The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

1972 WE AND THE THIRD WORLD 87Jar fashion, the reason may bethat living standards in parts ofNigeria are higher than they arein Italy's deep south, in the Mezzogiorno.IIDeco/onization a Boon llThirdly, there is the prevalentview that "decolonization" hasbeen a real boon for the liberatedmasses, giving them a chance todevelop their own cultural heritage.Yet, in most cases .only athin layer of westernized "natives"benefited from a prematuredecolonization - for which theyhave to thank the Cold War andthe invisible Washington-MoscowAxis of "anticolonialists" outbiddingeach other under the motto:"I can be more anticolonialist thanyou are." But the rule of the newmen, whether politicians, mobmasters,or dictators, has not beenmarked by greater efficiency,greater justice and magnanimity,more peace, or (least of all) lesscorruption.Nobody would have dared to slipa hundred rupee note into thehand of a British judge in India;among the little people there onefinds today the greatest admirersof colonial rule, which to many ofthem now appears as a GoldenAge. (Did you ever talk to themontwgnards in Vietnam? Or tosimple Cambodian farmers? Youwill find the same attitude there.)Let us also remember our ownGermanic ancestors, real savageswho destroyed the already ChristianizedRoman Empire. How longdid it take them to gain standardscomparable to those of the Romanculture they destroyed? Six hundredyears? Eight hundred years?Still, many are those who insistthat the undeniable "backwardness"of the emerging nationsis due to our past oppressionand/or to our refusal to educatethem. But what would have happened,let us say, had we thrown acordon sanita.irre around tropicalAfrica and never set foot on thatpart of the Dark Continent? Dowe not have the admission of Mr.Tubman of Liberia and of EmperorHaile Selassie that theircountries, unfortunately, are lackingthe hard but salutary experienceof colonialism ? Have thePortuguese been really so amiss ineducating the Angolans? (What isthe illiteracy rate in Portugalproper?) Or what of the Belgiansin the Congo? Did not LovaniumUniversity have an atomic reactorbefore the University of Vienna?How many Ph.D.s and M.D.s werethere in the ancient Kingdom ofthe Congo before the white manarrived? And as for wicked westernization:is not the Third Worlddesperately trying to continue thisprocess? Is not Marxism morewestern than Confucianism, Tao-