In search of the ’merits’ of colonialism | Israel | Al Jazeera
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The ’merits’ of colonialism: railroads and parliaments
The Victorian buildings the author praises were constructed by local and regional merchant capital (not imperial investment), using local workers, some of whom were forced into bonded, indentured or corvee labour.
If anything, throughout the British colonies, imperial intervention stunted economic growth, introduced limitations and barriers to already existing trade, and brutally exploited workers, peasants, sailors, soldiers and the like for profits shipped to banks in London; not to mention the use of Singapore’s port as a glorified fuel depot for colonial navies, and the deployment of military force in and around the colony to quash any resistance to the empire.
And more often than not, colonialism has left behind hardened sectarian and ethnic divisions and racialised class structures. The authoritarian rulers to whom the colonial masters handed the keys to the city pay lip service to democracy but stifle political participation by unruly publics; and in this they are supported by former colonial masters who value their “stability” and loyalty.
Apologists for empire put the economic and ecological devastation, de-development, exploitation, and global inequalities wrought by colonialism on one side of the ledger. On the other side, they acclaim the railways, the parliaments, the infrastructures, and the modern bureaucracies.
