ADD PORTUGAL TO LIST OF ‘MOST REPREHENSIBLE EUROPEAN NATIONS’: Belgium may be a buzzing den of felons in helicopters, and sure, it’s responsible for the Congo, but check out how miserably Portugal’s former colonies have fared in the modern era. Everything the Portuguese touch turns to absolute dung, which is why President Obama should be very careful around that dog of his. [MP Nunan on True/Slant]
POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES 12:27 pm August 25, 2009
Hola wonkerados.
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{ 34 comments }
Don’t forget Rhode Island, the latest failed Portugese colony.
Also, perhaps we should rethink Iraq. After all, what has propelled it towards failed state status in recent years were not the fraying vestiges of colonial power, but a pre-emptive modern war with dubious motives.
Of course Iraq’s in the pickle it is partly because of its border demarcations that were originally designed to make it easy to meddle with. And then a lot of that meddling came from the US, another former British colony with — no coincidence here — an air of exceptionalism and a divine mandate to interfere wherever it feels like it.
Though to put in a bad word for Portugal, they did pretty much institutionalize the slave trade, so it’s not like their contribution to the world’s evils should go unnoticed.
Blaming one country for colonialism is a bit like blaming one black marxist for Muslinism, isn’t it? Can’t we all just agree to blame France and Kenya and be done with it?
It’s too bad Jerry Falwell isn’t alive to see the Presidential doggie wearing the rainbow flag fake flower lei. Or rather. it’s too bad the Presidential doggie wearing the rainbow flag fake flower lei didn’t show up long before Falwell’s demise; it might have accelerated things.
I’m thinking of nipping over to the Vineyard for a bit of dognapping.
Rogue nations are like dicks: Size matters.
I dunno. My money is still on the Belgians to win the Biggest Colonial Bastards Challenge. I think Zaire and Rwanda pretty much tip the scale.
I studied Portuguese in college, which is just behind Klingon in the usefulness department. I was also a season ticket holder last year for Sporting, a soccer team in Lisbon. When I was there in February, people assumed I was Brazilian because, really, what American learns Portuguese voluntarily?
I wonder if Bo is really a Portuguese water dog- a real one would have eaten that lei and then thrown it up.
[re=394362]TedTheLightBulbSalesman[/re]: One who, like me, worked in the foundries in Southeast Mass.
Brazil seems to be doing pretty well.
[re=394335]Cape Clod[/re]: Too late. After considerable nipping, the lads over at Land Ho in Orleans have already taken to their rowboats. Of course, they’ll probably wind up in Newfoundland with a hangover, so maybe you’re still on.
Yes, but the Brits had Cecil John Rhodes, one of the most megalomaniacal shitbags in history and who I discovered is still widely celebrated by white people in such not-horribly-affected-by-imperialism-or-colonialism-at-all locales like South Africa.
I blame the Pope. He never should have given the world to the Portuguese and Spanish to begin with.
Which means, as always, there is some way to blame all of teh world’s troubles on the Italians.
Well to be honest as a descendant of some of the former oppressed we don’t really care. All you white people look a like to us.
Nice try but obviously ‘Murka aint a soveriegn nation no more neither how. I mean -our debt is owned like Macau by the Chinese. And our work force is 100% Messican. Get a brane, Nunan.
The Congo is responsible for the The Congo! Don’t be colonial enablers, Wonkette!
that thing is a goddamn monster
Obama’s payback to the gay community for their support is a gay dog?
Give that dog a bone!
Goddam, that’s one cute little cur.
Britain, Portugal, Belgium… what, Spain doesn’t get any props?
[re=394371]user-of-owls[/re]: My condolences.
Portuguese fishermen’s kale soup from Cape Cod! The best!
Portugal is the worst, because the author of the article studied post-colonial Indonesia for FIVE AND A HALF YEARS.
[re=394401]Guppy06[/re]: Having Spain as your colonial master was like having Bernie Madoff as your investment guy, with the same result in the end. We let the Spanish off the hook because they turned to messing up their own country quite effectively once the locals tossed them out of the Americas.
England is responsible for rogue state USA.
But Bo is in charge of health care.
[re=394401]Guppy06[/re]: What about Russia? Sure, it annexed more than it colonized, but for sheer numbers, it’s hard to beat Gulag and Holodomor.
[re=394449]showmeonthedoll[/re]: Better yet, the USA is directly responsible for… *shudder*… the South. It’s what we in the trade call “internal Orientalism.” Suck on THAT, you European colonialist sad sacks!
[re=394455]queeraselvis v 2.0[/re]: As a postcolonial state the USA cannot be held responsible for it’s actions. It is all the fault of the original colonial power.
Modern Portugal turned itself around by releasing all the drug slaves.
Legalize, regulate and tax drugs the Portugese way!!!!1!11!
Bo knows leis.
Hey Eds, can we do Albania tomorrow?
Bo looks a lot like Jerry Garcia before he went gray.
Americans tip the scale for the UK. As Brits became American, augmented by a healthy dose of pugnacious Krauts and the bellicose Scots-Irish, they became positively genocidal, preferring outright slaughter to simple rape and torture. Only Argentina has a similar lack of indigenous blood in the entire Western Hemisphere, but that is because they are mostly all REAL NAZIs(!), Jews (!?), and sexy soccer players(8==D~~).
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