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Momodou
Denmark
11644 Posts |
 Posted - 17 Feb 2007 : 17:39:23
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FOCUS ON POLITICS
THE JUSTIFICATION FOR COLONIALISM
By Suwaibou Touray
The colonialists justified the actions in the annexed countries by propagating the lie that they have come to educate the uncivilized peoples around the world. This is why they created two systems of justice in the country. They created the socalled “native” courts in the provinces for the socalled uncivilized natives and created magistrates courts where the socalled civilized British settled. Since it was not their objective to truly educate the people, this was why they left the education sector to the missionaries to indoctrinate the people to become Christians. The effort of the missions to transform Gambians to become Christians was stifled by the intervention of the jihadists movements in the 1850s.
The truth of the matter however is that the real objective of the colonialist was economic and not egalitarian.
According to Kenneth Boulding, after 1870, the manufacturing and trading supremacy of Britain was greatly impaired; that other nations, especially Germany, the United States and Belgium, advanced with great rapidity, while they have not crushed or even stayed the increase of the British external trade and that their competition made it more and more difficult to dispose of the full surplus of British manufactures at a profit.
Boulding went on to assert that the encroachments made by these nations upon the old British markets, even in their own possessions, made it most urgent that they should take energetic means to secure new markets. So as you can see, the British were desperate for new markets.
And what are those new markets? The new markets, Boulding said, had to lie in hitherto undeveloped countries, chiefly in the tropics, where as he said, vast populations lived and who were capable of growing what he called economic needs which British manufacturers and merchants could supply.
Boulding went on to unequivocally assert that their rivals were seizing and annexing territories for similar purposes and when they had annexed them, they closed them to their trade.
And this is why he said, the diplomacy and the arms of Great Britain had to be utilized in order to compel the owners of the new markets, like the Gambian kings, to deal with them. He said what experience has shown is that the safest means of securing and developing such markets is by establishing “protectorates” or by annexation.
As far as the British were concerned, the use of force to secure new markets by annexing new territories is not only sound political policy but also necessary economic policy for advanced industrial countries like Britain.
So as you can see, the objective was to have markets for their growing manufactures and to have new outlets for the investment of their surplus capital. This whole enterprise depended on raw materials from foreign lands.
As Tapan Mukejee puts it “So long as England held a virtual monopoly of the world markets for certain important classes of manufacturing goods, colonialism would be un-necessary’.
Colonialism also means that a one way transfer of goods which creates a revenue economy created what is termed as a “threat” system. Tapan puts it as thus, “The threatener saying to the threatened,” “You give me things that I want or I will do things to you that you don’t want.” According to him, this scenario is akin to a system where the threatener, ie, the colonialist has the possibility of getting some kind of surplus of goods from the producer, ie, the colonized, and as he said, this can create a lot of stability.
So as it can be finally pointed out, since colonialism used coercion on its victims, it is certainly not to the benefit of both parties and as Boulding observed, with the development of science based productivity, it became possible to squeeze ten dollars out of a people by the use of British imperial power which is a form of tribute.
From the point of view of the British at the time, that however perilous colonial expansion may be, it is necessary to the continued existence and progress of the British nation. Therefore it was seen then that colonialism was a necessity and not a choice to them because as it was thought, if it was abandoned they would leave other countries to cut into their trade, and even impair their means of securing the food and raw materials they require to support their populations.
COULD GAMBIA GO ON LIKE THIS?
Even though the colonialists refused to promote education in The Gambia as well as disallow the few educated elites to participate in the running of the protectorate, this did not stop the spark of resistance in the Gambia.
The colonial government initially refused to invest in Education and according to a Gambian historian, Mr. Dawda Faal, education was left entirely in the hands of the Christian missionaries since 1821. It was only Sir G.C Denton, Governor of The Gambia in 1900, who encouraged government to accept responsibility for education. Even that, the government only gave grant in aid of 416 pounds to the missions and local schools.
The fact that, out of a Budget of almost £275,000 pounds in 1925, only £3460 pounds was allocated to private schools as grant in aid. It was only in 1940 when the colonial government took a more direct intervention in education for the people, and allocated 5,528 pounds which also included the salary of the newly created post of Director of Education. It purchased the abandoned egg project buildings and converted it into a teacher Training College in 1952. According to Faal, many Gambians who received higher education in The Gambia during that time went to the United Kingdom or Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone. The only school built by the colonialists was established in Janjangbureh (GeorgeTown or Maccarthy Island) and initially meant to educate the sons of their partners, the protectorate Chiefs who they believed would never have rebelled against them and would infact help to consolidate their grip on the country.
Despite the small number of educated elites in the country, by 1918, the struggle for National Emancipation began in The Gambia.
Continued: http://www.gambia.dk/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3138
Foroyaa Newspaper Burning Issue
Issue No. 019/2007, 16-18 February, 2007
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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