Colonialism and its years!
I fully understand that people may differ in their opinions, but I cannot comprehend at all how anyone could dispute facts and self-evident truths as clear as the sun at noon. I also understand that nations and peoples, such as the United States, South Korea, Japan, and Singapore, claim that their conditions in the post-colonial era were better than during the colonial period, citing financial facts and irrefutable figures as evidence.
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As for the conditions in most of our Arab countries, the irrefutable facts show that the colonial era was far superior to what followed it. This does not imply a desire to restore colonialism, which was imposed on our countries against our will, without any need for the “night of fighting colonialism” that delivered to us all the genocidal tyrants. The colonial era unified many of our Arab countries and even added millions of square kilometers of territory that we later failed to preserve. It also introduced modern government administration, schools, universities, roads, railways, and discovered oil, antiquities, and markets. Consequently, some of our countries became targets and dreams for Europeans and other nations to work and live in, after colonialism had politically, economically, and socially uplifted those countries. Anyone who denies this needs to remove the veil of odious partisanship and ignorance of history from their sight and insight.
It is well known that colonialism ended in its theoretical form with the establishment of the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization in 1961, to which Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union acceded. The Soviet Union, the largest colonizer in history, hypocritically claimed to fight colonialism, a claim that was part of the falsehood propagated by the Arab Left and Nasserists.
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The British Labour Party, led by Clement Attlee, won the British elections in the summer of 1945, defeating Sir Winston Churchill, Britain’s hero of World War II. This marked the end of the British colonial era, and India, the jewel of the British Crown, was granted independence without war or violence. There was no longer a need to colonize four Arab countries—Iraq, Palestine, Egypt, and South Yemen—where British military presence had been maintained to protect the route to India. Several factors contributed to the end of the colonial era: massive demographic increases in the colonies led to reverse migration from the colonies to Britain, and London’s financial expenditures on the colonies, rather than the other way around, became unsustainable. The vast expansion of the colonies nearly caused Britain to lose both World Wars I and II, had it not been for the entry of the United States into the wars. Furthermore, the colonized peoples began to defend Britain, rather than the reverse, which is morally and ethically unacceptable. Economically, data on the standard of living in Britain in 1947, 1977, and 2007 show a significant rise across all indicators after the departure of the colonies, compared to the pre-departure period. Meanwhile, the colonies experienced a sharp decline in living standards after independence, suggesting that Britain was subsidizing its colonies, not the other way around.
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Final point: 1. One might accept ambiguity and disagreement if not for the fact that even a kindergarten child and a university professor can see with the naked eye the state to which many Arab countries have declined after the departure of colonialism. For example, we lost South Sudan, an area of 650,000 square kilometers, rich in oil, water, and minerals, whose area exceeds all the Arab territories lost from Andalusia to Palestine. Ironically, the ideologues who wept over Hamas’s destructive adventure in Gaza, which covers only 350 square kilometers, did not mention that Hamas’s branch in Sudan, led by al-Bashir, squandered through its wars, military campaigns, and acceptance of a referendum, a territory over two thousand times larger than Gaza. The South could have been retained if a Southerner had been nominated for the presidency of Sudan before the referendum, thereby reassuring Southerners, rather than nominating al-Bashir. Leaders of the South whom we met in Khartoum asked us: How could Southerners vote to remain united under a regime from which they have seen only war, killing, and racial and religious genocide?
2. The situation in Sudan is no different from that of many of our Arab countries in the post-colonial era. Unified Libya has become Tripoli Libya and Benghazi Libya; Yemen has become Sana’a Yemen and Aden Yemen; Iraq has become Baghdad Iraq and Erbil Iraq; Syria has become Damascus Syria and As-Suwayda Syria; Palestine has become the West Bank Palestine and Gaza Palestine; Sudan has become Khartoum Sudan and Darfur Sudan; Lebanon has become Beirut Lebanon and Southern Lebanon. The rest are coming, as long as we believe the lies and historical forgeries that claim our conditions under the oppressive, destructive leaders they promoted are better than our countries’ conditions during the colonial era. These leaders engage in retrogressive warfare, wait for enemies to attack them from the west without shame in acknowledging their limited capabilities and capacities. Anyone who believes this blatant lie should examine their mind or their pocket!
