Europa koloniseert de problemen van Derde wereld

Political elites in Western Europe take the domestic concerns of other countries—China’s relation to Tibet, seal hunting in Canada, AIDS in Africa—and make them existential concerns for themselves and their nations. They colonize the concerns of others. Then ordinary people begin to think that these foreign concerns matter for their own personal happiness, distracting themselves from the hordes of problems at home. In the last few decades Western Europeans have built a tradition of vicarious participation in the problems of others, supposedly less fortunate.

The paternalism of this new age colonialism is in some ways more brassy than that of traditional colonizing in which you would have actual colonies. At least when Europeans had colonies they had knowledge about them, and would travel to them, invest in them, live among the natives—even romanticize them in song and verse. They were concerned with their actual interests. None of this is necessary if your colony is an idea in a head instead of a place on earth.

Perhaps the reader is finding none of this strange. She may be thinking “obviously a modern, educated person would be concerned with the state of the world, and its diverse peoples.” The peculiarity of such colonization is perhaps only made manifest when you think of other cultures and countries of the world—popularly called “the Third World”—colonizing our concerns. Imagine large swathes of Mongolians or Malaysians vicariously participating in problems the French auto worker unions, English bovine diseases, the trafficking of girls from Eastern Europe to Amsterdam’s brothels, the fornication of Italy’s premier. Imagine them spending there evenings and weekends brooding over these various and sundry concerns.

Notwithstanding, what makes the colonization of concern so attractive to Europeans is that it is so suited to our age. Our tizzied voyeurism is fed by installing news cameras all over the world to monitor the colonies, and we are fed with up-to-the-minute reports via the “information super-highway”. This absentee colonialism allows one to ‘profit’ without getting one’s hands dirty. And it allows guilt-free escapism. It is also suited to our age because it is completely voluntaristic, as well as being duty-free. Since taking interest in the problems of others costs little to nothing in terms of blood and treasure, it is readily done. Collectively, it falls under the name of foreign aid. While this can be expensive, nations don’t actually suffer for it, not like the British did for the Allies’ cause during WWII.