The guilt complexes of the West: colonialism is not the cause of all the ills in the world
For a long time we have witnessed in the West the attempt by both secular and Catholic leftist circles to point to colonialism as the primary cause – if not the only one – of all the evils that afflict the contemporary world. Guilt complexes have grown out of all proportion in Europe and, albeit for partially different reasons, in the United States.
A certain vulgate , widespread in many intellectual and academic circles, aims to convince students, and in general the new generations, that the colonized countries were, before the landing of the Europeans, a great peaceful and peaceful Eden, whose inhabitants led a life happy and carefree, based on equality and the peaceful sharing of resources.
Naturally the myth of the "good savage", propagated above all by Rousseau, played a fundamental role in this process. On the one hand the "good ones", that is to say the colonized peoples, and on the other the "bad ones", that is, we who, by occupying their territories, have caused the break of an almost perfect balance that God (or Nature) had created.
The main example is obviously Africa, which according to this reading of history would have been a continent without problems, then became poor and degraded precisely because of colonialism and slavery.
Yet, it is history itself that tells us that the aforementioned Eden never existed. Africa and America were the site of permanent conflicts and bloody struggles between different peoples even when, on their soil, there was no trace of Europeans.
Tribal conflicts and ethnic cleansing, such as those currently underway in Ethiopia of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali, unfortunately awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year, also occurred in pre-colonial times, as did African historians. they admit.
The attempt to blame colonialism for the permanent state of war that occurs in Africa today is pathetic, since tribal and ethnic hatred has also existed in that context, as in every other part of the world, after all.
And what about Latin America? Even there, before the arrival of the Spaniards and Portuguese, did the "good savage" exalted by Rousseau exist. In reality there were great empires such as the Inca or Aztec, in which the vast majority of the population was enslaved by warrior elites, who lost the conflict with the Europeans only because of their more antiquated war potential.
Even in North America there were no "good savages". Tribes fought with unprecedented ferocity and those defeats were often doomed to total annihilation. A well-known literary description of facts of this kind was provided by James Fenimore Cooper in his masterpiece "The Last of the Mohicans" .
Returning to Africa, we tend to forget that slavery was introduced, and practiced on a large scale, by the Arabs well before the Europeans. For centuries, the black slave trade was almost the exclusive prerogative of Arab traders, precisely. Europeans have apologized for this unforgivable phenomenon, but it does not appear that any Arab nation has apologized.
In short, the burden of guilt falls entirely on the shoulders of Westerners. In this regard, it should be remembered that colonialism was practiced in the past (and even now, in some cases) by the Chinese, Russian and Ottoman empires. Far from apologizing, the Chinese continue to colonize territories that are not theirs, and Erdogan, also very far from any kind of excuse, plans a revival of the Ottoman Empire.
The guilt complexes that the West is afflicted with are generating a curious situation. To atone for our colonial sins we should welcome non-European immigrants without any limitation who, once arrived, immediately seek not only to transfer, but even to impose, their customs and their vision of the world.
And, indeed, they are succeeding. In entire districts of Paris, London, Brussels and other large cities the rule of law is being replaced by Sharia law , without the authorities being able to prevent this transfer of power. And those who fight against this state of affairs, such as French President Macron, are constantly under threat. There is no doubt that colonialism is a deplorable phenomenon and to be strongly condemned. We have done it, sometimes even exaggerating. It would therefore be legitimate to ask that others do it as well. Otherwise the new generations, often indoctrinated by biased textbooks, will soon lose consciousness of being part of a civilization, like the Western one, which has made fundamental contributions to the world in every field of human knowledge.
The post The guilt complexes of the West: colonialism is not the cause of all the world's ills appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/i-complessi-di-colpa-delloccidente-il-colonialismo-non-e-causa-di-tutti-i-mali-del-mondo/ on Wed, 02 Dec 2020 04:53:00 +0000.