Colonialism wasn't all bad‚ says Helen Zille

[Mephisto_Helix]

White people in SA need fundamentally to change the way they think. There is absolutely nothing, apart from the heroism in the face of threat of a very few whites over the centuries we have been here, to be proud of.

And we remain deeply racist, pretty much all of us. I fight mine all the time. It is all you can do when you recognise it. At the office, in the car, watching the politics. You have to be conscious of what that feeling that rises in you is

hahahahaha, the idiot guilt is strong with this twit .......... shame

 

[Ho3n3r]

That is not a certainty. Besides, studies have shown that large-scale white settlements had created inequalities and racial segregation.

At least in the very end, did 'modern' colonialism seek to abolish slavery due to economic changes.

Yeah... with an average IQ of 72 - which includes the "colonialists", by the way - I'm gonna say yeah, it is.

 

[Sinbad]

So much binary thinking, and so much victim complex, and so much virtue signalling.

You can think positively of an aspect or characteristic of something without endorsing or agreeing with the overall.

Hitler had massive charisma and was a fantastic orator. He was also a total prick. See?

 

[Ho3n3r]

So much binary thinking, and so much victim complex, and so much virtue signalling.

You can think positively of an aspect or characteristic of something without endorsing or agreeing with the overall.

Hitler had massive charisma and was a fantastic orator. He was also a total prick. See?

Exactly. I can say for sure that Zuma has a way with the ladies, it doesn't mean I condone anything he does or says, or that he's a good president in any way, shape or form.

 

[konfab]

Well, in the case of the Fischer-Tropsch process, it was developed 8 years before the Nazis came to power at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Kohlenforschung, which had been in existence for 21 years already before the Nazis came in.

Developing a process and making it commercially viable are two completely different things. The Nazis had a need for oil and excess coal, and thus they pushed resources into it to make it commercially viable.

It is like with antibiotics. Fleming made the initial discovery, but it was useless until Florey and Chain found a way to mass produce it.

Fleming published his discovery in 1929, in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology,[16] but little attention was paid to his article. Fleming continued his investigations, but found that cultivating penicillium was quite difficult, and that after having grown the mould, it was even more difficult to isolate the antibiotic agent. Fleming's impression was that because of the problem of producing it in quantity, and because its action appeared to be rather slow, penicillin would not be important in treating infection. Fleming also became convinced that penicillin would not last long enough in the human body (in vivo) to kill bacteria effectively. Many clinical tests were inconclusive, probably because it had been used as a surface antiseptic. In the 1930s, Fleming’s trials occasionally showed more promise,[17] and he continued, until 1940, to try to interest a chemist skilled enough to further refine usable penicillin. Fleming finally abandoned penicillin, and not long after he did, Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford took up researching and mass-producing it, with funds from the U.S. and British governments. They started mass production after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. By D-Day in 1944, enough penicillin had been produced to treat all the wounded in the Allied forces.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Yes, same with the Slazcha in Poland, where the laws were removed but the custom didn't change, but they helped stop this in Austria:


You mean the fertilizer and not the gas chambers? Or do you please have an article on the effects?

Yep, but they did and are therefore the first to put in into practice.

I doubt it, but as I said, depends on your viewpoint. It did happen with the Nazis pushing large budgets at scientific development, so I would still credit them as assisting in it.

Yes, same as the Americans did with their pamphlets, war requires a propaganda machine.

The best argument would probably be in military and science investment which ended up yielding other benefits, like the V2 rocket, radar etc.

But the problem with arguing that these things are somehow thanks to Nazism or colonialism (despite their negatives) is that it implicitly claims that these things were somehow necessary for those advances, which is nonsense, imo.

The more obvious and correct answer would be that a society that invests in science, education, trade, knowledge sharing, diplomacy etc. produces beneficial outcomes.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

So much binary thinking, and so much victim complex, and so much virtue signalling.

You can think positively of an aspect or characteristic of something without endorsing or agreeing with the overall.

Hitler had massive charisma and was a fantastic orator. He was also a total prick. See?

How is healthcare, rule of law etc. an aspect of colonialism, though? They might have been aspects (to an extent) of the colonial authority, but tying them to colonialism serves zero purpose, historically or politically. None of these positive aspects are intrinsic to or require colonialism. So treating them as a "positive aspect of colonialism" strikes me as not only unnecessary, but inaccurate.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Developing a process and making it commercially viable are two completely different things. The Nazis had a need for oil and excess coal, and thus they pushed resources into it to make it commercially viable.

It is like with antibiotics. Fleming made the initial discovery, but it was useless until Florey and Chain found a way to mass produce it.

Sure, but then the point is surely that a society that pushes resources into things like science, research etc. produces good things, not that Nazism was somehow necessary for it to happen.

 

[DreamKing]

Helen: Will DA win the 2019 Election?
Mmusi: Yes we can, but could I borrow one thing from you?
Helen: What do you want Mmusi?
Mmusi: Your head.
Helen: ok, take it.

 

[Garson007]

Everyone is focusing on the black vote. But what about the Afrikaner vote? Afrikaners fought against colonialism for centuries. They have just as much reason to be pissed off at Zille as everyone else.

 

[porchrat]

Everyone is focusing on the black vote. But what about the Afrikaner vote? Afrikaners fought against colonialism for centuries. They have just as much reason to be pissed off at Zille as everyone else.

Nobody has reason to be pissed off at Zille because she didn't say colonialism was a good thing.

 

[rietrot]

Everyone is focusing on the black vote. But what about the Afrikaner vote? Afrikaners fought against colonialism for centuries. They have just as much reason to be pissed off at Zille as everyone else.

Most Afrikaners are stuck with the DA because there's no alternative. Enemy no1 is still the ANC. This goes for most reasonable people.

 

[Vrotappel]

Everyone is focusing on the black vote. But what about the Afrikaner vote? Afrikaners fought against colonialism for centuries. They have just as much reason to be pissed off at Zille as everyone else.

Why would we be pissed off when someone tells the truth?

 

[konfab]

Sure, but then the point is surely that a society that pushes resources into things like science, research etc. produces good things, not that Nazism was somehow necessary for it to happen.

Quite agree. But if the conditions that the Nazi's were under forced them to innovate on a particular process, you can't deny that they didn't have a positive role. Colonialism, Nazism and Apartheid did happen, the question Aunty Helen was proposing is that given it happened: how do you take advantage of it.

A perfect analogue is going through financial difficulty. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, however, since it happened to me recently I used it as an impetus to make some positive changes in my life. If the magnitude of the positive outcomes outshine the negatives, you could say that it was a net positive.
An country like Singapore is precisely that.

 

[Garson007]

Why would we be pissed off when someone tells the truth?

Because it waters down your position.

 

[Vrotappel]

Zille needs to honestly stay off of social media.

I'm not debating whether what she said had any merit or was downright wrong, but in SA certain things cannot be said for fear of you being labelled a this and that and the DA most certainly can do without negative publicity, especially when it can be construed as racist.

So you are all for the erosion of free speech?

 

[konfab]

Because it waters down your position.

"Don't tell the hard truth otherwise our political position might be compromised"- said every dictatorship in history.

 

[vindicem]

"Don't tell the hard truth otherwise our political position might be compromised"- said every dictatorship in history.

It's like telling your wife she's fat. It might be the truth but now it's not going to work out great for either of you.

 

[Garson007]

"Don't tell the hard truth otherwise our political position might be compromised"- said every dictatorship in history.

"Colonialism wasn't all good" is also a truthful statement. Allowing Zille to get away with her statement allows her to set the narrative.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Quite agree. But if the conditions that the Nazi's were under forced them to innovate on a particular process, you can't deny that they didn't have a positive role. Colonialism, Nazism and Apartheid did happen, the question Aunty Helen was proposing is that given it happened: how do you take advantage of it.

A perfect analogue is going through financial difficulty. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, however, since it happened to me recently I used it as an impetus to make some positive changes in my life. If the magnitude of the positive outcomes outshine the negatives, you could say that it was a net positive.
An country like Singapore is precisely that.

I'll quote my reply to Sinbad again because I think it applies:

How is healthcare, rule of law etc. an aspect of colonialism, though? They might have been aspects (to an extent) of the colonial authority, but tying them to colonialism serves zero purpose, historically or politically. None of these positive aspects are intrinsic to or require colonialism. So treating them as a "positive aspect of colonialism" strikes me as not only unnecessary, but inaccurate.

And I didn't read what Zille said as trying to gain a positive from a negative past situation. She tried to sneak some kind of sympathetic angle for colonialism into it for no apparent reason. If you want to punt healthcare, education, rule of law, whatever, then do that. What on earth is the point in even mentioning colonialism?

To reiterate my earlier point, the "good aspects" are not inherent in colonialism, and don't in any way require it. So what on earth is the point in mentioning it, especially publicly?