A Re-Education In Colonialism

Greetings. The European Football Championships came to an end on Sunday night, with Italy emerging victorious over the English team. I rooted for Italy not out of a sense of loyalty to them over the years. Schadenfreude has guided my choice of rooting for England's opposition; there's a certain pleasure I derive from the comments section of a BBC HYS (Have Your Say) whenever they are on the wrong end of a sports result. This carries on into rugby (I root against the All Blacks and Springboks) and cricket (England, again). In a way, I also admire the way they've utilised their infrastructure to build a dominant position, because I believe you can't learn from a weak opponent.

However, there were several reasons other corners were up in arms against the English: silencing them, the anti-Brexit brigade and the colonial past of the British empire. It is the latter that I shall address, as irony was raised to a whole new level with the celebration of the Italian team's victory as a "defeat of colonialism". 

"500 Years of European Colonialism", Source: Vox

England is a constituent nation in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The other constituents are Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Before expanding their empire beyond the seas, the first conquests were made within their own land mass. Between 1542 and 1801 the four nations were united by various means to form the United Kingdom. 

At its height, the British Empire covered a quarter of the World's land mass – with the modern state of Uganda engulfed in that area as a protectorate. The difference between a protectorate and a colony lies in the fact that there was less land grabbing in the former than in the later, but the humiliation of the pre-existing systems was a constant. 

The English provided the bulk of the manpower that governed the Empire. Of the twelve colonial Governors of Uganda, Sir Walter Coutts – a Scot – was the sole non-Englishman. It is for this reason that any negative memory from colonialism levelled at the British Empire is usually focused at the English more than their counterparts in the British Empire building exercise.

However, Britain wasn't without competition in this pursuit of imperialism. Over 20,000 African societies were reorganised into less than fifty states under the heel of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Belgium. The South American continent was under the domain of Spain and Portugal. The Dutch and the British even had some domains in the Caribbean and Asia. 

The colonialists' sins are well documented and have been the impetus behind recent drives to reform the education system, rename significant landmarks as well as compensation for past ills done to the African natives. In this matter the British, the Italians, the Germans, Portuguese, Spaniards, French, Dutch and Belgians alike are all guilty. The semi-final line up of Euro 2020 was a reading of past colonial powers. If you're thinking Denmark was innocent in all this you should read up on Erik Gobel's 2006 book, Danish Slave Trade and its Abolition. The Danes occupied present-day Accra in 1658, and only sold it to the British in 1850.

The wider world remembers Britain's participation in colonialism since they were the most successful nation at it. The 1997 handover of the island of Hong Kong to Chinese authorities marked the end of British colonial hegemony after 500 years. On the other hand, the role of Italy and Germany is forgotten owing to the two World Wars. At the beginning of the first World War Germany had four colonies in Africa as well as a series of islands in the Pacific. When the Germans were defeated in the War, their colonies were partitioned among the British and the French and with the passing of time, Tanganyika came to remember more the British occupation than the German occupation.

The German and Italian participation in World War II masked their colonial record further. For one the second world war was the deadliest in history, with the casualty count ranging between 50-80 million. Secondly, the Axis powers (Germany, Italy and Japan) were motivated by racial purification, seeking to eliminate other races they considered inferior to their own. Imperial backlash has been directed towards the British and French, while the Italians and Germans seem to have swapped their colonial sins for their holocaust sins. The Belgian sins in the Congo are even much more suppressed owing to their limited significance in international relations. Had they been playing the final, they could have drummed up more support from Uganda, yet occupants in the land to the West of Uganda's borders still bear scars of King Leopold's atrocities.

It's good we point out the ills of colonialism. However, we should be consistent in our denouncement. England was not the only culprit in this. Every winning nation of the preceding Euro and World Cup dating back to 2004 played a part in colonialism, both the benefits and the demerits that came with it. 

Ceteris. Paribus.

Further Reading

Fanon, F. (2008). Black Skin, White Masks. Grove Press.

Ferguson, N. (2012). Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World. Penguin UK.

Giordani, P (1916). The German Colonial Empire–Its Beginning and Ending, translated by Mrs. Gustavus W. Hamilton, G. Bell and Sons, London.

Gøbel, E. (2016). The Danish Slave Trade And Its Abolition. Brill.

Kohn, M., & Reddy, K. (2006). "Colonialism". In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Weisbord, R. G. (2003). The King, the Cardinal and the Pope: Leopold II's Genocide in the Congo and the Vatican. Journal of Genocide Research, 5(1), 35-45.