(CW: antiblack slur in article)
In the current issue of Third World Quarterly, a mediocre essay appears with the grand title “The Case for Colonialism”. This essay, by Bruce Gilley, is within the parameters set by Ferguson. The essay, as many have shown, violates the basic protocols of academic scholarship; the author misuses the work of scholars such as Berny Sébe, Alexander De Juan and Jan Pierskalla, citing their essays to make points that they simply do not make. The author’s “cost-benefit analysis” poses certain indicators such as “improvements in living conditions” and “training for self-government” to show – against any evidence – that without colonialism the situation in Africa, Asia and Latin America would be worse. If India’s literacy rate was low in 1947, the author would contend, it would be lower still if the British had not been India’s imperial masters.
The essay appears in the age of Donald Trump, when white supremacy is back and the itch for colonialism is on the horizon. The idea that liberals, post-colonials and Marxists have denigrated “white history” is a constant refrain from the racists. This essay does not merely suggest that the “white history” of colonialism has been vilified, but that the Europeans should return to finish the job. “Maybe the Belgians should come back” to the Congo, suggests the author – a statement that discounts the at least 10 million people massacred in a decade by the rapacious rule of the Congo by Belgium’s king Leopold.
Colonialism is genocide. This “scholar” is a fascist.
Third World Quarterly row: Why some western intellectuals are trying to debrutalise colonialism
QueerAnarchism 