European Imperialism: The Model Of Colonialism In South Africa

At a certain point in history, a number of European countries turned into the most influential in the world. Countries like Spain, France, Portugal, Netherlands, and England rose to power and each had only one thing at the forefront of their thoughts: superiority. In spite of the fact that they endeavored numerous things to heighten their dominance and power, they all depended on colonization. Today, European colonialism has influenced larger parts of the world. Colonization has not only given Europe fortune and supremacy, but it also reconfigured global power and racial relations. Hierarchy of social class was formed and then a division of whites and colored people/minorities happened. Whites were considered superior than colored people,
In his article, he firstly discussed state colonialism which was seen to oversee the “territory” also known as the “colonized land”. This established a trade alliance between the native chiefs of the land. However, it did not concern itself with the civilization and the focus of this was more on trade, pacification, and the exploration of the interior--which, in my opinion, was more like the Europeans’ exploitation of South Africa’s rich resources. In the model of settler colonialism, on the other hand, the Boers enslaved the blacks and treated them with brute and force. They justified these actions using “The Children of Ham”, a biblical parable which said that black people’s calling is eternal servitude that is why they think that it is okay to mistreat them believing that the blacks were meant to be laborers and inferior than the whites forever. Also, the beginning of the establishment of the hierarchy of social class started here--a division between the colonizer and the colonized. And lastly, Camaroff described the civilizing model as westernizing the indigenous Africans. The colonizers wanted to teach them the right way of life, which is for them, the European way of
Its effects can still be felt by the people in the world and colonialism greatly influenced our present configuration of power and racial relations. At this point in time, there are still evidences of white people being dominant. Cases of white supremacy and institutional racism are still evident. The whites are seen as superior because of the history of the oppression that they did. Some minorities are seen as inferior and are experiencing discrimination and injustice because of their race. Thus, it became visible that Colonialism made a break in the historical backdrop of the world that has brought different occasions and had left a scar in the history of mankind that cannot ever be