Bearing the White Man's Burden

After reading Niall Ferguson's book Colossus and beginning War of the World, I've been doing some serious thinking about imperialism, the global system and its implications for the future of the globe. I would like to use this blog as a forum to think aloud and record my thoughts on these issues. Ultimately, I plan to return to school to finish my Ph.D. in imperial history after completing both my B.A. and M.A. in history at the University at Buffalo. Though work and an M.A. in U.S. Foreign Policy at American University in Washington consuming an inordinate amount of time, I find myself yearning to explore the questions of history that are currently hotly debated in light of the global situation in the Middle East. Here, through an ongoing series of posts, I hope to breakdown why a return to some form of an imperial system will eventually happen and why it is beneficial to the world and especially to the United States.

The message laid forth in the Rudyard Kipling poem "The White Man's Burden", popularized in McClure's magazine around the turn of the 19th century is as appropriate today as it was 100 years ago.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go make them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers.

Kipling's view of imperialism can be seen in two ways through this poem and other writings. The conventional argument is that Kipling is promoting both the cultural and moral imperialism at work in places such as Africa and India. Others argue that Kipling writes not only of the racially and culturally inferior subjects of empire, but also the servants of the empire who are forced to conform to the system in place. Though the second argument is an intriguing one, exploring Kipling's other writings makes the first explanation more credible.

The poem is often referenced as a symbol of the racial and cultural superiority advocated by proponents of imperialism. The motivation to colonize based solely on racial qualities is an assumption that I find somewhat questionable. Nor would it be accurate to say that racial behavior exported by colonizing nations was in some manner more extreme than the type practiced by its citizens at home. A quick look at European attitudes during the Victorian Age of imperialism reflects a society that drew clear lines based on religion and ethnicity. These characteristics are no different than the ones manifested by the men on the spot in India or Africa.

Undoubtedly, many colonizing societies were heavily influenced by Darwinian thought. These theories were practiced not only on the frontier, but also in the homeland. The Dreyfus Affair in France epitomized 19th century attitudes of racial differences and cultural superiority. In fact, throughout Europe, notions of racial and cultural superiority were abundant. Look no further than the aftermath of the First World War.

At the time, Europe was nothing more than a hodgepodge of highly combustible ethnic empires. Historically, pre-World War One Europe is written about as a 'powder keg waiting to explode.' The assassination of archduke Franz Ferdinand ignited a pan-European war. Not only did the assassination set off a massive clash of arms, it blew the top off the simmering ethnic empires like the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empire. Not only did genocidal tendencies manifest themselves in Turkey, but a massive diaspora of Greeks, Muslims, Turks, Jews and Germans occurred throughout Europe.

The question here is; If, as the historical hypothesis states, racial and cultural superiority manifested themselves in its most extreme form only at the edge of the empire, why did forced migrations and outright genocide take place in the homeland of European imperial societies?