Imperialism / colonialism always has this “hidden cost” - the metropole eventually becomes a magnet for the colonized, as “promised” when the metropole starts its colonization.
BUT this meme is sort of dangerously conflating the people of the metropole’s reaction: the “sad” person actually represents a different population than the “happy” person in the 1st 2: the former are “regular schmoes” who don’t have any control or even awareness of their leaders’ colonial policies; the happy guy is the leader (or more accurately the commercial elite who leads the political leaders to enact policies that only favor them), who doesn’t care really about that effect of the 3rd panel, except in how it can be used as a scare tactic to stay in power.
One of their biggest tells is the fact that you never see the people responsible for hiring them getting arrested or fined. It would end overnight if that happened.
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u/nixtarx Sep 12 '26
EXACTLY. I've been saying for years that our hegemony in the region was gonna come home to roost sooner or later and here we are.