Trying to look on the bright side of colonialism

There has been a big flap this week about an article published in Third World Quarterly entitled 'The Case for Colonialism' by Bruce Gilley at Portland State University. The controversy seemingly revolves around how the article was published by the journal's editor despite having been rejected by its reviewers, i.e. a violation of the peer review process. But, of course, the complaints are not purely about the process of the paper coming to light: after all, the author is arguing that colonialism was largely a good thing, and we should have more of it. There would be much less political buzz if the journal's editor had, over the objections of reviewers, approved a paper called 'The Case Against Colonialism.'

As for the paper itself, it is something of a train wreck, and there is a strong case for thinking the reviewers (whose reviews are apparently under lock and key) were right. Gilley maps out a series of epistemic virtues (non-biased data and case selection, internal coherence, falsifiability of claims), which he uses to criticize those opposed to colonialism. In the course of building his own argument, however, he violates all of them, and how. You could base a drinking game on how many times he hoists himself on his own petard. Just one example: Gilley claims that colonialism had 'subjective legitimacy' because, he writes, the colonized populations generally approved of colonial powers and governance. His 'data' for this sweeping claim throughout the paper largely comes in the form of journalistic impressions and anecdotal remarks. This is not the worst of it. As others have pointed out, the most damning problem with the article is his relentless cherry-picking of benefits from colonial rule together with a complete disregard for the long-term and widespread damage colonial rule caused or the self-serving and usually racist motivations behind it. It does not take much effort to see the piece, particularly in the current US political climate, as historical revisionism in the service of white supremacy. No doubt defenders of such views will object that academia should be open to 'alternative voices' in the name of the First Amendment. But academic journals have no obligation to be open to crappy papers.

What could have been more interesting, instead of making a case for colonialism, is a critical analysis of the myriad ways former colonies grapple with the legacies of colonialism, since they are typically unable to fully embrace or reject them. Whatever 'benefits' might be attributed to colonialism cannot be disentangled from harms and violations; there are no real concepts to faithfully describe this. Tainted benefits? Abuses with an upside? When you drive the N1 out of Cape Town in South Africa, you are enjoying one of the best highways in Africa. You are also 'enjoying' the fruits of the Apartheid system, built by cheap labor, and as you drive, you can see townships where populations of non-whites were dumped and continue to experience the effects of political oppression. Reading Gilley is like hearing someone say: "Get over it. Don't you see you have a highway? So blind, so ungrateful."

Is there a link here to bioethics? I think so. Bioethics workers in developing countries are in a similarly uncomfortable position of being unable to fully reject assumptions, preoccupations and frameworks originating from the richer countries of the north, but also unable to fully embrace them without losing touch with (and being useful for) their own local context. The decolonization of bioethics in Africa, whose shape is hard to discern, will be a long work in progress.

Avoiding the missionary position

An intriguing book has just been published by Oxford University Press, edited by Catherine Myser, and entitled Bioethics around the Globe. The book examines, from loosely anthropological or sociological perspectives, variations in how bioethics is conceived and practiced in different parts of the world, as well as attempts to spread 'Western-style' bioethics globally. In regard to the latter, Raymond de Vries and Leslie Rott have written a provocative essay in which bioethics training programs (in the United States, continental Europe and the UK) are compared with old-style missionary work in developing countries. Either bioethics experts are flown into developing countries to spread the 'good word' of bioethics, or the natives are flown to Western centers of bioethics excellence, where they gather and return home with the 'right' bioethics notions and approaches.

If there was only one true way of doing bioethics, that those in the more affluent countries of the north just happened to latch onto, this would be less problematic. But as the rest of the book makes plain, bioethics wherever it is practiced tends to be heavily flavored by local morality, social conditions, and cultural norms. This means that attempts (however well-intentioned) to transfer Western bioethics into non-Western settings is going to be a bit weird at best, and harmful at worst. De Vries and Rott speak of various ills: blindness of Western bioethicists to the shortcomings of their own culture and to the cultural assumptions embedded in conceptions of informed consent and autonomy; the lack of cultural fit between what budding non-Western bioethicists get taught and what is relevant in their own culture. And what might be seen as relevant may arguably be relevant for the wrong sort of reasons. Learning how to set up an IRB might be interesting for those in the developing world hoping to attract funding and resources from research agencies, but that seems to miss the ethical point about protection of human participants in research. In these post-colonial exchanges, much is lost in translation.

How can the missionary trap be avoided? It is no simple thing. The dominant bioethics culture in the world is Anglophone, European-American, and secular with Christian overtones. Developing countries who want to expand their understanding and skills in this area are confronted with that particular world in the 'classic' texts, the most prestigious programs, and high-impact journals. Those interested in bioethics in the developing world need to be encouraged to (critically) tap into the 'Western' style of bioethics while also (critically) engaging with their own local moral traditions for guidance and inspiration. Only in this way will alternative bioethics traditions emerge. Those -- like the author of this blog -- involved in bioethics capacity-building projects in developing countries may still have a delicate role to play as facilitator or catalyst. In any case, the bioethics missionary has to be phased out, and replaced by those willing to listen as much as lecture.