As a white, Irish Australian, I am the definition of a little colonising piglet, oink, oink. My father’s side of the family has been said to be part of the soldiers that came on the first-fleet, and my mother’s were all convicts. There is even a mystery indigenous aunty in the distant past. Our family encompasses the upper echelon of white-Australian privelige. With Australia day recently passed last month, and again the engagement over how that day has been changing since the 1970’s, I’m taking some time here to reflect on what colonisation means and reflect on this through the lens of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s masterpeice, 100 Years of Solitude.

Marquez grew up in Aracataca, a small town in Colombia in 1927. Throughout the middle and end of the 20th century, Latin America went through drastic changes as they fought for their independence from the Spanish. It is obvious that he is drawing from his own experiences for this book. Aracataca is a small river town, and in his formative years, Marquez would have read the stories of the Banana Massacre which happened a year after his birth in Cienaga, Colombia. These extraordinary events provide a rich tableau from which Marquez can build his world.

The reflection of the Banana Massacre in 100 Years of Solitude is an incredibly poignant and emotive part of the story. It reminds us of the horrors that colonialism brought to much of the world. The magical realism is a stunning contrast to the traditional European descriptions, and the time jumping really bring together the theme of otherworldly and continuing problems that colonialism is causing.

In his book Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari outlines his issues with the contemporary zeitgeist around Colonialism. Currently, in 2025, a Jewish academic defending colonialism is hilarious. But it doesn’t downplay the validity of his claims: Take a modern Indian. What makes him Indian? Certainly not the cultural impact of British raj. But does it count the muslim rule of the Mughal empire? They were from the middle-east, spoke Persian(!) and had power of large swarths of India between 1526-1858. The Taj Mahal was built under Mughal occupation (site)! What about most of Northern India under the reign of the Gupta Empire between  320–550 CE. Does Indian culture predate these? Of course not. Cultures move and change as the requirements for society and the collective intelligence of a society shifts.

The other consideration to have is colonialism is generally said to be committed by whites against ethic peoples. We quickly forget the territorial and devastating expansion of Japan before and during WW1. What about the expansion of Khmer to cover most of modern day Cambodia, Thailand and Laos? Is that not colonialism because it was in 802 to 1431, or is it not colonialism because you don’t remember it? What about the Ottoman empire which invaded the middle east and parts of persia, murdered fathers and first born sons to install eunuch second born sons as loyal puppets? Is that colonialism or it’s not because you call it Turkey now?

Colonialism is remembered for murder, oppression, exploitation and massacring. Dare I say there have been good things too? In Australia we speak English. With this I can visit almost every country in the world and not need to learn another language. Surely, this is a good thing. Would we have access to the litany of spices and herbs without European influence in the South East Asia spice trade? White people generally like tomatoes?

Everybody says: Study history, study history, everything has already happened that will happen we just need to study history. Those same people believe history began in 1887. We must begin to look at world history holistically and inform our judgements from there. Specifically, we must refocus the lens of colonialism as not simply a “white people problem”. Everybody has been colonised and everyone has been the coloniser (except perhaps maybe the Irish).