century through the twentieth century (Fieldhouse and Emerson Reference Fieldhouse, Emerson and Sills1968; Fieldhouse Reference Fieldhouse1982). The European empires were the most powerful and extensive of these colonial empires. As Abernathy (2000) notes, the European colonial empires encompassed nearly all of the territory that would later become the 125 different countries of the world. But we should not neglect the United States colonial empire as well. This empire began as a continental empire that maintained a strict citizen-subject distinction, even in the territories of the western frontier before they became fully-fledged states. America’s imperial state then extended overseas to encompass Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, Samoa, the Panama Canal Zone, and the US Virgin Islands, among other islands (Go Reference Go2011: 28–66; Immerwahr Reference Immerwahr2016).
But, by the Thirties, America wanted out of that game. Hawaii was the only non-White voter majority state admitted to the Union. But then Hawaii is beautiful.
As is well-known, the authority and legitimacy of these empires was challenged in the twentieth century.
Not to mention the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries.
Anticolonial movements around the world fought for national independence,
or didn't bother. Independence came to them anyway. Some- like Fanon's Martinique- refused the thing as a poisoned gift. Guyana must now be bitterly regretting telling the Brits to fuck off. Maduro has his eyes on its lovely lovely oil.
contributed to decolonization, and helped to topple most of the colonial empires in the world.
The French won the war in Algeria but decided the game was not worth the candle. Western Empires were economic in nature. Portugal, I suppose, was a bit of an outlier.
It is in this sense that we can speak of “past imperialism” or colonial legacies. Most of the colonial empires have ended, and colonialism is no longer the dominant form of sociopolitical relations in the world. The official “colonial-ocene” at the global scale is over (though, as we will see shortly, this does not mean there are no formal colonies at all today). The question is this: what impact have these colonial empires had upon our present-day world and how have they shaped the present?
This depends on the policies pursued by the ex-Colonial power and the robustness of the economies of the former colony. Thus France retains a role in some African countries but none in Indo-China.
At the risk of being overly schematic, I discuss four modes of colonial reverberation. Each refer to a distinct way in which the colonial past impacts the present: (1) continued colonialism through simple reproduction,
Which scarcely exists save on some islands.
(2) the persistence of power through repetition,
gibberish
(3) path dependence,
the problem here is that hysteresis effect from more recent 'mimetic targets'. If you were copying Japan you went one way. If you were copying Stalinist Russia, you went in a different direction. Look at South vs North Korea.
and (4) colonialism’s archive of meaning.
gibberish
These are not mutually exclusive, but they are analytically separable.
The only thing which matters is hysteresis. The rest is gibberish.
They are meant to render different processes and paths visible, to chart the murky and nebulous field of imperial legacies, and make colonialism’s impact analytically digestible.
Continued colonialism through simple reproduction
The first mode, continued colonialism, pinpoints the most obvious way in which the imperial past impacts the present: in some parts of the world, the imperial past is not yet past; or, put differently, formal colonialism is not over. Despite the massive decolonization of most countries in the mid to late 20th century, some colonies still exist, reproducing over time. One of them is Palestine, which marks a continued settler colonial occupation by Israel.
No. Israel is like Pakistan. It is a successor state. Some may say Pakistan is illegally holding on to Baluchistan or PoK or various Pakhtoon areas. The problem with the Palestinians is that there was never any possibility they could form an economically viable, politically cohesive, state. This wasn't apparent in 1988. It is now.
But there are many more examples. Britain was among the largest colonial empires of the past centuries and it still retains control over various territories. The government of United Kingdom lists fourteen such territories, including Anguilla, Bermuda, Gibraltar, Turks and Caicos, the Cayman Islands, and the British Virgin Islands. The total inhabitants of Britain’s current possessions is about 300,00 persons. The largest is the Cayman Islands with 69,000 inhabitants. The combined area of the overseas territories is seven times that of the UK (Commonwealth Parliamentary Association 2023).
Julian doesn't mention the Falklands. Britain kicked the ass of a Fascist dictator to secure the freedom of the islanders.
Similarly, France retains various départements et régions d’outre-mer (aka “DROM-COM” or “overseas departments and regions”) with over 2.6 million inhabitants from French Caledonia in the Pacific to Saint Martin in the Caribbean and Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, and Réunion off the eastern coast of the African continent. Meanwhile, the United States still has so-called “territories” like Puerto Rico, Guam, Samoa, the Northern Marianas, and the Virgin Islands – which Donald Trump famously suggested the United States trade for Greenland (and Greenland, by the way, is in many ways still a Danish colony). By some measures, including population, the United States has the largest colonial empire in the world today (Raustiala Reference Raustiala2009; Go Reference Go2011).
By some measure, everybody can claim to have the biggest cock in the world. So what?
This is not merely ceremonial or symbolic colonialism. Just as with conventional colonialism, unequal power is exercised by metropolitan states. America’s unequal control over Puerto Rico is seen in the fact that Puerto Rican residents can be sent to war by Congress and the President but they do not vote for either; and that control over Puerto Rico’s economy remains ultimately in the hands of the US federal government.
Puerto Rico doesn't want independence.
In this regard, Puerto Rico is like Guam and other U.S. territories: they have been declared by the Supreme Court to be “foreign in the domestic sense,” with the U.S. Congress enjoying final control without representation from the territories (Burnett and Marshall Reference Burnett and Marshall2001). Similarly, France’s Southern and Antarctic Lands are overseas “territories” whose inhabitants administered by a representative of the French government, while French Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna, St-Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Barthélemy, and Saint Martin are administered by a Prefect appointed by the French government. Turning to the British empire, in 2009, the UK Government suspended parts of the Constitution of the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) due to charges of corruption, removing the constitutional right to trial by jury, suspending the ministerial government and the House of Assembly, and placing a UK-appointed Governor in charge of administering the islands. The United Nations thus considers at least seventeen territories to be “non-self-governing territories (NSGTs).” These are “territories whose people have not yet attained a full measure of self-government” (United Nations 2023: para. 1). This is also to say that these are territories over which unequal power is exercised.
With the result that those territories are better off. But we are speaking of something which is not statistically significant at all.
Another example of continued colonialism are the ongoing relations between imperial governments and indigenous peoples. These were first formed during the colonial period but persist into the present, typically codified in treaties and laws that remain in effect today or whose effects remain today. This is a straightforward reproduction of settler colonialism that reminds us that settler colonialism is an “ongoing structure rather than a past historical event” (Nakano Glenn Reference Nakano Glenn2015: 52). Such colonial continuity is most palpable when we consider the territorial dispossession that was intrinsic to settler colonialism. The United States struck hundreds of treaties with Native nations between 1778, when the Treaty with the Delaware was signed, through the Indian Appropriation Act of 1871, under Article II of the Constitution. The central objective of these treaties was the “extinguishment of aboriginal title over vast tracts of land to make way for white settlement” (Bacon and Norton Reference Bacon and Norton2016: 306). The result was large scale dispossession that has not been reversed. Today, as a recent study by Farrell et al. (Reference Farrell, Burow, McConnell, Bayham, Whyte and Koss2021) shows, 98.9% of the historical lands in the United States previously occupied by Indigenous people are now in the hands of settlers and/or the United States government (Farrell et al. Reference Farrell, Burow, McConnell, Bayham, Whyte and Koss2021). This is a clear sign of continued settler colonialism.
The Frontier was declared closed in 1890. One might as well speak of the Anglo Saxons as settlers in England.
“It’s not correct to talk about ‘historical’ colonialism,” like colonialism is over,” as one author of the study, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, states. “Colonialism and land dispossession are present factors that increase vulnerability and create economic challenges for tribes” (Wade Reference Wade2021).
It is also not correct to talk about the Spanish Inquisition as though it was over. Did you know that the Pope is Catholic? That just shows you. Also Latin America is part of the Roman Empire coz Caesar spoke Latin. That's why they keep throwing Christians to the lions South of the Border.
The persistence of power: the institutionalization of colonial instruments
Even when countries are no longer formal colonies and have become independent nations, the traces of colonialism persist.
Even when Professors of useless subjects are no longer babies they continue to shit themselves and long to suck on titties. What does that prove?
This points to another way in which the imperial past impacts the present: the persistence of colonial instruments through historical institutionalization. Colonialism involved the creation and use of various and often novel tools for rule. Some were legal instruments. Others were tactics of power created on the spot amidst of the urgency of conquest and colonial rule. As colonizers repeatedly used these instruments and tools, they were hitched to resources, institutionalized, and thus reproduced into the present day. These are thus akin to Sewell’s notion of “schemas” that get effectively used, accrue resources and hence become part of lasting structures. In this way, artifacts of power developed and deployed during colonialism continue into the present across many parts of the world, even if formal colonialism in those areas has ended.
This is very sinister. Did you know that many English words we use today were also used by Jack the Ripper? This shows that everybody is murdering prostitutes all the time. Why else do you think Kamala Harris is so utterly useless?
Current systems of coercion, from policing to armed forces, are the direct product of colonial occupation in most ex-colonial countries .
Also, babies are the direct result of babies who lived in colonial times. This proves babies are actually Mad King George. That's why they try to eat everything.
Newly independent states did not overthrow these systems with decolonization; to the contrary they re-institutionalized them.
Also they didn't kill all the babies even though we can easily prove they are the product of the activities of people who were babies during colonial times.
Other systems and institutions have also been institutionalized through colonialism, either through formal or informal modes. Legal residuals of colonialism are paradigmatic of formal institutionalization: in some postcolonial nations, the repressive laws that colonizers initially created for their colonial projects linger whilst colonialism itself might be over .
In other words, Governments do what Governments do.
In Kenya, Sections 162 and 165 of the penal code were initially created by the British and they remain intact to this day. These are laws banning homosexuality. Article 162 punishes “carnal knowledge against the order of nature” with up to 14 years in prison, while article 165 makes “indecent practices between males” liable to up to five years in prison. These laws were first imposed in Kenya by the British in 1897, and while they may be seen as dead letters and rarely enforced, they have in fact been used in the past decade to prosecute individuals.
Kenya has a lot of evangelical Christians as well as deeply religious Muslims. Kenya could have decriminalized homosexuality when the Brits did. They chose not to. Uganda has made anti-sodomy laws more draconian. 'Serial offenders' may face the death penalty.
Meanwhile, police have used the laws as pretext to harass, punish, or extort money from LGBT people; or to deny services to LGBT people who are victims of violence (Human Rights Watch 2019).
Also many Kenyans have dicks. Dicks cause RAPE! Did you know that Lord Delaware had a dick? Why have the Kenyans not banned dicks even though many Colonists had dicks or, like Karen Blixen, really liked dicks?
Other ex-British colonies have similar laws (Human Rights Watch 2008). Some have been repealed but others have not. Section 377 of the Penal Code in India remained in effect all the way up to 2018. This law, created by the British Raj, is one hundred and fifty years old. Essentially criminalizing homosexuality, it prohibited and punished “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal” with imprisonment up to life (Deswal Reference Deswal2019). It was only removed due to large-scale popular protests in 2018.
Fuck off! The High Court removed it in 2009 but the Supreme Court reinstituted it in 2012 before reversing itself in 2018. Nobody gave a fuck.
Similar laws prohibiting homosexuality exist in sixty-nine countries, nearly two-thirds of which were under British colonialism at some point previously.
France had legalized Sodomy and the Ottoman Turks followed suit. Most Francophone nations never had anti-sodomy laws but some, like Chad, have recently introduced them.
Such legal residuals are evident in former imperial centers and not just in postcolonial countries. Why, for instance, is London today a financial center that attracts “everyone from Russian oligarchs to Nigerian billionaires to Saudi princes to take up residence” there, “driving up house prices and the general cost of living” (Koram Reference Koram2022: 188–189)? The answer lies
with Mrs. Thatcher getting rid of Exchange Control and allowing 'Big Bang' 45 years ago. Singapore and Hong Kong and Dubai are big financial centres. Why? They have accumulated big external economies of scope and scale in financial services.
Rich people also have splendid apartments in New York and Geneva and so forth.
in British laws regarding so-called “non-dom” (i.e. non-domiciled) residents.
At the time of the French Revolutionary Wars, UK had an income tax which was abolished later on. This allowed a person who was born in another country, or if their parent was from another country, to pay tax in the UK only on their UK income so long as certain conditions were met.
The laws permit taxpayers in the UK to pay tax only on their UK income, not on income accrued from assets or investments abroad. These non-dom rules go back to the late 1700s when the British empire created them in response to colonial lobbies
It was the French revolution which motivated this. However, 'colonial lobbies' were important because of what happened in 1776. What if the West Indies decided to throw in their lot with George Washington?
. The goal was to encourage British settlers to venture overseas and invest in plantations.
No. That had already happened.
An income tax law written in 1798 and passed by Parliament in 1799 is the root. It waived tax on incomes derived from enterprises in the Caribbean and elsewhere producing sugar, molasses, rum, indigo, coffee, and cotton using slave labor (Byers Reference Byers2022; Savage Reference Savage2023).
The Americans had objected to 'no taxation without representation'. Britain could not be sure of the loyalty of places close enough to the US to join the Union or ally with the Yanks. One solution would have been to give colonies seats in Westminster. But that would have upset the 'rotten borough' applecart so the West Indian colonies had their own legislatures.
The plain fact is, in the UK a non-dom is likely to be a dual citizen (unless of Indian origin) and will have two votes- one in England where she pays tax on UK income, and one in Canada or Pakistan or wherever where she pays tax on the income generated in that country.
Income tax was abolished after the Napoleonic War and was only brought back by Sir Robert Peel. But it affected very few people and was very low- about one percent- at the end of the nineteenth century.
Another example is international law. The sovereignty doctrine upon which so much of international law is based – along with many other key concepts of international law – has colonial origins.
No it doesn't. It arises from the existence of sovereigns or, in the Civil Law tradition, from Ulpian's observations on the powers of the Emperor. Medieval Europe had 'limited monarchy'. The modern notion of sovereignty arises in the sixteenth century with the work of authors like Jean Bodin. The 'Westphalian' state raises the power of the prince such that his religion is the religion of his people. This didn't always work.
Specifically, it emerged from the imperial search for a legal basis for colonial relations between the European and non-European worlds.
There was no fucking 'legal basis'. If you couldn't defend a territory some other guy gobbled it up. Parts of South Africa and Sri Lanka were once Dutch. The Portuguese were miffed when the Brits took over land in South Africa which they claimed. This was the main reason for the fall of the monarchy.
European powers did not have a preexisting arsenal of international legal doctrines that they then applied to their relations with colonies. Rather their imperial projects amidst the colonial encounter first generated those doctrines which still serve as the silent scaffolding for international law today.
Nonsense! International law is Treaty law which, however, may not be enforced . Nobody gives a shit about its scaffolding.
As critical scholars note, this makes it all the more difficult for systemic justice to be addressed within the terms of international law (Anghie Reference Anghie2007).
But national law can be equally useless if the police are in the pay of the Mafia or are too scared to leave the station house.
The very idea of territorial sovereignty to which the sovereignty doctrine is tied is also an artifact of colonial power that has been institutionalized.
No it isn't. Sovereigns who kicked the ass of the nobility created the modern notion of territorial sovereignty. But, it can still be pretty hazy. The US has dual sovereignty. What about the UK? Some say Scotland is sovereign but it doesn't look that way.
In medieval Europe, prior to the modern colonial encounter, the political landscape was largely constituted by jurisdictional or personal forms of authority, with territorial forms blended in, that often resulted in overlapping, non-exclusive and decentralized authorities.
Unless the Sovereign kicked ass like William the Conqueror or Henry VIII or Oliver Cromwell.
Branch (Reference Branch2012: 282) reveals that it was only with the so-called “discovery” of the Americas and subsequent colonial claims by competing European powers that territorial forms of authority – defined by exclusive, non-overlapping and “linear cartographic boundaries and homogeneity within those lines” – took precedence and become firmly institutionalized both in colonial domains and, then, eventually in Europe itself.
Sheer nonsense! Lines draw on European maps were redrawn by victorious Generals. This also happened in Asia and America and Africa.
A key feature of the modern state as we know it – that is, exclusive claims to territorial sovereignty – is thus a product of colonial power,
The US has dual sovereignty. Thus it isn't modern at all. As for the Swiss- don't get me started.
and its repeated use over time has instituted it as an almost taken-for-granted feature of authority. The colonial roots are hidden.
There are no fucking colonial roots. On the other hand, it is true that it was a consequence of the Zulu wars that Monaco would have lost its sovereignty if Grace Kelley hadn't had a son.
The very boundaries of many postcolonial nations today are products of colonial power.
But colonial power was a product of those nations being more than a little shitty.
Most boundaries were forged during the colonial period. They had less to do with natural boundaries than dynamics of inter-imperial rivalry and the whims, interests, and longings of colonial powers.
But the whims, interests and longings of subsequent rulers either changed or preserved those boundaries.
In some cases, the territorial divisions have been arbitrary enough to be pernicious, generating significant conflicts throughout the postcolonial independence period.
But not so in other cases. Idi Amin took his country to war with Tanzania but Kenya never did anything so foolish.
In Africa, homelands that were partitioned during the colonial period suffer from more political violence today than non-partitioned homelands, even controlling for multiple other factors (Michalopoulos and Papaionnou Reference Michalopoulos and Papaionnou2016).
Only if they 'also experience frequent military interventions from neighbouring countries'. This is particularly true if, like Congo, they have fabulous natural resources. But this is also true of Ukraine. No doubt, Putin only invaded because of the Zulu Wars.
Along with these borders was the colonial institutionalization of identities, from racial and ethnic identities to tribes, castes, or other religious groupings. Colonialism did not invent these identities but they surely modified them and put them to use for political purposes, thereby tethering them to political structures or socioeconomic incentive systems and in turn hardening them in ways that still shape present-day postcolonial politics (Laitin Reference Laitin1986; Dirks Reference Dirks2001; Slater and Solfer Reference Slater and Soifer2020). Mamdani’s (Reference Mamdani1996, Reference Mamdani2020) work shows how European colonizers used indirect rule as a particular modality of colonial power which served to institutionalize and harden certain ethnic or ethnoreligious identities in colonial countries.
Soft headed leftists simply couldn't understand that people who had fought each other in the past would fight each other once again once the Europeans fucked off. Mamdani, a Ugandan Asian, is particularly hilarious.
After independence, those identities remained embedded in organizations and personal dispositions, in turn shaping subsequent intergroup conflict and violence (Mamdani Reference Mamdani1996; Mamdani Reference Mamdani2020).
Guys who spoke a Bantu language continued to speak a Bantu language unlike those who spoke a Nilotic language. This was the fault of Queen Victoria.
Similarly, Berda (Reference Berda2023) discloses how the British colonial bureaucracies of Cyprus, India, and Palestine relied upon a complex array of categories and distinctions in order to monitor, surveil, and control colonized populations and particularly mobile peoples.
British set up cameras in toilets so as to watch Indian people poop. That was the secret of their power. Once the 'boss class' has seen you shit, they can control you through super-secret mind-rays.
These categories and distinctions did not disappear even though British rulers and bureaucrats eventually left; they rather remained embedded in state organizations through and after independence.
Prior to British Raj, Indians did not have dicks or vaginas or assholes. Thus everybody lived a peaceful life sans sexy shenanigans. British invented sex and forced Indians to have it. That is what caused the population problem.
In all such cases, the impact of the colonial past upon the present follows the same logic: certain identities, classificatory schemes, and categories were codified and deployed as part of colonial rule and thus become solidified or hardened, remaining durable into the postcolonial period.
At Independence, countries could have chosen to go back to the way of life which had led to their conquest. They could have waited patiently till some other country colonized them. I wonder why most didn't take this route. The answer must be that the Colonists had caused them to have dicks and vaginas and assholes. Thus they started going in for sexy shenanigans and one thing led to another till finally they became just as bad as the foreign oppressor. Indeed, some peeps even took to masturbation and sodomy- both of which were invented by Florence Nightingale aka Jack the Ripper.
The overall effect is that identities forged during colonialism or for colonial rule continue into the present, even though colonial rule in these countries is long over.
Isn't it ironic that India still retains laws against rape which were only introduced by the British ten minutes ago? The plain fact is there can be no rape without dicks. Indians did not have dicks till the Brits forced them to grow those disgusting appendages in the same way that Indians were forced to grow 'cash crops' like indigo and opium and cotton.
Besides formal instruments embedded in law, state institutions or bureaucracies, empire also generated a range of new informal strategies of rule or new technologies, tactics, and techniques of coercion.
First the Brits forced Indians to have assholes and then Indian Police took to shoving bumboos up them.
Colonialism was a space of contact, collaboration, conflict, and exploitation but it was likewise a novel field of interaction necessitating innovation.
or copying stuff which other countries were already doing.
This feature of colonialism has left behind multiple artifacts of power.
No. It may have left behind particular bureaucratic, military or judicial organizations but they are not 'artifacts of power'. They are instruments of governance.
While initially generated during and for colonialism, these have been institutionalized too. They have thus become part of our contemporary repertoire of governmental, political, or economic structures. They are continually deployed, even if in more transmuted or hidden form, and even if we are not always cognizant of them. They persist in society’s imperial unconscious.
But only because Imperialism created brains and dicks and vaginas. Previously, the natives had no such things.
Many of these colonial traces are evident in the colonies themselves as well as in imperial metropoles.
Even more surprising is the fact that colonial traces can be found on distant asteroids- if Julian looks hard enough.
Through a process that Aimé Césaire (Reference Césaire1955) called “the boomerang effect,” colonialism touched both colonizing and colonized societies.
Which is why Martinique refused to become independent.
Consider a common policing technique that you can find in almost any city in the United States and even in Europe: so-called predictive policing or “hot spot” policing. This is where police identify areas of the city that have seen high levels of crime so that they can increase their police presence and patrols in those areas. In the 1980s this was touted as a new approach to policing using sophisticated software but it emerged in American policing in the early 20th century. It was popularized by a man named August Vollmer, who was the police chief at Berkeley and then Los Angeles in the early decades of the century. Vollmer invented what was then called “pin mapping”: placing pins on the map of the city where crime had occurred so that he could find “hot spots” of crime and distribute police patrols accordingly. But this early form of hot spot policing, pin mapping, was not invented by Vollmer out of thin air. Before he became police chief, Vollmer had served in the US army in the Philippine-American War; he had been part of a new elite army unit conducing search and destroy missions to hunt, capture and kill Filipino insurgents in the dark terrain of Luzon. To track the movements and bases of the insurgents, the US army had devised and perfected pin mapping, and Vollmer then brought this tactic back to the United States for policing (Go Reference Go2020). In this sense, predictive policing today has its origins in colonial conquest.
This cretin doesn't get that it was during the Civil War and the subsequent occupation of the South that General Anderson and MacArthur learnt the lessons they would use in the Philippines. But predictive policing can also work the other way. Coppers can avoid places where there is bound to be trouble. Let the locals sort things out for themselves. London and Paris had 'rookeries' which were essentially 'no go' areas for the Police. Because of the greater danger of insurrection in Paris, the whole City's layout and architecture had to be changed.
Other examples can be found when investigating the genealogies of international organizations today. Consider the World Health Organization. To regulate sanitation and health in their imperial domains, the core European imperial powers created international forums like the International Sanitary Conventions from which emerged new inter-imperial regulations on global health and colonial policies. White (Reference White2023) argues that a central strategy underlying these inter-imperial regulations and colonial health policies was “epidemic orientalism” by which colonial spaces and peoples, classified as the font of disease, were cordoned off from global circulation.
But quarantines had existed in Europe from the time of the Black Death.
Promoting global health meant protecting metropolitan citizens, and so imperial powers enacted health policies meant to create borders between colony and metropole so that metropolitan societies were not tainted and infected.
Not in India. The Brits there neither wanted to die of cholera or the plague themselves nor did they want Indians to die of it. Nationalists like Tilak- but also Gandhi and his pal Dr. Pranjivan Mehta- took great exception to this. You see, germs were only invented by the Colonists- along with dicks and vaginas. It was all part of a cunning plot to install cameras so that Queen Victoria can watch us poop. Wake up sheeple!
These early inter-imperial regulations and colonial policies were further institutionalized in subsequent international regimes even after decolonization.
What's more some people alive today still have dicks even though they were only invented by Queen Victoria so that the Viceroy could use them to drain jizz from billions of starving Indians while they slept.
Today, such “epidemic orientalism” continues to structure current international health policies promoted by the World Health Organization and most nation-states (White Reference White2023).Footnote 5
There are some people who say COVID originated in China. This is a racist canard associated with the deliberate misinterpretation of the work of my respected colleague Dr. Fu Manchu
Structural continuities through path dependency, or colonial institutionalism
While colonialism might be reproduced, and while its instruments of power might persist despite the end of colonialism, so too might the overarching structural relations or patterns of inequality attendant with colonialism continue into the present.
First the colonialists invented dicks and vaginas thus giving rise to RAPE! Then they invented money and power which is why so many people now are poor and weak. Then they fucked off because they had brainwashed everybody into becoming robotic slaves of theirs. Wake up sheeple! Do you really think Narendra Modi is an Indian man? I tell you he is none other than Queen Victoria!
This is a third modality of imperial reverberation: structural continuities through path dependency. I take this modality from the literature on “historical institutionalism” in political science that emphasizes the importance of historical path dependence, sequence, and timing upon outcomes (Steinmo Reference Steinmo, Della Porta and Keating2008).
This is correlation not causation. Look a bit closer and ergodicity reappears.
There are varieties of historical institutionalism, but I import the basic idea that past institutions shape the present by making some historical trajectories or developments more possible than others. I suggest that the continuation of colonialism’s structural relations might persist into the present through similar path dependencies.
The problem here is that colonialism was itself shaped by unchanged features of the fitness landscape. One may speak airily of 'lines drawn on a map', but there was a reason that line was drawn here rather than there.
Drawing from the literature on historical institutionalism, another name for this might be colonial institutionalism. By this term I mean to refer to how colonial experiences, processes, or relations set the basis for path dependent trajectories that explain present-day structures.
Though a superior outcome could be arrived at simply by 'Tardean mimetics'. The fact is 'present-day structures' have to meet present day needs or else the money to keep them going will dry up.
Contemporary patterns of international inequality constitute a prime example. It is perhaps not shocking to note that the global structure of international inequality looks very much the same as it did during the period of high imperialism in the 19th century: European powers that colonized the world were wealthy then and remain comparably wealthy now, while most of the ex-colonies of those core powers remain at the lower rungs of the international economic hierarchy. There are exceptions, of course. India and China are powerful counterpoints. Yet,
Catholics in Ireland were poorer than most in the 1840s when they had a big famine. Indeed, Ireland remained poor relative to England till quite recently. It is likely that they will get richer and richer. Meanwhile, Northern Ireland is appallingly administered.
on the whole, these are exceptions that prove the rule.
The rule is that Malthusian shitholes will be poor. Industrialization involving getting rural girls into factory dormitories is how you achieve demographic transition and start to climb the value chain.
There is a remarkably persistent set of unequal socioeconomic global relations that replicate those of the colonial era. The economist Bairoch put it simply: “There is no doubt that a large number of structural features of economic underdevelopment have historical roots going back to European colonization” (quoted in Mahoney Reference Mahoney2010: 253).
Why is this cretin mentioning Bairoch who dismissed as a myth the notion that Europe got rich off its colonies? Still, like Bhagwati and Manmohan (whom Bairoch knew), he understood 'immeserizing growth'- i.e. why the terms of trade move against primary producers. However the solution is to go up the value chain. Sadly, this means investing in infrastructure- deep water ports, rail and road networks, cold storage chains etc- rather than spending money on prestige 'white elephant' projects.
Path dependence helps us that this current international structure has its roots in colonialism.
No. As Samuelson should have pointed out, hysteresis only prevails where market signals- which promote ergodicity- are suppressed. Fossilization occurs when senile leaders with zombie ideologies hang on to power.
As a range of theorists and thinkers have long discussed – from Walter Rodney
whom Tanzanians and Guyanese people blame for their country's economic woes
and Franz Fanon
whose native Martinique chose to stay with France
to World-Systems Analysis and Dependency Theory
useless, stupid, shite
– colonialism facilitated the long-term extraction and appropriation of wealth (from bullion to natural resources and labor) from peripheral regions of the world, enriching metropolitan imperial societies. Such extraction and appropriation continues today in various forms, but it does so in the absence of formal colonialism.
Because all those so called darkies ruling shitholes are actually Queen Victoria in disguise. Did you know that Dr. Livingstone personally sucked off one billion African people thus accumulating a vast fortune in jizz which he then used to construct the Taj Mahal tandoori in Tooting? I mentioned this to the proprietor but he wouldn't even give me the complimentary poppadom I had requested. In this manner, the legacy of Colonialism is perpetuated by so called Sylheti Restaurant owners with names like Abdul Rahman. Andrew Robinson is more likely. I tell you all these so called 'Indian' restaurants are actually run by cruel White peeps who won't even give you a free poppadom unless you actually order a meal.
Instead it occurs through what Kwame Nkrumah (Reference Nkrumah1966) referred to as “necolonialism”: extraction and appropriation through the work of global corporations, aided by neoliberal economic policies imposed by international economic organizations or other forms of unequal control.
The Ghanaians had the good sense to get rid of that over-erudite nutter. Still, it must be admitted, back then the best economists tended to be Leftist. A lot of very bright people went down the wrong road. However, by the beginning of the Seventies the mathematical reasons for rejecting Marxism had become clear. Trade economists like Manmohan and Bhagwati had seen the light. Still, Socialism is an illness that it takes decades to shake off.
If formal colonialism does not directly serve to “underdevelop” ex-colonies today, though, it is nonetheless crucial because it set the tracks for these ongoing processes that perpetuate and exacerbate international inequality.
Underdeveloped countries got colonized because... they were not developed. After colonialism disappeared they remained poor because.... they were not developed.
Through colonialism, colonies were immediately placed into lower positions in the global division of labor and deprived of strong autonomous political institutions.
Their previous division of labour was so shitty they got conquered. The same was true of their political institutions. Look at India. A recent paper by a Muslim academic shows that the customary way land and political office was inherited, under the Mughals in a particular District, was by killing an Uncle. Retaining land and political office involved pre-emptively killing nephews till your wife poisoned you so her son could inherit. This was institutionally sanctioned. No wonder the 'haves' welcomed John Company which would keep to the terms of any deal it did with you.
Thus even after colonialism officially ended, the newly independent countries had already been set upon path dependent trajectories keeping them locked in place.
Unless they chose a better 'mimetic target'. Look at Mauritius- which VS Naipaul called an 'overcrowded barracoon'. They haven't stuck to exporting sugar cane. They have branched out. Malaysia actually had a good Planning system probably because there were no famous Malay economists.
Lacking internal wealth, capital, technology, and strong state capacities, they could not compete with wealthier countries like France, England, or the United States that were former colonial powers.
Why is Bangladesh now richer than Pakistan? How about North and South Korea? Why are Singaporeans now richer than Londoners? What you do matters. What was done to you long ago doesn't.
Furthermore, the latter, though granting political independence, used their wealth and power to pressure ex-colonies into unequal trade agreements and arrangements that served to facilitate continued extraction and appropriation.
Plenty of countries nationalized key industries and told the West to go fuck itself. But, if they did stupid shit, their countries grew poorer.
Colonialism not only locked ex-colonial countries into historical trajectories of economic deprivation, it simultaneously paved the path for former imperial powers to maintain their wealth.
Most Portuguese under Salazar were very poor though they worked hard and were enterprising people. Since the revolution, Portugal has risen rapidly but many young Portuguese people can do very well in former colonies. But this is a tribute to their skills and character. It isn't exploitation.
Colonialism can be rightly seen as a “historical cause”, as Stinchcombe (Reference Stinchcombe1968: 104) might put it; that is, “a cause that produces an outcome that then persists in the absence of the cause.”
Being shitty is the historical cause of being conquered or of remaining shitty after the conqueror fucks off coz ruling a shitty place just aint worth it.
Meanwhile, the United States granted economic benefits to states like Taiwan and South Korea (capital and access to markets) in exchange for serving American geopolitical interests, enabling the new “Asian tigers” to rise in status while colonial deprivation in Vietnam and Indonesia served to exclude them from becoming one of the “Asian miracles” (Wade Reference Wade1992; Kwon Reference Kwon2011; Gray Reference Gray2014).
Why is this cretin quoting work which is over 30 years old? Vietnam and Indonesia have risen rapidly and will rise further yet.
There are major differences in development between ex-colonial countries. Settler colonies like Canada, the United States, and Australia have fared much better economically those other British colonies;
because places run by people of British stock tend to do sensible things.
some colonies within the French empire have fared better in terms of socioeconomic development than others; and there is wide variation in Latin America’s ex-colonial countries in levels of development. But even these differences can be traced to colonialism.
Why not simply say 'race'? Places which are whiter are more prosperous- though Guyana's oil may make it richest- unless Venezuela conquers it.
Mahoney’s (Reference Mahoney2010) work on Latin America is exemplary. Mahoney shows that levels of colonial penetration and the types of economic policies enacted by imperial powers shaped different levels of socioeconomic development in the colonies and different formations of elite power. Then, when those colonies became independent, those different levels of socioeconomic development and formations of elite power conditioned how those countries experienced further events and processes, leading all the way to present day international inequalities.
Places where Whites could thrive did better than places where the Whites died like flies.
This is why differences in levels of development across Latin American countries today look the same as they did during the colonial era (Mahoney Reference Mahoney2010 see also Lange et al. Reference Lange, Mahoney and vom Hau2006).
Cuba? Haiti? What about Venezuela whose decline is much more recent? Still, geography doesn't change that much over time and geography does matter.
Variations in political development can also be understood by understanding colonial histories and the path dependent trajectories of postcolonial development that followed. Research by Lange (Reference Lange2003, Reference Lange2009) shows that the particular type of colonial rule that the British enacted in Africa – whether “direct” or “indirect” – accounts for differences in postcolonial nations’ political development.
Because choice of direct or indirect rule was a function of the pre-existing physical and human geography.
Likewise, Owolabi (Reference Owolabi2023) differentiates political-economic systems associated with colonialism and finds that “forced settlement colonies” have better developmental outcomes than conventional colonies of occupation.
Whites be smarter than Darkies- right? Why not just say that immigrants are likely to be more enterprising and acquisitive?
Path dependent trajectories of postcolonial development beginning in colonial structures holds the key to understanding these outcomes (Owolabi Reference Owolabi2023). Edwards’ (Reference EdwardsIn Press) study of the “miracle” of political and economic development in postcolonial Trinidad and Tobago also reveals colonial institutionalism. Trinidad and Tobago had been ruled by the British for centuries before finding its relative postcolonial success. While the case would appear to overturn the theory that colonialism impacts present-day levels of development, Edwards shows that colonialism still matters, however in more complex ways than we might assume. Trinidad and Tobago’s success lies in multiracial workers’ movements during the colonial period who made successful demands upon the British colonial state for strong developmental institutions. The British colonial state conceded to the workers’ demands partly because it was dependent upon the oil industry to run its empire. Workers’ resistance in the forms of strikes and other acts that threatened to undermine the empire’s economic engine. Edwards thus shows how path dependent processes explains the “miracle” while incorporating the agency of the colonized.
Immigrants from India or China, particularly those with a mercantile, 'joint family' system, might be keener on money and the institutions that promote money-making than those who feel themselves to be indigenous. The other problem was that Afro-Caribbeans were more urban and educated and could easily emigrate and do well for themselves.
Colonial institutionalism and the associated logic of path dependence can also be seen in current trade and migration patterns.
These are network or 'learning' effects. They may be 'institutional'- e.g. more Consulates granting visas, and more 'Export Credits' or LoC facilities underwritten by the Central Bank- but they may be wholly informal- e.g. networks associated with Lebanese or other smart mercantile communities.
Typically, flows of capital, commodities, and labor today are understood as rootless flows manifesting unfettered globalization.
No. They are 'footloose'- i.e. can change if real exchange rates change and one destination becomes more attractive than another.
But many of these flows are embedded in imperial relations. France today trades heavily with its former colonies in Africa, as does Britain with its former colonies (De Sousa and Lochard Reference De Sousa and Lochard2012).
There is an Institutional basis for this. However, the rise of China shows that markets matter much more than institutions.
Generally speaking, such flows between ex-colonies and former colonial powers have diminished slowly over time, but ex-colonies still trade disproportionately with their former colonial power (Head et al. Reference Head, Mayer and Ries2010).
This generally represents a 'return' to acquired advantage- i.e. expertise. However it can be rent extraction pure and simple.
Trade even spills over from former colonies to the former colonies’ neighbors due to embedded colonial flows (Berthou Reference Berthou2017). The same goes for migration. Migration to Europe tends to follow the paths previously laid down by colonialism (Buettner Reference Buettner2016: 211–413).
Legal migration may do. But it is illegal migration which is of greater concern. New routes are being created all the time. There is talk of Putin planning to flood Finland and Baltic countries with such migrants.
Notably, England’s major immigrant populations are all from England’s former colonies, not least India, Pakistan, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago among others (Patel Reference Patel2021; Watson Reference Watson2018).
Because Commonwealth citizens had free entry till about 1960 and, even after that, there was a voucher system. However, Brexit was triggered by European migration and the fear of refugees from the MENA flooding in.
These trends reflect the fact that colonialism served to embed interests and relations in particular imperial circuits,
but migration patterns- e.g. from Ireland or Italy or Germany to the US- are discernible even if there was no imperialism.
creating the conditions for their continuation even after colonialism.
Prior to 1965, migration to the US was linked to the proportion of immigrants previously arriving from a particular 'Caucasian' country. But those patterns have changed greatly since. That's why you have a Veep with the name 'Kamala'.
Through this path dependent embeddedness, the flows and relations between societies and peoples that were created during colonialism persist even as formal colonialism has ended.
What this guy is saying is hysteresis remains hysteresis unless ergodicity supervenes. When does ergodicity supervene? When markets become open and elasticities of supply and demand rise. But this is also the condition for the disappearance of 'rent' and 'exploitation'.
Empire’s archive of meaning, or colonialism’s cultures
The final way in which the imperial past shapes the present is by serving as a cultural repository or archive of meaning that can be continually drawn upon by current social actors to shape perceptions and discourses.
Our cultural repository comes from films and TV serials. It features things like 'the Evil Empire' in Star Wars as well as Hobbits and Hogwarts and shape shifting lizard people from planet X.
Colonialism did not only generate novel governmentalities, instruments, tactics, and forms. It also birthed or was attendant with meaning structures, novel modes of thought, new discourses and ideas, new knowledges, and emergent concepts and classificatory schemes that colonialism fostered or fomented.
Not really. Germany had no colonies when it turned Indology into a heavy industry. Britain outsourced its Orientalism first to Hanover and then to the rest of that paradise of pedants- the German University.
Racialized distinctions and racism, ideas about the “human” or discourses about “culture” and “civilizations,” conceptions of “the Orient” as distinct from “the Occident,” folk discourses about criminality or health – these and many other cultural schemas and discourses were part and parcel of colonialism.
Nope. Guys who went in for that shite seldom set foot in the Orient. Colonialism was about making a little money and not dying of dysentery.
Institutionalized through colonialism, these discourses have been made available for subsequent generations. Past colonialism thus provides the groundwork for their repeated use and mobilization by social actors today.
Not to mention actors like Johnny Depp in 'Pirates'
This is not dissimilar from the institutionalization of colonialism’s instruments by which power is reproduced, as discussed above.
If it is not dissimilar to that rubbish why give it a different title?
The line between colonialism and the present is drawn through repeated usages over time and across generations.
No it isn't. The line is drawn by proclamations of Independence.
But empire’s archive of meaning is different because it includes cultural schemas and various ideational elements of colonialism that might not have been instrumentalized explicitly by the state, and which then have been repeated and reproduced over time in non-state sectors (i.e. in society through social practice).
This explains why Biden is actually the dowager Duchess of Dunroamin while Trump is Black Rod. British practices have been repeated and reproduced implicitly by the American State. This is why American beer is piss.
As noted, for instance, racial or ethnic
not to mention gender
classifications were invented, codified, and institutionalized by the colonial state.
or the American State when faced with Chinese or Japanese or South Asian immigrants
But colonialism also came with other images and notions about difference that were put into practice by social actors.
No. Colonialism first came and then some people earned a little money producing 'images' and 'notions about difference'. On the other hand, Captain Burton did spend a lot of time measuring the dicks of big African men.
Empire thus bequeathed to us an entire discursive formation or culture replete with novel meanings that persist and continue to be drawn upon today, lodged in popular imaginaries, discourses, arts, culture, and even nationalism (Tinsley Reference Tinsley2018).
But Star Wars and Star Trek and Harry Potter have bequeathed us much more. Seriously, apart from 'Pirates', which other big movie franchise focuses on the East India Company and colonial shite of that sort?
The most obvious examples include some of the blatant and conventional racist stereotypes generated from and for colonial conquest.
Plenty of nations which have no history of imperialism have racist stereotypes.
Racist tropes of Africans or indigenous peoples were part of the legitimating formations of settler and plantation colonialism (see also Nakano Glenn Reference Nakano Glenn2015).
No they weren't. Only money mattered. I frequently request money from Venture Capitalists so as to go and reconquer Iyerland from leprechauns like Varadkar. I emphasize the cowardly nature of those leprechauns. By giving me just 100 pounds, or a couple of bottles of Jamesons, you can acquire a fifty percent stake in my South Iyerland Company which will turn the Emerald Isle into a vast orchard growing countless Apple watches and phones.
Folk ideas about the so-called “lazy native” in Southeast Asia or the images of romanticized savage were also fomented through colonial encounters.
Folk ideas about Americans as cowboys who kept shooting each other were fomented through cinematic encounters.
On the other hand, the notion that women don't got no dicks definitely was fostered by Queen Victoria who often lifted up her skirt to offer Gladstone a free show. It is for this reason that she was crowned first Empress of India.
These and many other tropes or ideas persist today, having been repeatedly used by social actors since decolonization. In the United States we need only look at popular culture to see their persistence, but parallel images and schemas are evident across Europe too. For example, the image of Zwarte Piet or “black Pete” is trotted out during Christmas celebrations in the Netherlands.
There is a theory that this has something to do with the ancient 'Wild Hunt' in European mythology.
As Buettner (Reference Buettner2016: 1–4) points out, this is an image from the colonial era that continues to be used and even celebrated.
But the underlying cause of this horrific injustice is that White peeps be White. I have repeatedly demanded that they all paint black stripes on themselves and then go lie down naked on a zebra crossing.
There are also deeper epistemic forms and cultural schemas that empire generated and which persist. This is where Said’s (Reference Said1979) critique of Orientalism remains powerful still.
Two hundred years ago, some White dude said something nasty about A-rabs. This caused 9/11.
As Said (Reference Said1993) intimates, the binaries attendant with the discourse of “the East” and “the West,” along with other essentialist dichotomies that imperialists deployed and institutionalized, have long penetrated academic knowledge while permeating popular discourse as well.
Worse yet, some evil academics have pretended that women don't got no dicks. This has permeated popular discourse. It is what girls are getting at when they call me a stupid cunt.
And while colonialism has ended in many parts of the world,
but not America- right?
these discourses have not. Through their repeated use over time, they have become engrained in modes of thought and discourse the world over.
So has astrology. So what?
Indeed, the essentialist binaries have been so powerful that even some putatively anti-imperial movements used them and continue to use them today. Nativist “anti-western” and fundamentalist movements in the ex-colonial world deploy the very same Orientalist dichotomies of imperialists did, however in their case to construct the “west” as an evil Other deserving of violent rebuke.
i.e. terrorist strikes. But they also do a lot of that to their neighbours.
In Culture and Imperialism, Said (Reference Said1993: xiii, 311) opined that “essentializations” have proliferated since colonialism; the Orientalist discourse of “terrorism” in the West and “varieties of religious and nationalist fundamentalism” in the “formerly colonized world” share the same discursive ground first cultivated by empire.
If 'essentialization' is a real thing, then it has been happening ever since Adam noticed he had a pee pee while Eve had no such thing.
“Thus Muslims or Africans or Indians or Japanese,” Said warns, “in their idioms and from within their own threatened localities, attack the West, or Americanization, or imperialism, with little more attention to detail, critical differentiation, discrimination and distinction than has been lavished on them by the West. […] Africanizing the African, Orientalizing the Oriental, Westernizing the Western, Americanizing the American … [this is] a pattern that has been held over from the era of classical imperialism and its systems” (Reference Said1993: 311).
I suppose Said meant 'Islamic Imperialism' which created the category 'Arab' and 'Muslim'. Apparently the original Palestinians were of Greek extraction.
Said thus charges all forms of “nativism,” and the “tremendous ressentiment” that fuels it, as dangerous legacies of the culture of empire that must be critiqued.
By those who are utterly useless- sure. Why not?
“To accept nativism,” he argues, “is to accept the consequences of imperialism too willingly.” It merely reproduces the “metaphysics of essences like negritude, Irishness, Islam and Catholicism” (Reference Said1993: 228–229).
Not to mentions academic disciplines like Literature and Physics.
Even nativist and nationalist anticolonial movements can thus be seen as legacies of empire whose traces remain today.
Only in the sense that dicks and vaginas can be seen as legacies of empire.
From colonial past to anti-colonial present
This point about anti-colonial resistance allows me to head toward a conclusion.
Because Julian is actually fighting against evil American colonists. He has been discrete about it so they haven't noticed. Still, it warms the cockles of our heart to think of his brave acts of resistance which consist of farting silently and flitting away before the Gestapo can arrest him.
On the one hand, empire and colonialism indeed bequeathed to us a repertoire of meanings – a whole series of cultural schemas and discursive constructs – that have been continually used and re-used (along with an array of institutions and tools of power that persist into the present).
I'm from India. I do know a 'chotta hazri' from a 'khidmatgar' but only because I read Hobson Jobson while studying at London University. My cousins who actually work in the Indian Civil Service don't know 'purshish' from 'peshkash'. Yet a 'griffin' from England would have known both terms a century ago. The plain fact is the 'schemas' and 'discursive constructs' of the Raj disappeared a long time ago. One reason for this was that after Independence, the requirement to know an Indian language was dropped by the Civil Service. Hindi was only made compulsory about 40 years ago. Even then, a Tamil like me could cram and pass the exam and then forget every blessed word of that language which, in its 'Shuddh' form, North Indians can't understand.
Many of these schemas and constructs are repressive if not retrograde, such that they persist in some “anti-western” political movements in the ex-colonial world.
As well as in America or Europe. Whitey be debil isn't exactly a complex ideology to espouse.
On the other hand, the experience of colonialism also generated an array of anticolonial movements, anticolonial thinking, and anticolonial experiments that have not fallen prey to essentialist dichotomies
Like those which led to the partition of India or the subsequent partition of Pakistan?
and have instead struggled against them, just as they have struggled against the imposition of racialized and essentialized discourses.
They have also struggled against the notion that women don't got no dicks.
This too must be seen as a legacy of empire:
like dicks. Queen Victoria invented them.
the dialogic if not dialectical creation of anticolonial liberation movements critiquing the dark side of modernity and experimenting with novel forms of cosmopolitanism, creating transnational, cross-ethnic and transracial solidarities,
through butt sex but not the sort of butt sex which involves dicks. This would be a butt sex performed by two pairs of buttocks squeezing turds into each other.
and offering new political imaginaries and visions (Hammer and White Reference Hammer and White2018; Getachew Reference Getachew2019; Go Reference Go2013a, Reference Go2023).
Like the one I just put into your head about butts using turds to fuck each other.
All of these have been generative reactions to colonialism that resisted and aimed to surmount colonial power.
by shitting into its anus- right?
These anti-imperial and anticolonial traditions must also be seen part of empire’s legacies.
Otherwise a butt will shit into your anus.
Yet, these anticolonial legacies of empire do not reside in the most obvious of places.
The butt?
They are not readily seen in the apparatus of formal politics –
because they are up its anus
in political platforms or campaign speeches of leaders around the world
Which is why Trump and Pence didn't shit into each other's butts on inauguration day.
– nor are they sketched in the false utopias of fundamentalist leaders whether religious or technocratic (read: Elon Musk).
Religion is bad. So are Electric cars and Space Rockets. What matters is butts shitting into each other so as to acknowledge Imperial legacies without essentializing them.
They are rather lodged in pamphlets circulating among alternative social movements,
social bowel movements- right?
in theoretical texts assigned in the few university classes that teach postcolonial theory
to gibbering idiots
and, most importantly, in the cries and struggles of explosive protests on the streets, like those that aimed to bring an image of Christopher Columbus down in Chicago’s Grant Park.
Christopher Columbus had a dick. That statue was totes triggering. Dicks cause RAPE!
Such movements do not represent meaningless symbolic gestures but rather a continuation of the anticolonial tradition.
The 'Tea Party' was a continuation of an anticolonial tradition. Incidentally, a British general had freed the slaves in the hope this would weaken Washington's Army.
And they are salutary reminders that, as long as empire persists today,
It doesn't.
and as long as its legacies remain palpable and its reverberations felt,
which is as long as the 'Pirates' franchise can make money
so too will remain those movements aiming to undo empire’s repressive power and persistent effects.
Imperialists invented dicks. Dicks cause RAPE! We must topple the repressive legacy of Colonialism so as to finally get rid of dicks. Butt sex should involve two pairs of butts shitting into each other in a non-essentializing manner. Fundamentalists like the Pope and Elon Musk must be forced to have this type of intercourse. Otherwise, tragedies like those unfolding in Gaza, will continue to occur.
Perhaps we social science historians should learn from these legacies of empire too.
Perhaps social science historians will learn something useful one day. But that is the day they stop teaching shite and devote themselves to shitting into each other's anuses in a non-essentializing manner.
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