Post by Voltaire on Jul 20, 2003 3:05:35 GMT -5
Back in the early part of the twentieth century, the British Empire was at its peak, and colonial imperialism was rampant around the world. Every world power wanted its own colonies in Africa, Asia, and other resource-rich areas. Competition to have more territory also drove the hungry world powers on.
Empires, such as Germany and England, snatched up land and tore apart ancient cultures without a bit of respect. Often times, the defeated subjects lived in near-slavery conditions with no hope of raising their status. Many worked long hours on plantations, toiled away for pennies, and often died of exhaustion or easily treatable illness. However, a good deal of Europeans were not appalled by this. Instead, they called the “white man’s burden.”
The moral justification behind the “white man’s burden,” was rather simple: it was the burden of the ‘white man’ colonists to ‘civilize’ the so-called ‘inferior races.’ Social change could be a good thing, such as the replacing of an oppressive tribal system with a democracy, this was all too often not the case.
The invaders would often be worse than the old system in many cases. For example, in India, the British took over a monarchy, but installed their own governor. This foreign-appointed governor was little more than a dictator most of the time. The basic rights of the British at the time, such as freedom of press and speech, were often denied to their conquered subjects. However, British citizens were free to say whatever they wanted on their subjects. The rights of the British citizens took precedence over the rights of the Indians, who were not even considered ‘citizens.’
Social Darwinism and Nazi-type pseudo-science also developed as a result of such oppression. This ‘civilizing’ of primitive cultures at gunpoint, sword point, and spear point is nothing new, however. The early Christian and Muslim religions used plenty of forced conversions. Leaders used the pretext of ‘spreading the faith,’ but were just power-hungry empire builders using religion as a guise for their motives. However, those same leaders turned religion into a tool for control.
The Spanish conquest of the Americas and the Philippines is a perfect example of this. The Spanish monarchs appeased the Catholic Church by using the pretext of ‘spreading the faith.’ However, once the Spanish used military might to conquer a region and convert the locals, they would ban any locals from joining the clergy. This prevent the natives from trying to rebel or upset their control.
Often times, the invading power would make deals with those already in power. For example, when the Spanish invaded the new world, Aztec priests were given a choice: convert or die. Often times, when a priest converted, they retained all of their prestige with the locals, but with a new ‘Christian’ look.
However, when an invader takes over a country, there will always be those within that conquered land that would betray it for their own gain. Again, I will cite Britain and India. When the British invaded India, they made deals with corrupt leaders. The corrupt leaders could retain their power as British-approved rulers, but they merely had to pay taxes to Britain. The corrupt leaders could be as cruel as they wished, and would often work their subjects to death. When prying eyes were turned in their direction, a few ‘gifts’ of gold were given to the colonial overlords to divert their attention.
Now, even the detestable ideology of the “white man’s burden” was twisted by power-mongers to condone such brutality. As stated before, this was not a distant concept, and has been through multiple incarnations throughout history. It was not even exclusive to Europe, as some other cultures, such as Muslim sultans, bended the basic ideology to their needs.
However, the ‘civilizing’ of primitive nations is a relatively ‘good’ goal. By ‘civilizing,’ I refer to the basic human tenets of free speech, free press, freedom of belief, and even freedom to non-belief reaching out across the world. However, the forced delivery of ‘civilization’ by colonization is the wrong way to go about it. Peaceful ‘civilizing’ of nations over a long time and a period of gradual change is much more stable. If a society has gradually grown to accept those basic rights for its citizens, it will be more stable.
When brute force enters into the whole process of transforming social elements, chaos and instability are two of the most prominent end results. Like forced religious conversions, forced conversions to different political or social philosophies are often insincere. However, as for an added casualty, the philosophy that was inflicted upon others becomes less favored among the populace. For example, if a religion was enforced upon a group, that group will not like that religion and will want to revert to whatever they had before, no matter how tyrannical or irrational it was.
When the Muslims conquered parts of Southeast Asia, the locals did not like the new religion enforced upon them. They began to yearn for early days of warring tribes, though the previous model was a lot less stable than a single empire. This would later be repeated when Christian missionaries from Europe came around.
