Asalam o alaykum

Can some1 please explain in very simple, non-complex words that what is Imperialism and what is colonialism. I will be grateful.

W.Salam,

Imperialism is governing of a country or a region for economic or political reasons without settling there formally.It means creating an empire and expanding its dominance by taking control of the neighbouring regions.

Colonialism is also related to economic and political domination.The difference is that the foreigners become permanent settlers as well as they also maintain their allegiance to their mother country.You can take example of India.

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Colonialism: "the control or governing influence of a nation over a dependent country, territory, or people." or "Exploitation by a stronger country of weaker one; the use of the weaker country's resources to strengthen and enrich the stronger country"

Imperialism: "the policy of extending the rule or authority of an empire or nation over foreign countries, or of acquiring and holding colonies and dependencies."

They are actually quite similar and each reinforces the other. The act of engaging in colonialism is an imperialistic act, but acts that are imperialistic are not always colonial. For example, (it's the only one I can think of, sorry if it's a bit contentious) some people define some of the America's current actions as imperialistic but they are not colonial. Hopefully that helps makes sense of things a little.
Source(s):
Dictionary.com

the simplest explanation would be: imperialism is more like a hegemonic foreign policy and colonialism is actual physical occupation .

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Imperialism versus colonialism.

Colonialism
Imperialism
Difference between Colonialism and Imperialism

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Saqib Riaz(TIPO KHAN)

aasan misal de ke samjhata hun. is waqt USA aik buhut bara economic aur military power hai, us kee economy 14 trillion $$ kee goods aur services produce karti hai jis kee dunya ke mukhtalif mulkun ko zarurat hoti hai. us ke allawa America ke log ameer hain to us kee market bhi buhut bari hai aur us tak access kee zarurat bhi doosre industrial powers ko rehti hai. apni is unique position aur tool ko use karte huey US Government kamzor aur gharib mulkun ko jis tarah se exploit karti hai aur un pe apni baaten impose karti hai is ko imperialism kehte hain. aur agar apni high tech military force use kar ke kisi state ko topple karke wahan pe apni state bana leti hai to us ko colonialism kehte hain .

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Sooner will a camel pass through a needle's eye than a great man be "discovered" by an election.

Thankyou so much everyone. May Allah reward you.

The reason i asked this and wanted to understand all this in a very simple way was i saw an essay of 2010. The topic was:
The world politics stands more derisive than it was ever before due to the specific imperialist designs.

So i wanted to first have an idea of what imperialism is and what actually this topic means. Can u guys please shed light on this topic as well. Thankyou

For that you need to delve history of imperialism a bit. Whenever a people or a nation gains significant power and confidence militarily, economically, socially and culturally or religiously, it attempts to expand itself by pursuing imperialist political ambitions. The tactics of pursuing imperialist ambition have evolved through history as human societies progress, however imperialist pursuit is always challenging due to competition and resistance both internally in imperialist regimes, by other imperialist powers and by subdued people (who also begin to absorb power of imperial masters) and gives rise to conflicts and chaos which ultimately bring down the level of confidence and power of original imperialist nation(s) and eventually make others powerful. In pre-historical period, tribes migrated from one land to other and subdued already settled ones. During Antiquity large imperial armies like Romans and Persians subdued others and forced them to pay tribute or homage to the imperial masters, this trend ended after subdued tribes begin in far flung areas of the empire started becoming more assertive and powerful and empires also faced internal weaknesses. Middle Ages witnessed the rise of religious expansion (Christianity in Europe and Islam in Middle East), so this period is marked with religious confrontation and rise of large empires based upon religion (Islamic empire and Crusading hordes). Eventually this imperialist trend started banishing due to age of renaissance in Europe and internal weakness coupled with Mongol raids on Islamic empire. Renaissance period witnessed emergence of nation-states and industrial societies in Europe, now the imperialist European powers adopted the tactics of colonizing foreign lands piece by piece and install some form of dummy administrative set-ups that could be controlled from the mainland rulers, hence making them exploitable. Gradually people in colonies started becoming more assertive, competition from other imperialist powers began to stiffen and ultimately resulted in two world wars which weakened the imperialist powers to the extent that they had to abandon their colonies. Post World War II modern period witnessed emergence of nation-states on global political map and rise of two powerful countries. Now the imperialist tactics adopted by the imperialist powers were to expand ideologically, culturally and economically while keeping the ultimate and decisive military prowess and technological advancement with themselves since it was now nearly impossible to master nation-states across the globe with military and administrative power alone. This gave rise to a competition between two giants, a period knows as Cold War. Both giants engaged in an imperialistic competition forming their blocs of influence across the globe. The tactics adopted by Western Powers under leadership of the United States were to expand politically, culturally and economically while maintaining an ultimate military prowess and technological upper hand and they had the advantage since recently dethroned giant imperial powers were on this side (notably UK, France, Italy and Japan who still had a cultural, political and economic impact on decolonized nations). The tactics of Soviet Bloc were to expand only ideologically supported by military suppression of opponents, they had to work real hard. However both giant imperial powers avoided direct conflict with each other which could have resulted in catastrophic results owing to significant destructive achievements of human beings . Because of this, coupled with advancement in medical and other fields, the global population increased many fold since wars, famines and diseases served as population control mechanisms in the past . This increased population caused increase in competition for resources. Eventually Soviet bloc lost the competition and left the world with a sole center of power under United States. Looking at the imperialist tactics of western powers, it is clear that they are attempting to expand culturally, politically and economically while maintaining a hegemony as policemen and center of new global capitalist economy and culture in the new world order. The United Nations which was originally formed to avoid future wars between great powers now serves as a tool for expansion of western culture and political ideals and enforcement of new world order. But history is repeating itself once again, the imperialist agendas are facing resistance and new powers (like China) are rising to add challenge to the competition, so they have to contain them from expanding. Islam presents a different culture and economic doctrine which differs, to some or large extent, from western ideals so they have to deal with that too and bring forward more liberal muslims who have inclination towards western ideals. The result is chaos and derisive global political situation . The situation is so complex that no one would know for sure what could be the imperialist objectives, some people would argue that this is time for religious wars (Armageddon) and prophecies (dajjal waghera) to come true, some would argue from conspiracy theories that some secret societies are working to remove all cultures, decrease global population and bring about a one world government kind of stuff, some would argue that western powers want to maintain the current uni-polar status-quo of the world and keep a check on rising powers (notion that seems more realistic , but still confusing because even the rising power of China is still dependent upon West); all the notions have some solid evidence supporting the claims but the truth lies only with Allah (SWT) Himself. The imperialist games are so much deceptive, clandestine and complex now that it is really impossible to know whether the current global situation is natural or due to some imperialist agenda (maybe they always were that complex for the people of those times ).

PS: Most ideas are whimsical and I am only trying to give you an idea of imperialism and its implementation as per my understanding, if you are getting a picture of it then do some research yourself to adopt a more rational approach . Note that not everything happens because of specific imperial agendas, many events initiate because of some natural phenomenon (like sudden rise of Islam and Christianity during early middle age or Mongol raids were not specifically designed) and then others attempt to take advantage of the situation, but human minds tend to find patterns in random events so usually we find it convenient to point to imperialist agendas working behind any chaos

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Sooner will a camel pass through a needle's eye than a great man be "discovered" by an election.