Is there anything actually wrong with Imperialism?

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The term "Imperialist" is nowadays used often as a term of derogation, however why is it so wrong? An Empire is a collection of nations under the control of a single nation, however that in and of itself is not wrong as far as I can see. It is more understandable that the situation is not preferable if the government in charge of such an Empire becomes abusive to its populaces. But if it is not abusive, or tyrannical, in nature, then how is such a system of government worse than any other?

Last edited by iamnotaparakeet on 01 Oct 2010, 6:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ask someone who lived under the Raj in India.

ruveyn

One is bad, therefore all are bad? Or what do you mean to say?

Is there one that isn't bad?

I'd say that imperialism worked out pretty well in sub-Saharan Africa (including S. Africa) and southeast Asia compared to their current arrangements.

Provided that most people today hate the western world, would you say that the Aztec Empire was better than Spanish rule?

Better yet: read what George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, et al thought about it.

Thought about empires in general or England's in specific?

Such as, for example, the wonders of civilization exported to the Belgian Congo by King Leopold.

My point was that you seem to have forgotten that your own country was once a vassal of a global Empire (the same empire that ruled India) and that we celebrate being freed of that Empire. So its practically un-American of you to even ask this question!
Lol!

Also, that you dont have to travel to India to interview folks, just recall your highschool lessons about the greviences the colonist had with britian that led to our own revoloution.

I was being a bit facetious.

Actually, you do raise an interesting question ( even if it is un-American).

The short answer to "Why is it wrong for one country to dominate other countries?" Is because ITS ONE COUNTRY DOMINATING OTHER COUNTRIES!

Nobody wants to be caged even if your jailer does a better job of taking care of you than you do taking care of yourself.

But there are contradictions.

In school were taught to admire the Romans and the Incas for building "great empires" but Russia and America would brand each other as "nothing but empires" throughout the cold war.

If nations voluntarily band together to form a union thats considered good (our own original 13 colonies, nineteenth century Germany and Italy, and the 21st centurey European Union) but one country dominating others is bad ( ie the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe).

But its often hard to tell which is which. Unification usually involves a little of both force and persuation.

We honor Washington for freeing us from Britain. And we honor Lincoln for conquering the break away states of the South in what White Southerners still call "the war of Northern Agression."

We expect the Afgans and the Iraqis to be delighted that we are putting their countries under military occupation for their own good, but at the sametime we Americans feel threatened with enslavement if were asked to ccoperate in any way with the United Nations.

So go figure.

Not really, at least not in the case of Southeast Asia. They are pretty bad off, but they are no longer enslaved. Africa has a lot of other issues going on that make it hard to draw simple comparisons between colonial and post-colonial rule.

Yeah, other issues being how the Imperialists pretty much left the place after extracting all the resources with no development to collapse, left without any normalization period which allowwed corrupt tyrants to gain ahold of the countries, and set up institutions like the IMF to force down "structural adjustment" (austerity) measures down the countries throats.

Interestingly enough, John Browning would like to see similar austerity measures introduced in America. This just goes to show the importance of learning history.

The form of government is less important than the character of the leaders. Corrupt leaders will take any form of government and bend it to suit their agendas.

After Leopold relinquished control and the "red rubber" scandal ended, the Belgians created a much more civilized culture in the Congo than what exists there now.

Your disrespect for facts and history is phenomenal. A rough perusal of Congo history shows the vicious continuity of white domination of the Congo was consistent into modern times.

I know of the history of my nation well enough.



Such as that King George had helped out the colonies during the French-Indian War and he sought to collect the debt we owed him for helping us through taxation? I think that if that king had forgave the debt we incurred and allowed for our representation in Parliament that we might still be under British governance. If it weren't for mishandling of us, then we might not have rebelled.



I do that often enough, but in this thread I'm trying to be a bit serious, as decrying the actions of a nation as "imperialistic" is seemingly held as equivalent to calling it evil.



Thanks.



How? Is it wrong for the Federal government to have any control of the constituent states of the United States?



That may be true, but then again if the way that one nation takes care of its populace is ethnic cleansing, I think it is better for such a nation to be under the control of more rational leadership than their own.



Funny thing is, except for under Stalin's rule, I liked Russia. The Roman Empire was pretty cool too, except for during the persecution of Christianity from the mid first century to the early 4th century. Better laws and rights of citizens could have greatly improved such an Empire though.



Yeah, often such situations don't happen overnight though. The conquest of Eastern Europe and Germany in particular were more historical artifacts of WWII and such, yet with the Cold War having territory as a spacing probably just continued this. I like leaders such as Mikael Gorbachev who show that power does not necessarily corrupt though.



Or sanctions or other tools, yeah, which if nations like the US or Israel used them then we'd have it spun as "evil imperialism" and yet if other nations did it, they'd be safe from such media attacks so long as they weren't an ally of the US.



That is contradictory, but it does show that history isn't always "written by the winners", I suppose that is true so long as the winners do not kill off the losers.



We Americans have always valued freedom, so yes we do act intolerant to anyone being bossy and treat those who are attempting to be bossy as if they were inherently evil.