HOW FAR APART ARE CRITICS AND DEFENDERS?
The recurring tendency of critics and defenders to talk past each other rather than directly to challenge the other’s assumptions and arguments suggests that their positions may not be as diametrically opposed as they imagine.
Each side’s emphasizing of certain aspects of the colonial situation while ignoring others implies an acknowledgment that its case is strongest on the issues stressed and weakest on those ignored. Likewise, when each side selects a comparative frame of reference that strengthens its position, it implicitly grants that alternative frames of reference might lead to other, unwelcome conclusions. For obvious tactical reasons the two sides prefer «otto employ the same assumptions and comparative frameworks. But if they had to do so their views might converge.Suppose both sides refrained from generalizing about colonialism as a single, unvarying phenomenon and focused on circumstances under which European rule was least (or most) justifiable. Critics and defenders might agree that each of the following conditions, if it obtained in a territory, would strengthen the case against colonial rule there. By extension, the case against foreign rule would be strongest if all these conditions obtained:
Prior to takeover there were no customs violating basic human rights.
Prior to takeover people governed themselves at the local level. If a larger political entity existed its elites were of the same race or culture as their subjects.
Had Europeans not intervened politically, the territory would have had a good chance of modernizing under indigenous leaders.
Policies of colonial rulers led to substantial loss of life among the indigenous population (massacres, planned starvation, deliberate introduction of fatal diseases, and so on).
Colonial policies deprived indigenous peoples of land and other resources necessary to sustain familiar ways of life.
Colonial rule was marked by high levels of forced labor, non-Europeans being compensated at rates well below those they would have received in a free labor market. Forced labor was legally reinforced by slavery.
Virtually all gains from economic activity accrued to Europeans.
Non-European per capita income and other quality-of-life indicators fell over time. The value of assets transferred from the metropole and invested in the colony was dwarfed by the value of assets transferred to the metropole.
Europeans did little to develop indigenous human resources over and above whatever maximized their economic gain.
Non-Europeans were systematically discriminated against in recruitment to high- paying positions in all sectors.
Rulers were contemptuous of the race, cultural practices, and historical accomplishments of peoples they ruled, leading many among the colonized to internalize an inferiority complex.
Rulers failed to introduce institutions permitting subjects to air grievances on a regular basis and in a peaceful manner. Opponents of official policies were harshly repressed.
Critics and defenders would probably agree that the case for colonialism would be strongest if these conditions were absent or the circumstances reversed. Thus people diverging in their overall evaluation of colonialism nonetheless share a substantial set of values.