During the 19th Century, most — if not all Europeans — lived in states that were parts of empires in the traditional monarchical colonial sense of the word, with the exception of the citizens of Switzerland, the three Scandinavian states and the former dependants of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans.

The inhabitants of Africa lived under European empires almost without exception, and so did the inhabitants of the Pacific and the South East Asian islands, large and small.

The ancient Chinese Empire collapsed in 1911, most of the Asian countries were under empires, old and new, except for Siam (now Thailand) and Afghanistan — whose independence was largely due to rivalry between European imperial empires.

The Americas south of the US by this time were largely independent states, although they were culturally and economically still dependant on colonial empires.

The First World War broke the Habsburg Empire into smithereens, and it also completed the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. The empire of the Russian Tsar was saved from ruin by the October Revolution and the German Empire lost both the imperial title and its colonies.

The Second World War destroyed the imperial potential of Germany, which had been briefly realised under Adolf Hitler. It also destroyed most of the colonial empires of that imperialist era, great and small.

The British, French, Japanese, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish and Belgian empires all began their fall, ending it for the Spanish, whose fall had started a lot earlier.

The US’s brief and belated excursion into formal colonialism on the European model was also destroyed at this point, and that is how the US lost the Philippines, and never really succeeded in colonising Cuba.

In 1989, we saw the collapse of the European Communist regimes, itself bringing to an end both Russia as a single multinational entity as it had existed under the Tsars; and the more short-lived Soviet Empire in East-Central Europe.

Now it is only the US that treats itself as an imperial empire — trying to extend its disguised neo-colonial tentacles across the globe, and using the democratisation gimmick to install pliant puppet regimes in as many strategic places as possible.

Some like Francis Fukuyama euphorically celebrated the end of the Cold War era as a dramatic change in the political face of the world, and even called it "the end of history".

However, what we have right now is a troubled new century that clearly lacks the relative order and predictability of the Cold War era.

The era of empires has gone and in its place is an arrogant super power that has clearly failed to feel in the gap left by the demise of the old order.

The number of independent states has increased four times since 1913, most of them former colonies and the debris of collapsed empires.

The theoretical rhetoric of today is that we have close to 200 free nation-states, and we must believe these have replaced the world empires.

In practice what we have is internationalised instability, internal conflicts within the new generation of nation-states, and a threat to some nation-states by secessionist movements. Some of the states are somewhat failing to carry out essential functions of territorial states and in most of these cases, the United States always has some kind of involvement in the politics of the units in question.

The problems in former colonies like Sudan, DRC, Rwanda and others have led to some survivors of former empires openly regretting the passing of colonial rule.

The real question is how these empires should be remembered. For Africa, these empires are synonymous with slavery, brutality, colonial subjugation, humiliation, exploitation and racial discrimination.

The official and popular memory of the British Empire among Zimbabweans is that of a colonial master whose back remains in close vicinity, far too close — ever provoking into unmitigated anger the thoughts of those whose life spans allowed them to live both the colonial and post colonial eras on the one hand; and wooing the younger generation born under flag independence through the glitters of Western lifestyle on the other.

Unlike the Roman Empire which was so completely destroyed in both its Western and Eastern forms, the collapsed colonial empires have inheritors. This is why France still behaves like Paris has a colonial office running the affairs of Chad, Senegal, Ivory Coast and places like Rwanda.

Britain has this misguided obsession with Zimbabwe that former Premier Tony Blair only had two pre-occupations during his era — invading and occupying Iraq and fighting to isolate Zimbabwe from the international community. He messed up the economy of Britain in the process.

The survivors of the British colonial empire at No 10 Downing Street and in Britain’s House of Commons sometimes openly regret the passing of the empire days. Questions in the House of Commons are often phrased like,

"What is Her Majesty’s Government’s going to do in regard to the behaviour of the regime in Zimbabwe, and blah blah blah . . .".

David Miliband revealed in 2009 that the strategy for pursuing the post-colonial interests of the fallen empire for its inheritors is always to work with locals, in Zimbabwe’s case the MDC-T.

He said that was exactly what Gordon Brown’s government was doing in relation to the management of Britain’s Western-backed illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe.

Some empires seem to have effectively died, may be because of the length of time elapsed since the empire’s disappearance. Alexander the Great is gone forever, so is Genghis Khan, Timur, Ummayads and Abbassids.

Because Rhodesia collapsed only 30 years ago, surviving Rhodesians still celebrate the Victorian times, and some of them try to convince younger Zimbabweans that the colonial era was way better than present-day Zimbabwe.

In typical fashion, recently ended empires have been followed by periods of considerable political and psychological stress in their former colonies.

While it is true that no state that once ruled over a colonial empire intends or has any hope or capacity for restoration; where there is stress and decline in former colonies, the inheritors of fallen empires will always look back on times of past greatness with pride and nostalgia.

There is this great temptation to exaggerate the benefits the empire is said to have conferred on its subjects while it existed — such as sound economies; in reality sound minority economies, and law and order; in reality the bludgeoning of popular opinion by state power.

The reality of empires cannot be left to nostalgic revisionists and selective thinkers. These are the people who have created one collective form of imperial memory with dangerously deceptive implications today.

This is the feeling that the superior power of empires to conquer and rule the world was based on superior civilisation, easily identified with moral or even racial superiority.

This is the basis for the tacit rather than openly articulated Western claim for moral superiority.

The claim finds expression in the conviction that Western values and institutions are superior to others, and may, or even should, be imposed on all others for their benefit, where necessary by force of arms.

The claim to supremacy is also the basis of the misleading view that historically empires and imperialism brought civilisation to backward peoples and substituted order for anarchy — a view that is doubtful at best, and spurious at worst.

Just how positive is the balance sheet of the colonial era for the inhabitants of Sub-Saharan Africa, or those of the Americas, other than the descendants of the European immigrants who settled there?

Egyptology shows a superior civilisation than that of Europe, and the architectural work at Great Zimbabwe was way superior to the civilisation that Cecil John Rhodes and David Livingstone proved to have when they settled in Southern Africa.

Naturally, the memory of empires among their former subjects often takes a uniformly negative view of the era of colonial rule. This memory is often dominated by the history of the creation of the new state, which in most cases takes the form of a foundation legacy of struggle and liberation.

This limited history, plus the much revered flag, do make the official foundation of many post-colonial states today.

It is a foundation not so rich in depth, not least because the short liberation history is not informative enough of the pre-colonial realities of the newly-freed peoples.

Some of the narratives tend to exaggerate the independent role of the forces of liberation, to underestimate the local civilian forces involved in liberation struggles, and at times oversimplify the relationship between an empire and its subject population.

Separation from empires was not entirely an act of conquest through the revolt of subject peoples. It was a complex process that involved a lot of players in global politics — a process that sometimes required negotiation, and at other times the use of arms.

Occupation of colonies could no longer rest on military power and the ability to use coercion and terror. Colonies were often controlled by tiny numbers of foreigners that relied on military force, deception, cooperation with local interests, and exploiting the disunity of subjects; divide and rule (divide et impera).

The number of British immigrant settlers in Zimbabwe was 400 000 at its highest, and Ian Smith’s ruling elites were well under 1 000, but they managed to rule up to 7 million Zimbabweans for ninety years.

The number of British civilians engaged in governing the 400 million people of India was no more than ten thousand.

When force, deception, cooperation with local interests and exploiting of disunity among locals are all absent, it is impossible to occupy an inhabited area successfully. This is exactly why the most powerful super power of our present times, the US, has totally failed to successfully occupy and control Iraq.

And for the same reason, the old era empires cannot be revived, least of all by a single super power — never mind its resolve and imperial ambitions.

Westernisation can no longer be used as a baiting tool to purchase goodwill from the leadership of former colonies. Indigenous modernisers have often turned against foreign rule, as happened in India and Egypt.

Paradoxically, the very Nelson Mandela who the Westerners want to immortalise ahead of everyone else today was one of the leading champions in overthrowing apartheid rule in South Africa.

Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe was a beneficiary of colonial missionary efforts in educating colonial subjects, and more recently was knighted by the Queen of England in 1994, for what the collapsed empire saw as protection of its neo-colonial interests, particularly the continued white occupation of colonially stolen farmlands.

It is the same Robert Mugabe who is today vilified as the Great Satan by Britain — a vilification firmly rooted in his decision to seize white-occupied land for the benefit of locals in 2000.

So you have indigenous modernisers turning against foreign rule, and that must explain Tendai Biti’s sudden Damascan enthusiasm for nationalist sentiments, particularly his call for the nationalisation of minerals.

Would be empires face unprecedented challenges in that modernisation has become internationalised. South Korea has very little to learn from the US today, India exports software experts to the West, Zimbabwe supplies the global community with health experts and other professionals, South Africa is an emerging economic giant, China is almost taking over global influence from the US, and Brazil exports not only coffee, but also executive jets.

The greatest handicap facing the US and any would be empires today is that it is no longer possible to rely on the obedience of subjects.

Thanks to the heritage of the Cold War, those who refuse to obey now have access to weapons sufficiently powerful to hold strong states at bay — the way the Afghanis and the Iraqis are keeping the US and its allies aloof, as are doing Iran and North Korea.

In the past, a quick show of military might by displaying the wonders of firepower and mesmerising villagers with the miracle of flying machines would be enough to enable a handful of foreigners to rule millions of people, as the people readily accepted this imposed rulership.

Now even Zimbabwe can afford to dare Britain, should they ever wish to venture into the world of military invasions. The US dream of establishing an empire today is not only a long shot, but an utter impossibility.

The prospect of a single superpower, however great its military might; establishing global hegemony over all others — is just a futile cause.

As Eric Hobsbawm asserted in his book "Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism" the age of empires is long dead. The world can no longer be organised on the dictates of a single super power — regardless of its revolutionary past or its imperial resolve.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!

Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk or reason@ rwafawa rova.com or visit www.rwafawarova.com

©  EsinIslam.Com