And what I see is that claiming the right to control another nation is still used by even Nazi-sympathisers to excuse Hitler’s policies (The argument is “If Britain had the right to rule over the hundreds millions in India, why couldn’t the Nazi be allowed to rule over Poland and Czechoslovakia”).
That anti colonialism is objecting to “the right to control another nation” fails to describe the situation with Vietnam, Rhodesia and South Africa, where anti colonialism was used as justification to interfere with foreigners.
To describe anti colonialism as opposition to the right of one nation to control another is as misleading as describing PC speech controls as courtesy.
Anti imperialism is opposition to the right of one country to control another. Anti colonialism was typically the objection of the metropolitan elite to the colonial elite. Anti colonialism was those whose power and wealth derived from the capital, objecting to those whose power and wealth derived from the colonies
South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, were supposedly not anti colonialist enough and therefore needed to be ruled by adequately anti colonial outsiders (members of the North Vietnamese communist party who spent most of their lives in Moscow) for their own good. Rhodesia was not under attack from Rhodesian blacks.
The Indochinese wars were imperial wars more than they were anticolonialist wars, and the imperialist side (communist) was the anticolonialist side. The same is true of the wars against Rhodesia. Mugabe’s powerbase was in London and the UN, not in Rhodesia, his powerbase was the traditional imperial powers.
The most celebrated anti colonial conflicts had imperialists fighting colonialism.
Many “anti colonial” conflicts seem to involve “anti colonialists” with connections to ruling class universities in the metropolitan country, fighting “colonialists” without such connection,Mugabe comes from London School of Economics: Bishop Muzorewa went to a no name US university. And so the world removed Muzorewa and
installed Mugabe, murdering as many Rhodesian blacks as necessary to ensure the right “democratic” outcome.
That really does not look much like Rhodesian blacks ruling themselves.
I think you’ll find it hard to argue for (b) -- effectively that France should still be wasting lives and money fighting wars in Algeria and Vietnam
France was fighting a colonial war in Vietnam? Surely the events that followed the French fleeing suggest that this was a war with the Soviet Union, not a war with France’s Vietnamese subjects, that the anti colonialist side was also the imperialist side. And if you find those events unconvincing, the events that followed the Americans fleeing should have convinced you.
The war with Algeria was indeed a colonial war, with colonialists and imperialists on the same side, and anti colonialists and Islamists on the other side. Let us recall, however, how and why the French got into what is now Algeria in the first place.
Europe had, for several hundred years, suffered Islamic terrorism. Punitive raids against the terrorists, for example the American Barbary wars, failed to deter them. So the French occupied the lands from which the terrorists attacked the most, and settled those lands with non Muslim settlers.
Algeria was a message to Muslims: Attack Christians, lose your land. Very eleventh century, and as in the eleventh century, it worked.
This successfully ended Islamic terrorism. From 1830 to 1960, the west had no problem with Islamic terrorism. When the French fled Algeria in 1960, Islamic terrorism resumed.
Europeans are considerably worse off for forcing European settlers out of Algeria, just as Jews are considerably worse off for forcing Jewish settlers out of the Gaza strip.
that the UK should be trying to crush the Indians violently
The UK was trying to crush the Indians violently?
The Indian independence movement was as much sponsored by the LSE and other British elite universities as the Rhodesian “independence” movement. Ghandi was a mascot. India continued to stagnate in poverty and communal violence until it finally got leaders from less “anti colonialist” (but suspiciously imperial) sources.
Europe had, for several hundred years, suffered Islamic terrorism. Punitive raids against the terrorists, for example the American Barbary wars, failed to deter them.
The confluence of piracy and terrorism in contemporary Somalia has led a lot of people to conflate the two, but not every act of violence involving Muslims is terrorism. The motives of the Muslims in the Barbary Wars have little to do with the motives of Salifists.
This successfully ended Islamic terrorism. From 1830 to 1960, the west had no problem with Islamic terrorism.
But if you are going to insist on such an overbroad definition of terrorism, then your latter statement is false, false, false, false.
That anti colonialism is objecting to “the right to control another nation” fails to describe the situation with Vietnam, Rhodesia and South Africa, where anti colonialism was used as justification to interfere with foreigners.
To describe anti colonialism as opposition to the right of one nation to control another is as misleading as describing PC speech controls as courtesy.
Anti imperialism is opposition to the right of one country to control another. Anti colonialism was typically the objection of the metropolitan elite to the colonial elite. Anti colonialism was those whose power and wealth derived from the capital, objecting to those whose power and wealth derived from the colonies
South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, were supposedly not anti colonialist enough and therefore needed to be ruled by adequately anti colonial outsiders (members of the North Vietnamese communist party who spent most of their lives in Moscow) for their own good. Rhodesia was not under attack from Rhodesian blacks.
The Indochinese wars were imperial wars more than they were anticolonialist wars, and the imperialist side (communist) was the anticolonialist side. The same is true of the wars against Rhodesia. Mugabe’s powerbase was in London and the UN, not in Rhodesia, his powerbase was the traditional imperial powers.
The most celebrated anti colonial conflicts had imperialists fighting colonialism.
Many “anti colonial” conflicts seem to involve “anti colonialists” with connections to ruling class universities in the metropolitan country, fighting “colonialists” without such connection,Mugabe comes from London School of Economics: Bishop Muzorewa went to a no name US university. And so the world removed Muzorewa and installed Mugabe, murdering as many Rhodesian blacks as necessary to ensure the right “democratic” outcome.
That really does not look much like Rhodesian blacks ruling themselves.
France was fighting a colonial war in Vietnam? Surely the events that followed the French fleeing suggest that this was a war with the Soviet Union, not a war with France’s Vietnamese subjects, that the anti colonialist side was also the imperialist side. And if you find those events unconvincing, the events that followed the Americans fleeing should have convinced you.
The war with Algeria was indeed a colonial war, with colonialists and imperialists on the same side, and anti colonialists and Islamists on the other side. Let us recall, however, how and why the French got into what is now Algeria in the first place.
Europe had, for several hundred years, suffered Islamic terrorism. Punitive raids against the terrorists, for example the American Barbary wars, failed to deter them. So the French occupied the lands from which the terrorists attacked the most, and settled those lands with non Muslim settlers.
Algeria was a message to Muslims: Attack Christians, lose your land. Very eleventh century, and as in the eleventh century, it worked.
This successfully ended Islamic terrorism. From 1830 to 1960, the west had no problem with Islamic terrorism. When the French fled Algeria in 1960, Islamic terrorism resumed.
Europeans are considerably worse off for forcing European settlers out of Algeria, just as Jews are considerably worse off for forcing Jewish settlers out of the Gaza strip.
The UK was trying to crush the Indians violently?
The Indian independence movement was as much sponsored by the LSE and other British elite universities as the Rhodesian “independence” movement. Ghandi was a mascot. India continued to stagnate in poverty and communal violence until it finally got leaders from less “anti colonialist” (but suspiciously imperial) sources.
The confluence of piracy and terrorism in contemporary Somalia has led a lot of people to conflate the two, but not every act of violence involving Muslims is terrorism. The motives of the Muslims in the Barbary Wars have little to do with the motives of Salifists.
But if you are going to insist on such an overbroad definition of terrorism, then your latter statement is false, false, false, false.