Tag Archives: colonialism

COMMENT | Gertrude Kamya Othieno | Following my article “How Europe Launched a World Rampage from 1492”, I today explore the hidden agendas behind colonialism and imperialism, and the symbolism that supported their expansion. For too long, the British Empire’s “civilising missions” have been glorified, masking the subjugation and control driving …

Where colonialism of old was about seizing territory, techno-colonialism controls our daily lives COMMENT | HERMANN HAUSER & HAZEM DANNY NAKIB | In 1853, under orders from President Millard Fillmore, U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew Perry led four warships on a mission to persuade Japan to end its 200-year-old isolationist policy. When …

Author Guillaume Blanc debunks a colonial myth According to Guillaume Blanc, author of The Invention of Green Colonialism, one of these pitfalls is the idea of an “African Eden” that casts an entire continent as the site of pristine wilderness instead of a region populated and shaped by humans for …

  Kampala, Uganda | PROSSY NANSUBUGA | Over 52,000 Ugandans have petitioned government to rename streets in Kampala and other landmarks in the country that were named by colonialists. In a document addressed to President Yoweri Museveni and Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga yesterday, the petitioners said that the continued display …

Geneva, Switzerland | AFP | The UN’s human rights chief urged countries Wednesday to confront the legacy of slavery and colonialism and to make amends for “centuries of violence and discrimination” through reparations. Addressing an urgent debate on racism and police brutality at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Michelle Bachelet called on countries …

Amritsar, India | AFP | The Amritsar massacre, 100 years ago this Saturday in which British troops opened fire on thousands of unarmed protestors, remains one of the darkest hours of British colonial rule in India. Known in India as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, it is still an emotive subject …

  Berlin, Germany | AFP |  Germany has agreed to speed up the return of human remains and artwork from former African colonies where the country carried out brutal massacres and pillaged indigenous heritage. The German culture and foreign ministries as well as regional and local cultural authorities signed a …

How European claims to promote `civilisation’ in Africa remain the supreme aim of all our governments THE LAST WORD |  Andrew Mwenda | One of the most successful ideological projects in contemporary history has been European colonialism, or what Marxists used to call imperialism. Vladimir Lenin called imperialism the highest …

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT |  The Aga Khan has been decorated with the “Most Excellent Order of the Pearl of Africa” medal by President Yoweri Museveni at Uganda’s 55th Independence Day anniversary celebrations on Monday. At the celebrations held in Bushenyi in South Western Uganda, The Aga Khan, the 49th hereditary …

Why the competition for power is always a quarrel over delusions rather than a contest over public policy I argued in this column last week that governments in poor countries cannot govern by delivering a large basket of public goods and services associated with a modern state because they don’t …