European leaders have lined up to condemn Donald Trump’s “new colonialism” and warn that the continent was facing a crossroads as the US president said there was no going back on his goal of controlling Greenland.
After weeks of aggressive threats by Trump to seize the vast Arctic island, which is a largely autonomous part of Denmark, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said on Tuesday he preferred “respect to bullies” and the “rule of law to brutality”.
Macron told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that now was “not a time for new imperialism or new colonialism”, criticising the “useless aggressivity” of Trump’s pledge to levy tariffs on countries that opposed a US takeover of Greenland.
The US was seeking to “weaken and subordinate Europe” by demanding “maximum concessions” and imposing tariffs that were “fundamentally unacceptable – even more so when they are used as leverage against territorial sovereignty”, he said, wearing sunglasses because of an eye condition.
An anti-colonial Europe. Never thought we’d see the day. Guess it’s different when it’s your soverign territory that’s the potential colony.
Dont you know? We are playing the reverse game. Americans putting people in to concentration camp’s and things like that.
who is the monarch of england in your time, traveller?
don’t worry the king of russia is trying to go back to the bad old days in these times too
fare well time traveller!
If we’re being literal, Elizabeth and then Charles haha.
Jokes aside, the impacts of European colonialism did not end with world war 2 and the resultant imbalance is intentionally perpetuated through neocolonialism.
Edmund Burke famously described societies and the institutions that sustain them as a "partnership between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are yet to be born.”
In other words, institutions link the past, the present and the future, carrying forward both progress (industrial development, individual rights for some) but also the manifestations of exclusionary frameworks (slavery, segregation and colonialism).
If you’re interested in learning more I’d recommend the works of Nobel laureate in economics Daron Acemoglu and the field of post colonial studies.
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You’re 100% right, a big part of the left is stuck in 1917. They think Russia is a revolutionary force, Europe is a colonial world power, and the Jews are evil… it’s tiring as hell to be a lefty when this is the level of most online lefties.
Takes one to know one
You never thought? Europe ended colonization last century already pal, wake up.
Institutions carry the consequences of colonialism from the past into the present. It’s also important to recognize neocolonialism which acts to perpetuate the imbalances that the colonial era produced.
If you’re interested in learning more I’d recommend the works of Nobel laureate in economics Daron Acemoglu and the field of post colonial studies.
If you think colonization is a European exclusive you’re wasting your time with me. Europe is a shadow of its past. China is the new colonizing force.
I’m honestly fed up of that anti-European and simultaneously insanely eurocentric perspective. The struggle for power is nothing new nor racially exclusive. Democracy and rule of law are the relatively rare concepts, of which Europe has been among the best examples for the past decades.
This narrative of guilty peoples, special races is honestly sickening and much closer to the far right views than to the universal values we should seek.
Dead tired of that BS.
Never said anything about it being exclusive but the scale of modern European colonization is very clearly unprecendented in human history and its caused ongoing challenges in the Global South to the present day. Neocolonialism works to perpetuate the imbalances caused by colonialism. Democracy and rule of law in Europe have a global foundation. Highly recommend the book Dawn of Everything which dives deeper into how philosophies of the indigineous peoples in the Americas contributed to enlightenment thought. I’m not in support of a narrative of guilty peoples or special races. I have nothing against Europeans or their states, past or present. But we have to look at history honestly in order to move forward as a society. Brushing it under the rug, which has been the approach of many colonial powers (see Britain’s Operation Legacy), will bite back sooner or later.
European colonization of Africa failed and it’s over. Arab colonization succeed. History is written by winners, so people forget the Arabs were colonizers before the Europeans… funny ah?
Except for France and Russia, no European country has any relevant role in Africa these days. China has a huge one. China a “Global South” country, so a victim? Effectively colonizing islands left and right in the Asian seas…
I’m not denying history, but currently a bit more worried with the present. This obsession with XIX century colonization when there’s old style colonization happening right now, from Ukraine to Armenia, South Sudan, Philippines… and then new economical colonization all over Africa by China… .
Time to drop the eurocentrism, we’re not the center of the world anymore and since a long time.
I don’t disagree entirely but I also don’t see it as binary (one or the other).
The impact of European colonialism and neocolonialism have present day ramifications via colonial legacy institutions and the so called international ruled based order which was designed to maintain Western hegemony.
Western/European intervention in Africa did not end with the colonial era (see: neocolonialism)
Several great powers have emerged from the Global South. China is one example. There will be more. I don’t support imperial actions by any state actor.
We can criticize the ongoing impact of exploitation during European colonial era while also criticizing present day imperial actions by China, Russia and the US today.
Anti colonialism when it’s directed towards europe 🤣
Remember the time when Europe ended colonization? It was last century, probably before you were born.
If you think the anti-colonial project is anywhere near complete, I’m dumbfounded. Are you just… not even aware of the existence of the Global South?
Your position is indistinguishable from badly-executed farce. Maybe you should study a lot more history and social science and spend a little less time being a pretend leftist on the Internet.
Oh you’re one of those. Are you talking about the same Global South of which China is a supposed part of it? Get real pal… you need more history and above all more critical thinking, and ideally up to date to the times you’re living on.
PS: but I guess asking for critical thinking to someone with “commie” on the name is asking too much…
I’m not a Marxist communist, if that’s what you mean. I think if you ask just about any actually practicing leftists of basically any stripe whether the age of Western colonialism has actually ended, you will be laughed at.
But it’s clear that you are unlikely to understand what most of these terms mean, so I’ll stop tilting at windmills and move on with my life.
I never thought the Leopard would eat my face!