Comment by Cumpiler69 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Cumpiler69 | Hacker News Reader

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Are you saying western colonialism has no impact on the world of today? Not just colonialism from 200 years ago, but the colonialism happening today.

You're moving the goalposts on the original sin, while I was discussing the issues of today or at least recent past (Iranian revolution was only in 1979, Invasion of Iraq was in 2003, Arab spring in 2011, Taliban rule form 2021).

You can't just wave away decades or even centuries of oppression and intervention in other countries' affairs that changed them forever (that sill happen to this day BTW, and by the same powers), with "whatever mate, it was in the past", as if you broke my phone screen in junior school. No mate, it wasn't just in the past, it's still happening.

Except colonialism today is less about large sailing wooden ships and conquistadors with muskets straight up stealing your shit from your town at gunpoint and shipping abroad along with slaves, but more alphabet agency black-ops and monetary/economic levers to topple your leader and replace him with a friendly puppet one who will willingly and legally sign off your country's resources and your peoples' labor to western corporations as salves, for way below market price. This isn't the original sin anymore, this is its modern version.

Imperialism has definitely fucked over lots of countries, and I don't want to diminish that. But at the same time, trying to pin everything on imperialists does just as much as to erase people from history as the imperialist threat you're inveighing against.

One of the dramatically underappreciated aspects of imperialism is the degree to which it involves local political actors attempting to solicit foreign (imperial) support and/or intervention to service their local political needs. This isn't always the case, but it's important not to whitewash the influence of such local concerns. It's thus especially telling that one of your "examples" of modern imperialism is actually something that was entirely a spontaneous, endogenous reaction to local politics and local concerns that literally left all of the "imperialists" flat-footed exclaiming "wait, what?"

> "to service their local political needs"

You are very much correct, and "their local political needs" are generally large amounts of money being transfered to them personally.

Corrupt locals screwing over everyone else for their own benefit are an integral part of imperialism, not an exception to it.

A vastly overrated impact, to almost non-existence by now. You can see the multi-polar world if you squint- and all that shit usually blamed at the west, turns out to be just murderous local land empires, blaming all the things they do to gain power on western influence or history, but actually doing the same thing they did before the west rolled up. We are just not that important. Never were actually, just lucky and luck is running out. Others now colonialize happy ever after in the original english image and if asked- tell you that they do it for "western interests" or customers.

And its bullshit. And the audience walks out on that story, wherever its told. It has no explanation power any-more and if you tell a story without explanation power, it just gives credence to the assholes you pushed of the stage. Thus tooting that horn, is like glueing MAGA WAS RIGHT to every fence in town.

>A vastly overrated impact, to almost non-existence by now.

I'll have to leave you right there, since I can't reason someone through argumentation from a position they did not reason themselves into in the first place, so this will go nowhere.

> A vastly overrated impact, to almost non-existence by now.

Absurd take...

Some examples:

Brazil's democracy was put on hold during the whole period of growth post WW2, it has social impacts to this day both in wasteful investments done through 20+ years of dictatorship saddling the country with debt and disinvestment being paid to this day by current generations: lack of education, bad infrastructure, a fragile democracy since only 2 generations of voters have lived completely under it.

The whole Middle East has sectarian violence caused by the borders drawn from colonial powers in control of regions up to the 1960s. The same is true for African civil wars ringing out to this day, nations (aka tribes) split into 2-3 countries to be more easily controlled by different colonial powers.

To this day the USA meddles directly with governments south of it, the doctrine of strong-arming what the USA considers its backyard is still strong, American influence in South American politics is everywhere.

> and all that shit usually blamed at the west, turns out to be just murderous local land empires, blaming all the things they do to gain power on western influence or history, but actually doing the same thing they did before the west rolled up

As I mentioned, colonial powers drew borders to divide-and-conquer nations who are now fighting each other from all the bad blood caused by these divisions, do you actually really believe some 4-5 decades would be enough to erase all the infighting encouraged by colonial powers to keep the locals weak and scattered?

I really can't believe someone thinks the issues of colonialism can't have echoes way past the end of the colonial age...

Absolute cope. Objectively wrong.

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