The irony of this piece is that the primary example they use to substantiate their position, Imperial Japan, was in fact emulating the West when it undertook it’s expansionist project. Bunmei-kaika occured precisely because Japan was afraid of being colonized and in turn felt it needed colonies of its own to acquire the resources needed to fend off the West. Far from proving that settler colonialism is not specific to the West, this piece only illustrates how the West’s imperialist ways were like a cancer and infected other cultures as well. A great example for what happens when you are raised with a propagandized version of history.
I mean, perhaps the article chooses a bad example but there are plenty of other examples that are decidedly non-western. Such as the Vietnamese settlement of the the Mekong delta and the displacement of numerous other groups that lived there. Or the Japanese displacement of Ainu people (pre western influence). Hell The Bantu peoples migrating out of what is today Cameroon to settle huge swaths of sub-saharan Africa (not well understood but there is abundant evidence that this migration was sudden, dramatic and highly disruptive, and we know that huge amounts of native groups in many areas were ether displaced or eliminated.)
The irony of this piece is that the primary example they use to substantiate their position, Imperial Japan, was in fact emulating the West when it undertook it’s expansionist project. Bunmei-kaika occured precisely because Japan was afraid of being colonized and in turn felt it needed colonies of its own to acquire the resources needed to fend off the West. Far from proving that settler colonialism is not specific to the West, this piece only illustrates how the West’s imperialist ways were like a cancer and infected other cultures as well. A great example for what happens when you are raised with a propagandized version of history.
I mean, perhaps the article chooses a bad example but there are plenty of other examples that are decidedly non-western. Such as the Vietnamese settlement of the the Mekong delta and the displacement of numerous other groups that lived there. Or the Japanese displacement of Ainu people (pre western influence). Hell The Bantu peoples migrating out of what is today Cameroon to settle huge swaths of sub-saharan Africa (not well understood but there is abundant evidence that this migration was sudden, dramatic and highly disruptive, and we know that huge amounts of native groups in many areas were ether displaced or eliminated.)
And so so so many more.