Colonialism
What is Colonialism?
Colonialism is when a powerful country takes over a less powerful country and begins to rule in that country. Colonizing nations generally dominate the resources, labor, and markets of the colonial territory. At the beginning in the 16th century, Great Britain and Spain controlled and exploited many territories by colonizing them. There was a rush to dominate and conquer as much land as they possibly could and resources were uprooted, disrupting the lives of people throughout the world. Although this colonial era ended with large national liberation movements, almost four centuries of foreign control have been able to leave their mark on many developing countries.
The Flowchart below shows a brief history of colonialism.
What are the Advantages of Colonialism?
Countries that have been colonized usually were poor and very underdeveloped before the new powers take over their land. As a result, a colony can only benefit from the wealth and technology provided from their colonizer. Just from spending time around each other, the colonized and colonizers are able to learn a lot as they tend to have different religions, traditions, beliefs and cultural backgrounds.
Asides from the increase in wealth and resources due to colonialism. A benefit that came about due to colonialism was better health and education. Western school systems and healthcare was introduced by colonial powers. These are resources that made a positive effect on the lives of those who were colonized. Government schools started off by training people for low level civil service occupations, and in most colonies in Africa missionaries educated the massive amount of people in their colonies. The development of healthcare and medical facilities lowered infant mortality rate and promoted disease prevention through the use of different vaccines.
What are the Disadvantages of Colonialism?
Along with the advantages of Colonialism came disadvantages. The very first disadvantage was the fact that colonizers were interrupting the colony's way of life. When a power takes over an area, the native people living in the area are disrupted and their way of life is changed to a huge extent. With Colonialism there is an unfair balance of power between the colony and the colonizer. The colonizer consider themselves to be superior, and the people of the colony to be inferior or sometimes even worthless. There is a lack of respect towards the native inhabitants of the colony.
Traditions Lost
During the era of colonialism, many of the European colonizers had a paternalistic view of the native culture. They brought their colonies Christianity and civilization. But because they felt so superior they destroyed traditional beliefs and social values of these people. They imposed socio-cultural, religious and linguistic ways on the colonies. For example, former French colonies like the Ivory Coast and Cameroon speak French as their national language, instead of their native language. Those who converted to European ways of life acquired special military positions and other privileged tasks in the colonial government administration. Over time, colonizers often came to prefer certain ethnic groups in a colony over others. This reinforced or even exacerbated ancient ethnic tensions.
Political Strife
Another disadvantage of colonization is the potential conflict. In many countries, colonizing powers created centralized governments where they had not existed before. However, the colonizers have created political borders that served their own needs rather than the needs of the people who originally lived there. Many ethnic groups were forced to work against their will and at the same time, colonies found their territory divided by a political border. This fractured ties between the people of the colonies. This results in countries that are prone to civil wars that happened both during and after the era of colonialism.
Opinion-
In my opinion colonial powers that weren't all about extortion were able to make major developments for their colonies. For example, Nigeria, Ghana, The Ivory Coast are highly developed countries in the continent of Africa. But colonization where accumulating wealth is all about can be very terrible as the colonized country won't be able to produce anything for itself, which will help it even having a sustainable economy. Looking back at the era of colonialism, I would say that more harm has been done than good. Yes, colonialism brought certain technology to colonies and some sense of order but In agriculture-based colonies, plantation economy developed, and these plantation owners had strict control over the native people that worked there with poor working conditions. We see that the colonizers began to abuse their power and made progress for themselves rather than the whole colony and such progress came at the expense of harsh treatment on the colony.