DB 3

The descendants of colonialism are better off than they would have been had colonialism never happened. I would like to illustrate this point through a personal example. While I was a young boy growing up in India, I noticed that my grandfather, who had lived under British colonialism, was instinctively and habitually anti-white. He wasn’t just against the English, he was generally against the white man. I realized that he had an anti-white animus that I did not share. This puzzled me: Why did he and I feel so differently?

Only years later, after a great deal of reflection and a fair amount of study, did the answer finally hit me. The reason for our difference of perception was that colonialism had been pretty bad for him, but pretty good for me. Another way to put it was that colonialism had injured those who lived under it, but paradoxically it proved beneficial to their descendants.  – Dinesh D’Souza
Class,

This week we are looking at theories of understanding how to build positive peace. To shift our examples, I would like to look at the success India has had in forging a strong post-colonial state that has led its citizens to more prosperity and improved living conditions for 1 billion people and contrast it with the ongoing struggles in central and southern Africa where nations have gone to cycles of war and violence. Some argue that colonialism drives this strife in Africa while others argue, pointing to India, that not enough colonialism occurred to develop the sorts of states that have succeeded in India. What do you think?