Since the Jean-Marie Le Pen thread seems to have gone off on a colonial tangent, I figured it would be a good idea for players to continue their discussion here. Is colonialism ever a good thing? Why or why not? Poll included.
Kreigsreich of Iron argues that the empires of Europe should never have decolonized while Adamede and others argue that imperialism has only ever brought misery and death.
As for me, I believe the truth is more complicated than that. America, HK and Singapore wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for British colonialism. Taiwan wouldn't have a separate national identity if not for Japanese colonialism. Without Western colonialism, the rest of the world wouldn't be able to enjoy the modern conveniences that we all take for granted, such as electricity, running water, internet access, air conditioning, roads, cars, airplanes and so on and so forth.
Colonialism gave us the English language and the ideas of freedom and democracy that have proven so subversive around the world.
I'm not saying Western colonialism has been perfect. Even the British, one of the most progressive and benevolent imperialists in modern history, had their black spots. We have the massacres in Kenya and India, for instance. We have a legacy of divide & conquer that continues to plague former colonies such as my own country to this very day. The British, for the longest time, were more interested in exploiting the natives and the natural resources of the places that they conquered while looking down on their subjects with racist disdain, a condescending attitude reminiscent of today's woke white liberal saviors who view "oppressed minorities" as being in need of "saving". The British also practiced slavery and the slave trade once, although they were also among the first to abolish these outdated and inhumane institutions and to enforce its abolition around the globe, something that cannot be said of Arab and Muslim societies even to this day.
As for non-Western colonialism, nothing good has ever come of Arab and Muslim imperialism and territorial aggression. Absolutely nothing at all. Whatever Western empires have been rightly or wrongly accused of historically, Islamic empires are guilty of hundreds of times over. I've already condemned Islamic imperialism, or Islamism, repeatedly in the Islamism thread and elsewhere.
One might even argue that Islamic imperialism persists to this very day in a more subtle, insidious form, aided by gullible liberals and far-leftists who hate the West and everything that it stands for. Multiculturalism, political correctness, woke ideology, open borders especially for Muslim migrants, criminalizing "hate speech" and "disinformation", deliberately turning a blind eye to Pakistani Muslim rape gangs, among other things, all serve to facilitate a total Muslim takeover of Europe. The genocidal atrocities of Oct. 7 are another example of Muslim imperialism and aggression in the 21st century. Islamic colonialism and imperialism have absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Only Western, and perhaps even Japanese colonialism in the case of Taiwan, possess any redeeming qualities. Islamic and other forms of non-Western imperialism have been nothing other than pure evil.
As for colonialism more generally, it can be a good thing if done properly. For instance, it would be nice if my country was invaded and conquered by the United States, but not by China or Iran.
