Colonialism wasn't all bad‚ says Helen Zille

[konfab]

Along with horrible experiences for the colonised that still affect their descendants negatively to this day. Which is why expecting them to be grateful is foolishness and counter-productive to building a unified South Africa.

No one is asking people to be grateful of colonialism. What Zille said is that they use the positives that it brought to their advantage (which it might shock you, the South African government already does).

 

[Knyro]

Who were the ones who set up the trading post that would eventually become Cape Town. Missionaries or Colonialists? Missionary work only existed in South Africa because of the routes that colonialism opened up.

Again with alternative facts.

Christian missionaries also existed in Japan.

 

[Knyro]

No one is asking people to be grateful of colonialism. What Zille said is that they use the positives that it brought to their advantage (which it might shock you, the South African government already does).

Have you read this thread? You'd swear some are.

 

[konfab]

It simply isn't. The evidence doesn't rest in the infrastructure. The evidence is all the stuff I want to like because it is politically correct

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_of_the_Roman_Empire

 

[Garson007]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_of_the_Roman_Empire

*sigh* It's got nothing to do with political correctness. It has to do with history.

Edit: If an enemy of the roman empire still existed today. Say Gaul. Then they would still today hate the Romans.

 

[konfab]

Again with alternative facts.

What alternative facts? You want to give me some evidence of missionary work in South Africa that preceded colonialism?

 

[C4Cat]

Who were the ones who set up the trading post that would eventually become Cape Town. Missionaries or Colonialists? Missionary work only existed in South Africa because of the routes that colonialism opened up.

Missionary work would have happened in the absence of colonialism too. All these benefits you're talking about happened despite colonialism, not because of it. The colonialists didn't build all this infrastructure to benefit anyone except themselves and often attempted to actively stop the use of this infrastructure by the locals, to prevent the locals from gaining the knowledge they brought with them. How much faster would Africa have developed if infrastructure, technology and education had been encouraged, shared, traded and developed among the local populations under local leadership, instead of being kept for the Europeans only, people who considered the local populations as either nothing but cheap labour or actual pests getting in the way of their plans?

 

[Knyro]

What alternative facts? You want to give me some evidence of missionary work in South Africa that preceded colonialism?

You stated that missionary work is a form of colonialism, and could only exist because of colonialism. I gave you a counterexample. Hence your statement is false.

Not only is missionary work not a form of colonialism, it can exist in the absence of colonialism.

 

[Garson007]

You'd also be interested to note that Japan, Germany and Italy are still enemy states within the UN charter.

 

[C4Cat]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_of_the_Roman_Empire

There is one big difference between the spread of the Roman Empire and colonialism in Africa. In the Roman Empire the local populations could still rise in the ranks to be leaders and lawmakers and were given equal opportunities as Romans so long as they accepted being part of the Roman Empire while in Africa, the power and status of local populations were replaced and dominated by the colonisers.
In the Roman Empire anyone who pledged allegiance to the Empire became a Roman citizen with all the benefits and opportunities that came with it. The vast majority of places in the conquered territories continued to be administered and governed by the local populations and the same people who had been there before the Romans. One only has to look at this list of Roman Emperors to see that a conquered people could even achieve the highest position in the land: http://historum.com/ancient-history/19034-national-ethnic-origins-roman-emperors.html

 

[ToxicBunny]

You'd also be interested to note that Japan, Germany and Italy are still enemy states within the UN charter.

And your point in making that statement?

 

[konfab]

Missionary work would have happened in the absence of colonialism too.

But it didn't. Colonialism was the thing that opened the route for missionary work into South Africa.

 

[Johnatan56]

There is one big difference between the spread of the Roman Empire and colonialism in Africa. In the Roman Empire the local populations could still rise in the ranks to be leaders and lawmakers and were given equal opportunities as Romans so long as they accepted being part of the Roman Empire while in Africa, the power and status of local populations were replaced and dominated by the colonisers.
In the Roman Empire anyone who pledged allegiance to the Empire became a Roman citizen with all the benefits and opportunities that came with it. The vast majority of places in the conquered territories continued to be administered and governed by the local populations and the same people who had been there before the Romans. One only has to look at this list of Roman Emperors to see that a conquered people could even achieve the highest position in the land: http://historum.com/ancient-history/19034-national-ethnic-origins-roman-emperors.html

Dumb argument, there were multiple classes of citizen. Britain most would have been Soccii. To get citizenship one had to usually join the army, proper treaty, etc.

The rights available to individual citizens of Rome varied over time, according to their place of origin, and their service to the state. They also varied under Roman law according to the classification of the individual within the state. Various legal classes were defined by the various combinations of legal rights that each class enjoyed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_citizenship

Emperors often got put on the throne after a coup. If the crown was overthrown in Britain at the time, someone non-British in origin could have become an Emperor, rather than a Monarch which is hereditary.

British rule was that you inherited your parents citizenship, you could become naturalized or tried to become a denizen of Britain.

 

[Garson007]

And your point in making that statement?

Just some flavour.

 

[konfab]

There is one big difference between the spread of the Roman Empire and colonialism in Africa. In the Roman Empire the local populations could still rise in the ranks to be leaders and lawmakers and were given equal opportunities as Romans so long as they accepted being part of the Roman Empire while in Africa, the power and status of local populations were replaced and dominated by the colonisers.

It actually did happen. Both Lesotho and Swaziland exist today because their leaders were clever enough to be accepted as British protectorates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshoeshoe_I

 

[konfab]

Monty Python as usual have it nailed.

[video=youtube;Qc7HmhrgTuQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ[/video]

 

[konfab]

http://www.biznews.com/leadership/2017/03/27/rian-malan-zille-tweet/
Last article that everyone should read.

So let me repeat Zille’s heresy: much as we hate to admit it, both Boers and blacks benefitted in some ways from the British occupation and its legacy. It is of course an insult to expect black South Africans to agree at this point, but they will eventually, because that is a law of history.

 

[Garson007]

Except it's not like that in history. Historically they are our enemy. Period.

Unless another dark age is upon us and we lose all that history.

 

[Knyro]

Except it's not like that in history. Historically they are our enemy. Period.

Unless another dark age is upon us and we lose all that history.

When/if the vast majority of the country attains high standard of living I'll bet most won't care at all. The reason why some MyBBers can so flippantly bring up their own ancestors being oppressed in the past is because they suffer next to no socioeconomic consequences in thepresent. Many SAs still feel the effects of being descendants of the vanquished and respond to such attitudes like Zille's angrily.

 

[Moosedrool]

http://www.biznews.com/leadership/2017/03/27/rian-malan-zille-tweet/
Last article that everyone should read.

Exactly many bad stuff helped shaped the human race. We also learn from our mistakes the hard way most of the time.

WW2 gave the world Nazi Germany and the manhattan project which was the most atrocious use of science till this date. It was used to kill thousands of innocent people and their families and destroy thousands more in the proceeding years. Yet the technology gave us a amazing energy source, the ability to treat certain cancers, almost all atomic based science and from a weapon meant to target civilisations.

I hate the crime but also see how we benefit from it. And Japan now runs nuclear powerplants along the rest of the world.