(Jody Gray) Imperialism, Colonialism and the concept of the Right to Rule due to Superiority. Currently, I am focusing on the British Empire section of this Wikipedia page as part of my research relating to “nationalism”. Britain’s nationalistic movements were evident with the creation of the common wealth countries where there was a shared nature of national identity.... (Britain) adopted the role of global policeman… The pseudo-sciences of Social Darwinism and theories of race formed an ideological underpinning during this time… The British Empire was the largest Empire that the world has ever seen both in terms of landmass and population. Its power, both military and economic, remained unmatched...
*Imperialism [https://en.wikipedia.] is an action that involves a country (usually an empire or kingdom) extending its power by the acquisition of territories. It may also include the exploitation of these territories, an action that is linked to colonialism (generally regarded as an expression of imperialism). It is different from New Imperialism, as the term imperialism is usually applied to the colonization of the Americas between the 15th and 19th centuries, as opposed to the expansion of Western Powers (and Japan) during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, both are examples of imperialism… It first became common in Great Britain, during the 1870s and was used with a negative connotation.
Britain. Britain’s imperialist ambitions can be seen as early as the sixteenth century. In 1599 the British East India Company was established and was chartered by Queen Elizabeth in the following year. With the establishment of trading posts in India, the British were able to maintain strength relative to other empires such as the Portuguese who already had set up trading posts in India. In 1767 political activity caused exploitation of the East India Company causing the plundering of the local economy, almost bringing the company into bankruptcy. By the year 1670 Britain’s imperialist ambitions were well off as she had colonies in Virginia, Massachusetts, Bermuda, Honduras, Antigua, Barbados, Jamaica and Nova Scotia.
Due to the vast imperialist ambitions of European countries, Britain had several clashes with France… Britain continued to expand by colonizing countries such as New Zealand and Australia, both of which were not empty land as they had their own locals and cultures. Britain’s nationalistic movements were evident with the creation of the common wealth countries where there was a shared nature of national identity.
The “First” British Empire was based on mercantilism, and involved colonies and holdings primarily in North America, the Caribbean, and India. Its growth was reversed by the loss of the American colonies in 1776. Britain made compensating gains in India, Australia, and in constructing an informal economic empire through control of trade and finance in Latin America after the independence of Spanish and Portuguese colonies in about 1820… After losing its first Empire to the Americans, Britain then turned its attention towards Asia, Africa and the Pacific. Following the defeat of Napoleonic France in 1815, Britain enjoyed a century of almost unchallenged dominance and expanded its imperial holdings around the globe. Unchallenged at sea, British dominance was later described as Pax Britannica (“British Peace”), a period of relative peace in Europe and the world (1815-1914) during which the British Empire became the global hegemon [industrial supremacy] and adopted the role of global policeman… The British Empire expanded to include India, large parts of Africa and many other territories throughout the world…
A resurgence came in the late 19th century with the Scramble for Africa (see) and major additions in Asia and the Middle East… The pseudo-sciences of Social Darwinism (see, Related Blog Posts) and theories of race formed an ideological underpinning during this time… The British Empire was the largest Empire that the world has ever seen both in terms of landmass and population. Its power, both military and economic, remained unmatched. After the First Boer War, the South African Republic and Orange Free State were recognized by Britain but eventually re-annexed after the second Boer War.
World War II had weakened Britain’s position in the world, especially financially. Decolonization (see) movements proliferated throughout the Cold War, resulting in Indian independence and the establishment of independence and the establishment of independent states throughout Africa. British imperialism continued for a few years, notably with its involvement in the Iranian coup d'etat of 1953 and in Egypt during the Suez Crisis in 1956. However, with the United States and Soviet Union emerging from World War II as the sole superpowers, Britain’s role as a worldwide power declined significantly.
Scramble for Africa [https://en.wikipedia.] was the occupation, division, and colonization of African territory by European powers during the period of New Imperialism, between 1881 and 1914. It is also called the Partition of Africa and by some, the Conquest of Africa. In 1870, only 10 percent was under European control; by 1914 it had increased to almost 90 percent of the continent…
The Berlin Conference of 1884, which regulated European colonisation is usually referred to as the starting point of the scramble for Africa. Conseuqent to the political and economic rivalries among the European empires in the last quarter of the 19th century, the partitioning, or splitting up of Africa was how the Europeans avoided warring amongst themselves over Africa.The latter years of the 19th century saw the transition from “informal imperialism” (hegemony), by military influence and economic dominance, to direct rule, bringing about colonial imperialism.
Decolonization [https://en.wikipedia.] is the undoing of colonialism, where a nation establishes and maintains its domination over dependent territories -”the withdrawal from its colonies of a colonial power; the acquisition of political or economic independence by such colonies”. The term refers particularly to the dismantlement, in the years after World War II, of the colonial empires established prior to World War I throughout the world. However, decolonization not only refers to the complete “removal of the domination of non-indigenous forces” within the geographical space and different institutions of the colonized, but also refers to the “decolonizing of the mind” from the colonizers’ ideas’ that made the colonized feel inferior…
...there have been several particularly active periods of decolonization in modern times. These include the breakup of the Spanish Empire in the 19th century; of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian Empires following World War I; of the British, French, Dutch, Japanese, Portuguese, Belgian and Italian colonial empires following World War II; and of the Soviet Union (successor to the Russian Empire) following the October Revolution (1917).
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*Commonwealth of Nations [https://en.wikipedia.] (formerly the British Commonwealth) aka the Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of 52 member states that are mostly former territories of the British Empire… dates back to the mid-20th century with the decolonisation of the British Empire through increased self-governance of its territories. It was formally constituted by the London Declaration in 1949, which established the member states as “free and equal”. The symbol of this free association is Queen Elizabeth II who is the Head of the Commonwealth.
Member states have no legal obligation to one another. Instead, they are united by language, history, culture and their shared values of democracy, free speech, human rights, and the rule of law.
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*New Imperialism [https://en.wikipedia.] was a period of colonial expansion by European powers, the United States, and Japan during the late 19th and 20th centuries. The period is distinguished by an unprecedented pursuit of overseas territorial acquisitions. At the time, states focused on building their empires with new technological advances and developments, making their territory bigger through conquest, and exploiting their resources.
During the era of New Imperialism, the Western powers (and Japan) conquered almost all of Africa and parts of Asia. The new wave of imperialism reflected ongoing rivalries among the great powers, the economic desire for new resources and markets, and a “civilizing mission” ethos. Many of the colonies established during this era gained independence during the era of decolonization that followed World War II.
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*Cultural Assimilation [https://en.wikipedia.] is the process by which a person’s or group’s culture come to resemble those of another group. The term is used to refer to both individuals and groups; the latter case can refer to either foreign immigrants or native residents that come to be culturally dominated by another society… Full assimilation occurs when new members of a society become indistinguishable from members of the other group. Whether or not it is desirable for an immigrant group to assimilate is often disputed by both members of the group and those of the dominant society.
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*Civilizing mission [https://en.wikipedia.] is a rationale for intervention or colonization, purporting to contribute to the spread of civilization, and used mostly in relation to the Westernization of indigenous peoples in the 19th and 20th centuries.
It was notably the underlying principle of French and Portuguese colonial rule in the late 19th and early 20th centuries… The European colonial powers felt it was their duty to bring Western civilization to what they perceived as backward peoples. Rather than merely govern colonial peoples, the Europeans would attempt to Westernize them in accordance with a colonial ideology known as “assimilation”.
Intellectual origins. ...can be traced back to the Christian tradition dating from the Middle Ages. European thinkers had naturalized social change by using the development metaphor. In the 18th century, history became to be seen as an unilinear unending inevitable process of social evolutionism with the European nations running ahead. Racists saw the “backward” nations as intrinsically incapable, but the more “progressive” thinkers… postulated a holy duty to help those peoples “which, to civilize themselves, wait only to receive the means from us, to find brothers among Europeans and to become their friends and disciples.”
Evolutionist views survived colonialism. Modernization theorists declared that traditional customs had to be destroyed, traditional societies had to adapt or to disappear.
Development criticism sees development therefore as continuation of the colonial civilizing mission. To become civilized has always meant to become “like us”, therefore “Civilizing” now meant that in the long run all societies had to become consumer societies (based on industrialization [production] and marketing [sales]) and renounce their native traditions and habits.
By empire -French colonialism.
...French Republican political leader Jules Ferry, 1832-1893, promoter of laicism (secularism, absence of religious involvement in government affairs, especially the prohibition of religious influence in the determination of state policies; it is also the absence of government involvement in religious affairs, especially the prohibition of government influence in the determination of religion.) and colonial expansion. Equal rights and citizenship were extended to those peoples who adopted French culture, including primary use of the French language in their lives, wearing Western clothes, and conversion to Christianity… After World War I, “association” replaced assimilation as the fundamental tenet of the colonial relationships. It was thought that French culture might exist in association with indigenous societies and that these autonomous colonies might freely associate with France in the French Union.
Native Americans.
Indigenous Native Americans were also forced into European ideas of what it means to be civilized. This includes abandoning their traditional forms of dress, native language, spiritual and religious customs, songs and dance, and other forms of their rich cultural identity. Some Native American children went off to European boarding schools where forms of “civilization” could be imposed upon them. Some children were kidnapped from their families and taken away to the boarding schools. Later on even when Native Americans had become “civilized”, since they were not white European, they would never be truly civilized. Even with all of the European education and cultural understanding. They would always be partly “savage”. This is where they could be seen as “the noble savage” figure because they were more civilized and European like, but still not inherently European.
19th century elites of South American republics also used a civilizing mission rhetoric to justify armed actions against indigenous groups. Jan. 1, 1883, Chile re-founded the old city of Villarrica ending thus formally the process of the occupation of the indigenous lands of Araucania… president Domingo Santa Maria declared: The country has with satisfaction seen the problem of the reduction of the whole Araucania solved… Today the whole of Araucania is subjugated, more than to the material forces, to the moral and civilizing force of the republic…
Fairy tales.
Civilizing missions, while viewed in a historical context, are also capable of being viewed as values reflected and emphasized by large-scale corporations and highly popularized outlets. Looking at the civilizing mission within a historical context, it’s essentially a concept in which a person or a group of people are forcing their personal beliefs and values onto another group of people, with the mindset that their belief is the ultimate belief. Within this context, civilizing missions would consist of highly perpetuated ideals and beliefs that are reflected onto a large audience, with the unintentional or intentional objective being to mold their characteristics and mindsets in favor of the outlet projecting their ideals.
Common examples of these outlets include fairy tales, with a primary player being Walt Disney. As mentioned in Jack Zipes book, Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion, he analyzes the unwarranted and unrealized effect that fairy tales and Walt Disney’s films have on our society, in regards to shaping our society, and perpetuating both gender archetypes and social norms.
Lori Baker-Sperry and Liz Grauerholz also discuss this concept in their journal, The Pervasiveness and Persistence of the Feminine Beauty Ideal in Children’s Fairy Tales… discusses and analyzes the values that are most prevalent within a large array of fairy tales, as well as the extent in which they mold the mindsets of the society they’re released in. Linda T. Parson’s also released a journal… Ella Evolving: Cinderella Stories and the Construction of Gender-Appropriate Behavior. This journal specifically pinpoints the construction of gender roles within fairy tales, and the prevalence of female passivity.
Gender roles and societal archetypes are common examples of civilizing missions due to how they’re usually unique and often personal to individuals, and have the large possibility of differing quite dramatically. Due to this, it’s reasonable that individuals would want to uphold the same beliefs that they do, and would unknowingly or knowingly attempt to reflect their views onto someone else. With this, fairy tales serve as an easy outlet to manipulate in order to perpetuate ideas due to: 1) their enjoyment among people, and 2) how unnoticed emphasized ideals and values are within fairy tales.
See also.
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The poem exhorts the reader and the listener to embark upon the enterprise of empire, yet gives somber warning about the cost involved; nonetheless, American imperialists understood the phrase The white man’s burden to justify imperialism as a noble enterprise of civilization, conceptually related to the American philosophy of Manifest Destiny.
The title and themes of “The White Man’s Burden” ostensibly make the poem about Euro-centric racism and about the belief of the Western world that industrialization is the way to civilize the Third World.
History.
The poem was first published 2/10/1899 edition of the New York Sun… Senator Benjamin Tillman, 2/7/1899 (the U.S should renounce claim of authority over the Philippine Islands) Why are we bent on forcing upon them a civilization not suited to them, and which only means, in their view, degradation and a loss of self-respect, which is worse than the loss of life itself?
2/11/1899, the U.S Congress ratified the “Treaty of Peace between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Spain” (Treaty of Paris, 1898), which established American imperial jurisdiction upon the archipelago of the Philippine Islands, in the Pacific Ocean, near the Asian mainland.
The imperialist interpretation… proposes that the white man has a moral obligation to rule the non-white peoples of the Earth, whilst encouraging their economic, and social progress through colonialism.
In the later 20th century, in the context of decolonisation and the Developing World, the phase “the white man’s burden” was emblematic of the “well-intentioned” aspects of Western colonialism and “Euro-centrism”. The poem’s imperialist interpretation also includes the milder, philanthropic colonialism of the missionaries: The implication, of course, was that the Empire existed not for the benefit - economic or strategic or otherwise - of Britain, itself, but in order that primitive peoples, incapable of self-government, could, with British guidance, eventually become civilized (and Christianized).
The poem positively represents colonialism as the moral burden of the white race, which is divinely destined to civilize the brutish and barbarous parts of the world; to wit, the Filipino people are “new-caught, sullen peoples, half-devil and half-child”. Although imperialist beliefs were common currency in the culture of that time, there were opponents to Kipling’s poetic misrepresentation of imperial conquest and colonization, notably Mark Twain (To the Person Sitting in Darkness, 1901) and William James; for them, “The White Man’s Burden” was plain of manner, meaning, and intent.
Kipling offered the poem to Theodore Roosevelt, then governor of New York state (1899-1900), to help him politically persuade anti-imperialist Americans to accept the annexation of the Philippine Islands to the United States. “Now, go in and put all the weight of your influence into hanging on, permanently, to the whole Philippines. America has gone and stuck a pick-axe into the foundations of a rotten house, and she is morally bound to build the house over, again, from the foundations, or have it fall about her ears.”
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*Mandate of Heaven. (Right to Rule)
*Mandate of Heaven [https://en.wikipedia.] was a Chinese political and religious doctrine used to justify the rule of the emperor of China. According to this belief, heaven -which embodies the natural order and will of the universe -bestows the mandate on a just ruler, the Son of Heaven. If a ruler was overthrown, this was interpreted as an indication that the ruler was unworthy, and had lost the mandate. It was also a common belief that natural disasters such as famine and flood were signs of heaven’s displeasure with the rules, so there would often be revolts following major disasters as citizens saw these as signs that the Mandate of Heaven had been withdrawn. The Mandate of Heaven does not require a legitimate ruler to be of noble birth…
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Related Blog Posts:
*BP: Ethnogenesis; Scientific Racism; Eugenics. http://historicalandmisc.* Scientific racism -the pseudo-scientific study of techniques and hypotheses to support or justify the belief in racism, racial inferiority, or racial superiority… might be asserted to be superior or inferior Scientific racism was common during the New Imperialism period (c. 1880s-1914) where it was used in justifying white European imperialism, and it was culminated in the period from 1920 to the end of World War II.
*BP: Evolution of Ethnicity, Nationalism and Racism. http://indextoblogposts. *
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