Onlangs verscheen in de Third World Quarterly een artikel waarin een lans gebroken werd voor het Westerse kolonialisme. Het artikel had als titel: ‘The case for colonialism’ en was geschreven door Bruce Gilley van de afdeling Political Science, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA. Wat staat daar in? Ik laat de auteur zelf aan het woord in zijn samenvatting:
“For the last 100 years, Western colonialism has had a bad name. It is high time to question this orthodoxy. Western colonialism was, as a general rule, both objectively beneficial and subjectively legitimate in most of the places where it was found, using realistic measures of those concepts. The countries that embraced their colonial inheritance, by and large, did better than those that spurned it. Anti-colonial ideology imposed grave harms on subject peoples and continues to thwart sustained development and a fruitful encounter with modernity in many places. Colonialism can be recovered by weak and fragile states today in three ways: by reclaiming colonial modes of governance; by recolonising some areas; and by creating new Western colonies from scratch.”
Het artikel was geplaatst nadat het door twee anonieme referenten was bekeken en publicabel bevonden. Maar het stond niet lang op de site van dit wetenschappelijke tijdschrift. De uitgever heeft het artikel van de site gehaald.
Waarom? Lees en huiver:
“This Viewpoint essay has been withdrawn at the request of the academic journal editor, and in agreement with the author of the essay. Following a number of complaints, Taylor & Francis conducted a thorough investigation into the peer review process on this article. Whilst this clearly demonstrated the essay had undergone double-blind peer review, in line with the journal’s editorial policy, the journal editor has subsequently received serious and credible threats of personal violence. These threats are linked to the publication of this essay. As the publisher, we must take this seriously. Taylor & Francis has a strong and supportive duty of care to all our academic editorial teams, and this is why we are withdrawing this essay.”
Academische vrijheid? Alleen als je geen controversiële meningen hebt.
