Colonialismo (Continuación)

Cuantiosos debates, reflexiones, análisis, libros y audiovisuales generaron, en los últimos 80 años, desde cuantas percepciones políticas existen, la II República y su secuela, la Guerra Civil. Ni los historiadores y tratadistas más neutrales, españoles o hispanistas, resaltan con suficiente relieve el canto del cisne de aquel régimen: la «denuncia Nombela». Acontecimiento clave, al precipitar la ruptura de la coalición conservadora que gobernaba desde 1933, formada por los populistas de la Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas (CEDA), liderada por José María Gil-Robles, el Partido Radical de Alejandro Lerroux y grupos menores.

En sus memorias, No fue posible la paz, anota Gil-Robles –ministro de la Guerra y personalidad descollante en aquel equipo– que, cuando a las siete de la mañana del 8 de diciembre de 1935 abandonó el Palacio de la Carrera de San Jerónimo tras un turbulento y maratoniano pleno parlamentario que duró toda la noche, «llevaba el triste presentimiento de haber pronunciado mi último discurso de aquellas Cortes.…  Seguir leyendo »

La reciente conmemoración del 150 aniversario del nacimiento de Miguel de Unamuno fue ocasión para recordar su figura y obra, generadoras de ingente cantidad de estudios críticos. Quizás convenga subrayar algún aspecto insuficientemente destacado, que completa y actualiza la comprensión del pensamiento del egregio filósofo, pilar en su producción ensayística y literaria. Porque la personalidad de quien, según su autorretrato, pasó su vida «componiendo paradojas que excitaban la ira de algunos que no las comprendían», encierra la singularidad de ser un raro anticolonialista en aquella generación portentosa marcada por la nostalgia del imperio perdido.

Su vasta creación intelectual, que abarca todos los géneros, no incluye ningún tratado específico sobre el tema.…  Seguir leyendo »

I’ve been using the dating website OkCupid too much lately, and recently decided to reply to persistent messages from a MrNxtLvl – someone I would usually ignore based on his username alone. MrNxtLvl asked me what I was up to on Australia Day. I replied with “Nothing. I don’t celebrate Australia Day’”. He answered with complete bewilderment: “WTF?! You do nuthin? Not even listen to Triple J's Hottest 100 ?” to which I could only reply, “not even Triple J”.

I'm an Aboriginal woman in her 20s who cruises dating websites, but it’s only four generations back that my family felt the direct consequences of foreigners invading our land.…  Seguir leyendo »

'Africans make up stories." I heard this refrain over and again while researching imperial history in Kenya. I was scarcely surprised when it came from former settlers and colonial officials living out their days in the country's bucolic highlands. But I was concerned to find that this position took on intractable proportions among some historians.

At the time of decolonisation, colonial officials destroyed and removed tons of documents from Kenya. To overcome this, I collected hundreds of oral testimonies and integrated them with fragments of remaining archival evidence to challenge entrenched views of British imperialism.

My methods drew sharp criticism. Revising the myths of British imperial benevolence cut to the heart of national identity, challenging decades-old scholarship and professional reputations.…  Seguir leyendo »

A quel point le potentiel de développement de l’Afrique a-t-il été desservi par son passé colonial? Certains optimistes, et pas seulement du camp conservateur, réfutent les prémisses de cette question: les marxistes orthodoxes estiment que le régime colonial a introduit et établi le capitalisme en Afrique subsaharienne, et ainsi commencé à ­libérer le potentiel productif de la région. Les pessimistes se retrouvent, eux aussi, à gauche comme à droite: la théorie de la dépendance des années 1970 considère, comme certains institutionnalistes néolibéraux, que si le capitalisme des régimes coloniaux a bien permis de faciliter l’exploitation de la main-d’œuvre et des ressources naturelles africaines, il était totalement inapte à stimuler les investissements productifs à long terme.…  Seguir leyendo »

Indians commemorate an important official holiday on Thursday: Independence Day. Next month, the Chinese will commemorate an equally important but unofficial holiday, national humiliation day, followed on Oct. 1 by the country’s own official National Day of the People’s Republic of China.

Independence days are important events for any country. But for India and China, they hold a significance that the West would do well to understand. They remind us that these countries are not just future superpowers. They are powerful nations with traumatic pasts that define who they are and that play a vital role in how they perceive the world.…  Seguir leyendo »

'It's almost comical. The idea of maps is to represent reality; here it represents fantasy." So Professor Bruce Wexler of Yale University comments on how the vast majority of maps in Palestinian and Israeli schoolbooks omit the existence of the other entity. As a result, children on either side of the Green Line are growing up with "an internal representation of their homeland, in which one does not include the other".

But since when have maps been about objective representation of space? They are about the expression and fulfilment of power. From the age of Ptolemy, all those lofty claims to comprehensiveness have usually succumbed to the promotion of political agendas.…  Seguir leyendo »

A few weeks ago, I met a Briton who works in Nigeria for an international aid organisation. He was young, enthusiastic and knowledgeable about my country, a combination rare in these isles. We spoke of Nollywood and Third Mainland Bridge traffic, and finally of a project that had taken years to plan and research. Now it was under way, his organisation was working with the Nigerian federal and state governments, but remained reluctant to do so with grassroot cadres because of a fear of offending cultural sensibilities. In his view, meetings with local leaders were fraught with the danger of unknowingly offending cultural norms and thus scuppering this carefully planned project.…  Seguir leyendo »

En deux mois, trois pays anciennement colonisés ont marqué l'actualité internationale. La Tunisie, la Côte d'Ivoire et le Soudan. Même si les événements qui les ont mis sous les projecteurs sont différents, leur objectif est le même : dépasser l'Etat légué par la période coloniale.

Gouvernée d'une main de fer depuis son indépendance en 1957, la Tunisie connait les premières violences populaires en cinquante ans. La flambée des denrées alimentaires, symbolisée par un homme qui s'est immolé par le feu, avait probablement mis en relief l'abîme séparant la quiétude des gouvernants de la détresse des gouvernés. Mais elle n'en est que le prétexte.…  Seguir leyendo »

This year 17 African countries have been celebrating the 50th anniversary of independence – from the largest, such as Nigeria and the former Belgian (now Democratic Republic of) Congo, to the vulnerable, like Niger and Somalia.

But how deep was the impact of European colonialism? Was it exceptional in its repercussions? Or was the Eurocolonial century just a short chapter in millennia of African history?

Some African historians believe that, despite its relative brevity, the impact of colonialism on Africa has been of epic proportions, deep and wide-ranging. Others, though, argue that the imperial period was often little more than an episode, its impact unjustifiably exaggerated – one reason why European institutions transplanted to Africa have not taken root.…  Seguir leyendo »

The fine new exhibition at the British Museum, Moctezuma, is a reminder of one of our most fondly held stereotypes: the noble savage confronted by the cruel Spanish conquistador.

Neil Young put it succinctly in his song Cortez the Killer, in which Cortés is met by a New Age Moctezuma (also known as Montezuma) surrounded by beautiful subjects offering coca leaves and pearls: “Hate was just a legend and war was never known.” This was the paradise that the brutal Cortés supposedly destroyed.

The Spaniards did, of course, bring both guns and germs to the New World, with devastating effect.…  Seguir leyendo »

Fifty years ago the decolonisation of Africa began. The next half-century may see the continent recolonised. But the new imperialism will be less benign. Great powers aren't interested in administering wild places any more, still less in settling them: just raping them. Black gangster governments sponsored by self-interested Asian or Western powers could become the central story in 21st-century African history.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Take Zimbabwe. In the Western news media the clichés about Robert Mugabe's “despotism” roll, but this is a despotism crippled by monumental incompetence. The BBC's audience must have been bemused in recent weeks by John Simpson's reports from within a country where, as we are always being reminded, the BBC is banned.…  Seguir leyendo »

The recent explosion of indigenous protest in Latin America, culminating in the election this year of Evo Morales, an Aymara indian, as president of Bolivia, has highlighted the precarious position of the white-settler elite that has dominated the continent for so many centuries. Although the term "white settler" is familiar in the history of most European colonies, and comes with a pejorative ring, the whites in Latin America (as in the US) are not usually described in this way, and never use the expression themselves. No Spanish or Portuguese word exists that can adequately translate the English term.

Latin America is traditionally seen as a continent set apart from colonial projects elsewhere, the outcome of its long experience of settlement since the 16th century.…  Seguir leyendo »

Richard Gott is author of Cuba: A New History, and is writing a book about imperial resistance (THE GUARDIAN, 22/07/06):

Many of the present conflicts in the world take place in the former colonial territories that Britain abandoned, exhausted and impoverished, in the years after the second world war. This disastrous imperial legacy is still highly visible, and it is one of the reasons why the British empire continues to provoke such harsh debate. If Britain made such a success of its colonies, why are so many in an unholy mess half a century later, major sources of violence and unrest?…  Seguir leyendo »