Re-post from the Churchill thread:
Point 5 is an interesting one, I believe it was Britain that made Leopold king of Belgium and then proceeded to give his son Leopold II the Congo as private property, together with British shareholders, and when it all got too bloody even for the British it was the Belgians who had to make amends and feel guilty. First they tried to be the model colonizer and invested quite a bit in infrastructure, schools and hospitals, in a very condascending way but still, and got in the process of a proper decolinization. But the promising nationalist leader Lumumba was a bit too socialist for the Western part of the Anglo-Saxon empire that had taken over from the Eastern one, and was murdered.
The more general point is that colonial powers often also had to deal with greater powers and threats to them at some point. The Spanish Empire arose from the fight against the Moors and had to deal with the Ottoman threat. The Dutch became a colonial power during their independence war with Spain, when the British took over they still had to deal with Spain and emerging France. It was also a matter of eat or be eaten, and also a matter of religious tolerance vs. the Spanish Inquisition and/or Louis XIV's absolute catholic rule. When supreme and therefore safe, it didn't take the British that long to start making things better and for example getting rid of slavery.
How do people in The Netherlands view and reflect on their empire?
In general they reflect very little and shout a lot about it, both ways. I personally believe there's enough of the good, the bad and the ugly for everybody to go around, but towards other European powers, the USA or powers like the Ottomans my attitude is very unapologetic. It was actually not very much of an empire, they were much more traders than rulers and got and the bulk of their wealth came from fair or at least decent trade, a much greater part than any of the other colonial powers. They did some serious human rights violations but in general they were hands-off, worked with local rulers, didn't force religion or culture upon people, traded on equal footing (or even less)with native Americans, West-Africans, Japanese, Chinese, Moghuls, Persians or who ever. It was all about the money and the war against catholic supremacy, which were very closely related. Empire was seen as too expensive and there was quite a force of stirn calvinists who opposed submission and slavery that only lost out late in the Golden Age. The needed justification for slavery took it's toll but in general they weren't racist and their sense of superiority was limited to sailing and bookkeeping, they left a lot of multicultural, multireligious, multiracial trading posts. Conquest and robbery was aimed at the European enemies, I don't believe there are much artefacts to return since they were properly purchased from someone who might have exploited his own people.
Indonesia for example was mostly occupied around 1900, in the wake of Africa beeing divided between other European countries. In the centuries before it was only 5% or something that was controlled. The government was actually criticised by a novel in the 1850's for not taking control, and letting local rulers be cruel to the people. It works both ways, there's a cynical side to the hands off approach too. But for the 16th and 17th century, besides the greed, what if they had not taken the fight oversees and lost their independence war with Spain? Would there have been synagogues in New York and Brazil? Would there have been any jewry left? Would the challenge of the divine right of kings have been forgotten? Would the idea of freedom of religion and republicanism have survived? Where would enlightenment philosophers like Lock, Descartes and Spinoza have worked and have their ideas printed? If the Dutch had lost there would not have been a glorious invasion of England, would it still be ruled by a divine catholic king? No bill of rights, no constitutional monarchy, no DOI. I don't have to expect the Spanish Inquisition nor does anyone else and that has to do with Dutch colonialism too.
It's hard to imagine, it's a what if of enormous proportions? To a lesser extend, the case for all European colonial powers is that we are now judged by the values we gave to the world. It's not just trains we left behind, or modern medicine, telecommunication, it's also the idea of human rights, democracy, equality and social mobility.
Multiple posters have already had a laugh at some of the ridiculous numbers in some of the tweets he's shared.
