this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2024
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A little convenient that the cutoff date is after Europeans divided the world for themselves.
right? all colonial states are illegitimate
Ofcourse they are, but if you go back to times where colonialism was the norm and in no way internationally frowned upon, then not a single current day country would be legitimate. So it kinda makes sense to set the cut off at a point where colonialism was at an all time low, because if you dont then all you get is world war.
When you mention colonialism wasn't frowned upon, who were the people that did not frown upon it then?
The fellow colonizers... yeah that was worded badly. But i think you know what i mean. Back then maybe other European countries were jealous of other colonizers, but they didnt really see it as a bad thing to be colonizers. Now even the ex-colonizers see it as a bad thing and when countries do it, they get called out for it. Russia, China, USA, Israel, etc
Its the same as with oil and coal dependency. Yes the West disproportionally profited from those historically, and we can think about compensation etc, but in the end its in everyones interest to just stop using it and bully anyone that doesnt reduce their usage of it.
My point is that your baseline for legitimacy and moral acceptability is based on the attitudes taken by the colonizers, then and now. It can feel pragmatic and reasonable, but I think it only seems like a defensible position because the "ex"-colonizers (I mean, the U.S. hasn't been decolonized, has it?) broadly agree that "colonialism is bad", though it does seem like strong support for Zionist Israel by colonial countries like the U.S. and UK is a clear counter-example to this.
Ultimately if you look closely and found Zionist occupation illegitimate, you will certainly think so of other occupations. The reasons you give for ignoring the illegitimacy of other occupations don't feel that different than those given for ignoring the illegitimacy of the Israeli occupation.
A huge proportion of the world was still under direct colonial control after WWII. Like most of Africa, swathes of Asia. Pick a country on a map and look at the date it was granted independence. I can almost guarantee that it will be later than you expected. Post-WWII is not a low point for colonialism.
I would further argue that many of the countries that were granted independence only received the ability to install administrators who were of an indigenous ethnic group. Trade agreements and terms dictated by loans from groups like the international monetary fund still directed a large proportion of domestic and foreign policy. So even though the government of a country may have had a constitution and veneer of democracy it was still operating at the behest of foreign interests (ex. Shell in Nigeria, Firestone in Liberia, Exxonmobil in Indonesia, etc.), who propped up puppet leaders that allowed them to continue to extract resources under the same or similar agreements they enjoyed under colonialism.
One of the more jarring facts is that the so-called "post-colonial" era was more of a move to outsourced administration of colonies than actual independence. The fact that "intervention" is still performed basically only when some area has valuable resources or some kind of strategical advantage really says it all.
I was thinking creating new colonies, not maintaining existing ones. Ofcourse dismantling colonial government structures is also important, but arguably not creating new ones is the most important first step. Just pulling out all presence from all colonies over night would have most likely been disastrous for the natives too in most cases. But yeah the West definitely overstayed for far too long in many areas of the world and still does to this day.
Saw an excellent video from some Al Jazeera offshoot yesterday. The guy was explaining the concept that Europeans actually tended to put in minority populations in charge that were sympathetic to their interests - Alawites in Syria, the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan, European Zionists in Palestine - and that the borders were essentially designed for colonial administration instead of representing existing groups.
It's also a function of how far back are we willing to go? Are we going to split and merge countries? Or is it more important to get representative governments in place for the people that live there?