What’s so wrong with colonialism?

Living as I do for the most part in South Africa I have been very aware of the anti-colonialist narrative (please read my last post to appreciate my love of the word ‘narrative’, not). I’m glad to see it spread to the UK. In my hood the anti-colonialist arguments cannot be separated from the anti-racism arguments and of course no-one can defend racism unless it is directed at ‘white colonialists’ by the ruling black elite. In the UK this revisionist movement is more clearly linked to identity politics and is more exposed to sensible criticism and some understandable derision. Wanting to take down a Rhodes statue in Oriel College is one thing, talking about removing any statues of Churchill or Queen Victoria on similar ‘moral’ grounds is quite another.

I enjoy a good argument and have taken great pleasure in pointing out to some of my smart, young, black South African mates that King Shaka of the Zulus, after whom we have named an airport, was not averse to a bit of colonialism himself, ask the Swazis. His was a military colonialism as was the Romans, he even employed the same military strategy and tactics (although any historian I have asked assures me this was coincidence, personally I think he had to have picked it up from listening to Colonialists who could read). Britain’s colonialism was for the most part economic. I cannot defend everything we did but as Simon Gordon said in a recent letter to ‘The Spectator’, we were probably the most benevolent and responsible of all the super-powers. We handed over our colonial empire relatively peacefully although perhaps this was more pragmatic than principled. Crippled by two world wars fought to defend global freedom we were in no position to do otherwise.

The definition of colonialism is the building and exploitation of power over an indigenous population. The exploitation relates to the motivation, you do it for the good of your home nation and economy. There may be benefits for the indigenous people but that is a by-product. They, the locals, may enjoy some wealth creation, social and physical infra-structure, but only because this meets the colonialist’s agenda. There is not a whole lot of philanthropy here. But many of those under the colonialists’ boot used the positive side-benefits to go on to become super-powers themselves. Britain did (so that is what the Romans did for us) and so have the USA and India to name but a few (although one must acknowledge the American Indians did not – at what point do ex-pat colonialists become indigenous?).

I believe colonialism to be an entirely natural thing, we’re programmed to be colonialists as are most species (spotted how many grey squirrels there are now and how few red ones?). And when it comes to marketing, colonialism is what drives us. We enter markets to dominate them, to drive down the indigenous players. We will then use the power we gain in that market, economic and reputational, to enter and dominate another market. That is precisely what Apple have done. The result might be painful for some but better for all of us – computers and phones are better than they would have been because of Apple. Samsung owes its success to Apple’s colonialist instinct. It might be visionary but it is not philanthropic, successful brands strive for and then exploit power for the benefit of their owners not the competition.

Rhodes was a racist, as of course were most of his contemporaries, including Churchill and Queen Victoria, in the sense that he felt his people and his culture to be superior to those from different nations and cultures. Safety in numbers is no excuse and neither is the fact that he and they might have called it ‘more enlightened’ rather than superior. It is however very hard to think of any colonialists from the Greeks to the Romans to the Normans to the British who did not regard themselves as ‘more enlightened, more civilized’ (maybe the Vikings, they probably saw themselves as stronger but not more couth). Unilever, Procters, Coke, Goldman Sachs and most of the successful big firms all think they are superior, at least the ones I’ve met. With admittedly some notable exceptions, they’d rather promote from within – one presumes they do this because they think their own people are better. Is this just admirable self-confidence, risk-averse pragmatism or does it have a vague whiff of what in other social contexts might be deemed cultural racism?

I can’t see any politician trying to defend a colonialist mentality underpinned by a strong sense of cultural superiority. But I will defend it to the end in business and marketing. We should celebrate it, hell, we should erect statues to it!

Read more from Mark Sherrington here.