1/A quick thread about the origin of "Nigerian aircraft carrier", generally regarded as my most far-out idea (because I haven't told you the even crazier ones)...
https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1088124558790381568
2/I was walking through Shibuya with a Canadian friend of mine who lives in Japan, and he was telling me how he'd been reading about the bizarre racial supremacy theories that Japan's militarist leaders promulgated in the 30s and 40s.
3/In some ways, these theories were the mirror image of Western theories of White supremacy, as detailed in the book "War Without Mercy".
amazon.com/War-Without-Me…
amazon.com/War-Without-Me…
4/Anyway, after listening to my friend tell me about this stuff, I shrugged and said "Well, if you're going to tell some other bunch of people they're inferior, make sure they don't have aircraft carriers..."
5/For some reason this line of mine stuck in my head, and got me thinking about colonialism, and the way the memory of Europe's global conquest still lingers over the world.
6/Today Europe is a small, mostly wealthy, aging peninsula of the Eurasian continent. But over the last 500 years, European countries at some point or another ruled over most of the world. 
7/Europeans are no longer the masters of the world (whatever certain leftists may tell you), but the collective memory of the time when they *were* lingers on. And this colors our modern thinking in ways that, in my opinion, blind us to some of the possibilities of the present...
8/What will convince the people whose lands were ruled over by European empires that the era of European colonialism is well and truly over?
My thought: When their own countries achieve a level of power that makes it clear that Europeans could never again boss them around.
My thought: When their own countries achieve a level of power that makes it clear that Europeans could never again boss them around.
9/Some countries have already achieved this. 250 years ago, Britain conquered India. Today, if those two countries fought, I would definitely not bet on Britain to win.
10/Of course real military power mostly doesn't come from aircraft carriers at this point, but they're still a popular symbol.
Here is India's first indigenously build aircraft carrier, the INS Vikrant, launched in 2013.
Here is India's first indigenously build aircraft carrier, the INS Vikrant, launched in 2013.
11/Now, the INS Vikrant is not going to steam up the Thames and sink the British fleet, like the Dutch did in 1667. Hopefully our world is now past the need for such foolishness.
But India's arrival as a Great Power, in general, makes it clear that the colonial era is history.
But India's arrival as a Great Power, in general, makes it clear that the colonial era is history.
12/Anyway, the countries of the Global South have started to catch up to those of the Global North, economically.
But I think it will take not just economic success but national power to fully expunge the shadow of the colonial era.
noahpinion.substack.com/p/checking-in-…
But I think it will take not just economic success but national power to fully expunge the shadow of the colonial era.
noahpinion.substack.com/p/checking-in-…
13/Anyway, the Nigerian Aircraft Carrier idea, while obviously fanciful given Nigeria's current issues and capabilities, is a stand-in for this larger idea of a more demonstrably equal community of nations...
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