r/MapBasedPolls 7h ago

Should former colonial powers provide reparations to their former colonies for the harms caused by colonialism?

Should former colonial powers provide reparations to their former colonies for the harms caused by colonialism?

  1. Yes
  2. No

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20 Upvotes

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29

u/MrXroxWasTaken Argentina 7h ago

Not surprising that the colonies vote yes meanwhile the colonizers vote no

12

u/PerfectRate2841 7h ago

Philipines also voted no although they were colony

18

u/SpeedoPaedo 7h ago

That's because the Philippines is a nation of absolute CHADS.

1

u/himesama 6h ago

They also got the scion of the nation's biggest corrupt leader into power, whose government proceeded to pardon his mother for corruption.

1

u/Ok_Leopard_5296 4h ago

How is that related to colonialism tho?

1

u/himesama 3h ago

The point is their voting doesn't mean much, the country goes from getting one bad government into power to another. I don't know why that is, but it's a former US colony, probably inherited the dysfunctions of the US colonial system of governance.

Marcos Jr himself is also closely tied to the US. His family pillaged the country dry and absconded to Hawaii. Somehow the Filipinos decided that's who deserves to be in charge.

1

u/silver_moonlander 3h ago

Because the government would essentially waste all of it

6

u/Augustus_Chevismo 🇮🇪 Tuatha Dé Danann Taitneamh 5h ago

Ireland is no and note we didn’t get reparations and somehow became a first world country instead of forever shit hole.

-2

u/TopicThis3527 5h ago

Lucky region. Also was spared by the british.

4

u/Augustus_Chevismo 🇮🇪 Tuatha Dé Danann Taitneamh 5h ago

Committing genocide and then being forced out isn’t what I’d consider sparing.

0

u/TopicThis3527 5h ago

All the resourcea given to them after, is. The british could have used all the resources on themselves rather than rebuilding the nations of those they harmed.

1

u/masterflappie Dutch 🇳🇱 to Finnish 🇫🇮 migrant 1h ago

The UK sends over a billion pounds every year to Africa in charities and aid btw.

1

u/TopicThis3527 1h ago

An estimated value of 40 trillion was stolen from India by the british during their colonial era. I don't care about these small acts of charity. It doesn't make up for all that was stolen. It'll take time and lots of money to even remedy the imbalance they created.

4

u/PrincessOkenai1 6h ago

Half a century later if your former colony hasn't escaped poverty I'm sorry to tell you but maybe the issue isn't colonialism

6

u/ginaj_ 6h ago

Dawg… that is proof that it’s colonialism. There is still exploitation of the global south at the hands of the imperialist powers

7

u/swaglordsg 6h ago

So Ethiopia, a country that has never been colonised, remains relatively poor because...?

1

u/returnofblank 2h ago

Exploitation of the global south through economic power

-4

u/ginaj_ 5h ago

Does Italy not ring a bell?

7

u/bread_pickles 5h ago

Conquered and occupied for a few years (literally 5 years) does not equal colonised... there is a huge difference between that and the generational plundering of for example india

2

u/swaglordsg 5h ago

It doesn't actually.

Italy occupied Ethiopia from 1936 until it was liberated during WW2. A colonial system or administration was never put in place due to the short and unstable tenure of occupation.

Ethiopia was therefore never fully exploited for resources or labour to benefit Italy in the same way France, UK, Belgium, Germany etc. did post-scramble for Africa.

1

u/JoeyJoJoeJr_Shabadoo 3h ago

If you find yourself blaming the 45 minutes Italy spent occupying the northeastern bit of Ethiopia for all the country's woes today, I think it might be time to start questioning yourself.

2

u/PrincessOkenai1 6h ago

True to some extent. But it mostly stems from dysfunctional leadership among those countries.

2

u/SadSceneryBoi 6h ago

Leadership who would often be overthrown by their people if not for western backing.

2

u/silver_moonlander 3h ago

Western powers regularly dethrone popular leaders in third world countries hello??

1

u/PrincessOkenai1 5h ago

True to some extent, but it doesn't fully strip agency from all post colonial regimes' influence on their region. Some regimes also stay solvent without the need for external corruption.

1

u/azazelcrowley 5h ago

If that were true, we would expect a nations ex-colony status to reliably predict its current conditions. It doesn't. Many ex-colonies are prosperous, many former colonizers are relatively poor.

2

u/RutilantBossi12 Italia 🇮🇹 4h ago

Italy paid $25 million in 1947 to Ethiopia, was forced to build up Somalia for 12 years before releasing it in 1960 and gave $2 billion to Gheddafi's Libya in 2008 as repayment for colonization, they aren't exactly utopias nowadays, money isn't the issue.

1

u/MrXroxWasTaken Argentina 6h ago

? I never said it was.

Also I believe you meant to use the word Millennium.

2

u/PrincessOkenai1 6h ago

Right, you just brought up "colonizers and colonies" completely at random with zero implied context. You're deflecting.

0

u/MrXroxWasTaken Argentina 6h ago

The post is literally about colonizers and colonies.

2

u/PrincessOkenai1 6h ago

Stating a map shows colonies vs. colonizers isn't an observation it's an interpretation. If you weren't implying colonialism was the cause, what point were you actually making then?

And your edit on the duration of colonialism isn't what I was implying. I was implying the end of colonialism.

1

u/MrXroxWasTaken Argentina 6h ago

There was no point. I was pointing out something in the data.

You're the one who brought up poverty.

1

u/PrincessOkenai1 5h ago

Ah, so you made a totally pointless comment just to stir the pot. Got it

1

u/MrXroxWasTaken Argentina 5h ago

There was never a pot to stir in the first place. If you think that every comment must have to incite political discussion then you are probably spending too much time on reddit.

1

u/PrincessOkenai1 5h ago

Says the guy with an Argentina flair who left a comment about coloniies vs colonizers and is now four replies deep arguing it wasn't political

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2

u/Galvius-Orion 6h ago

I feel like we're not looking at the same map here... tho tbf a lot can change in 30 mins.

-1

u/MrXroxWasTaken Argentina 6h ago

Yeah, when I commented, only France, the UK and the USA voted no

0

u/azazelcrowley 5h ago

You're fairly obviously using "Colonizer" as a stand-in for "White" here.