250 - Topic 8 - Colonialism, Imperialism and development

Structure

1. Conceptual and historical links b/w colonialism and imperialism.

2. Ongoing problems of global inequality and poverty accompanying colonialism and imperialism.

3. Global social movements as forces for transnational justice?

Gripe of the Week

Example:

Union minière du haut katanga (Congo)

Exemplar of ongoing legacy of colonialism and imperialism

After the decolonization of Belgian Congo, Belgium continued to control, through the Société Générale de Belgique, an estimated 70% of the Congolese economy following the decolonization process.

The most contested part was in the province of Katanga where the Union Minière du Haut Katanga, part of the Société, controlled the mineral-resource-rich province

After a brief period of political unrest, Katanga Province seceded unilaterally from the Congo to form the State of Katanga under Moïse Tshombe. Fearing that the Congo's left-leaning political leaders, especially Patrice Lumumba, would nationalise its holdings, the UMHK supported Tshombe and became a major force within the new state. During the province's secession, the Union transferred 1.25 billion Belgian francs (35 million USD) into Tshombe's bank account

Göran Björkdahl (a Swedish aid worker) wrote in 2011 that he believed that the death of the-then United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld was a murder committed in part to benefit mining companies like Union Minière

Government admits oil is the reason for war in Iraq

0 - 1.44

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=j7t_u641NyM

"In place of colonialism, as the main instrument of imperialism, we have today neo-colonialism . . . [which] like colonialism, is an attempt to export the social conflicts of the capitalist countries. . .

The result of neo-colonialism is that foreign capital is used for the exploitation rather than for the development of the less developed parts of the world. Investment, under neo-colonialism, increases, rather than decreases, the gap between the rich and the poor countries of the world."

-Kwame Nkrumah, Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism (1965)

Blood and Oil - A mindblowing documentary by Jeremy Earp

Neoimperialism/Neocolonialism

Gripe of the Week

20.30 - 23.55

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=YuOQ4KgTkAI

Petroleum market : Conspiracy theory or neoimperialism?

Can the Subaltern speak?

Neo-imperialism/Neo-Colonialism is the practice of using capitalism, globalization and cultural imperialism to influence a developing country in lieu of direct military control (imperialism) or indirect political control (hegemony).

* Demand for oil is growing fastest in emerging markets

* OPEC’s twelve members produce 40 percent of the world’s oil

* Some states can use oil as a strategic weapon

* International institutions have found it harder to exercise their influence in getting the oil-producing states

* In postcolonial theory, the term subaltern describes the lower classes and the social groups who are at the margins of a society: a subaltern is a person rendered without agency by social status

* For Spivak the subaltern cannot speak for themselves but is represented in history

Iraq War

Dependency Theory and World-Systems

1.57 - ff

They Lie!! 'Tony Blair described "the oil conspiracy theory" as "the most absurd"

Chilcott Report: least five meetings were held between civil servants, ministers and BP and Shell in late 2002.

Many dependency , World-Systems, Marxist, feminist, postcolonial, and decolonial thinkers view the interdependencies of MNCs and SAPs of WB and IMF as instruments of dependency and exploitation.

The New International Economic Order (NIEO) and the Group of 77 represent examples of these ideas, attempts to make the international economy more favorable to least developed countries (LDCs) - but have stalled/failed. Why?

Gripe of the week

US, moving to fascism or a failed state?

Link b/w colonialism and Imperialism?

Branson asks for public bailout, even though he lives in tax haven and is worth 4.1-4.7 billion

Rural Poor and Inequality

Global Inequality

Gender Inequality

Other stats...

- Oxfam reported last year that More than $8 of every $10 of wealth created last year went to the richest 1%

- That is, richest 1% of the population accumulated 82% of the global wealth generated last year

- The bottom 50% of the world's population saw no increase in wealth

Colonialism is a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people to another (colonus, meaning farmer)...

Imperialism also involves political and economic control over a dependent territory (imperium, meaning to command)

The United Nations

Fourth World Conference on Women, 1995:

48. Women's poverty is directly related to the absence of economic opportunities and autonomy, lack of access to economic resources, including credit, land ownership and inheritance, lack of access to education and support services and their minimal participation in the decision-making process.

* Increased inequality between urban and rural areas

* A product of poor infrastructure; lack of access to markets; limited education, or insufficient information; few job opportunities; food and income insecurity

* Example: Zimbabwe, more than twice the share of children are malnourished in rural areas (34 percent rate of malnourishment) than in urban areas (15 percent rate of malnourishment

Robert W. Cox

Activity: The problem of Maps

Globally, women earn 23% less than men

600 million in most insecure and precarious forms of work.

Women do at least twice as much unpaid care work (est. at 10 trillion, see Federici)

will work on average the equivalent of four years more than a man over her lifetime

Let’s watch 'Maps are wrong? The different ways of seeing the world;

OR

‘Mercator vs Peters projection on West Wing - Cartographers for Social Equality'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v =LA0BLrLW0PE

Take a look at the maps on your Handout. In your groups discuss the main distinctions that you see and reflect on how these maps shift your assumed knowledges of these: (a) continents, (b) their history, and (c) their people.

* What factors would you consider if you were a European drawing a map of the world or colonial borders in Africa?

* What would your interests be as a European? How would these interests conflict? What problems might come about as a result?

* How does the visual impact of these maps form political assumptions and ideologies of imperialism, historical and ongoing, today?

Partition

An Introduction to Frantz Fanon's Black Skin White Masks A Macat Sociology Analysis

Davos

The Congo Free State

Belgian Congo

VISUAL PROOF OF THE BELGIAN GENOCIDE IN CONGO

* Divisions b/w Muslims and Hindus deliberately intensified under British rule. Muslim minority fears possible persecution and calls for separate state (Pakistan)

* 1946 Hindu-Muslim Riots (20k killed)

* Partition in 1947 separates India and Pakistan - decided over lunch by Radcliffe

* Displaced over 14 million; several hundred thousand - two million dead; 100k rapes (estimated)

* Tensions continue today (Kashmir; nuclear)

Colonialism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v =r5LtFnmPruU

Franz Fanon

Postcolonial v decolonisation

Decolonisation

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=FIOh1qETRM4

0.-4.40

Enlightenment?

Australia's Land Rights: The Mabo Decision and Native Title

Columbus

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=z2OJ6lE36gE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v =yzS82Mbuhwk

British Raj

Christian Justifications

Paul Keating 2UE - 1992 on Mabo - Talk Back Radio - John Laws

Marx on India

0.47 – 2.37

7.57 – 8.40

13.50 – 17.17

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v =pn1SnTVYe_4

* Exploitation of resources esp rubber

* Leopold creates an army of enforcers,

the Force Publique (FP) in 1885

* FP terrorizes Congolese; forced labour;

kills and abuses indiscriminately

* FP uses amputations common punishment, even of children

* The Casement Report - ends Leopold's ownerships, annexed by Belgium (becomes Belgian Congo)

Kicking Away the Ladder - example

Haitian Revolution

“They … brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things… They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features…. They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane… . They would make fine servants…. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

- Colombus, in Hispaniola (Haiti), December 1492

Chang - that manufacturing/industrialised states prevent developing states from using protectionism to develop their own manufacturing industries...

* Discovery and conquest of Americas

* Denial of international law (and natural law) to colonial peoples

Postcolonialism

1492

* "the social forces generated by changing production processes are the starting point for thinking about possible futures"

- Cox and Sinclair 1996: 113.

Railway workshops in Jamalpur and Ajmer established in 1862 to maintain the trains. Mechanics so adept in 1878 they started designing and building their own locomotives (cheaper and same quality than British).

In 1912 British parliament bans Indian workshops to design and manufacture locomotives.

After independence, 35 years later, the old technical knowledge was so completely lost to India

British disengagement from its second empire, AND

... decolonization movements of the 1960s and ’70s, AND

The Atlantic Slave Trade

in Two Minutes

1.3 million brought to Spanish Central America, the 4 million brought to British, French, Dutch, and Danish holdings in the Caribbean, and the 4.8 million brought to Brazil.; 388,747—less than 4 percent of the total—came to North America.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_history_of_american_slavery/2015/06/animated_interactive_of_the_history_of_the_atlantic_slave_trade.html

- 1791 - 1804, first successful slave revolt

- The French National Assembly granted freedom to slaves

in saint-Domingue

- Buck Morss, this "salvages modernity's universal intent"

Structural adjustment programmes (SAPs)

Patrice Lumumba: The U.S.-Backed Assassination of Congo's First Democratically-Elected Leader

4.50 – 7.41

* French-Algerian psychiatrist, The Wretched of the Earth and Black Skin, White Masks

* Fanon supported the Algerian War of Independence from France, and was a member of the Algerian National Liberation Front.

* Decolonization is inherently a violent process, because the relationship between the settler/colonised is a binary of opposites...

Chakrabarty argues that distinctively European concepts such as secular time and sovereignty renders the third world as incomplete or lacking.

Chibber challenges the position. Chibber defends universal categories such as capitalism, class, rationality, and objectivity to illuminate structural constraints faced by postcolonial peoples.

* postcolonial theory: associated with the issues of hybridity, diaspora, representation, narrative, and knowledge/power,

* decolonization: concerned with revolution, economic inequality, violence, and political identity (i.e. ending colonialism/empire)

The Taino and Columbus

* Spanish conquistadores used spread of Christianity in Americas.

* Pope Innocent IV: war could not be waged against infidels and they could not be deprived of their property simply because of their non-belief. But under the influence of St Thomas Aquinas concluded force was legitimate

in cases where infidels violated natural law.

* Dominican order reports of hypocrisy of genocide of Hispaniola [Taino peoples] from 250,000 to 15,000 in 20 years.

* Vitorio justifies colonialism because indigenous peoples cannot fulfill the law of nations

* Period after 1492 to present...theoretical approach in

]various disciplines that is concerned with the lasting

impact of colonization in former colonies

* Are their commonalities across all colonies/empires?

* An approach to reclaim and rethink the history and agency of people subordinated under various forms of imperialism

From 1757 to 1947, the entire period of British rule, there was no increase in per capita income within the Indian subcontinent

In 1600, when the East India Company was established, Britain was producing just 1.8% of the world’s GDP, while India was generating some 23% (27% by 1700)....British left a society with 16% literacy; over 90% living below what today we would call the poverty line.

From 1872 to 1921, Indian life expectancy dropped by a 20%. Since independence, increased by 66%, or 27 years.

Lumumba and civil war

* Stadial theory: societies progress through stages (i.e. pastoral to urban)

* “Civilization” was not just a marker of material improvement, but also a normative judgment about the moral progress of society. (Kohn and O’Neill 2006)

* This moderated liberalism's universalism:

that capacities for freedom only emerge at a certain 'stage' of civilization

* Yet Todorov shows how democratic and internationalist the Iroquois League was

* Justifies old imperialism AND the imperialism of liberal internationalism today

* Creation of systems of imperial control; economic plundering; management/subjugation of local populace; conflict against other empires

"... until now our decrees of liberty have been selfish, and only for ourselves. But today we proclaim it to the universe, and generations to come will glory in this decree; we are proclaiming universal liberty...We are working for future generations; let us launch liberty into the colonies." - Danton

A practice of domination, involving the subjugation of one people by another

Usually accompanied by transfer of a population to another territory

An ancient practice

'Postcolonial' typically refers to period after 1492 [not that this period is past]

Note: informal empire still exists today

Activity: From the readings

Shashi Tharoor on British Colonial legacy in India...

Nostalgia for imperialism?!

1.30 – 4.24

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=JMNkfQwkRC4

0.50 – 2.16, 6.42 – 10.23, 17.57 - end

He described India as an essentially feudal society experiencing the painful process of modernization

communal land ownership made this impossible, thereby blocking the development of commercial agriculture and free markets. Hence, British coloniamils was coercive form of modernisation

recognizes the immense suffering brought about during the transition from feudal to bourgeois society while insisting that the transition is both necessary and ultimately progressive

Creates rifts in critical thinking on imperialism - stadial developments over real human suffering

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=eUYaiWyPIzw

* Congolese independence in 1960, civil war begin immediately - estimated 100,000 deaths; including the nation's first Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, and UN Secretary Dag Hammarskjöld

* Congo becomes proxy conflict in Cold War. CIA and Belgium implicated in Lumumba's death

* Western powers support Mobutu who sets

up one-party dictatorship, controlling the

nation until 1997

- link from formal imperialism to

neo-imperialism

Divide and Conquer

We will break into three groups and answer two questions form the readings and share your discussion with the class.

Third World Quarterly publishes “The Case for Colonialism”...

2014 YouGov poll revealed 59 per cent of British people view the British Empire as “something to be proud of.” and only 19% were “ashamed” of its misdeeds

BUT studies prove colonialism inflicted grave political, psychological and economic harms on the colonized

... ongoing decolonisation of social structures are implicated in ongoing forms of colonialism... Changing from foreign to local elites does NOT mean empire has ended

* UK develops rail network to: exploit resources, and, transport troops to quell revolt

* Lord Elphinstone, 1859: “Divide et impera was the old Roman maxim, and it should be ours”

* Amritsar massacre, 1919

* Foments division based on religion (Hindu v Muslim)

WB and IMF call for trade liberalization, privatization of banks, health care, and educational institutions, in order for developing states to obtain loans... and incur high interest

These allow foreign development/investment to control these countries' resources and labour

Countries must comply with liberalisation

* Leopold 'explores' Congo with Stanley

* Berlin Conference (1884-1885), formalises 'Scramble for Africa'

* King Leopold given ownership of Congo

* Congolese population declines by 3 million to 13 million between 1885 and 1908

* "colonial trinity" (trinité coloniale) of state, missionary and private company interests

"... whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution."

- Marx, 1853

* Religious and 'civilizational'

justifications for empire

* Result: mass genocide and

destruction of civilizations

Stadial theory and enlightenment demonstrate natural equality of all BUT is used to justify imperialism as these capacities allegedly emerge at a certain 'stage' of civilization

* the colonized have to find a way of overcoming the imposition of alien rule not only over their territory but also over their minds and bodies

* constitutes a warning to the oppressed consciousness of the dangers of decolonization and the transition to a neo-colonialist, globalized world.

* Edward Said drew attention to the relationship between knowledge and power...the ambiguous legacy of the Enlightenment

* Why did enlightenment preach freedom and liberty and egalitarianism but not extend it to the non-West? And why has it still not?

How are both of these joined as forces of change in IR?

Classical Greek Colonies

Romans coloniae

John Stuart Mill - 'savages' do not have the capacity for self-government because of their excessive love of freedom

Waorani indigenous protect land rights

* Seeks to find counter-hegemony and ‘new multilateralism’ and ‘civilizational coexistence’

* This vision hopes for a more participatory society (Cox, 1987: 403) alongside ‘social equity; greater diffusion of power among peoples, social classes and genders; maintenance of security in the handling of conflict; and sustainability of the biosphere’ (Cox, 1997: 245)

Bonds between a colony and its metropolis remained often close; purpose to spread trade of mother city; apoikia or emporia (just trade)

Roman outpost established in conquered territory to secure

Made of "veterans" responsible for the Romanization of territories (i.e. language and customs imposition)

John Locke - they have not worked the land (terra nulius)

criminal court in Puyo, central Ecuador, accepted a Waorani bid for court protection in Pastaza province to stop an oil bidding process after the government moved to open up around 180,000 hectares for exploration.

Famines

How Churchill and the 1943 Bengal Famine (Ethics and Supply Chains)

2.26 – 6.30

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=x1Vw7Z_2SD8

The Famine of 1776: caused the deaths of up to 10 million people.[2] Warren Hastings's 1772 report estimated that a third of the population in the affected region starved to death. Cause: increased taxation by British East India Company

1943: Between 12 and 29 million Indians died of starvation under British rule, as millions of tons of wheat were exported to Britain as famine raged in India.

1974: Bangladesh, speculative hoarding and US failure to aid causes 1.5 million deaths.

La Via Campessina

* "the peasants' way" - corresponds to counter-hegemony?

* an international movement of peasant organizations of small and middle-scale producers, agricultural workers, rural women, and indigenous communities from Asia, Africa, America, and Europe

Food Security

introduced the idea of food sovereignty at the World Food Summit in 1996 as "the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through sustainable methods" NOT "food security"

Topic 8:

Colonialism, Imperialism, and development