reminiscing all times

I know that parts of this map might be up for debate (particularly I've seen some argue that some parts that are light blue should be dark, and some parts that are gray should at least be light blue, I've especially seen some people point out that Ethiopia should actually be gray or light blue) but overall, I think it's important to get the occasional reminder of just how extensive European imperialism truly was.

And yes, I know not all countries in Europe have a history of imperialism, and many have been victims ourselves from our neighbors. I am going to speak from the perspective of Iceland, and I will say outright that I am not as well versed in the history and power dynamics of other "smaller" European countries who were not imperialists themselves and also victims of neighboring imperial powers, such as, say, Estonia. However, I am going to speak, at least on the perspective of Iceland on this whole idea that not all European countries should be lumped in with Europe being a colonial / imperial block.

So yes, Iceland has never directly colonized outside of Iceland, and we were victims of Danish rule ourselves. However, so was Greenland, and you only need to compare the treatment of Greenland to Iceland to see that one of these colonies was given much better treatment than the other, and I'm sure you can figure out why. To this day Denmark is still stealing children from Greenlandic parents to take them back to Denmark and raise them with Danish cultural values.

To this day, modern global inequality is rooted in colonialism and imperialism, and even countries without an imperialistic past can still receive peripheral benefits from our neighbors. Iceland in the 21st century currently benefits from a great deal more economic prosperity than a lot of the global south, and that is directly due to us receiving peripheral benefits from our larger imperial neighbors. Europe as an economic block trades within itself resulting in sharing wealth within itself, even to countries like Iceland without a history of colonialism. I need not remind you that this wealth our neighbors share with us often comes from modern imperialism and outright stealing from the global south.

You also only need to listen to how racists from our larger imperial neighbors talk about Iceland as a country and Icelandic people vs, say, Pakistan or Algeria as countries and their people, to see that our imperial neighbors look on us much more favorably due to the perception of us as culturally and historically European, and this is exactly why they are so much more willing to trade and share their imperial wealth with us.

This is why your country doesn't necessarily have to have had an imperial past itself to be a part of the imperial core and benefit from The West's legacy of colonialism and imperialism. This isn't even touching on how much we have also imported racist attitudes and ideologies from our more colonial neighbors, and this heavily affects how we perceive and subsequently treat people of color within our countries. Iceland has had no problems implementing institutional racism, and this comes from both power and attitudes imported from our colonial neighbors.

this is just one I found at work at the library but I have seen many more!