HIEU 137: Essay #1

In The White Man’s Burden, Rudyard Kipling emphasizes the need for Europeans to help “civilize” the “savages” of Africa and other newly colonized regions. More specifically, he describes this endeavor as a sacrifice from the “white man,” portraying those part of the colonizing effort as being honorable and selfless. In describing their duties, Kipling writes, “Take up the White Man’s burden, In patience to abide [...] To seek another’s profit, And work another’s gain” (Kipling, 1899). He says that those who seek to help the “uncivilized” must be patient and work only for the benefit of others, not themselves. This type of rhetoric surrounding the movement of imperialism displays the mindset of the Europeans. Believing themselves to be completely enlightened and out of nonage, they saw the task of helping those in South Asia and Africa as tedious yet righteous and moral, and believed that helping them become civilized would be better for the world.

In The Life of Reason, George Santayana explains the central ideas of the civilizing mission and the New Imperialism movement as a whole. In his famous text, he explains how certain races, namely those that aren’t white, cannot escape nonage, or the immature, “uncivilized” state that those outside of the Western world were considered to be, and that attempting to “modernize” them would be futile. This argument outlines the ideals of the Enlightenment: that certain educated, wealthy, and masculine people had achieved a higher form of life and that it was their duty to share it with the rest of the world. Santayana’s writing shows that Europeans believed their mission to help people in South Asia and Africa was necessary to make them less like “savages” and more like Europeans. Santayana also wrote that they should not deviate from this ideology or the themes of the past. “Retentiveness,” he stated, “we must repeat, is the condition of progress.” (Santayana, 4, 1906)

In the chapter “The Age of Empire” of Eric Hobsbawm’s larger text by the same name, he discusses the economic developments of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Hobsbawm stresses that while economic development is not a signal of how history will unfold, it has certainly changed over the course of major historical events and movements. In discussing the role of colonies during the old and new age of imperialism, he writes about how they were never meant to join the international economy, stating, “Whatever the official rhetoric, the function of colonies and informal dependencies was to complement metropolitan economics and not compete with them” (Hobsbawm, 65, 1987). Hobsbawm’s point here connects perfectly with the discussion of colonies or economies of extraction. By creating systems of cheap labor and extracting key raw materials while impeding these regions' ability to industrialize or process their own materials, countries like the United Kingdom transformed parts of Africa and South Asia into essentially large farms. They removed any possibility of competition, adequate wages, or fair prices, allowing them to profit as much as possible at the expense of the lower classes in these newly colonized areas.

The General Act of the Berlin Conference on West Africa was an important legislative act adopted in 1885 by a gathering of European nations. In this act, they discuss various topics, but most importantly, they determine the rules for travel and navigation across the continent, as well as rules for claiming and occupying land. The first few chapters outline how the nation must allow free travel into its African territories and support a global economy through accessible ports. In Chapter Six, they outline the claim to new land, stating that any nation can establish control over new coastal regions and that the Act would ensure its authority in those areas (General Act, 1885). Firstly, note that this congregation established this document without any consideration or input from the people it directly affected. This helps to establish how the concept of Colonial Difference contributed to the colonization of Africa. The Europeans believed themselves superior in every respect to the natives of Africa and South Asia, and thus did not bother to treat with them when passing legislation such as the General Act of 1885. Rather, they believed (or, at least, convinced those in their home country) that they were serving the common good and improving the lives of Africans, even if it was done by force without any form of representation.

In his 1899 poem titled “Colonial Rule,” al-ḥājj 'Umar ibn Abī Bakr discusses the horrors he has witnessed and heard about in the treatment of colonized people by foreign powers. His main emphasis in this piece was to demonstrate the scale of the European takeover, as well as the harsh conditions faced by those under their authority. Throughout the poem, Bakr lists dozens of locations that have been taken over or conquered by these foreigners and describes how the leadership of these regions is dealt with quickly and violently (Bakr, 1899). From Bakr’s perspective, sources like this are especially important in discussions of imperialism and colonialism because they offer an alternative view of the situation. Part of the idea of new-age colonialism was to essentially lie to the home country about the intentions of their ventures, claiming it was for the betterment of society or to “civilize” those who are not, while hiding the true exploitative capitalist goals. Pieces like Bakr's Colonial Rule help spread the word about what is happening, urging others to reconsider their support for these heinous missions.

In Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger’s The Invention of Tradition, the authors argue that many traditions and practices associated with certain nations were established to instill values and ideals in the populace rather than being based on centuries-old practices. These new-age traditions emerged during the wave of New Imperialism to promote ideas that the newly colonized citizens would adopt. The authors discuss how these traditions connected their home countries and the colonies, giving them a role to fill in the new exploitative society, stating, “They began by socializing Africans into acceptance of one or other readily available European neo-traditional modes of conduct [...] historical literature is full of Africans proud of having [...] learnt how to be an effective practitioner of the ritual of nineteenth century Anglicanism” (Hobsbawm & Ranger, 227, 1983). The goal of these new traditions, as outlined by Hobsbawm and Ranger, was to incorporate the African population into a new society through various roles of servitude, including the military and lower-class jobs. There are a lot of comparisons that can be drawn from the indoctrination of Native Americans into boarding schools in the United States. Both of these instances demonstrate a Western superiority complex, where European nations colonized nations and attempted to completely change their way of life in their image of “modernization.”

In his essay titled “British Rule in India”, Karl Marx discusses the atrocities of British rule in Hindostan, referring to the rough area of modern-day India, Pakistan, and farther north towards Nepal. His criticism of their control of the region highlights the underlying purpose behind colonialism and economies of extraction in Africa and South Asia. Describing one of the main problems with colonial invasion, Marx writes, “England has broken down the entire framework of Indian society, without any symptoms of reconstitution yet appearing. This loss of his old world [...] imparts a particular kind of melancholy to the present misery of the Hindoo, and separates Hindostan [...] from the whole of its past history” (Marx, 1853). Marx explains that the result of British imperialism in India is a loss of government and established norms. In their quest to establish an economy of extraction, they removed all aspects of culture and tradition from the region, creating a labor state that exists solely to supply the United Kingdom with raw materials and resources. Marx’s critique of British colonialism in India is applicable to all other European conquests in Africa and South Asia, as the practice of exploiting native populations was more common than forms of settler colonialism.

In Mother India, Katherine Mayo attempts to praise the efforts of the British crown in modernizing India, while attacking the current Indian government and its enforcers. In the text, she discusses the number of schools, hospitals, and roads that had been built, as well as how the British had quelled several wars that had plagued various regions of South Asia (Mayo, 2, 1927). However, in addition to exaggerating the British efforts in favor of the local populace, she also speaks out against the treatment of women in the country, appealing to the European stance of masculinity and the protection of women and innocence. She describes young girls becoming pregnant, children born into harsh circumstances, and most of all, the overtly sexual nature of their existence (Mayo, 3). Her criticisms of Indian tradition and their way of life are almost entirely fabricated or heavily exaggerated, but they give insight into the mindset of Europeans in their endeavor to “civilize” their colonies. Sexuality was essentially seen as primitive, and that truly refined people could control their urges, comparing themselves to the “savage” men of Africa and South Asia, reproducing at a higher rate. Part of the civilizing mission in these regions was to teach these ideas of reducing sex drive and population growth, as well as using the guise of supporting women to convert the nation into a colonial image. 

In Gender and Imperialism in British India, authors Joanna Liddle and Rama Joshi explain how the British used the concept of gender division and the mistreatment of women in traditional Indian society to advance their own enlightened ideals, which, in turn, supported their colonial rule in the region. As they describe the British implementation of restrictive law in the region, they wrote, “The effect of this was to subject lower caste women to the strictures previously suffered only by women of higher caste. Brahmin law laid down the severest restrictions on women in order to preserve the purity and property of the caste” (Liddle & Joshi, 1985). Essentially, the British Empire enforced strict laws in South Asia, forcing women to live rigid lives under harsh statutes. As the authors explain, they would then use this version of Indian life to critique their own existence, effectively setting them up. This encapsulates the motives of the Enlightenment movement and civilizing mission in Africa and South Asia, as the British hoped to use ideas of organization and modernization to justify control of the region. By attacking the gender roles in the nation, they were able to convince those at home and in the country of the “uncivilized” nature of Indian government and law, thereby giving them cause to insert their own laws and statutes, which, in turn, gave them greater control over the land.