Categories
Uncategorized

Colonialism

I had been searching for the documentary “King Leopold’s Ghost” for a while, and finally found it.  I’m about halfway through, and heading out for a bit.

Here is a thought you likely haven’t seen: whatever the depredations inflicted on the Congolese–and for that matter, all the nations the West colonized in the 19th and 20th centuries–they pale in comparison to the injuries and mass death and suffering Europe inflicted on itself in the two World Wars.

There is, and always has been, plenty of misery to go around.  Why should we not focus on improving the human condition everywhere, rather than exacting revenge for crimes which either never happened (differential economic success in a free market), or which were not perpetrated by anyone living?