Real colonialism has never been tried

Lately, I’ve been thinking – real colonialism has never really been tried. Colonialism envisaged noble goals, laid out by great philanthropists like David Livingstone and Cecil Rhodes – the idea of bringing to a savage continent the three Cs of Commerce, Christianity and Civilisation.

Of course, the ‘objective conditions’ were very difficult. Africa was a largely unexplored land, full of desert, swamplands and malaria. Europeans did not have the immune systems or the psychological fortitude to retain their sanity for too long once they have arrived in Africa. There were hostile tribes, slave-owning warlords and barbaric African empires to deal with, as well as the enormous cost of fitting out an army to do the work of conquest. Then there was the problem of rival European empires snatching up land for themselves. The native population was illiterate, unlearned, uncultured and not easy to govern with liberal methods. It is no wonder that the noble ideals set out by the pioneers of colonisation degenerated into the horror of the Namibian genocide, the enslavement of blacks in South Africa and then apartheid, the horrific slavery of the Congo, the plundering of the Toucouleur Empire, British brutality in Kenya, etc. This drew a river of blood between the spotless banner of Livingstone and Rhodes and the vicious, imperialist reality.

Instead of giving up on colonialism altogether, we must reclaim the true ideals of the great colonisers of the past from those who have besmirched its reputation. We must have real colonialism. Now the objective conditions are better. Africa is more developed. Africans, thanks to education and liberal ideals, are less brutal and have become more committed to human rights. Africans are less likely to provide resistance given the woeful performance of those who govern them. Europe is no longer divided into competing power blocs and can therefore more easily unite on the issue of sharing out different parts of Africa.

100 years is not enough time to write off colonialism in Africa as a failure. The problem is that colonialism was not given enough time to develop. Instead the Africans demanded their independence after just over half a century, putting a halt to all the development. The post-colonial politicians who replaced the colonisers undid all the hard work of development, just like the Russian oligarchs who took over Russia after the collapse of communism. We need real colonialism this time, to ensure that such a calamity does not repeat itself.

For anyone who hasn’t worked it out yet, this is satire. If Marxists can keep banging on about how real socialism has never been tried, don’t be surprised if people start going on about how real colonialism has never been tried.