Given a legal consultant's work is never done, a short comment to let you all know that I'll be leaving for the US today for work. Presence around here--at least on my part--will be light to variable for the next week or so.
Except the targeting is not West Bank settlers, it is Israeli Jews qua Jews (“from the River to the Sea”). Israel withdrew its settlers from Gaza. Where did that get it?
“The emergence of the conservative power bloc, a coalition led by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon of the National party, also comes as the number of Maori members of parliament hits a record high, some of whom are key advocates of the new agenda.”
You cannot even correctly quote the post you are commenting on. It is, quite literally, the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. Even treating it as a pogrom with hang-gliders and dash-cams puts it up there as one of the worst pogroms in Jewish history. Including a public gleefulness about killings Jews that not even the Nazis managed.
If you want my views on the Israel-Palestine dispute — this is a post about Postcolonial Theory, which is not usually used against Palestinians — then see here:
That's not how it works. You start a war you get the consequences. Hamas knows this and _wants_ the consequences.
At Pearl Harbor, about 50 US civilians were killed and about 2400 military.
Did we set up a counter to kill exactly 50 Japanese civilians and 2401 military? Did we offer up a compensating number of Americans for target practice once their losses exceeded ours? Has any nation fought a war in that way?
How did the equivalence you propose work out during the Islamist attacks on the Yazidis? Have any of them risen from the mass graves they dumped in? How many of Islamists were killed when they enslaved and eliminated the ancient Yazidi tribe?
This is a post about decolonisation, and its connections to the policy of terrorising Israelis, which has never worked, not the war in Gaza.
But on which, yes, Hamas deliberately hiding behind civilians and hostages is getting a lot of Palestinians killed, which Hamas obviously wants, as dead Palestinians help their cause. Witness all the demonstrations and commentary. But also witness that Hamas is getting no support from any of the regional players, which is very revealing.
Nov 14, 2023·edited Nov 14, 2023Liked by Helen Dale, Lorenzo Warby
Many Palestinian terrorists, as you say, do not care where they go. But for a sizeable proportion, the only good Jew is a dead Jew. If they escape to someplace else, the Holy Warriors will only have to kill them later. They aren't fighting for a Palestinian state -- they would be happy to be part of a greater Islamic Empire state, with its headquarters far outside of Palestine. Their problem isn't one of 'we want Palestine' -- their problem is that the accursed Jews must not be allowed to have it. Internationalist/Globalist Islamism is a real thing and if people do not notice that this is a different animal than 2 or more groups fighting over a homeland they all want, then no wonder there are so many foreign policy blunders.
Israel was not someone’s colony in the sense meant. It doesn’t and didn’t have a metropole. Which makes the “terrorise them and they will go home” strategy stupid and wicked.
The other aspect in play is - the Palestinians never had a state until the U.N. offered them one in 1947 (in the partition plan). They lived in South Syria under the Ottomans and "Palestine" was only introduced in the British Mandate.
Palestine had been a geographical term for about two millenia at that point and a political entity as the Roman province of Syria Palaestina for 250 years post-Bar Kochba. If you are going to take that line "Ukraine" and sundry other places don't count as real nations either.
As a matter of fact I would accept that premise with regard to Ukraine, given prior to the Soviet Union (which brutally annexed it and gave Ukraine its current borders) it was split between Tsarist Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and before that (during the long devolution of Poland) it was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Yes, the place name of Palestine was resurrected by the classicists employed in the British Foreign Office, but at no time since the Roman occupation (since we are talking colonialism here) did anyone refer to it as such.
If you want to ignite a conflict that would unite the unthinkable alliance of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria - propose nationhood for the Kurds.
Nov 14, 2023·edited Nov 14, 2023Liked by Lorenzo Warby
Great essay.
"Israel was not someone’s colony in the sense meant. It doesn’t and didn’t have a metropole."
Can we stretch things a bit and say the Torah and the mythos of David, Solomon, and Jerusalem (or with added post Babylon adjustments?) played a metropole-like role, even when Jews resided in ghetto or middle class circumstances around the world? It would have provided sustaining moral and psychological resources even if it did not provide material or military ones?
The Jews obviously COULD leave (they could just go live in the west with the other diaspora Jews). However, I don't think they SHOULD. See comment below.
---
"and a country full of refugees and their descendants who have nowhere else to go"
I both agree and disagree with this.
I disagree in the sense that of course the Jews could leave Israel and move to the various western countries where they wouldn't have to be surrounded by a billion hostile Muslims and deal with these sorts of periodic terrorist wars. That is an option available to the Jews of Israel and there are lots of Diaspora Jews taking advantage of it right now.
I agree in the sense that I think Israel is a unique state worth fighting for despite the difficulties. Life in the west would probably be pleasant enough for Jews that move there, but it would be very different than life in Israel. I would go so far as to say that what Jews gain from Israeli culture is worth the periodic attacks.
Take a simple metric. Even non-orthodox Jews have much higher TFR in Israel than the west. If I run the math (going on memory here), 325x more non-Orthodox Jews have been born in Israel then would have been born in the west then were killed by Hamas terrorists. To whatever extend Hamas terrorism enables the militant ethno-nationalism that seems to allow Israel to fight progressive ideology and be a TFR outlier, Hamas is creating 325 Jews for each one it kills.
There is nowhere, collectively or individually, that would take over 7 million Jews. Israelis with joint citizenship have somewhere to go, the rest have no rights of residence anywhere else. There are also very bitter memories of the closed borders of the interwar and even postwar periods.
How many millions of Arab refugees did the West take recently? And most people didn't even want them.
How many Ukranian refugees just recently.
I'm pretty sure that if a bunch of smart Jews ask their billionaire co-ethnics for entry so that they can go and produce a bunch of tax revenue it will be allowed.
And there is a lot of buyer’s regret going on now. Possibly you are right, but I am sceptical. And, if I was an Israeli, I absolutely would not trust myself and family to that maybe.
I'm in agreement that the Jews SHOULDN'T leave Israel. I think Israel is a unique and important place worth fighting for, and I don't even have the particular attachments.
I just disagree that they COULDN'T.
You seem to be basing your theory of everything related to de-colonizaton on the idea that if someone COULD leave they SHOULD leave. Fuck that.
Did we leave North America because the Native Americans didn't like it? We took what we wanted because we were the superior. And I'm glad we did.
If I were to posit why people abandoned the various third world colonies after WWII its because the Industrial Revolution had fully matured and peaceful maritime trade under the one world superpower meant that physical control of land and natural resources was no longer necessary. Unlike North America or Israel proper were we had expunged all the natives, the whites were surrounded by hostile ethnics and no longer needed to be there to get what they wanted out. There were no unique national cultures in these colonies to fight for, they were just resource control that was no longer necessary.
You could go back to the Metroprol and still get the third worlders to sell you what you wanted without having to actually run a colony, and there were no other Great Powers that would try to elbow you out of their trading network either in peace or crisis. Up until that point that wasn't the case.
Dec 28, 2023·edited Dec 28, 2023Liked by Lorenzo Warby
If Israel is "colonial" please identify the primary "Father" nation. For example, here in the USA, we see that a handful of European states, with the UK being predominant. were the source nation. Jews have been in that land since Jacob was renamed Israel. Yes, Jews from all over the world of the Jewish diaspora have been migrating to Israel, but markedly not from say the USA or other non-European western powers (commonwealth countries). This "colonization" argument is a very weak argument indeed.
Thank you for the article! I appreciate the North African historical context showing there’s nothing unique to European settlement. (We probably also need reminders that slavery has occurred between all peoples throughout history, especially between people of the same race, and there’s nothing unique to European enslavement of Africans in the 17th and 18th centuries.)
> within hours, various academics told us how it exemplified decolonisation
Do you have a few references to support that claim?
Oh wow. I hadn’t paid attention to statements from university professors and academics right after Oct 7th. Unbelievable. From the National Post link you provided:
> On the morning of Oct. 7, when Canadians woke up to images of bodies being paraded through the street by Hamas terrorists, a professor of African history at the University of Toronto, Safia Aidid, tweeted: “solidarity with the Palestinian people, today and everyday.”
> On Saturday afternoon, Uahikea Maile, a professor of Indigenous politics at the U of T, characterized the attack — which consisted of massacres, rapes and hostage-takings — as “anticolonial resistance”
> PhD candidate Maddie Brockbank downplayed reports of Hamas terrorists raping Israeli women. “Hyperfixation” on “interpersonal violence” distracts from state violence and dehumanizes the oppressed, she claimed.
We did NOT create the wreckage of the World Wars , Europe did that...we DID not play the fool twice, this led to NATO and the long past shelf date 'Western Alliance."
Our decolonization role - and the US State Department post 1945 is the DeColonizer par excellence-is an unspoken corollary of our real NATO policy; "Keep them ALL down [all of Europe], so the Russians CAN stay out [of Western Europe which does actually face the USA] so the American's had to stay IN."
The British told themselves "Keep The Americans In, Keep the Germans Down, Keep the Russians out' but ....that's not what we did. We decolonized England, France, undermining them at every turn, we even went after poor Portugal, which treated their colonies and people's far better than the other Europeans. This isn't a footnote Helen and Lorenzo as 'decolonization' served our American interests far more than any infiltration or co-opting Campus Marxists [such as a certain Frank Davis, and a certain Obama fellow, and a certain Soweto fellow].
All of this nonsense is a hangover from the Cold War, which was a hangover from the World Wars.
A dangerous hangover to be sure, but don't ignore what happened.
* America has no Metropole, it's a Federation. America is Federations from the Iroquois to the Internet and all arrangements in between.
DC isn't the Central Government as THERE ISN'T A CENTRAL AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.
DC had forgotten that and is now to it's horror realizing the awful truth.
As far as Empire America needs neither the resources, nor the Strategic Depth...nor any of it.
As far as the Hegemonic abortion that popped up in the 90s after the 'end of history' that's ending, you see far from just being a narrow parochial interest of the Foreign Policy community it has FATALLY UNDERMINED their control of the Continental United States.
They are panicking and running and discovering there's really no place to go but America....
...an America they our elites have deeply offended.
American de-colonialism was rooted in Wilsonian idealism about spreading the gospel of democracy. It always competed with the commercial desires of a more conventional (if quasi-) colonialism. The Cold War of course introduced an entirely different calculus. The end of that conflict left a gap that has yet to be filled.
I don't think Wilson wanted to enter WW1 at all, when he was forced into it and he was he decided he never wanted to do this again, FDR who also wished to avoid war implemented this policy.
It would make sense in a war of ideas to spread our ideas.
It long ago stopped making sense, but our leaders haven't made since for 30 years.
I think a lot is put on Wilson and others that they never would have supported, one merely need ~ism and one's legacy is twisted and distorted beyond recognition.
I agree with you our policy after ww2 was certainly decolonization.
Largely successful.
That businesses make money anywhere is what they do...
Helen's point that Imperial nations got richer from decolonization is well taken.
What wasn't addressed in this essay is the question of Strategic Depth - which was the real payoff for England and France in the World Wars. Even in WW2 the Free French save France's independence [from America BTW] by regenerating from Africa and then the Middle East. Great Britain of course called on vast resources of food, material, above all men from her colonies, France as well. Even Spain won its Civil War with troops from Spanish Morocco.
The gap in the cold war ending needs to be we end our portion in America.
We end all alliances outside the Western Hemisphere, they are all mutually toxic.
There's nothing and no one in the Eastern Hemisphere that is existential and vital to America, we must leave. We need no resources, strategic depth, allies ...nor trade...nor do we need to risk nuclear war. Farewell !
However you left out one factor: the satellite belt. To maintain its position in space the US needs satellite relay stations outside of the USA. Key stations are in Australia but I expect that there would be others elsewhere too. A vestigal empire, designed around strategic supply chains (hydrocarbons, rare earth, strategic minerals like nickel) is more likely than comprehensive decolonisation.
In addition, US business is not satisfied with the US market alone. It seeks access to and control over foreign markets. Superpower status provided America with this.
The problem with retreating from "Empire" is that some other power is likely to fill the vacuum.
England profited from its retreat from Empire because the power that filled that role was one that was friendly to England and shared similar ideals, namely the United States. If the US retreats the power mostly likely to take over is China, to which neither of the above two factors apply.
There's really nothing inevitable about empire, so I would disagree that there must always be one to dominate any particular region, let alone globally.
At which point, what 'bloc' was NATO a guard against? The Warsaw Pact was no more.
Russia economically equates to Spain. No one seems to be quaking in fear of Spanish conquest. The EU is more than adequately resourced to deal with the Russians.
An interesting essay...agree with all of it. I would just make this observation though: In my view, most white-liberal Correct-Think does not primarily derive from any deep ideological stance. It is shallower than that. The 'causes' - 'oppression', 'colonialism', 'racism', 'sexism' et al - are, to the white-liberal, just shallow abstractions. The real driver is "the endless struggle to think well of themselves" (as TS Eliot put it). https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/are-we-making-progress
True, most progressive thought is shallow, but its acceptance comes from "authorities" who have spent time and effort developing a worldview, however distorted it may be. I appreciate the critique of these authorities.
But we all "think well of ourselves", as when we also denigrate the shallow thinking from the "other side". I am not a deep student of the topic, but I understand there are about two dozen varieties (versions/ categories?) of self-delusion and confirmation bias. The psychological separation between our rational selves and our emotional selves must have had survival value via evolution somehow. I gather that factoid is being recognized more and more, but has not yet risen to the level of general populational awareness.
While noting that evolution has no teleology, per se, as our societies get more and more complex, is that an environment that favors increased rationality, or continuing the current logical - emotional mix?
I think this is all well observed, if a little beyond the scope of a comment thread like this. I do think there is a diffence between the typical conservative and the typical progressive in this respect. The conservative is more likely to expect others to take, at least some, personal responsibility for their discontents and failings (and will take personal responsibility for their own) whereas the progressive is more likely to blame someone else or some 'xyz-ism' or 'xyz-phobia' et cetera. You might think me naive.
Another timely base hit with runners in scoring position - well done. (Apologies for the Yank-speak baseball-ism.) A couple points in support: the more facile brand of political advocacy of Native American rights in the US consistently portrays pre-Colombian Native life as Edenic, thoroughly cleansed of anything resembling conflict or conquest. Ancient residency is routinely invoked as a precursor to enlightened attitudes about environmental issues and land stewardship. The mythologizing runs aground on the immensity of the Great Plains, though, which only became habitable for sizable groups with the rise of equestrian culture, which, as in Eurasia, produced warrior societies and constant conflict. Having lived in this ‘flyover country’ - and taken Native history seriously - helped me grasp the difference between the myth- making and historical reality. As an unreconstructed lib I also see the issue with the current Left’s soft Marxism. It’s exasperatingly simplistic when it comes to offering a compelling economic analysis and, despite the overwhelming historical evidence, refuses to accept any distinction between free enterprise and other aspects of capitalism that are of relatively recent vintage, such as predatory private-equity / hedge-fund acquisition and demolition of viable businesses. So the need for clarity has never been more urgent. The enemies are approaching from all sides now.
In my experience of anticapitalism, the “failures of capitalism” that are identified arise from the closeness of corporations and the state; crony-capitalism and regulatory capture are real problems, but not inherent features of capitalism.
"It requires only mastery of Theory: rhetoric and narratives that impart to its initiates a gratifying moral grandeur."
This is the legacy of Plato in particular out of the Socrates-Plato-Aristotle foundation of most Western thought. There is a reason that Nietzsche rejected them. It is a form of Gnosticism.
This is the same Frantz Fanon who wrote of white women: "Basically, does this fear of rape not itself cry out for rape? Just as there are faces that ask to be slapped, can one not speak of women who ask to be raped?” (Black Skins, White Masks). Yet the mad-left adores him. The double-standard I can understand, but how do we explain the degree of decadence that makes Fanon a figure of such adulation?
The disease of Managerialism always appears to the victims and surrounding communities as “local” - as it is Political- in the strangest way it validates “all politics is local.“
In this case the local politics being academia or the Intelligentsia. Or the media room, which extends to Slack and Twitter... the politics being denunciation.
Until the Fanon’s are fired from the mouth of cannons our suffering continues.
Ask people who talk about "de-colonialization" "what is colonialism and when did it start?" In the unlikely event you get an answer, it's probably going to be something like "European Transoceanic empires post 1492." It's hilarious how little these people, who use the term "Eurocentric" as a criticism or a slur, know about history, including and especially the history of the non-western world.
One need only read a bit about the Mongol Empire and the Hans in China to prove your point. How is it that with such prodigious resources at our disposal;, so many remain so woefully ignorant?
The Eurocentrism of the Left is underappreciated. If it wasn't pasty pale people doing it to dusky hued people, they never know a goddamned thing about it.
Given a legal consultant's work is never done, a short comment to let you all know that I'll be leaving for the US today for work. Presence around here--at least on my part--will be light to variable for the next week or so.
Except the targeting is not West Bank settlers, it is Israeli Jews qua Jews (“from the River to the Sea”). Israel withdrew its settlers from Gaza. Where did that get it?
Ah yes, believe my Theory, not your lyin’ eyes. And let’s deploy the No True Scotsman Fallacy while we are about it.
“The emergence of the conservative power bloc, a coalition led by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon of the National party, also comes as the number of Maori members of parliament hits a record high, some of whom are key advocates of the new agenda.”
That is a fairly spectacular misreading of the post, which is about bad ideas.
You cannot even correctly quote the post you are commenting on. It is, quite literally, the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. Even treating it as a pogrom with hang-gliders and dash-cams puts it up there as one of the worst pogroms in Jewish history. Including a public gleefulness about killings Jews that not even the Nazis managed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom#Selected_list
I will grant you that, in terms of Muslim massacres of non-Muslims, it is comparatively much less notable.
https://www.lorenzofromoz.net/p/hamas-displays-a-muslim-way-of-war
If you want my views on the Israel-Palestine dispute — this is a post about Postcolonial Theory, which is not usually used against Palestinians — then see here:
https://www.lorenzofromoz.net/p/in-the-shadow-of-empire
It is not as if there is a shortage of public criticism of Israel.
I recall body counts being an essential part of winning hearts and minds. How did that work out last time?
It works great and always has.
It worked in Vietnam, if that’s what you mean.
The war was won by 1970, then given away at table.
Worked great in Ireland too, Ireland is “Independent” because the United States was more important after WW1.
Worked great for the Russians to this day in Kaliningrad, formerly East Prussia. Now no Germans.
We just need to turn around and stack the back stabbers behind us next. Should have done first.
The Left makes it easy enough.
Worked great in Germany and Japan.
That's not how it works. You start a war you get the consequences. Hamas knows this and _wants_ the consequences.
At Pearl Harbor, about 50 US civilians were killed and about 2400 military.
Did we set up a counter to kill exactly 50 Japanese civilians and 2401 military? Did we offer up a compensating number of Americans for target practice once their losses exceeded ours? Has any nation fought a war in that way?
How did the equivalence you propose work out during the Islamist attacks on the Yazidis? Have any of them risen from the mass graves they dumped in? How many of Islamists were killed when they enslaved and eliminated the ancient Yazidi tribe?
This is a post about decolonisation, and its connections to the policy of terrorising Israelis, which has never worked, not the war in Gaza.
But on which, yes, Hamas deliberately hiding behind civilians and hostages is getting a lot of Palestinians killed, which Hamas obviously wants, as dead Palestinians help their cause. Witness all the demonstrations and commentary. But also witness that Hamas is getting no support from any of the regional players, which is very revealing.
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/the-dog-that-isnt-barking
https://youtu.be/ymOTXoLlOQ0?si=IEOGpChxCG74gyAB
Also, I am not keen on the Jewish lobby.
https://www.lorenzofromoz.net/p/jews-cant-afford-the-jewish-lobby
There isn't a single Jewish lobby. There are many political active Jews, often lobbying for opposite causes.
I think you might benefit from a reading comprehension class. Your comments indicate a failure to understand the ideas put forth by the author.
Rhodesia.
Many Palestinian terrorists, as you say, do not care where they go. But for a sizeable proportion, the only good Jew is a dead Jew. If they escape to someplace else, the Holy Warriors will only have to kill them later. They aren't fighting for a Palestinian state -- they would be happy to be part of a greater Islamic Empire state, with its headquarters far outside of Palestine. Their problem isn't one of 'we want Palestine' -- their problem is that the accursed Jews must not be allowed to have it. Internationalist/Globalist Islamism is a real thing and if people do not notice that this is a different animal than 2 or more groups fighting over a homeland they all want, then no wonder there are so many foreign policy blunders.
Empire has its upsides. As I discuss here:
https://www.lorenzofromoz.net/p/in-the-shadow-of-empire
Israel was not someone’s colony in the sense meant. It doesn’t and didn’t have a metropole. Which makes the “terrorise them and they will go home” strategy stupid and wicked.
The other aspect in play is - the Palestinians never had a state until the U.N. offered them one in 1947 (in the partition plan). They lived in South Syria under the Ottomans and "Palestine" was only introduced in the British Mandate.
Palestine had been a geographical term for about two millenia at that point and a political entity as the Roman province of Syria Palaestina for 250 years post-Bar Kochba. If you are going to take that line "Ukraine" and sundry other places don't count as real nations either.
One could argue there was no Palestinian nation in 1920. There clearly is now. This is ethnogenesis taking place within a single life-time.
As a matter of fact I would accept that premise with regard to Ukraine, given prior to the Soviet Union (which brutally annexed it and gave Ukraine its current borders) it was split between Tsarist Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and before that (during the long devolution of Poland) it was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Yes, the place name of Palestine was resurrected by the classicists employed in the British Foreign Office, but at no time since the Roman occupation (since we are talking colonialism here) did anyone refer to it as such.
If you want to ignite a conflict that would unite the unthinkable alliance of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria - propose nationhood for the Kurds.
Great essay.
"Israel was not someone’s colony in the sense meant. It doesn’t and didn’t have a metropole."
Can we stretch things a bit and say the Torah and the mythos of David, Solomon, and Jerusalem (or with added post Babylon adjustments?) played a metropole-like role, even when Jews resided in ghetto or middle class circumstances around the world? It would have provided sustaining moral and psychological resources even if it did not provide material or military ones?
The Jews obviously COULD leave (they could just go live in the west with the other diaspora Jews). However, I don't think they SHOULD. See comment below.
---
"and a country full of refugees and their descendants who have nowhere else to go"
I both agree and disagree with this.
I disagree in the sense that of course the Jews could leave Israel and move to the various western countries where they wouldn't have to be surrounded by a billion hostile Muslims and deal with these sorts of periodic terrorist wars. That is an option available to the Jews of Israel and there are lots of Diaspora Jews taking advantage of it right now.
I agree in the sense that I think Israel is a unique state worth fighting for despite the difficulties. Life in the west would probably be pleasant enough for Jews that move there, but it would be very different than life in Israel. I would go so far as to say that what Jews gain from Israeli culture is worth the periodic attacks.
Take a simple metric. Even non-orthodox Jews have much higher TFR in Israel than the west. If I run the math (going on memory here), 325x more non-Orthodox Jews have been born in Israel then would have been born in the west then were killed by Hamas terrorists. To whatever extend Hamas terrorism enables the militant ethno-nationalism that seems to allow Israel to fight progressive ideology and be a TFR outlier, Hamas is creating 325 Jews for each one it kills.
There is nowhere, collectively or individually, that would take over 7 million Jews. Israelis with joint citizenship have somewhere to go, the rest have no rights of residence anywhere else. There are also very bitter memories of the closed borders of the interwar and even postwar periods.
How many millions of Arab refugees did the West take recently? And most people didn't even want them.
How many Ukranian refugees just recently.
I'm pretty sure that if a bunch of smart Jews ask their billionaire co-ethnics for entry so that they can go and produce a bunch of tax revenue it will be allowed.
And there is a lot of buyer’s regret going on now. Possibly you are right, but I am sceptical. And, if I was an Israeli, I absolutely would not trust myself and family to that maybe.
I'm in agreement that the Jews SHOULDN'T leave Israel. I think Israel is a unique and important place worth fighting for, and I don't even have the particular attachments.
I just disagree that they COULDN'T.
You seem to be basing your theory of everything related to de-colonizaton on the idea that if someone COULD leave they SHOULD leave. Fuck that.
Did we leave North America because the Native Americans didn't like it? We took what we wanted because we were the superior. And I'm glad we did.
If I were to posit why people abandoned the various third world colonies after WWII its because the Industrial Revolution had fully matured and peaceful maritime trade under the one world superpower meant that physical control of land and natural resources was no longer necessary. Unlike North America or Israel proper were we had expunged all the natives, the whites were surrounded by hostile ethnics and no longer needed to be there to get what they wanted out. There were no unique national cultures in these colonies to fight for, they were just resource control that was no longer necessary.
You could go back to the Metroprol and still get the third worlders to sell you what you wanted without having to actually run a colony, and there were no other Great Powers that would try to elbow you out of their trading network either in peace or crisis. Up until that point that wasn't the case.
If Israel is "colonial" please identify the primary "Father" nation. For example, here in the USA, we see that a handful of European states, with the UK being predominant. were the source nation. Jews have been in that land since Jacob was renamed Israel. Yes, Jews from all over the world of the Jewish diaspora have been migrating to Israel, but markedly not from say the USA or other non-European western powers (commonwealth countries). This "colonization" argument is a very weak argument indeed.
Thank you for the article! I appreciate the North African historical context showing there’s nothing unique to European settlement. (We probably also need reminders that slavery has occurred between all peoples throughout history, especially between people of the same race, and there’s nothing unique to European enslavement of Africans in the 17th and 18th centuries.)
> within hours, various academics told us how it exemplified decolonisation
Do you have a few references to support that claim?
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/hamas-and-immorality-decolonial-intellectuals-206933
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/canadian-academics-decolonization-israel
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/israel-hamas-war-college-campuses-activism/675677/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/decolonization-narrative-dangerous-and-false/675799/
Thank you very much for the links!
Oh wow. I hadn’t paid attention to statements from university professors and academics right after Oct 7th. Unbelievable. From the National Post link you provided:
> On the morning of Oct. 7, when Canadians woke up to images of bodies being paraded through the street by Hamas terrorists, a professor of African history at the University of Toronto, Safia Aidid, tweeted: “solidarity with the Palestinian people, today and everyday.”
> On Saturday afternoon, Uahikea Maile, a professor of Indigenous politics at the U of T, characterized the attack — which consisted of massacres, rapes and hostage-takings — as “anticolonial resistance”
> PhD candidate Maddie Brockbank downplayed reports of Hamas terrorists raping Israeli women. “Hyperfixation” on “interpersonal violence” distracts from state violence and dehumanizes the oppressed, she claimed.
Excellent.
No 'metropole' needs Empire less than America*.
Our historical American role was salvage crew.
We did NOT create the wreckage of the World Wars , Europe did that...we DID not play the fool twice, this led to NATO and the long past shelf date 'Western Alliance."
Our decolonization role - and the US State Department post 1945 is the DeColonizer par excellence-is an unspoken corollary of our real NATO policy; "Keep them ALL down [all of Europe], so the Russians CAN stay out [of Western Europe which does actually face the USA] so the American's had to stay IN."
The British told themselves "Keep The Americans In, Keep the Germans Down, Keep the Russians out' but ....that's not what we did. We decolonized England, France, undermining them at every turn, we even went after poor Portugal, which treated their colonies and people's far better than the other Europeans. This isn't a footnote Helen and Lorenzo as 'decolonization' served our American interests far more than any infiltration or co-opting Campus Marxists [such as a certain Frank Davis, and a certain Obama fellow, and a certain Soweto fellow].
All of this nonsense is a hangover from the Cold War, which was a hangover from the World Wars.
A dangerous hangover to be sure, but don't ignore what happened.
* America has no Metropole, it's a Federation. America is Federations from the Iroquois to the Internet and all arrangements in between.
DC isn't the Central Government as THERE ISN'T A CENTRAL AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.
DC had forgotten that and is now to it's horror realizing the awful truth.
As far as Empire America needs neither the resources, nor the Strategic Depth...nor any of it.
As far as the Hegemonic abortion that popped up in the 90s after the 'end of history' that's ending, you see far from just being a narrow parochial interest of the Foreign Policy community it has FATALLY UNDERMINED their control of the Continental United States.
They are panicking and running and discovering there's really no place to go but America....
...an America they our elites have deeply offended.
S
American de-colonialism was rooted in Wilsonian idealism about spreading the gospel of democracy. It always competed with the commercial desires of a more conventional (if quasi-) colonialism. The Cold War of course introduced an entirely different calculus. The end of that conflict left a gap that has yet to be filled.
Wilson - or Wilsonian?
Often not the same.
I don't think Wilson wanted to enter WW1 at all, when he was forced into it and he was he decided he never wanted to do this again, FDR who also wished to avoid war implemented this policy.
It would make sense in a war of ideas to spread our ideas.
It long ago stopped making sense, but our leaders haven't made since for 30 years.
I think a lot is put on Wilson and others that they never would have supported, one merely need ~ism and one's legacy is twisted and distorted beyond recognition.
I agree with you our policy after ww2 was certainly decolonization.
Largely successful.
That businesses make money anywhere is what they do...
Helen's point that Imperial nations got richer from decolonization is well taken.
What wasn't addressed in this essay is the question of Strategic Depth - which was the real payoff for England and France in the World Wars. Even in WW2 the Free French save France's independence [from America BTW] by regenerating from Africa and then the Middle East. Great Britain of course called on vast resources of food, material, above all men from her colonies, France as well. Even Spain won its Civil War with troops from Spanish Morocco.
The gap in the cold war ending needs to be we end our portion in America.
We end all alliances outside the Western Hemisphere, they are all mutually toxic.
There's nothing and no one in the Eastern Hemisphere that is existential and vital to America, we must leave. We need no resources, strategic depth, allies ...nor trade...nor do we need to risk nuclear war. Farewell !
Good riddance to bad rubbish. ;-)
Yes, the world won't miss England.
Apparently the English won't either, twats.
The case for a retreat from empire is inarguable.
However you left out one factor: the satellite belt. To maintain its position in space the US needs satellite relay stations outside of the USA. Key stations are in Australia but I expect that there would be others elsewhere too. A vestigal empire, designed around strategic supply chains (hydrocarbons, rare earth, strategic minerals like nickel) is more likely than comprehensive decolonisation.
In addition, US business is not satisfied with the US market alone. It seeks access to and control over foreign markets. Superpower status provided America with this.
I discuss the difference between empire and oceanic hegemony here.
https://www.lorenzofromoz.net/p/in-the-shadow-of-empire
Y'all [if I may] ain't worth it.
BYE.
Nothing personal.
I know the difference.
I also know we don't need it and never did.
We certainly don't now.
no, we don't...satellites can talk from space.
they can also talk from Hawaii, our positions in Alaska, south america, and ships.
NO. Bye !
The problem with retreating from "Empire" is that some other power is likely to fill the vacuum.
England profited from its retreat from Empire because the power that filled that role was one that was friendly to England and shared similar ideals, namely the United States. If the US retreats the power mostly likely to take over is China, to which neither of the above two factors apply.
Yes. Though what Britain then and the US now have managed is an oceanic hegemony, which is not the same thing, as I discuss here
https://www.lorenzofromoz.net/p/in-the-shadow-of-empire
yes LW but there's nothing in this but grief for us...America.
and you don't want us around.
We're shedding our nice skin.
We'll deal with each other.
Whoever wins the dealing process...
you don't want us around.
Being under China's thumb will be a lot worse.
There's really nothing inevitable about empire, so I would disagree that there must always be one to dominate any particular region, let alone globally.
> There's really nothing inevitable about empire
True, sometimes one gets semi-endemic warfare instead.
Are you really going to argue with well demonstrated human nature?
This isn't an American problem.
The American problem is this cost us the Republic.
The other problem is there's no way a Federation can sustain an entirely elective overseas something something.
The other problem is you are all toxic to us, you always have been.
Recently we've become toxic to you.
Moreover it's in your actual interests that we leave, even if you have to learn Chinese, because you see...the Toxic is about to SUPERSIZE
and you don't want whoever wins the war in America around you.
Not to mention the glee at watching all of you meet real monsters, then changing the channel or swiping the screen is just and overdue.
> Recently we've become toxic to you.
The Chinese are likely o be more toxic.
> Not to mention the glee at watching all of you meet real monsters, then changing the channel or swiping the screen is just and overdue.
The oceans won't keep the monsters away indefinitely.
Well bye so long gee good luck see ya
The first American alliance to end with the end of the Cold War should have been NATO. We still can't extract ourselves from that tar baby.
That was talk of that at the time. Then the ex-Soviet Satellites asked to join.
At which point, what 'bloc' was NATO a guard against? The Warsaw Pact was no more.
Russia economically equates to Spain. No one seems to be quaking in fear of Spanish conquest. The EU is more than adequately resourced to deal with the Russians.
The EU didn't really exist at the time and is in any case a bad joke.
An interesting essay...agree with all of it. I would just make this observation though: In my view, most white-liberal Correct-Think does not primarily derive from any deep ideological stance. It is shallower than that. The 'causes' - 'oppression', 'colonialism', 'racism', 'sexism' et al - are, to the white-liberal, just shallow abstractions. The real driver is "the endless struggle to think well of themselves" (as TS Eliot put it). https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/are-we-making-progress
True, most progressive thought is shallow, but its acceptance comes from "authorities" who have spent time and effort developing a worldview, however distorted it may be. I appreciate the critique of these authorities.
Then I think this critique will interest you: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/are-we-making-progress
But we all "think well of ourselves", as when we also denigrate the shallow thinking from the "other side". I am not a deep student of the topic, but I understand there are about two dozen varieties (versions/ categories?) of self-delusion and confirmation bias. The psychological separation between our rational selves and our emotional selves must have had survival value via evolution somehow. I gather that factoid is being recognized more and more, but has not yet risen to the level of general populational awareness.
While noting that evolution has no teleology, per se, as our societies get more and more complex, is that an environment that favors increased rationality, or continuing the current logical - emotional mix?
I think this is all well observed, if a little beyond the scope of a comment thread like this. I do think there is a diffence between the typical conservative and the typical progressive in this respect. The conservative is more likely to expect others to take, at least some, personal responsibility for their discontents and failings (and will take personal responsibility for their own) whereas the progressive is more likely to blame someone else or some 'xyz-ism' or 'xyz-phobia' et cetera. You might think me naive.
Another timely base hit with runners in scoring position - well done. (Apologies for the Yank-speak baseball-ism.) A couple points in support: the more facile brand of political advocacy of Native American rights in the US consistently portrays pre-Colombian Native life as Edenic, thoroughly cleansed of anything resembling conflict or conquest. Ancient residency is routinely invoked as a precursor to enlightened attitudes about environmental issues and land stewardship. The mythologizing runs aground on the immensity of the Great Plains, though, which only became habitable for sizable groups with the rise of equestrian culture, which, as in Eurasia, produced warrior societies and constant conflict. Having lived in this ‘flyover country’ - and taken Native history seriously - helped me grasp the difference between the myth- making and historical reality. As an unreconstructed lib I also see the issue with the current Left’s soft Marxism. It’s exasperatingly simplistic when it comes to offering a compelling economic analysis and, despite the overwhelming historical evidence, refuses to accept any distinction between free enterprise and other aspects of capitalism that are of relatively recent vintage, such as predatory private-equity / hedge-fund acquisition and demolition of viable businesses. So the need for clarity has never been more urgent. The enemies are approaching from all sides now.
In my experience of anticapitalism, the “failures of capitalism” that are identified arise from the closeness of corporations and the state; crony-capitalism and regulatory capture are real problems, but not inherent features of capitalism.
"It requires only mastery of Theory: rhetoric and narratives that impart to its initiates a gratifying moral grandeur."
This is the legacy of Plato in particular out of the Socrates-Plato-Aristotle foundation of most Western thought. There is a reason that Nietzsche rejected them. It is a form of Gnosticism.
This is the same Frantz Fanon who wrote of white women: "Basically, does this fear of rape not itself cry out for rape? Just as there are faces that ask to be slapped, can one not speak of women who ask to be raped?” (Black Skins, White Masks). Yet the mad-left adores him. The double-standard I can understand, but how do we explain the degree of decadence that makes Fanon a figure of such adulation?
Somewhat O/T , perhaps Orthogonal not off-
The disease of Managerialism always appears to the victims and surrounding communities as “local” - as it is Political- in the strangest way it validates “all politics is local.“
In this case the local politics being academia or the Intelligentsia. Or the media room, which extends to Slack and Twitter... the politics being denunciation.
Until the Fanon’s are fired from the mouth of cannons our suffering continues.
I would settle for taking all of their books off of the nonfiction shelves and moving them over to the fiction section where they belong.
Or we could tell stories about their myths around a campfire using their books as fuel.
A warming thought.
Ask people who talk about "de-colonialization" "what is colonialism and when did it start?" In the unlikely event you get an answer, it's probably going to be something like "European Transoceanic empires post 1492." It's hilarious how little these people, who use the term "Eurocentric" as a criticism or a slur, know about history, including and especially the history of the non-western world.
One need only read a bit about the Mongol Empire and the Hans in China to prove your point. How is it that with such prodigious resources at our disposal;, so many remain so woefully ignorant?
The Eurocentrism of the Left is underappreciated. If it wasn't pasty pale people doing it to dusky hued people, they never know a goddamned thing about it.
"have nowhere else to go."
is the point Lorenzo, and they'll decolonize the entire western world including Australia.
You are you know colonial settlers.
Maybe the Fanon fans should read Le Camp des Saints instead and deconstruct that, might offer them some more explanatory perspectives than this!
They don't want to read. It's so 'Western'.