|A Perspective on Nordic Colonialism: Finns as Empire-builders
in Southern Africa, 1895–1945| |Colonialism has been mostly
associated with Western overseas expansion, which culminated in
the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries when the most
parts of the world were under at least nominal Western,
particularly European, rule. However, colonial projects are by
no means exclusively associated with the great Western powers
even in nineteenth century. Furthermore, if colonial period in
Europe is explored more closely, it turns out that even
countries that never had overseas colonies, such as Finland,
were involved in the colonial world sending out colonizers and
producing images of colonial “others”. In Finland, the
conventional image of a small, modern democratic nation-state
does not fit well with the traditional image of European Great
power colonialism in Africa or Asia. Yet Finland arguably had
its own colonizers in Southern Africa. Could it be regarded as
“colonialism”? The paper discusses the conten