[kdheiwns]

Gibraltar has been part of the UK for over 300 years and the people are all UK citizens. Forcing those people out or seizing the land from them would be the definition of colonialism, yes. And exclaves exist all around the world. Geography has never really meant anything in national terms. Spain has a piece of land on Africa and I don't think they plan on giving that up.

[Buxato]

There is one main difference, that makes UN recognizes Gibraltar as a colony and not Ceuta and Melilla: days before Gibraltar was conquered 100% of the people that lived there was moved out. This is why Gibraltar is a colony and Ceuta and Melilla not. So I don't have clear opinion if people in Gibraltar should have auto-determination or not.

[Pragmata]

>Gibraltar has been part of the UK for over 300 years and the people are all UK citizens.

Is this your standard for whether or not something is colonialism? Do you apply it consistently throughout, even when its inconvenient for you?

[inglor_cz]

"Colonialism" is a weird Western guilt fetish that some others successfully milk.

After 10 generations, the people are every bit as local as the previous population was. 300 years is such an abyss of time that most of us would fail to name a single of our ancestors by name.

Kladsko was a Czech city from approx. 1000 to 1742. The old town still looks a bit like very small Prague [0]. Was lost in a war (to the Prussians no less), it is gone, not our anymore. Tough luck. Others live there now, it is theirs.

[0] https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kladsko_(město)#/media/Soubor:...

[AlecSchueler]

> "Colonialism" is a weird Western guilt fetish that some others successfully milk

Colonialism is the historical basis of almost all of global society today. It's not at all weird to be concerned with it when it still drives so much of the relative power dynamics between states and between people(s) today.

The example you're giving of Czechia and Prussia simply isn't an example of a colonial action.

[inglor_cz]

That requires buying into the very concept that "colonialism" is a specific sin different (and worse) from ye olde "I am stronger than you and will occupy your territory and take your wealth". I have even met people who claim that Russian expansion into Siberia was not colonialism, because it wasn't done using ships.

I don't really buy it. It feels to me as unnatural as if somebody decided that theft of, say, a smartphone, was a separate and much graver offence than theft of anything else.

It only makes sense to me if there is an underlying ideology, or maybe very practical demands for reparations which shouldn't be hindered by other demands for reparations, and thus the others need to be downgraded pre-emptively.

It may also come handy for distraction from domestic governance failures, such as bad security situation, rolling blackouts, subpar maintenance of infrastructure and endemic corruption. "Hey, don't look into this, you know how bad the colonialists were?"

(Fairly similar to the way the contemporary Russian propaganda tries to pin the failure of their current war of aggression on anyone and anything but their own stupid decision to go all in.)

[AlecSchueler]

> That requires buying into the very concept that "colonialism" is a specific sin different (and worse) from ye olde "I am stronger than you and will occupy your territory and take your wealth".

It does, yes, and completely reasonably so. That's why it has a different name.

> .. as if somebody decided that theft of, say, a smartphone, was a separate and much graver offence...

Yes, it is like that indeed and I'm sure you'll recognise the difference between intellectual property theft and the theft of a car, or the difference between stealing food from a supermarket and stealing food from a beggar.

> I don't really buy it

> It only makes sense to me if there is an underlying ideology

Ok? Maybe read some more about it. Right now it feels like you're the one pushing an ideology without really making an argument for it.

> It may also come handy for distraction from domestic governance failures

Yes, it might. Governments have a host of ways to distract the public from issues. That doesn't change the reality of the history of, or contemporary effects of, colonialism.

> ... similar to the way the contemporary Russian propaganda ...

Boogeyman argument and an emotional appeal.

[inglor_cz]

I have read quite a lot about it and my conclusion is what I wrote above. A mostly ideological distinction without real difference - even less difference than your examples of theft (intellectual property aside - that is not theft by any definition, but infringement).

People have always tried to conquer other territories, make use of them and settle them. To make an artificial slice out of this continuous and omnipresent phenomenon and call it by another name is incoherent, but then ideologies are mostly incoherent, and colonialism as a very specific sin was a very good and efficient argument in Cold War propaganda and its struggle for influence in the Third World.

Soviets excelled in propaganda, and many of their ideas (like AIDS being an artificial disease, unilateral nuclear disarmament, or the fake contrast between colonialism and membership in the Socialist Bloc) survived the fall of the country.

That said, a very similar line was already pushed by the Japanese in order to paint their own brutal empire as some kind of Pan-Asian utopia. But their trace in global discourse is negligible to the Soviet one, which was much more sophisticated and long-lasting.

[BobaFloutist]

Do you consider the historic Arabic expansion across the middle east to be colonial, or is colonialism when boats?

[AlecSchueler]

I'm not sure what you mean by "when boats" exactly it why you used that phrasing, but it seems like an attempt at pre-emptively mocking a strawman, framing it as childish. That's not very nice rhetoric, is it?

These terms are well defined and it would serve you well to simply consult a dictionary.

But in short colonialism implies the use of colonies (surprise surprise) meaning the use of settlers to control or displace populations. There from comes the name

It also differs from other forms of expansionism in a few important ways.

- The power class structure is built on trade imbalances which move resources from the colonised land to the metropole without building up local economies.

- There's no absorption, the territories tend to remain separate and the colonised people can't become citizens or equals with those colonising them.

- And it's understood when speaking about things like the "colonial era" or "historical colonialism" that there was a deal of racial justification and stratification along racial lines.

You'll quickly be able to compare this list to whatever historical event you like.

[DemocracyFTW2]

You can mock the grammar of "only colonialism when boats", but AFAIK when the Soviet Union accused some Western power of engaging in colonialism and got "well, you have your Central Asian dependencies" as an answer, they were quick to refine their definition of "colonialism" to include a "transmaritime" checkbox. So, yeah. FWIW there have been those who accused modern nation states of practicing "internal colonialism" in the sense that oftentimes all the money, support and political representation goes overwhelmingly to some select places while the rest of the country is treated as a convenient reservoir of cheap labor.

[kdheiwns]

My definition of colonialism generally involves people being subjugated and being treated as less and involuntarily part of an empire. People in Gibraltar are British citizens with full rights by definition.

Land borders that one doesn't like doesn't equate to colonialism. It's just a land border that you don't like. The people of Gibraltar voted almost 100% to be British on more than one occasion. Trying to make them not British is the definition of colonialism

[Pragmata]

Would you hold that standard towards Angola in 1973?

The vast majority of its inhabitants were portuguese citizens with the exact same rights and duties as any other portuguese citizen in Lisbon. The majority of that territory (and certainly the parts with most of the population) was portuguese for 500+ years.

[maccard]

Each of these countries, enclaves, territories, settlements, borders have massive amounts of history that shape why they are the way they are, and attempting to say "this rule should apply equally to all of them" shows a huge misunderstanding of why they are unique.

[halJordan]

I mean, do you think the east prussia should be returned to Germany? Should West Virginia be retrieved to Virginia?

[AlecSchueler]

Those cases didn't involve colonisation. Though Virginia certainly did if you go back a little further.

[general1465]

Kaliningrad has been colonized properly by Russians, right after removing indigenous population.

[unkeen]

I was not talking about any of the points you mention, I was refering to the geographical facts alone. Wouldn't you agree that in general it is kind of silly to claim ownership of a piece of land that is far, far away from your own country?

[kdheiwns]

I was born in a country that has islands and I live in a different country that consists exclusively of islands. The islands spread out thousands of miles in various directions. Land being far apart is just a reality of how countries work.

The distance from London to Gibraltar is closer than the distance from London to Bermuda, but nobody finds that weird. France has French Polynesia on the opposite side of the world. Russia has Kaliningrad. Norway has Svalbard. South Africa has another country, Lesotho, right in the middle of it. India wraps around Bangladesh like a tentacle. Azerbaijan has a random piece of land and makes a sandwich out of Armenia. Spain has islands directly west of Morocco. France has land on South America.

The whole world has freaky borders. The only clean borders are places like Wyoming and Colorado.

[rmunn]

I would add natural navigation barriers such as rivers and lakes (and some, but not all, mountain ranges) to the list of "clean" borders. They're not straight lines, but they're a natural place to site a border.

[rmunn]

There are many, MANY islands scattered around Earth's oceans. Not all of them have the resources to be self-sufficient, so any inhabitants have to import goods from somewhere. There are two options: either each island is its own country, or some islands belong to some other country. Given how easy it is to navigate to most islands (some of them are in harder-to-navigate straits), it doesn't make much practical difference whether the owning country is close or far away.

So no, as a general rule I can't agree. I can certainly agree that there are some rather silly cases, but it's just not practical for all islands to be self-governing, so I can't agree with the general rule you propose.

[unkeen]

That may all be true, but you’re talking about voluntary affiliations here.

Colonies are rarely ceded voluntarily, but are usually the result of an invasion or a lost conflict. The fact that this is no longer the case with Gibraltar today, because its inhabitants value the benefits of belonging to Britain, is simply a consequence of the time that has passed since then. It does not automatically undo the imperialist actions of the past.