Interesting article but as usual on this topic it has one big omission. The societies in Africa before colonisation. To say that this doesn’t contribute to Africa’s current woes is absurd.

‘Why is it that they have to live in the land of their former conquerors?’
They do not. They can leave pronto!
‘It is not that a South Korean may not face racism here in Britain, but that, like Jewish people today, they always have the option of a wealthy well-developed ancestral homeland they can move to, if need really be.’
This was a fine article but the point above could have invited more by way of elaboration.
The Transatlantic Slave Trade is not ground-zero for European colonialism in Africa. Much may be learned by analysing the state of the continent before the white man’s arrival.
Western man is resented by many leftists and people of third world descent for having devised many of the things that ameliorate human life. The chippie and disgruntled types who blame whitey for everything are hurt by the reality that they do not want to shun the inventions and ways of life bequeathed to them by Europeans. Most people do not want to divest themselves of the imaginative creations of the white man. Many Africans moan about slavery although the European worked out the practice was wrong before they did. We are blamed for this ill but not commended for electricity and irrigation. Is this not a huge double standard?
There are no benefits enjoyed by Europeans contingent on the unfettered arrival of third world peoples.

The Heritage Site | Adam McDermont | Substack

This article made me think of a book I read recently, “The Last Gift” by Abdulrazak Gurnah. It’s all about the issue of people coming from different places all trying to rub along together as best they can and the historical and personal tensions that go with that. One of the key exchanges between a couple (he a white British male, she a British born daughter of an immigrant from Africa and orphan) about her difficult relationship with his father. While the father is somewhere on the scale between cack-handed in trying to show interest in her background and straight-up racist, she doesn’t make things any better by consistently retreating into and viewing everything from a deeply-ingrained sense of victimhood and a lack of self confidence.
In other words, everyone has work to do. Feelings of overweening superiority should be checked, but on the other hand, resenting others for their success and self confidence and continuing to blame others for your own ills is toxic to any kind of peaceful coexistence.

A very honest assessment. There are many now in academia making a fortune in blacksploitation.

Thankyou for a very thoughtful article.

Great article, thankyou. It’s chimes with the opinions of a fascinating Senegalese-American woman, Magatte Wade, whom I heard discussing this on Jordan Peterson and Lex Fridmans podcasts recently.

I found this on another forum. I will keep my counsel on whether this is the right thing to have said, but in the interests of showing another perspective, I am posting it here. I would be interested in hearing what people think of what’s been said here.

“One of the problems is that the British Empire is so totally founded on liberal moral principles, that everything ultimately gets reduced to “good” and “bad”. It’s also very difficult to be a conservative in the Third World, as traditions are associated with savagery. Human sacrifice. Sati. Slavery. Corruption. Despotism. Tribalism.
Look at things from the eyes of a member of the African and Asian elite- the 18th and 19th centuries (the most important centuries in history) consist of Brits coming over, giving you everything you need to run a modern state, and you have nothing to offer in return except loyalty and bodies for the army. Whether willing or not, you basically amount to a servant. (Being willing makes it worse- you were happy to be in low army positions without any advancement to higher responsibilities.)

Now other empires might make you a servant, but their moral level might be closer to your own- they might be savage too! Thus any revolt against it would elicit the same non-committal shrug as when you were taken over by them. You are “allowed” to revolt. There is nothing inherently wrong with striving for a higher social position.
Against the British though? If you disagree on anything, you are wrong. Conservativism- the natural state of being for every human on the planet- must always give way to a strident and no-nonsense nannying liberalism. Any rebellion is evil. You must accept liberal imperial welfare. You must become left-wing and unnatural (and be happy about that). (And Liberals generally as “admiring” of the civilisation they change, so you can’t even rail against their bigotry towards your traditions. They only want to help you!)

The great problem is that you have nothing to offer the British. You have nothing of a serious nature that is “better” than British culture. Unlike the French and Germans who could resist Britain without being evil (WW2 excepted), and even in (deserved) defeat had something unique to offer us (efficiency, 17th century constitutional theory, government reforms, etc), you don’t really have anything. Anything “good” about your culture is harmless, but otherwise could be completely replaced by British culture without any fuss. How many widows did Divali liberate from sati? Did Eid free any slaves? If you got rid of those rituals tomorrow, there would be nothing wrong with the world. Would anyone lose their liberty from the loss of those rituals? How many Brits -the free-est people in the world- celebrate them? Not many. We don’t need them, and what we don’t need, others don’t need.

Third World Civilization can therefore be divided into two states- evil, or inoffensive, unimportant, and inconsequential.
BLM is completely correct- there are cultures that are unworthy of existence- it’s just that they’ve got the wrong target.

Now, as conservatives (small-c), all you people here understand the horror of seeing British culture destroyed by liberals. You also know the problem of British sovereignty being trampled on by Europeans.

Perhaps most importantly, you know how this extend back through time. We have never liked being threatened by others, and sovereignty was always an important concept in Europe. Any infringement of such a concept here was always something to rail at.

It’s not just that colonialism was of its time, it’s that it was not of its time in the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe (even the Austro-Hungarian Empire was falling apart then, and the German empire was more of a proto-nation). Thus the Third World had to experience an outdated concept used as a vehicle for liberalism, have nothing to offer, and have to be happy about every change to their civilisation that Europeans would oppose at the first outset if it happened to them.

All of this, in the full knowledge that it was a good thing to do.

No wonder some of them are round the bend. They need to adopt the same measures towards themselves that the BBC adopts under the urgings of BLM- the very “mind-sickness” that Douglas Murray disparages about our elites. Can you blame third world elites if they have the occasional conservative moment, trying vainly (and immorally) to defend a pointless civilisation?”

I am unsure about what was said here, and am interested in comments on it.

Well, it was refreshing that someone was prepared to make Africa primarily responsible for its current problems and recognise that colonialism wasn’t an unmitigated wrong. However I was amazed, but not surprised, that there are ethnic minorities in this country, from former colonies, who feel pyschologically upset about their countries failures and feel the need to blame Britain in order to cope – and at the same time confirm the self hating prejudices (and tacit supremacism) of the dim Guardianistas . Couldn’t Remi Adekoya have stated the obvious. Return to Africa, or wherever, and make a success of your country and your people so that you have something to be proud of. After all what was colonial independence, often struggled for, actually about? To come to the UK as a British citizen and continue the dependence and then feel upset? Don’t people see that immigration has been a scam, draining poor countries of talent and badly destabilising rich countries like Britain. On the last point, if immigration is turning England into Multiracialland, and Eric Kaufman says so, then isn’t that a reverse racism – stealing a country’s identity and national community – even if enabled by our useless political class?

Very nice article. Victimhood can be such a comfortable hiding place; it absolves one of so much personal responsibility.

“It cannot be otherwise in a country where the descendants of those who were colonised live alongside the descendants of those who did the colonising”

We’d all do well to remember our common histories, ie: in all countries, the descendants of those who were oppressed & exploited live alongside the descendants of those who did the oppressing.

Similarly – “it actually forced together thousands of formerly disparate communities, city-states, empires and autonomous groups into 54 Western-style nation states” is the same process that every country – West/East, rich or poor has been through – families become villages, become tribes, towns, counties, nations, trading blocks, and each stage some blood is spilled because….people, the human minds, are inherently zenophobic. It is over-arching common stories (‘we are Hutu…Venetians, Christians’) that counter this, and bind us together.

Science and technology are independent of national and cultural borders. It took Europe 5,000 years to move from the Bronze Age to the Modern World – which it invented. It is surely not surprising that African cultures have failed to smoothly make this transition in just a few generations since sustained contact with Europe.
No warrior would refuse steel weapons or firearms; but of course these exacerbated traditional tribal warfare, and organised European – white – armies eventually overwhelmed all local – black – resistance; but for technical not racial reasons. No parent can bear the death of their child; but the introduction of modern medicine has resulted in a population explosion far beyond the capacity of African nations to satisfy their people with an acceptable modern standard of living.
Populations are hungry for the benefits of technology, but all cultures find it difficult to accommodate them as traditional ways of life are eliminated and new wealth accrues unequally and without particular regard to local concepts of social justice. Perhaps the formerly impoverished deserts of Arabia, now enjoying the wealth of Croesus, will revert to sand when nuclear fusion is mastered. Perhaps eventually Africa will develop political and economic cultures to satisfy their peoples such that their ambitious young will no longer yearn to emigrate. Perhaps. It’s in African hands.

I can’t help but think the truth of the matter is this: the British wound up in control of other peoples because of trade entanglements – and discovered that they really liked them.

If you read colonial-era writings like Kipling and Churchill, the British writers all found something to admire about the local people – even if they were at war with them. Consider the respect given to Gurkha probity, and Sudanese courage.

At the same time, there is a visceral anger at the enemies of the colonised people – Churchill’s contempt for Arab slaver traders in Sudan stands out. It was this sense that led the Crown to claim authority over India when it became clear that the East India Company’s profits were so high as to indicate that they were taking too much from India.

Part -even if only part – of the undercurrent here is that same sense the British had in colonial days. They *like* the people they colonized, and they feel a sense of zeal in defending them. Where those people were exploited or abused, both ordinary people and elites want to seek justice for them – a normal reaction to a friend’s hardship.

The elites who gain power by exploiting myths about colonialism are, of course trading on this. They exploit the image of those who were oppressed in order to gain power and privilege for themselves. But the strategy depends on more than just guilt – the British have always found something to admire in the “conquered” cultures, even if the conquered don’t admire themselves.

Very balanced article, thanks.

The article was going well and was reasonably balanced (with one glaring omission) until the last paragraph: which in fact negates much of the article’s earlier assertions! Colonialism WAS at the very least, A root cause of Africa’s current problems.
The glaring omission is that current corrupt African leaders, if not actually installed (via dark ops) by former Colonial powers are certainly supported by them. The main support seems to be in the form of sophisticated and extremely expensive weapons supplied to all sides in the many conflicts there. And is it not also true that many of those conflicts are formented by the dark ops of their former masters?
Indeed is it not true that their former masters are STILL their de facto rulers with corrupt leaders merely doing their bidding and do those puppet masters not ALLOW those same corrupt thieves to loot their own countries. I guess you have to allow the latter to achieve the former?
Imagine how well African countries would be doing if people like Patrice Lamumba hadn’t been ‘removed’ in favour of a corrupt puppet? And doubly so if African resources were spent on national needs instead of extremely costly Western arms?
It is of course far easier to deal with corrupt leaders than genuine patriotic leaders unwilling to dance to the white master’s rule. A quick glance at which countries are supported will show that instantly.
Colonialism is clearly the root cause of Africa’s problems and de facto current “colonislism” is the current cause as well. The article is a well disguised whitewash in every sense of that word.