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| Subject: If this is neo-colonialism, so be it | |
Author: Ian (Australia) | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 12:18:32 12/11/04 Sat In reply to: David (Australia) 's message, "Policing Papua New Guinea's 'raskols'" on 11:00:57 12/11/04 Sat When Whitlam was in power, Australia determined that it could not bear to be seen as a colonial power, so we left PNG in a tearing hurry, without hanging around long enough to prepare the country's leaders and institutions for self-government. What we left behind doesn't work, has never worked and shows no signs of spontaneously beginning to work. Good government does not seem to happen by chance. When I was in PNG a decade ago, I was surprised at how many people told me they resented Australia’s treatment of their country: not that we had been the evil colonial ruler, but that we had cut and run without giving them the chance to learn how to do things well for themselves. If we are so mortally afraid of being called neo-colonialists, then I guess we will just have to leave the people of PNG to suffer in chaos. If, on the other hand, we accept EITHER our historical responsibility as part of the creation of the problem, OR the simple humanitarian need for good government in PNG, OR the imperatives of our own national security, then we will have to swallow our pride and help out. If we just keep the violence under control for our own benefit, then call us the evil Western country that uses others as pawns to serve its own interests. If we help create the stability that is necessary for development, so that the people of PNG will have the chance to build a life where they are not condemned to perpetual poverty and a diet of rice and tinned mackerel, if we hang around long enough to help the people get governance right in a way that works for them, then call us the good guys, neo-colonial or not. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| [> [> Subject: Approach to decolonisation... | |
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Author: Paddy (Scotland) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 20:58:35 12/11/04 Sat In Britain's African colonies there was an attempt to build a middle class before giving independence - contrast this with Portugal's withdrawal from all of her colonies within two months in 1975. I do not know what Australia's policies were in the run-up to withdrawal from PNG but it is appropriate to offer NOW to PNG any help that can be given, especially as the PNG govt has asked for it. If a sovreign government invites advisors in from another country it is not Neo-colonialism if that other country accepts. Similar initiatives are taking place in the Solomons, Jamaica and Belize all at the invitation of their governments. Neo-colonialism would be more like: occupying Zimbabwe because in our (the West's) opinion the Government there is not fit to govern any longer. My point: offering help to countries that badly need it and ask for it is far from shameful. Neo-colonialism is not at all the same as getting involved by invitation. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> Subject: Dangerous territory | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 21:10:19 12/11/04 Sat In Africa, one of the things which has driven the continent down a dry path towards indigence and starvation was our change of policy - at American insistence, naturally - from the traditional mode of working with native elites and modernising them, and moving towards the co-operation with the lucky few who had been at the LSE in the 1930s and had imbibed a lot of garbage about centralisation, buying cartels, direction of the economy by committees of 'experts', and all the usual socialist schreklichkeit, which left Africa in the 1960s with a ready-made structure for totalitarian rule. West Africa is a case in point. I would be careful before suggesting that cultivating a middle class before independence was a positive step, since I can think of no occasion in which this admittedly sensible policy was actually carried out in a sensible way. Other than that, I quite agree with your remarks: invitation is a far cry from occupation. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> Subject: Yes but... | |
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Author: Paddy (Scotland) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 21:53:45 12/11/04 Sat Every function of government in the Portugese colonies from top to bottom was carried out by a Portuguese official, even very minor jobs in railway stations etc... All that the blacks were used for was in ultra-cheap labour. At the docks in Mozambique the workers were not even issued with boots while manhandling shipping crates - this in the early 1970s! When the revolution came about in Portugal it was decided to clear out of the Colonies as quickly as possible (presumably the revolutionaries were worried about a potential counter revolution). When they left there were no people able to fill-up the civil service positions that were vacant and the rest of the population was (and is now) largely ignorant. This is visible in all economic data published on the former Portugese colonies in Africa. The rough figure of GDP per head in Mozambique is ~ US$200 annually and Angola has ~US$750 annually. In Britain the approach was to educate the Africans so that they could fulfil functions greater than lifting and carrying. When the UK gave independence to its African colonies there were people in these new nations who were capable of filling civil-service positions required for a western structure of government. I fully agree that the Soviet Socialist Republic of the LSE has a lot to answer for but looking at an example that has worked beautifully and benefitted from the British approach is Botswana. As a comparison the FCO gives the annual GDP per head of this genuinely democratic African nation as US$5,502 (2004), around seven times that of Angola and a staggering twenty-five times that of Mozambique. To put these figures into context, many of the new EU countries have a GDP per head that is less than this. This difference is more what I meant by the establishment of a middle class. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Fair enough | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 01:10:57 12/12/04 Sun I suppose that I was thinking about preparing ruling classes for government whereas what you were actually talking about were the nuts-and-bolts professions which make a country work, in which context you are certainl right. Botswana really is a great success story, and more should be made of it. It is peaceful, democratic, free from ethnic violence (and not just between different African tribes, because the Indians were never kicked out of Bechuanaland as was the case in much of British Africa and they live there still) and relatively prosperous. Bravo. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> Subject: PNG independence | |
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Author: Ian (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 00:48:41 12/12/04 Sun PNG was given independence on 16 September 1975, after Mozambique but before Angola. I rather suspect that Whitlam wanted it off his hands quickly so that he wouldn't be seen as the last of the colonial rulers. I quite agree that helping on invitation is not neo-colonialism: the problem is that some people get very squeamish about it. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |