Colonialism produces the same structural effects whether direct or remote.

Evidence

The choice of these four regions is anything but arbitrary, nor is it accidental that the Ottoman Empire, a formally sovereign entity, is included in the list of colonized countries. The list is rather intended to underscore the point that colonialism, engaged in an extensive, intensive, and circular dialectic with a single-minded formation of Orientalist knowledge in particular and academic knowledge in general, produces, mutatis mutandis, the same structural effects, which are accurate reflections of the constitution of one and the same thought structure that modern Europe cultivated, and which defined it in every step of its concrete modern manifestations. Put more precisely, the effects, paradigmatically speaking, are structurally similar, if not nearly identical, whether colonialism was direct or indirect or took a genocidal-settler form. … But it is my argument—as I will articulate it in chapter 4—that colonialism does not have to be directly and physically present on the ground in order to bring about the effects of its sovereign power. Arguably, such a case of what one might call a remote-control colonialism not only exhibits the same colonial effects as the other regions but in some respects exceeds them, both in terms of the rapidity of transformations and in terms of their magnitude. Yet, the quality of these remains the same, as evidenced in the culmination of colonial effects that one can observe today around the world. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 39

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Hallaq’s overall argument about Eurocentric thought structures, and to postcolonial theory about how colonial epistemic frameworks outlast formal empire. — connects to: Historical colonialism had four structural components that data colonialism may replicate. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 64
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what evidence does chapter 4 marshal for ‘remote-control colonialism’ exceeding direct colonial effects?