Colonialism is a recurring theme in board games, which frequently casts players in the role of colonisers. Yet the history of colonialism is not the distant past, and people living still hold memories of decolonialisation. Colonialism leaves a vast and powerful legacy on the global state of affairs, casting a long shadow of violence and genocide.

Colonialism is a staple of euro game design because the political arrangement of colonialism naturally lends itself to the work of trade, building, and resource management. However, it is an entirely Eurocentric (and sometimes Amerocentric) understanding of the world that makes these games with little to no self-reflection.

Between the reprint of Colonialism and Endeavour, alongside new attention towards Phil Eklund’s essay A Defense of British Colonialism, we need to have a talk about colonialism.

NB: I’ve divided this article in two parts. The first part broadly addresses the issue of Colonialism as a theme in board games. The second actually goes into the topic of colonialism itself by way of responding to Eklund. I found the tone of these parts to be sufficiently different that I divided them this way.

Part I – The Banality of Colonialism

Spare me the banality of colonialism.

By this, I mean two things. Both its (over) representation in board games but also its real world pervasiveness.

If you are a reader from the Western world, you are a beneficiary of history. For many other people, it can be an awkward reminder. I don’t even refer to the subaltern: those live outside the West yet under its shadow. I talk about the people in the West who are a product of colonial diaspora: the Transatlantic slave trade and the eradication of Indigenous cultures being two significant examples.

There are people alive today who experience systemic disadvantage through colonial legacies. These historical inequalities endure, a follow on from the mercantilism of the 18th Century that drove states outwardly to violently acquire the resources of distant lands. To suggest that people should sit comfortably with this political reality is rather disingenuous. Colonialism is prone to nostalgia. My relationships with these games are fraught and complicated. Some I do enjoy playing, even as I reconcile with the theme. One of them even holds the distinction of being one of six games to have the #1 position on Board Game Geek.

Some games make it easier for me to disassociate from the game, while others make it unavoidable and cross an invisible line in my mind on the matter. Often this depends on how the game frames the process of colonisation, and more specifically how it frames its relationships with indigenous populations.

Many play to historical theatres of colonialism, often uncritical of the atrocities of those periods. The worst for me are those that identify a specific indigenous population, especially when the game pits me against them as insurrectionists, or antagonists. These games ask me to assume the role of the colonisers and I cannot but be mindful of the implication of my actions, where the movement of cubes and colours obscure atrocities.

Colonial Themes in Board Games (and other Histories)

On Board Game Geek’s mass aggregation, there are roughly 50-60 entries under Colonial themes.

Some of the most highly regarded or renowned titles feature colonialism not merely thematically, but integrated into the game’s build: Amerigo, Archipelago, Colonialism, The Colonists, Endeavour, Goa, Heart of Africa, Merchants & Mauraders, Mombasa, Navegador, New Haven, Port Royale, Puerto Rico (and San Juan), Sail to India, & Santa Maria.

Most are located in historical settings of the colonial era. In Amerigo, you take on the role of the Florentine exploration of Latin America (and it’s colonisation). Archipelago has you as Europeans colonising the Caribbean archipelago. In Santa Maria you represent the Spanish conquistadors colonising Latin America. Puerto Rico naturally features its eponymous island, where you play the role of colonial governors. Mombasa places you in the position of trading consortiums benefiting from the colonial carving up of Africa.

Some feature more than just a single location, but deal broadly with a global process of colonisation, yet still rooted in historical elements: like Colonialism, Navagador, and Endeavor. Some are distinct in that they feature colonialism but are located in fictional ahistorical settings, such as Keyflower or in otherwise non-specific ‘euroish’ settings such as The Colonists.

These last two are curious because they feature the experience of colonisation in a world lacking an indigenous population. This is the concept of Terra Nullius, the presumption of territory being unoccupied and therefore ripe for settlement. In the grand scheme of things, it’s an acceptable fiction because in principle this represents a kind of benign colonialism lacking deleterious impacts. However, it tends to veer straight into nostalgia. Yet games like Mombasa and Santa Maria are troubling for entirely different reasons. Mombasa features the colonial partition of Africa, and the profiteering of transnational companies exploiting its natural resources. Santa Maria depicts the conquest of Latin America by conquistadors all the while implying the genocide of that period. For all that these games abstract these features away, they are still part of real history.

Even more broadly, history is a well worn repository of theme. On Board Game Geek, there are:

~400 listings under the Age of Reason

~700 listings under the American Civil war

~200 listings under the American Indian war

~300 listings under the American Revolutionary war

~900 listings under the American West

~1900 listings under ancient history

~200 listings under Arabian history

~2600 listings under medieval history

~1200 listings under modern warfare

~900 listings under Napoleonic theme

~200 listings under post-Napoleonic

~500 listings under prehistoric

~600 listings under Renaissance

~200 listings under the Vietnam War

~800 listings under WWI

~4300 listings under WWII

Now, keep in mind that these listings don’t make distinctions between medieval history and medieval fantasy, or any historical games that also have elements of fantasy. Tannhauser is listed under WWII, Five Tribes is listed under Arabian, Secret Hitler is listed under WWII. However, the category of WWII with the categories of fantasy, humour, and science fiction excluded still yields a massive ~4100 entries.

Given the above, you are looking at thousands of games that approach history with Western-centric interpretations. So when I describe the banality of colonialism, I consider its use about as distinct and interesting as ‘trading in the Mediterranean’. I want designers to be creative in their high concept, not just their mechanisms.

Historical Nostalgia

One of the problems I find with representations of colonialism in board games is their dependency on a very nostalgic approach to colonialism. One exemplars is Phil Eklund’s essay A Defense of British Colonialism, which he appended into his ruleset for Pax Pamir (I specifically get to this later).

Indeed, one of the general compliments given to historical games is some kind of call to authenticity. Games get praised for ‘not shirking away from historical ugliness’ or a variation of this theme. These accolades are meant to celebrate our ability as a mature audience to contemplate, engage, and appreciate historical vulgarities.

When we talk about history it is important it as the constant work of many subjects. Some seek to propagandise, proselytise, and otherwise myth-make a given sequence of events. There is always some level of authorial intent writing history. Nostalgia is a particular way of romanticising the past, of casting events once gleaned through a rather generous light or otherwise telling a very particular side of a narrative.

Historical approaches reveal their intend when they pick stories that give agency to the people of the majority, of people who are nominally powerful. Take a moment to reflect on the power of This War of Mine because of how it explores war, not from the perspective of combatants, but the bleak citizens trapped in the war zone. Consider the strength of Freedom: the Underground Railroad because it depicts the struggles of freeing African American slaves from the Southern States.

For all that apologists for colonialism in games laud ‘historical accuracy’ in games, I cannot but see it as a very specious form of cherry picking and some of the worst examples of nostalgia. It’s rather telling though that in the same breath which they offer praise, none are spared for any critical evaluation of the subject matter.History is a product of collective imaginings, which is why it proves vulnerable to nostalgia: patriotism turns to nationalism, traditions become fundamentalism, and legend leads to myth.

On the Altar of Historical Accuracy

In confusing history with creative media, we forget the thin line that separates games as vehicles for entertainment and history as a corpous of memory. Yes, the two can overlap, but they each have overriding imperatives that often requires an element of education vs entertainment to give way. They have different audiences, different functions, and feature different methods of creation.

Games that borrow from history often reference a romanticised ideal, which contain false or fantastic ideals. Napoleon wasn’t short. One in four cowboys were Black. Homosexuality occurred in pre-modern Arabia. From Western perspectives, generally accepted accounts of history are highly sanitised.

Modern designers create games for modern audiences. For all they pretend to historical reenactment they are at best a History channel documentary highlighting dramatic elements. Commercial imperatives as much as artistic sensibilities drive these approaches. So the particulars of history must yield to creative license, even where historic recreation is part of authorial intent.

Games create diegetic spaces, because their treatments of histories invite us in as participants. This space separates a game with historical elements apart from a study of history itself. Sometimes these can be mutually exclusive: the former is a work of immersion trying to locate you within a given frame of reference, while genuine critical approaches typically rely upon you taking a position as an external observer.

Black Orchestra is a game where you change history by assassinating Hitler. Secret Hitler is a game where it’s possible for the Liberal Party to win against the rising tide of fascism in 1930s Germany. Any time you play a war game, you are subverting the history of that war through its recreation: The same people who launch complaints against historical accuracy in gaming fail to mention Twilight Struggle offering a Soviet victory.

It’s particularly telling to see how religious histories are almost always excluded from these discussions. Does this assume biblically correct portrayals of history are historical fact? Probably not, because we tend to accept that kind of mythologising as a half-truth not intended to be real history (sorry biblical literalists, but you’re not my audience). When you single out particular cases as problems, you demonstrate the underlying politics of inbuilt assumptions, disguised as objectivity.

As one example, the removal and substitution of slaves with fakirs in Five Tribes provoked a small outcry against what was seen as historical revisionism. What the linked author seems to forget is that Arabian Nights (which Five Tribes is loosely based off) is a fictional work. This call for historical accuracy is seemingly unperturbed by the presence of supernatural djinns and flying carpets. Moreover, it glosses over the fact that fakirs did indeed appear in the 1001 Arabian Nights.

This point has been raised numerous times, so in brief: that we can suspend our disbelief on the existence of dragons in medieval fantasy, but not women warriors, is kind of an indictment against our own imagination.

Epilogue

The tl;dr version of this is that colonialism is an incredibly complicated historical phenomenon. It is one that the white majority frequently recalls in nostalgic terms.

As a subject matter, it holds terrible meaning for non-majority people who may still experience historic inequalities. As a board game theme, colonialism is banal and generic.

This shouldn’t be read as a call to ban colonial themes, but maybe a consideration as to why many of us would like to see themes other than colonialism visited more frequently.

Looking for a theme for your next game design that isn’t colonialism? How about:

Plants struggling for ecosystem domination / balance;

Building the best back yard fort;

Making an artisan product;

Restoration / repair / upcycling;

Living your best moth life;

Community building…

(@beth_sobel) 10 July 2018

NB: the next section is a much more explicit quasi-academic response to the article written by Phil Eklund, and the response cannot capture the problems of colonialism in more than a succinct overview.

Part II – Taking Down Colonial Apologia

Colonialism represents historical power relationships. Although many have been dismantled, there are still prevailing forms of hegemony from the powers that arose through those original relationships. Western political and economic dominance exists largely because of the way it was able to utilise technological advantage to exploit other parts of the world.

Colonialism is an historic system that still has lingering effects today. There are people alive today whose cultures have been destroyed, and/or attacked because of it. There are people existing in systematic positions of disadvantage because of it.

Now if colonial themes were isolated or infrequent it would be less of a problem, but they are a constant refrain and this constant return to a particular history reinforces a sense of ‘white man’s burden’just beneath the surface. The genocide becomes obscured.In order to shed light on some of the more pervasive impacts of colonialism, I will respond briefly to Phil Eklund’s A Defense of British Colonialism.

This content is an appendix to the rules for Pax Pamir. They generally indicate a favourable disposition to colonialism, which reflects a broader sentiment found in those who favour ‘historical games’.

I call it an essay, but it doesn’t really resemble one clocking in at approximately 500 words, and presenting more a summation of several loosely affiliated ideas. Generally, its argument advances a few key ideas with a little elaboration. It generally argues that British Colonialism was good because:

its major colonies are now successful nations;

the British Legal Tradition spread the establishment of separation of powers, against tribal justice;

Pax Britannia was a stable regime that supplanted unstable and corrupt regimes;

Britain spearheaded the abolition of slavery; and

because Britain expanded globalisation and industrialisation.

To truly address these claims properly would be a proper academic work. This is not an academic space, so instead I will merely try to show the general flawed nature of this approach.When I read these points, I agree that they point to beneficial things that occurred at least in part because of British Colonialism. What it neglects to mention is who the beneficiaries are.

The Exportation of Victorian Morals

To start, let me put to rest the assumption that the British Legal Code was entirely benign.

The British Legal Code was build on Victorian morality. The separation of powers (which also featured in French political philosophy btw), was a poisoned chalice for those who weren’t British (read, white, male, and heterosexual).

This was explicitly ideological: imperialism and colonialism expanded on rhetorical metaphors of patriarchy, that portrayed colonial powers as masculine and dominant, and foreign nations were portrayed as feminine (read as passive and receptive to domination).

Specifically, ‘the Orient’ and the South (and particularly their male subjects) were feminised as homosexual to emasculate their populations and imbue their foreignness with ideas of weakness and vulnerability.The criminalisation of homosexuality is primarily a colonial legacy. Of the 72 countries that still criminalise homosexuality (and punishable by death in 8 of them), nearly half of them are former British colonies. Prohibitions on sex between men (specifically anal sex) exist or once existed in the Penal Code of 42 of these countries. Of the 53 sovereign states of the Commonwealth, only 18 have legalised same-sex activity.

These attitudes to homosexuality originate with the Wolfenden Report. Though ostensibly for British subjects, British colonial rule exported these ideas to its colonies. Victorian attitudes of sexuality took primacy over local and traditional understandings of non-heterosexual lives, and in many cases eradicated these earlier cultures entirely.

El-Rouayheb outlined in his work on the pre-modern Arab-Islamic world visible tolerance of same-sex practices in Arab-Islamic elite before the 19th Century. He argued that homosexuality was not understood in modern terms, but relationships were articulated through active and passive roles, through infatuation and lust. So, despite traditional interpretations of Islam proscribing against liwat (sodomy), the Victorian colonial influence inflamed hostile social attitudes to eradicate a tacit and obscure culture (but one socially understood).

Colonial influence reduced sexuality to a medical problem, even eradicating local cultural frameworks of sexuality in the process. This pathologised non-heterosexual sexualities.

Victorian sensibilities still even in the process of decolonisation where strong statism and nationalism adopted traditional family models to pressure compliance from its citizens. Homosexuality (and other sexual deviance) were equated with the undesirable colonial influence and therefore inauthentic.

In effect, one of the largest legacies of British colonial rule and its legal system is the widespread criminalisation of and moralisation over homosexuality.For a more in-depth look at this issue, here’s one I prepared earlier.

Colonialism, Globalisation, and Hegemony

Colonialism did expand industrialisation to other parts of the world, and in doing so incorporated these places into its market. However, the structures of these relationships were very much exploitative. Over the course of several centuries, much of the natural wealth of these subjugated lands were acquired and repossessed back to colonial homelands.

In the context of globalisation, we see a very strong security imperatives that drive the strategic goals of the largest nations in securing these natural resources. Some of the clearest historical examples can be found in the Scramble for Africa, the Opium Wars, the Suez Canal Company, Manifest Destiny, the Monroe Doctrine (and the Panama Canal) and the Carter Doctrine. Each historical event represents Western powers using gunboat diplomacy to impose compliance towards their political agenda.

The expansion of Western influence into their colonial worlds were frequently genocidal. The conquest of Central America by Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors led to the estimated death of 30-50 million Native Amerindians in Central and Latin America (such as a reduction of 90% of the indigenous populations in Mexico).

In the Congo Free State in the late 19th Century under the regime of Leopold II of Belgium, a series of atrocities committed by that regime known as the Congo Horrors saw the death of an estimated 500,000 Congolese. During the British colonisation of Australia, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations dwindled from 1,250,000 to 50,000 through frontier wars & small pox, even overseeing the extinction of the Palawah (the indigenous people of Tasmania).

All of these genocides were informed by ideas of racial superiority, which can be seen germinating in Kipling’s sentiments of The White Man’s Burden, and finally crystallised by the late 19th Century into Social Darwinism. The White Australia Policy, Native American removal, and apartheid are all affects of these.

Many modern humanitarian crises or horrors have roots in these problems: the Rwandan Genocide, blood diamonds, the Congo Horrors, and South African apartheid all have roots in the Scramble for Africa (also the De Beers diamond monopoly); the theocratic/dictatorial regimes of the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts both extensions of American and British oil interests in the region (via the Carter Doctrine); the Cuban dictatorship of Batista and the Panama Canal are manifestations of the Monroe Doctrine.

So the suggestion that Pax Britannia (and later American hegemony) have produced beneficial, stable, and benign regimes is incorrect, both in terms of the incidental fruits of these labours as well as the active role they played in fomenting these problems to ensure their own regimes. A great number of dictatorial regimes exist because of British (and American) backing.

While the British may have played a significant role in the abolitionist movement, the British regime was very much complicit with practices that were tantamount to indentured servitude, drug profiteering, and trafficking. The regime created by colonialism is one that benefits a white majority in all of its successful colonies, to the detriment of their respective indigenous and other minority populations.

So ultimately, the question of whether colonialism was beneficial, can be resolved specifically by determining who the beneficiaries are. It assumes an underlying narrative of progress, while simultaneously erasing a history of exploitation, extermination, and evangelism.

Colonialism benefits largely a white majority, and has created a world largely centred upon the super powers of Europe and the USA. Their geopolitical standing is at least partly achieved through continuing relationships of exploitation hegemony to this day.

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