WoW: A short-ass rant--
Dec. 9th, 2012 12:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yukieThis rant dedicated to a FoaF who tried to tell me that there was a such thing as a benevolent form of colonialism.
Sorry, FoaF, there isn't.
It really doesn't matter how you paint it; colonialist behaviour is shitty.
It doesn't matter if one side is ~being civil~ about it; colonialist behaviour is shitty.
It doesn't matter if the other side's being raging assholes and the first looks much better by comparison; colonialist behaviour is shitty.
There is no such thing as benevolent colonialism. Now, I'm real sorry to be poppin' your bubb--who am I kidding, no I'm not. I like popping this particular bubble, because it's one that's had a direct impact on people I care dearly for.
There's no such thing as benevolent colonialism. Any mindset that supposes you have a right to go in and declare someone else's backyard your own because you said it was and you have a big-ass ego? Is a problem.
Every time some utter magnum doofus brings up the idea of benevolent colonialism, I think about my Aboriginal Studies class, and the discussions of the residential school system. Certainly some of the staff at those schools would've thought they were doing a good deed, saving these kids from an unhappy life in a poor community with not much hope of employment and etc. etc.--but the fact remains that the poor community was so poor in the first place because of the same government policies and gross mindsets that saw those schools set up. And the fact remains that these schools were set up for the purpose of making Aboriginal languages and traditions vanish. Culture genocide.
So, no, there is no such thing as benevolent colonialism. The very idea of colonialism is founded on racist grossness. That is not benevolent. That is assuming that your culture is superior and that you therefore have the right to treat those inferior people however you want because you know better than them, you're more civilized than them, it's your right to explore and to claim land in the name of your people what do you mean that's someone's backyard don't be silly etc. etc. etc. etc. About the best case scenario in this case is something like weeabooism--fetishization of a culture and talking it up as epic and advanced while othering the hell out of the people in said culture and expecting them to act like the stereotype you've decided is an accurate reflection of the culture. Yeah. Not very good for 'best', is it.
If I want to see clueless people talking Orientalist bollocks forever and ever and ever, I can pick up any one of the "ADMIRAL WHATSHISFUCK'S BOGUS JOURNEY TO THIS PLACE OVER HERE IN THE MYSTERIOUS EAST" books that I've helped restore at work. They at least have pretty pictures, and the prose is so purple, bombastic and absurd that I'm not TOTALLY consumed by the urge to set fire to things.
tl;dr don't try to tell me that colonialist shit can be benevolent because it can't. If the act you're describing is actually benevolent, it's probably not colonialism*, because really... colonialism is just racism posing on a boat while wearing a fancy hat.
It really doesn't matter how you paint it; colonialist behaviour is shitty.
*this isn't to say that a benevolent/helpful organization can't have members with colonialist ideas...a lot of people do, considering how this society is. but these groups don't go in supposing they're going to replace an existing way of life with theirs, and that they SHOULD do that because their way of life is the only correct one.
Sorry, FoaF, there isn't.
It really doesn't matter how you paint it; colonialist behaviour is shitty.
It doesn't matter if one side is ~being civil~ about it; colonialist behaviour is shitty.
It doesn't matter if the other side's being raging assholes and the first looks much better by comparison; colonialist behaviour is shitty.
There is no such thing as benevolent colonialism. Now, I'm real sorry to be poppin' your bubb--who am I kidding, no I'm not. I like popping this particular bubble, because it's one that's had a direct impact on people I care dearly for.
There's no such thing as benevolent colonialism. Any mindset that supposes you have a right to go in and declare someone else's backyard your own because you said it was and you have a big-ass ego? Is a problem.
Every time some utter magnum doofus brings up the idea of benevolent colonialism, I think about my Aboriginal Studies class, and the discussions of the residential school system. Certainly some of the staff at those schools would've thought they were doing a good deed, saving these kids from an unhappy life in a poor community with not much hope of employment and etc. etc.--but the fact remains that the poor community was so poor in the first place because of the same government policies and gross mindsets that saw those schools set up. And the fact remains that these schools were set up for the purpose of making Aboriginal languages and traditions vanish. Culture genocide.
So, no, there is no such thing as benevolent colonialism. The very idea of colonialism is founded on racist grossness. That is not benevolent. That is assuming that your culture is superior and that you therefore have the right to treat those inferior people however you want because you know better than them, you're more civilized than them, it's your right to explore and to claim land in the name of your people what do you mean that's someone's backyard don't be silly etc. etc. etc. etc. About the best case scenario in this case is something like weeabooism--fetishization of a culture and talking it up as epic and advanced while othering the hell out of the people in said culture and expecting them to act like the stereotype you've decided is an accurate reflection of the culture. Yeah. Not very good for 'best', is it.
If I want to see clueless people talking Orientalist bollocks forever and ever and ever, I can pick up any one of the "ADMIRAL WHATSHISFUCK'S BOGUS JOURNEY TO THIS PLACE OVER HERE IN THE MYSTERIOUS EAST" books that I've helped restore at work. They at least have pretty pictures, and the prose is so purple, bombastic and absurd that I'm not TOTALLY consumed by the urge to set fire to things.
tl;dr don't try to tell me that colonialist shit can be benevolent because it can't. If the act you're describing is actually benevolent, it's probably not colonialism*, because really... colonialism is just racism posing on a boat while wearing a fancy hat.
It really doesn't matter how you paint it; colonialist behaviour is shitty.
*this isn't to say that a benevolent/helpful organization can't have members with colonialist ideas...a lot of people do, considering how this society is. but these groups don't go in supposing they're going to replace an existing way of life with theirs, and that they SHOULD do that because their way of life is the only correct one.
