colonialism

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• 7/25/2021
  

  Explaining the Different Post-Colonial Trajectories of Ireland and Haiti

  by Alan J. Singer

  "The divergent paths of Haiti and Ireland are rooted in the history of 19th century European colonialism, European and American racism, and the very different alternatives offered to the people of the former colonies for the last two hundred plus years."

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• SOURCE: NPR
  6/28/2021
  

  The U.N. Rights Chief Says Reparations Are Needed For People Facing Racism

  The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called on nations to "stop denying and start dismantling" racism through means including, but not limited to, monetary compensation. 

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  6/29/2021
  

  Illusions of empire: Amartya Sen on what British rule really did for India

  by Amartya Sen

  The prize-winning international economist examines a tricky historical counterfactual: what would contemporary India be like had British colonialism never happened?

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  6/11/2021
  

  Racist Mural Puts Tate Galleries in a Bind

  Portions of a Rex Whistler mural in the Tate's restaurant contain racially offensive images. The work as a whole is protected by British heritage laws and can't be altered, putting the museum in a bind between preservation and cultural sensitivity. 

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  6/7/2021
  

  ‘Lady of Guadalupe’ Avoids Tough Truths About the Catholic Church and Indigenous Genocide

  by Rebecca Janzen

  "Although it portrays the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe for a broad audience, ultimately this film sanitizes the real-life brutality of the Church toward Indigenous peoples in the 16th century."

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/28/2021
  

  Germany Acknowledges Colonial Genocide in Namibia and Promises Development Projects

  "We will from now on officially call these events what they are from a contemporary perspective: a genocide.”

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• SOURCE: BBC
  5/31/2021
  

  Why Germany's Namibia Genocide Apology Isn't Enough

  The BBC editorializes that the German government's apologies for its genocidal repression in southwest Africa is more public relations than reparation. 

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• SOURCE: National Interest
  5/24/2021
  

  How Napoleon’s Legacy Explains the Middle East’s Conflicts

  by Yoav Tenembaum

  An international relations scholar argues that the Middle East can be explained through the division of "revolutionary" and "status quo" interests that dates to Napoleon's challenges to the European imperial order. How other nations respond to the conflict will follow whether they favor the status quo. 

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• 5/23/2021
  

  Jerusalem: A Divided and Invented City

  by James A.S. Sunderland

  Both Hamas and the Israeli right base their claims to Jerusalem on understandings of the city as shaped by the orientalist and segregationist values of British governors during the Mandate period, and not on the city's longer heterogenous and multicultural history. Peace activists look to that history as an example of coexistence. 

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• SOURCE: Public Books
  5/14/2021
  

  Imperialism: A Syllabus

  by Radhika Natarajan and John Munro

  Two historians present a public syllabus on imperialism that emphasizes the historical origins of contemporary struggles and the ways that ideas of difference are essential to the imperial work of control and exploitation. 

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• SOURCE: KPFA
  5/17/2021
  

  Rashid Khalidi on Palestinian History: From The Ottoman Empire to Settler Colonialism

  Middle East historian Rashid Khalidi speaks with Pacifica Radio's Politics and Letters on the history of Palestine.

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• SOURCE: WRAL
  5/17/2021
  

  Germany Nears Accord with Namibia on Colonial Killings

  Germany has hinted at its readiness to make compensation payments to Namibia in reparation for the genocidal attacks on the Herero and other peoples in 1904, considered one of the first modern genocides. 

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  5/7/2021
  

  Decolonising Museums isn’t Part of a ‘Culture War’. It’s about Keeping them Relevant

  by Dan Hicks

  "Britain’s museums sorely need such cultural revitalisation right now, and the question of human remains and artefacts offers a position from which to see debates around museums in a clearer light."

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• 5/9/2021
  

  India's COVID Crisis Has Roots in its Colonial-Era Tax Structure

  by Roderick Matthews

  India's COVID crisis is being exacerbated by a health system that uses an anemic 3.5% of GDP. Continuities from the era of the British Raj, when powerful rural landowners went untaxed, are a big part of the problem. 

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• SOURCE: The Baffler
  5/5/2021
  

  Except for the Miracles

  by Olúfémi Táíwò

  "The deciding aspect of politics over these next crucial years will turn on battles against overwhelmingly powerful foes who will try to prevent radical redistribution of resources," writes Olúfémi Táíwò. The legacy of two radicals, in Ireland and Kenya, show the value of partial victory and learning from defeat. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/30/2021
  

  Germany Sets Out Plans to Return Benin Bronzes

  “We are facing the historical and moral responsibility to bring Germany’s colonial past to light and to come to terms with it,” Monika Grütters, Germany’s culture minister, said in a news release.

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• SOURCE: New York Review of Books
  5/3/2021
  

  Ancient Egypt for the Egyptians

  New books and a documentary consider the entanglement of colonialism with the rise of academic Egyptology.

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• SOURCE: Contingent
  4/25/2021
  

  Colony of Cobblestone

  by Carlos Santiago

  San Juan's cobblestones are an illusion, aesthetic flourishes of "old world charm" intended to boost the tourism economy and conceal the island's status as a U.S. territory.

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• SOURCE: The Baffler
  4/21/2021
  

  The Fruit of Power

  Raoul Peck's documentary "Exterminate All The Brutes" considers not just the history of settler colonialism, but the epistemology of history in contexts where the powerful seek to shape knowledge. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/19/2021
  

  France Enabled 1994 Rwanda Genocide, Report Says

  A Rwandan government commission has concluded that the government of France supported the leaders of genocide in Rwanda to sustain its own influence. This goes a step beyond a recent French government report that identified French involvement in virulent ethnic politics but not in genocide.