All this, despite the redemptive efforts of such scholars as Nigel Biggar (Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, 2023).

Picking on one sub-category of “invaders” who ranged over the globe for a mere couple of hundred years and who both wreaked havoc and did immeasurable good is absurd, as we shall see.

DOMINATION

On closer inspection, however, it turns out that colonialism (defined by settlement of another land) and its much older relation, imperialism (defined by domination without settlement), aren’t really the main culprits (assuming you think colonialism is a bad thing).

It happens that colonialism is but one model, one example, of what we might call “imperial globalism”, which is a far bigger phenomenon than colonialism.

Imperial globalism is also much larger than its current, very topical, yet fairly narrow definition, of “globalism”, the belief in world governance and the diminution of the nation State.

Colonialism is merely one species of the imperial globalist genus, among many. In the broad sweep of history, it was a relatively minor one, too.

Moreover, imperial globalism predated the rise of the nation State by several millennia. It also pre-dates the current, bizarre obsession with racism and white guilt that seems to be infecting just about everything and everyone.

Ever since man discovered that he could move more than a few miles from his abode, he has, with various motives, mostly nefarious and often involving the subjugation of distant others, and with far-reaching consequences.

As soon as we had transportation, we got imperial globalism. Much more recently, when we acquired the capacity for instantaneous global communication, we also acquired new, turbo-charged forms of imperial globalism.

Think of the different forms of imperial globalism. We have had invasions and occupations since the year dot. From the Persian invasions of Greece around 500 BC and the Peloponnesian War to Ukraine in 2022. Wikipedia’s list of invasions runs to several hundred.

The Israelis of the Old Testament suffered relentless persecutions, subjugations and exiles, at the hands of the Babylonians and the Egyptians among others. A pattern, alas, that has continued to this day with the regular arrival Palestinian bombs and missiles.

Down the centuries, we have had new empires established. Nations conquered. “Spheres of influence” created. Resources exploited. Foreign cultures imposed. Lives changed forever.

The Vikings, of course, mastered the dark arts of rape and pillage. The Romans put a bit of stick about, as the fictional Francis Urquhart might have said. The Hun. The Mongols.  The Maori, even.

In the 20th century, we had the Nazis and the Communists. We have the Mexicans crossing the Rio Grande and heading, en masse, “up north”. We have the Africans and Middle Easterners occupying Europe. Many illegally. Humans are notorious for not staying in their own lane.

Now, also, we have Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, the World Health Organisation and a clutch of other globalist institutions which in our time have taken over national institutions without physical occupation.

With their very own brand of imperialism. By stealth. And, sadly, often with the connivance of national governments infected with the globalist virus.

This new form of imperial globalism demonstrates that it isn’t only nations that take over other nations. Global institutions and woke corporations do it as well.

They are all at it, and their technology-enabled capacity for wielding totalitarian-level power, their effective reach, is far greater than anything that has gone before.

INVASIONS

Think also of the stages of imperial globalism and its evolution – invasions, military conquests, occupations, the age of discovery and the global explorers, aboard their clippers sailing for “the new world”, the creation of colonial outposts, the settlement of foreign lands with or without negotiation with native peoples, military interventions in foreign wars, economic globalisation and trade, ideologically-driven expansion (Nazism and Communism), economic imperialism (China, capitalist multinationals), reverse colonialism, mass migration and the contemporary global governance movement.

Then there are the motivations for foreign adventuring down the years. The need for (more or better) land. The spirit of discovery and exploration. Curiosity. The economics of trade. The imperialist urge. The white man’s burden.

The Christian missionary imperative engineered by Jesus Christ, “go forth and teach all nations”, also played a large part.

And today, corporations are motivated by power and control as well as by the desire for wealth accumulation and mere greed.

As we see played out every day now in Australian politics, it is, perhaps oddly, one particular form of imperial globalist enterprise that seems to cause outsized and endless grief to self-described victims and self-described intellectuals.

This is, of course, the often benign British and European colonialism from the 1600s to the 1800s. This resulted in the white settlement of the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada.

Let’s face it, the main motivation of most whites supporting the Voice is the expiation of colonial guilt, something that the Voice is utterly ill-equipped to sate. The main motivation for the Indigenous supporters of the Voice is, arguably, power and revenge.

Most of the other forms of global aggression, many of which continue in our times and some of which are, indeed, accelerating, are largely ignored by political, economic and cultural elites.

In some cases, because they are driven by those very elites. And, as we will see, not all forms of geographical takeover have involved occupation or invasion. At some point, too, and certainly not in the era of Western, trade-driven colonialism, globalism became a neo-imperialist project.

The 20th century has brought forth several new modes of imperial globalism. Think of the various stages of economic globalisation, defined as the breaking down of all barriers to the free movement of people, goods, services and capital across national boundaries, and the consequent integration of the world’s economies.

Currencies were floated, tariffs were cut, border controls were lifted, especially for financial transactions, jobs were outsourced to what we used to call Third World countries, home industries such as manufacturing were decimated.

It was a whole new global economy. Multinationals sprang forth. Again, this was economic colonisation, without invasions. The East India Company brought up to date.

Much of what might be considered as “the Right” of politics and economics – certainly the neo-liberals – were unabashed defenders of globalisation.

They saw it, for example, as reducing mass poverty in developing countries, as well as driving the creation of new cross-border industries and promoting trade.

INDIVIDUAL

The old Left, represented by people like Joseph Stiglitz, saw only downside. Ironically, it is now the Right, loosely defined, that opposes globalism as an attack on national and individual sovereignty, while the new Left just loves it, for the same reason. 

The outcomes and legacy of late 20th century globalisation have been mixed. Asian call centres are merely the most annoying. The financialisation of everything has been the most significant.

The loss of domestic jobs and the crushing of communities dependent on old industries has caused the most pain. The creation of “global cities” with more connection to other global cities than to their own hinterlands has been perhaps the most culturally and geographically telling.

The whole technological revolution has combined with globalisation to deliver permanent revolution in economies. Tech has given globalisation the shape and the reach it has assumed. It all peaked in the 1990s.