Make The European Left Anti-Colonialist Again

By Frederic Petit and TonThonFraisdEau

My point is that we are in the time of a new evolution, this time from neo-colonialism to post-colonialism which is the time when 1 / the Civic decolonization, though almost complete but not quite, will be completed, 2 / the political decolonization will be established as the post-colonial powers and their post-colonial colonies will be seating at the same table and on an equal foot, and 3 / the economic decolonization will take place by replacing the economic relationships of pillaging by cooperative ones. Finally, through this reading grid, we can see Eastern Europe as being in a post-colonial state around Germany as the post-colonial power, with the post-colonies seated at the same table by way of the European Union. It’s also why, the EU has no chance to disappear as, at worst, if the countries not linked to Germany leaves the EU, the EU will likely stay as it offers a structure for this post-colonialism format for Germany and its post-colonies, which are basically no colonies anymore but closely related countries, this time on an equal foot. It’s all Eastern Europe except … Ukraine ….The war in Ukraine is a fight between an “old” style Empire used to treat, one way or another, Eastern Europe as colonies, and the “new” style one, but this time in the post-colonial form. But there are (still) 2 neo-colonial powers in Europe : France and the UK, and they are not in the post-colonial stage and they very much oppose the move to it.
Finally and paradoxically, from an historical stand-point, the main point in need of explanation and understanding is how come this “old” style Empire of Russia is still around when all other ones have truly disappeared ?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9781329384972

Book preview

Make

The European Left

Anti-Colonialist Again

By Frederic Petit a.k.a. TonThonFraisdEau

©Frederic Petit - 2023 -

Isbn :

Preliminary

Usually, people who present their thesis, their findings, their ideas, write books where they expose them. Their books are an exposition exercise. Exposing your ideas is what you do after coming up and figuring them out. It’s a bit like theorems in math. There is first the discovery of the theorem, but this is never really shown. What we are shown is the proof of the theorems. Fermat’s series of theorems is quite an example : he wrote those theorems, claiming they were theorems, gave basically no clue how he came up with them and left their proofs to the posterity. Einstein was asked, rightly, by a journalist, how (the heck) did he come up with the Theory of Relativity, and his answer was : I did a lot of thinking, which basically describes the Eureka moment, nobody can really explain, but could have been documented had Einstein jotted down notes along the way.

When I started writing chapter 2, this process of figuring out the ideas was not complete. I had been thinking for some time about it but I did not reach any conclusions or ideas I could expose. I started to write anyway under a sense of urgency after I found out about Ulrich’s Beck moto on German Europe. I pushed forward my thinking while writing it. Therefore this chapter does not follow the expected exposition form. Actually, at some point, after considering my ideas on the topic as being mature, I started re-writing the chapter in a more exposition format. To be frank I got bored and decided it was way more exciting to leave it that way as a token to how I came up with those ideas.

Therefore chapter 2 may look a bit confusing or disorganized and you may wish a clearer exposition of the ideas. You will not get it, I may reserve this exercise for a conference or something. Here instead you will see me struggling with the ideas, trying to put things together, looking for what may invalidate my assumptions and provisional conclusions. Therefore bear with me.

But if you don’t want to and you insist on the exposition form, here is a short exposition of my ideas on the topic of colonialism today. Those ideas are from an historical stand-point, meaning from a  change perspective. Colonialism has a history, it is even history itself, meaning that things have changed, colonialism has changed forms and appearances.

Colonialism must be seen under 2 dimensions : the Imperial dimension (who colonizes) and the type of colonialism dimension (the how). In the imperial dimension we find 2 types of Empires : the old ones and the new ones, with the Industrial Revolution being the cut, a point that Timothy Snyder, in his recent lectures  on Ukraine, though very interesting, misses.  Old colonial empires were pre-Industrial Revolution ones, and they all disappeared except …for  the Russian one, despite the soviet period which actually didn’t root the old Empire out despite all the effort done for that. The New ones are the ones born or reborn with and for the Industrial Revolution. They are the ones still around, and having to face and deal with the forces they unleashed inside themselves, the forces of Freedom and Liberty. With the decolonization, the world went from colonialism to neo-colonialism only, as the decolonization was partial: almost complete for the civic aspect showing a common ground with the American Civil Rights movement, but definitely partial politically as the newly created states got controlled by the former colonial powers and definitely not achieved at all economically.

Hence this evolution from colonialism (the pure and brutal, hideous criminal form), to the neo-colonial form after the Independances, but with the new states treated as satellites and not on an equal footing by the neo-colonial powers. My point is that we are in the time of a new evolution, this time from neo-colonialism to post-colonialism which is the time when 1 / the Civic decolonisation, though almost complete but not quite, will be completed, 2 / the political decolonisation to be established as the post-colonial powers and their post-colonial states will be seating at the same table and on an equal foot, and 3 / the economic decolonisation will take place by replacing the economic relationships of pillaging by cooperative ones. Finally, through this reading grid, we can see Eastern Europe as being in a post-colonial state around Germany as the post-colonial power, with the post-colonies seated at the same table by way of the European Union. It’s also why, the EU has no chance to disappear as, at worst, if the countries not linked to Germany leaves the EU, the EU will likely stay as it offers a structure for this post-colonialism format for Germany and its post-colonies, which are basically no colonies anymore but closely related countries, this time on an equal foot. It’s all Eastern Europe except … Ukraine ….The war in Ukraine is therefore a fight between an old style Empire used to treat, one way or another, Eastern Europe as colonies, and the new style one,  but this time in the post-colonial form. But there are (still) 2 neo-colonial powers in Europe :  France