If UK had left Africa and Asia alone. What would have happen
I don't know about that i think business & US foreign policy interests rule supreme
Then you have a definition of "woke" which is completely detached from everyone else in the world.
That would mean 6 billion people move to the US & Europe? I`m not against immigration but its probably better for skilled intelligent people to work towards improving their own country than simply move away.
There's about a billion people who live in countries which are fundamentally incapable of "getting better". Nobody should be staying there, frankly.
There are another five billion or so who live in conditions that you probably wouldn't consider acceptable for yourself, but are improving. In many of these countries, remittances are extremely economically significant and a key development tool.
She`s on the political right but interestingly no one in Europe is remotely interested in talking about her, if she was indeed a fascist she would be in the news everyday & condemned by the EU & Washington etc.. maybe the Ukraine war is a distraction but she cant really be that extreme.
That's just nonsense, on every count.
Yes, people "in Europe" are talking about Meloni.
People don't talk about fascists on the news every day. That's just not how the news works. Do you read about Orban, Duda, Lukashenko, or Erdogan every day?
What do you base that on? She's someone who is famously stupid, has no expertise, and who has an extreme bias. That means she's starting out from a position of low credibility. It's evident that you don't have the first idea as to whether the things she's saying are true, and no interest in checking if they are - you simply choose to blindly believe them because they confirm your pre-established worldview.
Indeed, it is rather easy to fact-check her claims:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/63708313
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs ... 693_8.html
As with all alternate history questions, it depends on when, why, and how the UK/Europe do not colonize Asia or Africa.
Iirc, the original OP was about Europe as a whole and not just the UK. But if it were just the UK leaving these places alone, then the simple answer is that other European powers would try to colonize the places that historically the UK colonized. So for example, instead of a British India, we might see a Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, or French India (or a combination of those). This isn't to say that it's inevitable that some European powers would colonize these places under all imaginable historical circumstances, just that excluding the UK would not change the other factors that motivated and enabled European colonialism.
If we prevent *all* European powers from colonizing these places, then the question becomes more complicated. Why would Europe not do that? Maybe in this alternate timeline, the wars of religion are too destructive and expensive for European powers to realistically afford colonial expeditions. Maybe one European powers or another gains dominance over the European continent to the point that they do not need to colonize overseas to gain an edge over their already-subdued geopolitical rivals. Maybe the Byzantine Empire during the middle ages retains control over North Africa, the Levant, and Asia Minor (unless this counts the same as modern colonialism?); this would mean that Muslim nations would not have as much control over overland trade routes to the Far East, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Spice Islands, and Europe would feel less pressure to bypass these land routes by establishing maritime trade networks in far-flung places. Maybe the Christians lose the Battle of Tours, and Islam expands into Western Europe; thus reducing antagonism between Europe and its Islamic neighbors in the near east and reducing incentive to try to bypass the latter for ease of trade. There are countless scenarios like this.
In any case... History would continue to unfold much as it had before Europeans arrived as colonizers. Europeans would still, eventually, begin to trade more with these places as ocean navigation improves, but they would not gain direct political control over these places. With less competition from Christianity, Islam might expand (peacefully or by conquest) more deeply into the continent than in our timeline, especially in East Africa and the Sahel. Ethiopia would likely remain independent as a Christian kingdom(s). States like Songhay, Benin, and Kongo would remain regional powers. I could see any number of places in Africa start to "modernize" without European colonization through contact with the Islamic world. Example: we could have African leaders travel to, eg, Cordoba or Baghdad or Alexandria and bring back ideas, literacy, and scientific advancement from these places to "modernize" their homelands--like a sort of African Peter the Great of Russia. Contact with maritime Islamic traders on the Indian Ocean could see East African nations adopting these traders' shipbuilding techniques--and we could see more developed trade in internal waterways, on the African Great Lakes, and along the African coast beyond the Indian Ocean. Without France invading, Madagascar continues to develop its own unique culture(s) and gradually integrates further into the East Indian Ocean maritime trade networks. And obviously: African borders become much less stupid than in our timeline. The speculation is endless.
The situation in Asia would be much the same. Islam would remain dominant in West Asia. No Europeans carving up the Near East means less resentment in the Islamic world of western ideas and culture. The Mughal Empire would likely have ruled India for much longer without European powers invading, and we could see a more Muslim India than in our timeline. The Qing dynasty would also likely have ruled China much longer for the same reasons. No European colonization means no Chinese Century of Humiliation. No British Afghanistan means no British dominance over the opium trade, which means no Opium Wars and less widespread addiction to opiates in 19th century Chinese society. No Opium Wars means Hong Kong likely remains an unremarkable island off the Chinese coast. Much as in our timeline, ethnic Chinese would dominate East and especially Southeast Asian maritime trade and finance. While these places are unlikely to be straight up colonized by China, there would be greater Chinese cultural influence in, eg, Indonesia, especially in the cities and in high society. Places like Indonesia and the Philippines are much less likely to unite into single countries given their cultural and religious differences and geographical disconnectedness. Japan would remain more isolated without being forcibly opened up by Matthew Perry (does America count as European here?). Without Japanese forced modernization, they would have been less likely to conquer Korea, and Korea would remain relatively isolated for longer. Does Russian expansion into Siberia and the Far East count? Then Russia remains largely west of the Urals, and north central Asia is dominated by various Mongolian and Turkic states. Without French colonialism, Southeast Asia would likely have more independent states than in our timeline. As in Africa, "modernization" and industrialization would likely come later than in our timeline, either through the Islamic world, or developing on its own most likely in India or China. Again, speculation is endless.
Without overseas possessions (except in the Americas?), Europe lags in development compared to our timeline, but not too much. The same factors that motivated modernization, industrialization, and democratization, would still exist without colonialism. Europe as a whole could become more isolationist.
Tldr: life goes on in these places. The slave trade still exists though to a lesser extent, borders are less stupid, Europeans are less resented, Islam has greater influence in the Eastern hemisphere, Africa modernizes on its own terms, Europe and everywhere else most likely take longer to industrialize, Europe becomes less cosmopolitan as the peoples they colonized in our timeline are less likely to visit or emigrate to Europe, Christianity is relatively confined to Europe (and the Americas?), etc. The world is likely a better place overall, even if just a little. Even if it's worse, then at least it isn't Europe's fault so much. If you didn't break it, you didn't buy it. There's so much room to speculate that one should take this with a grain of salt, but yeah.
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RetroGamer87
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RetroGamer87
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Joined: 30 Jul 2013
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,186
Location: Adelaide, Australia
