Reading Reviews #7

Bad, Bad Colonialism

It is interesting how African people (especially leaders and analysis) today still blame the “failed institutions, collapsed infrastructure, unemployment…” on colonialism, which serves as a scapegoat for conflicts, poverty, and dependency. Certainly colonialism could bring irrevocable harms and plant unreturnable roots in the colonized people’s culture, but there is no logic in still overreacting today. Worse, as Maathai points out, some governments inherent the way colonial people did because that’s the completed system and in that way the government could lightheartedly blame any problem on the model.

We could take a minute and try to see the problems that colonialism shed on districts from the angle of Hong Kong. It was once the British colonial and now it comes back to China. Although it now politically belongs to China, after all these years of being colonialized it already got used to the English model. Chinese government even has to agree to the “one country two system” policy which gives Hong Kong special powers and rights. The quarrels between mainland Chinese and Hong Kong people are constant, and have become a serious issue recently, perhaps because of some treacherous forces trying to split China. I’m not saying Hong Kong has turned out too well for Chinese government to take over, but the leftovers from the British people – wealth, values, operations, and even the traffic that keeps to the left – are completely different than mainland Chinese which give rise to discrepancies which generate problems in unifying and opportunities for plotting forces.

Self-consciousness – confidence if put in a positive tone or arrogance if put in a negative tone – is among the major reasons why the people can’t get along with each other; that happens everywhere. Hong Kong people believe that they are strictly capitalism which is of higher class than what mainland Chinese government advocates. Successful colonials almost have to include a successful brainwash. For African people who had been brainwashed even thru religious means, believing they are inferior, they have to find their ways to overcome “the deep cultural inferiority complex” before they can be comfortably taken over by local governments.

However, colonialism does not last. An interesting point I came up with the other day was that if the general public of the colonial could be brainwashed once, it should be possible to be brainwashed again. The main problem for Hong Kong people not accepting the way mainland leaders brainwashes them may be that what mainland governments always tell their people does not meet what Hong Kong people’s need, but mainland governments can’t just change what it always says or otherwise it could be deemed as capricious. The main problem for African, on the other hand, may be so sad that the local governments do not want to replace the inferior mindset because they can exploit it.

I read the experience of Maathai the other day and she really experienced what a lot of rightful Chinese people encountered during the messy times of China. China (with all complications) is walking on the road that America finished years ago, and Africa today is on the road that China had done some years ago. I somehow firmly believe in this pattern.