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.
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.