Political Continuities and Discontinuities in the World between the Term Paper

Political Continuities and Discontinuities in the World between the Colonial Period and the Present - Term Paper Example In a simplistic perspective, colonialism pertained to the acquisition, perpetuation, and management of the overseas territories referred to as colonies by the people from other countries, most commonly happening to be denizens of the Western world. Colonialism was a process by which the people of a Western country established sovereignty over a foreign land and the colonizers went to a great length to alter the politics, social norms, culture and economic dynamics of that colony to strictly suit their vested interests and designs (Wesseling 1997, p. 29). Inequality was indeed the basis of colonialism and the inequality between the colonizing nation and the colony and between the colonizers and the natives was the crux of all the colonial logic. Colonialism did have a multidimensional impact on the individual rights, politics, cultural norms, economics and religion of the colonized nations and gave way to institutions and concepts like slavery, economic exploitation, religious enforce ment and ethnic alienation. Though these norms and concepts have greatly ceased to exist in a strictly colonial form, they indeed tend to continue in altered forms and designs in the contemporary times. This paper intends to trace the continuities and discontinuities associated with these institutions and concepts in a current perspective. Slavery Colonialism relied for its political and economic sustenance on the subjugation and exploitation of the colonized. Slavery was an immensely unfortunate and inhuman aspect of colonialism that tended to dehumanize the people from colonized lands to run the economic machinery of the colonial nations (Walvin 1994, p. 7). The essential essence of slavery in the colonial times was that it methodically degraded the culture, traditions, social institutions and religions of the colonized races to consider them equal to being animals. The colonial forces had to somehow justify the exploitation of subjugated races as slaves, and the one plausible way of doing so was to prove and establish that the people from colonized races were inferior to the Europeans. The foundations of slavery and the slave trade were laid in the beginning of colonialism and the commensurate rise of mercantile powers (Walvin 1994, p. 56). Slavery was utterly devastating for the colonized races in a long term context as it significantly shrunk their populations, made the colonized lands and races more vulnerable to and dependant on colonial powers, decimated any chances of modernization of the enslaved races and brought far reaching political consequences, whose reverberations could even be heard in the present times. The institution of slavery devastated farming and industry in the colonized nations. There is no denying the fact that the institution of slavery in its colonial context, where the individuals from the enslaved races were owned and managed by the Western vested interests has seized to exist in the present times. However, it goes without sayin g that the historical momentum that accompanied colonialism and imperialism and the accompanying institutions and practices like slavery still continue to shape the present world in ways and forms that is utterly disturbing and annoying. It would not be wrong to say that there are far greater numbers of slaves serving the cause of the Western economies today than that existed during the zenith of slavery. Today the

Renaissance Europe Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Renaissance Europe - Essay Example And can this hypothetical scenario ever be materialized. An etymology for this word say a lot about the possibility of such existence, it was originated by Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 - 6 July 1535), and used for the first time in his Latin book "Concerning the highest state of the republic and the new island Utopia" published in 1516. Interestingly his conviction in this state could be inferred from the fact that he conjoined two Greek words 'ou' for NOT and 'topos' for PLACE to form a word that literally means "nowhere." Sir Thomas More or Saint Thomas More as he is also refered to was an English lawyer, author, and statesman. He was highly regarded as a humanist scholar, he was bearer of many important public posts including that of Lord Chancellor from 1529 to 1532 in his illustrious career (Roper, 1626). Another cause clbre for which he is remembered is his refusal to accept King Henry VIII as the supreme head of the Church of England. It was his this bold stance that elevated him to the level of great people and his courage and conviction to remain steadfast at the face of adversity earned him the sainthood from the Catholic Church by Pope Pius XI in 1935 about four hundred years after his death. Apart from his principled defiance to the authority he is best known for his most famous and controversial book that was published in 1516 in which he for the first time used the word utopia. In this book he tells of a imaginary character Raphael Hythloday who is a traveler, extensive allegory is used to make the story more powerful and appealing; like the first name is ingeniously used to allude to the archangel Raphael, who is the messenger of truth. And surname in Greek means "dispenser of nonsense". The book is about political set up of fictitious place Utopia, it's a place where there is no concept of private ownership and different faiths are practiced freely and inter faith tolerance is firmly in placed. It is an embodiment of perfect destination where everything is desirable politically, culturally, socially, education wise and economically. With specific consideration to exceptional tolernce to varied forms of opinion and diversity. The purpose of presenting this unique and perfect state was to provide some form of imaginative yard stick at least to measure or correlate the certain dynamics of state affairs that eventually are pivotal for smooth functioning of a state. More very intelligently presented religio-political design of the imaginary state as an epitome of perfection and then compared and contrasted the real life affairs of European states with the ideal standards of utopian state. Thus he was able to devise a mechanism whereby the efficacy and inefficacy of a state could be measured on an arbitrary scale. One very interesting development that was observed from his argument in search of perfect state was that though he had maintained complete religious tolerence for every faith he was also adament in establishing the fact that there was no room for atheism in the utopian society. It was the marriage of convenience since he was catholic in faith and being minority in England needed tolerance of faith but his devout Catholicism did not allow h im have anything to do with godless society. The ostensible reason given by him for this eerie prejudism was because an atheist does not accept any superior power he is