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Comment by douche | Hacker News Reader

This will be hugely unpopular, but maybe Indonesia would be a little better managed if it were still the Dutch East Indies?

Colonialism is bad, sure, we all have to believe that. But an overwhelming percentage of the hot-spots and problem areas in the world are in places where old European colonial administrations were driven out by nationalists precipitously. In some places, it's taken these countries fifty years to develop institutions that are in the ball-park of the old colonial administrations, and some of them are still corrupt and evil enough to put Leopold II to shame.

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Please be a troll. I know people all over the world still have thoughts like this, but I thought people on hacker news are smarter than that.

#1: Things weren't "better" in colonial times anymore than they were better in Apartheid-era South Africa or Jim Crow-era America. Hell, we can even go back to Slavery-era America. Sure, things were more peaceful and ordered. At the expense of the subjugation of a significant percentage of the population.

You can absolutely attain peace and prosperity at the expense of the freedom of your citizens. We call that Fascism.

#2: Most of the problems that occur in post-colonial hot-spots are not there because the European colonial administrations left. They are there because THEY WERE THERE IN THE FIRST place. The Europeans: * Deliberately destablized peaceful areas so that they would be the one to introduce order * Divided and conquered previously peaceful tribes by boosting support for one in order to attain power (see: Rwanda) * Toppled democratically elected governments because of fear of communistic populistic ideas that threatened wealthy western industrialists * Created borders abstractly - merging peoples that did not want to be together and dividing those that did.

Western countries would not be this far ahead of the rest of the world without decades if not centuries of exploitation. And maybe, just maybe, if progress happened at a more natural rate we would have been able to learn some more sustainable practices. Maybe we wouldn't have the internet or smart phones for another century, but maybe we wouldn't have been responsible for The Sixth Extinction.

I agree with everything but the blanket use of fascism: I wouldn't say pre-civil war america was fascist because of slavery (nor I'm saying slavery is good for modern democratic countries of course)

That is true, and I should clarify: The only way to achieve the same peace and stability that existed in past societies with socially accepted discrimination TODAY is through fascism.

What's a "natural rate of progress"? I think that's a strawman. Massive deforestation is not a new thing, nor is hunting and destroying the habitats of species to extinction. Nor does it necessarily have anything to do with Western civilization.

Like I said, obviously, colonialism is bad, m'kay. But, if you're going to impose a colonial administration, you can't just pull up stakes and remove the bulk of the machinery and personnel of the old administration, and expect things to work out well. I think we have at this point plenty of evidence that turning the keys over to a former colonial population that hasn't nurtured parliamentary ideals and institutions is as likely to end in warlordism, genocide, rampant corruption and repression, as a functioning, liberal state.

Also, the administration of V.O.C. and subsequent Dutch colony had as long a continuous existence as any of the petty sultanates and warlords that exploited the area before them. It's not like it was a bed of roses for the common man or woman living under the rule of the pre-colonial native kingdoms.

If you look at the history of Indonesia, in 1965 there was a military coup which largely exterminated the local popular based party, the PKK in an enormous massacre. At least a million people were killed. It was received mainly with applause in the west. Thereafter Indonesian was opened up to western international corporations - essentially neo-colonialisation.

I hope you're just trolling.

One of the problems is that Indonesia should have been either a number of independent states or a United States of Indonesia model, but turned into a kind of copy of the Dutch East Indies, except with Jakarta taking the place of the Dutch. In many ways, Sumatra, Kalimantan, Irian Jaya are Javanese colonies and treated that way.

The Dutch East India Company also had an economic application of fire, namely in burning down any production of spices they did not control. I don't know about better management.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18551857

"This" is not necessarily unpopular but almost certainly pretty irrelevant. This kind of semi philosophical reasoning result in neither intellectual insight nor does it help to solve a single problem.

It is very simple: If the people of Indonesia are unhappy with their situation, they have to actively change it. It is my impression, that power is very uneven distributed in this country and it doesn't seem like the ruling elite is going share it voluntary. You always have to fight for power, there is no way around.

Putting Leopold II to shame is hard. He ranks right up there with Hitler, Stalin and Mao in his willingness to cause misery. He's an extreme example of why these countries are not better off under colonialism (they were robbed of all their riches under colonialism), as well as a big part of why so many former colonies are now such a mess: our ancestors fucked them up and put power in the hands of the wrong people when we left.

Considering its history, Indonesia is actually not doing all that badly. I mean, yes, the leadership is corrupt and only really cares about Java, and the economic inequality is insane, but at least it's not at the Robert Mugabe/Idi Amin level. Not anymore, at least.

Post-Colonial Institutions are the perfect successor of Colonial Administrations.

The nature of the beast is often misunderstood.

The main horror of colonialism was not foreign control. The main horror of colonialism was its absolute authoritarianism and the administrative rule that was used to enforce it.

It's really odd to think any human being with that level of absolute authority could be somehow begnin.

Better yet, put them under Belgian control. They have an unmatched history of managing colonies. /s

If you want to be imperial, just offer them huge payments to keep the fires out.

I'm sure it would be cheaper than colonization.

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