Is a Return to Colonialism Needed - Afghanistan and Haiti Events Sure Make it Seem So (crime, military)
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The point is that US occupation was not a success story of "nation building." Germany and Japan were already and always functional nations, before, during, and after the war.
I got your point, and I disagreed with it, for the reasons I cited in my previous post. I would not call Germany in particular a "functional nation" from WW I through WW II. Germany turned on her own citizens who happened to be Jews, disenfranchising them, stripping them of their citizenship rights, and disregarding the fact that many of those Jewish citizens fought on Germany's behalf in WW I. That's not my definition of a "socially functional" nation.
The presence of the Allied Council in both Germany and Japan after WW II was to insure that both of those defeated nations would henceforth advance on a more cooperatively functional path with the rest of us -- for their own good as well as for our own good. And so they have since then, becoming our allies instead of our perpetual enemies.
Last edited by Rachel NewYork; 02-04-2022 at 08:49 PM..
I got your point, and I disagreed with it, for the reasons I cited in my previous post. I would not call Germany in particular a "functional nation" from WW I through WW II. Germany turned on her own citizens who happened to be Jews, disenfranchising them, stripping them of their citizenship rights, and disregarding the fact that many of those Jewish citizens fought on Germany's behalf in WW I. That's not my definition of a "socially functional" nation.
The nations were not acting as you would have liked them to act, but as social entities, they were hierarchically functional from the leader down to the lowest officials of the smallest villages. The governmental entities and their agents performed their functions consistently and adequately.
Unlike prior to WWI, Germans through the 30s and into the 40s began thinking of themselves as "Germans" rather than merely Bavarians or Hessians. Japan had reached that stage even earlier.
That's not the case in Afghanistan and Haiti. They don't have a sense of "nation," and government doesn't function with any consistent hierarchy from top to bottom.
The nations were not acting as you would have liked them to act, but as social entities, they were hierarchically functional from the leader down to the lowest officials of the smallest villages. The governmental entities and their agents performed their functions consistently and adequately.
Unlike prior to WWI, Germans through the 30s and into the 40s began thinking of themselves as "Germans" rather than merely Bavarians or Hessians. Japan had reached that stage even earlier.
That's not the case in Afghanistan and Haiti. They don't have a sense of "nation," and government doesn't function with any consistent hierarchy from top to bottom.
I never compared Germany and Japan to Afghanistan and Haiti. You are the one who brought Germany and Japan into this discussion.
And no, Germany in particular was not a "functional social entity" (although it was certainly hierarchical) in the decades that nurtured the rise of Nazism.
Germany's Weimar Republic in its first 20th century decade was rife with political murders and instability. This instability eventually led to von Hindenberg's capitulation to Adolf Hitler and Hitler's Nazi thugs with their claims that the Reichstag fire was the work of an anti-government, communist conspiracy -- disputed claims which at the time served to whip up the citizenry into a frenzy of paranoiac support for Hitler. When von Hindenberg signed his Emergency Decree in 1933 (to the delight of the Nazi party), German citizens lost their freedom of speech, right to own property, and right to a trial before imprisonment. Following on the heels of this, the Nazi party widened their scapegoating claims to convince the public that there was an international Jewish conspiracy threatening Germany.
As for "functionality," there were members of the government who were incapable of performing their functions due to the fact that the Nazis prevented them from doing so.
For just one example (and there were many such examples), the Mayor of Frankfurt during this time -- Ludwig Landmann (1868-1945) -- also happened to be Jewish. When the Nazis came into power in 1933, they expelled Landmann from office, replacing him with the virulently antisemitic Friedrich Krebs. One of Krebs first acts as Mayor was to fire all Jewish city employees. Does this meet your definition of functional government?
As for Landmann, he was forced to flee with his family to the Netherlands, later going into hiding to avoid deportation to a death camp when Germany invaded and occupied the Netherlands (to further spread through the world their kind of "social functionality"). Landmann died in 1945 from starvation while in hiding.
Don't tell me that Nazi-era Germany was "socially functional." Unless you perhaps have an admiration for Nazis, or you simply confuse "social functionality" with authoritarianism.
Last edited by Rachel NewYork; 02-05-2022 at 06:19 AM..
Nazi Germany and Haiti are different. There is no moral from one's story that can be applied to the other's.
Haiti fell on its face right out of the gate. It has gone from bad to worse almost monotonically. Now, it is as bad as Chicago.
There is no prospect of it ever becoming a society as commonly understood. Outside help is impossible not only because the Haitians would thwart it but also because the outside lacks the self-confidence to impose it.
The nations were not acting as you would have liked them to act, but as social entities, they were hierarchically functional from the leader down to the lowest officials of the smallest villages. The governmental entities and their agents performed their functions consistently and adequately.
When they acted the way they "would have liked...to act" they plunged the world into a war with a rather high casualty count. In addition, they slaughtered millions under their control. Could we have one other than forcing them to act the way we wanted them to act? In Chutzpah by Dershowitz, Alan M. Mr. Dershowitz argued that Germany should have been rebuilt to an agrarian standard of living. I don't disagree.
In fact the premise of this thread is that we have little choice but to force countries that aggress, to coin a verb, on the scale of Nazi Germany or Japan to do as we prefer. Frankly I believe that to be the case with Iraq and Afghanistan. In those countries, rather than occupying and holding, just knocking off their leaders until they get the message that stirring the pot with the West and being a "leader" of those countries is a very dangerous perch.
Citizens in many countries in Africa long for the "good ol' days" when they were governed by France or England. So says a friend who lived in Nigeria for many years.
Congo doesn't, though. There were millions of Congolese worked to death an behalf of King Leopold.
Independence doesn't always work out to the benefit of the citizens, but neither did colonialism. Some 250,000 Filipinos were killed in the Philippine-America war - a war, BTW, which was not covered at all in high school. Totally ignored, I suppose, because it undermines the "Teddy Roosevelt is a great hero" conversation.
But when it came time to shrug off America's cloak, the Filipinos have done as well as any country.
Citizens in many countries in Africa long for the "good ol' days" when they were governed by France or England. So says a friend who lived in Nigeria for many years.
Congo doesn't, though. There were millions of Congolese worked to death an behalf of King Leopold.
Independence doesn't always work out to the benefit of the citizens, but neither did colonialism. Some 250,000 Filipinos were killed in the Philippine-America war - a war, BTW, which was not covered at all in high school. Totally ignored, I suppose, because it undermines the "Teddy Roosevelt is a great hero" conversation.
But when it came time to shrug off America's cloak, the Filipinos have done as well as any country.
No, colonialism can't be brought back.
So says a friend? LOL. There are people in every country who want all sort of things.
I'll just point out that I don't remember any African countries in my lifetime who went to Great Britain or France and said, "Oh, please, take us back".
Citizens in many countries in Africa long for the "good ol' days" when they were governed by France or England. So says a friend who lived in Nigeria for many years.
Congo doesn't, though. There were millions of Congolese worked to death an behalf of King Leopold.
Independence doesn't always work out to the benefit of the citizens, but neither did colonialism. Some 250,000 Filipinos were killed in the Philippine-America war - a war, BTW, which was not covered at all in high school. Totally ignored, I suppose, because it undermines the "Teddy Roosevelt is a great hero" conversation.
But when it came time to shrug off America's cloak, the Filipinos have done as well as any country.
No, colonialism can't be brought back.
Interesting, I don't think I ever heard any African say they yearn for the “good old days of colonialism.” Citizens of Mali are protesting now calling for French troops to leave the country.
Interesting, I don't think I ever heard any African say they yearn for the “good old days of colonialism.”
I'm sure every country had its running dog locals who were in tight with the colonizers and lost out with the coming of independence. Their families are probably still yearning for the old days.
Interesting, I don't think I ever heard any African say they yearn for the “good old days of colonialism.” Citizens of Mali are protesting now calling for French troops to leave the country.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk
I'm sure every country had its running dog locals who were in tight with the colonizers and lost out with the coming of independence. Their families are probably still yearning for the old days.
I'm sure that there were those that preferred relative order to relative chaos. Decolonialization came too fast in many cases. The U.S., Canada, Australia etc. had lengthy apprenticeship in self-government, even if the separation in the case of the U.S. wasn't wistful. Even Pakistan and India had short periods under Governor Generals in their transition. Most of the African countries went "cold turkey" and in that situation, international aid does not help many besides the ruling class.
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