>Gibraltar has been part of the UK for over 300 years and the people are all UK citizens.
Is this your standard for whether or not something is colonialism? Do you apply it consistently throughout, even when its inconvenient for you?
Is this your standard for whether or not something is colonialism? Do you apply it consistently throughout, even when its inconvenient for you?
After 10 generations, the people are every bit as local as the previous population was. 300 years is such an abyss of time that most of us would fail to name a single of our ancestors by name.
Kladsko was a Czech city from approx. 1000 to 1742. The old town still looks a bit like very small Prague [0]. Was lost in a war (to the Prussians no less), it is gone, not our anymore. Tough luck. Others live there now, it is theirs.
[0] https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kladsko_(město)#/media/Soubor:...
Colonialism is the historical basis of almost all of global society today. It's not at all weird to be concerned with it when it still drives so much of the relative power dynamics between states and between people(s) today.
The example you're giving of Czechia and Prussia simply isn't an example of a colonial action.
I don't really buy it. It feels to me as unnatural as if somebody decided that theft of, say, a smartphone, was a separate and much graver offence than theft of anything else.
It only makes sense to me if there is an underlying ideology, or maybe very practical demands for reparations which shouldn't be hindered by other demands for reparations, and thus the others need to be downgraded pre-emptively.
It may also come handy for distraction from domestic governance failures, such as bad security situation, rolling blackouts, subpar maintenance of infrastructure and endemic corruption. "Hey, don't look into this, you know how bad the colonialists were?"
(Fairly similar to the way the contemporary Russian propaganda tries to pin the failure of their current war of aggression on anyone and anything but their own stupid decision to go all in.)
It does, yes, and completely reasonably so. That's why it has a different name.
> .. as if somebody decided that theft of, say, a smartphone, was a separate and much graver offence...
Yes, it is like that indeed and I'm sure you'll recognise the difference between intellectual property theft and the theft of a car, or the difference between stealing food from a supermarket and stealing food from a beggar.
> I don't really buy it
> It only makes sense to me if there is an underlying ideology
Ok? Maybe read some more about it. Right now it feels like you're the one pushing an ideology without really making an argument for it.
> It may also come handy for distraction from domestic governance failures
Yes, it might. Governments have a host of ways to distract the public from issues. That doesn't change the reality of the history of, or contemporary effects of, colonialism.
> ... similar to the way the contemporary Russian propaganda ...
Boogeyman argument and an emotional appeal.
People have always tried to conquer other territories, make use of them and settle them. To make an artificial slice out of this continuous and omnipresent phenomenon and call it by another name is incoherent, but then ideologies are mostly incoherent, and colonialism as a very specific sin was a very good and efficient argument in Cold War propaganda and its struggle for influence in the Third World.
Soviets excelled in propaganda, and many of their ideas (like AIDS being an artificial disease, unilateral nuclear disarmament, or the fake contrast between colonialism and membership in the Socialist Bloc) survived the fall of the country.
That said, a very similar line was already pushed by the Japanese in order to paint their own brutal empire as some kind of Pan-Asian utopia. But their trace in global discourse is negligible to the Soviet one, which was much more sophisticated and long-lasting.
These terms are well defined and it would serve you well to simply consult a dictionary.
But in short colonialism implies the use of colonies (surprise surprise) meaning the use of settlers to control or displace populations. There from comes the name
It also differs from other forms of expansionism in a few important ways.
- The power class structure is built on trade imbalances which move resources from the colonised land to the metropole without building up local economies.
- There's no absorption, the territories tend to remain separate and the colonised people can't become citizens or equals with those colonising them.
- And it's understood when speaking about things like the "colonial era" or "historical colonialism" that there was a deal of racial justification and stratification along racial lines.
You'll quickly be able to compare this list to whatever historical event you like.
I mocked nothing. I accused you of using unfair and unfriendly rhetoric.
> AFAIK when the Soviet Union accused some Western power
So you're putting the words of "some Western power" that "as far as you know" once used a bizarre definition of colonialism in my mouth?
> in the sense that oftentimes all the money, support and political representation goes overwhelmingly to some select places
Yes, totally different thing. People use metaphors and reappropriate words all the time. Irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
You did not.
Land borders that one doesn't like doesn't equate to colonialism. It's just a land border that you don't like. The people of Gibraltar voted almost 100% to be British on more than one occasion. Trying to make them not British is the definition of colonialism
The vast majority of its inhabitants were portuguese citizens with the exact same rights and duties as any other portuguese citizen in Lisbon. The majority of that territory (and certainly the parts with most of the population) was portuguese for 500+ years.