Imperialism: True Reform or Economic Motives?

Imperialism, often identified as “the white man’s burden” to civilize, educate, and reform indigenous peoples in third world countries, has been a constant issue since the 19^th century. Forcefully promoting and injecting culture, politics and economics into a country in a state of poverty has its benefits, such as economic success and stable political positions. With imperialism, third world countries are able learn the art of craft of establishing flourishing states, and reap the benefits of the colonizer. Ultimately, however, the question is if the benefits of imperialism outweigh the burdens.

            With colonization comes a loss of culture, a silenced indigenous voice, and often, oppression. In many cases, such as that of the French colonization of Algeria and the Belgian colonization of Rwanda, extreme cultural tensions emerge, and mass genocides result. This kind of backlash against enforced colonial policies is a major threat to the intrinsic point of colonization.

Although affluent countries appear to try and aid countries in need through colonial rule, they often end up thwarting the growth of the nation on its own, in turn harming the countries own cultural and religious growth. Other motives often motivate the colonization of a country: such as natural resources, and religious conversion. Although these motives seem legitimate, they eventually taint the national identity, and impede the type of nationalism that makes a nation strong. Personally, I believe that if a country is truly in need of reform and political support, the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations should contribute to the cause. All in all, colonization and imperialism were negative “reforming” movements that only stunted the progress of independence.  

No Cheers For Colonialism

Colonialism or imperialism should not be praised. As seen in European history imperialism came about through the want of power and wealth. Many leaders and people said that through imperialism they wanted to diminish all the small states and make the bigger states even bigger and more powerful. I believe that the ideas presented by Dinesh D’Souza in the article “Two Cheers for Colonialism” are flawed.

The main problem with imperialism is that due to the Europeans want for major wealth and power, imperialism brought about a great wave of oppression. Western countries would colonize third world countries and completely diminish the culture of the colonies they colonized. Europeans would attempt to westernize and modernize these countries and many times veer far away from the traditions of the countries. Also, since Europeans colonized to gain more wealth, they used the people of the colonies to do their work. In many cases, the native people living in the lands the Europeans colonized became slaves to the Europeans. Who cares if the West did not become “rich and powerful” (Dinesh D’Souza) through colonial oppression? The point is, the West attempted to become rich and powerful through colonial oppression, that is the real problem.

Dinesh D’Souza fails to see the real problems imperialism created. Instead of looking at the immediate effects of colonization, D’Souza focuses on long term effects which do not give a good idea of how European colonization really damaged many states. D’Souza also tries to justify his points by saying European countries were not the first to colonize. Again who cares if they were not first to colonize, the fact that they did colonize in an extremely cruel way is the problem. To say “Two Cheers for Colonialism” is moronic when speaking about European colonialism.

Imperialism: the Counterpart to Nationalism

Nationalism has been described as the factor that can make or break a nation. It is a necessity in government and in the people to keep the country above water. I believe that this is accepted widely by historians, but then why does imperialism constantly pop up in discussions as a popular and progressive system? Over and over again we see that nations survive because the people have united over one goal or idea. These people being from different areas and classes, but all supporting one thing: their nation. Hobson explains that “the chief economic source of Imperialism has been found in the inequality of industrial opportunities by which a favoured class accumulates superfluous elements of income”. Basically he is saying that because the upper class has so much influence in government and has so much power they are able to “use the national resources for their private gain”. They are going out and conquering other countries and colonizing, while the lower class gets nothing. The classes are growing farther and farther apart solely because the upper class has more resources and is reaching out to other countries besides their own. Also, because of this expansion the focus is shifted from inside the country to the happenings outside of it. Everyone is worrying about their capital invested outside of their own country, instead of thinking about what is going on inside their country. This is the country that they are supposed to support at all costs, and to fight for no matter what. Nationalism gets lost in the greed of imperialism and gets pushed to the back of people’s minds. They forget their duty to their country and this is why Hobson calls imperialism a “sin”.

Morgan Schwankinator

Imperialism has always been one of the most important aspects of an empire. Imperialistic actions establish boundaries of superiority economically, socially, and religiously. Imperialism, in the past and even today, is often affiliated with a nation capitalizing on the resources or labor of weaker countries. But as we learned last week, imperialism may also be an obligation. After reading the “White Man’s Burden”, we discovered that how others of that time felt about Imperialism. I interpreted this poem not as sarcastic or even straight forward, but as an excuse. I felt that the white man’s burden, the burden of “cleaning” a race or helping a race is all a result of the greed for economic success. It seems very clear that European countries of that era preached the purities of imperialism in order to cover up the obnoxious greed that filters through the economic motives. Africa is a prime example of how European may present their actions as fulfilling and righteous, but the down-right motive was economic success. Europeans travelled to the Congo to reap the labor and resources of the African jungle and population. With rubber abundant and people to supply the rubber, all the Belgium government had to do was sit back and roll in the product. Their sole problems dealt with how people justified their actions in the Congo. People knew that exploitation was occurring at the highest degree, but it was all how the Europeans wanted to interpret their actions and they turned it clean. Through missionary work and other procedures, Europeans backed up their settlements with defining their actions as cause-worthy or religiously righteous.

The same occurs today in the Middle East. There is no doubt that Imperialism occurs around the world, but probably most prominent deals with The United State’s presence in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. It seems that if there was no oil in these countries, we would have long left by now. But the truth is our ever growing reliance on their resources is fueling our own growth of Imperialistic actions. Sure it is conveyed on the news as establishing new governments or protecting our nation or even protecting the people of those countries, but there is no doubt that oil is definitely an underneath motive. I find it hard to believe that true imperialism may ever come from pure righteousness.

response paper

Allie Crandall

Throughout all the written works on imperialism and all the various opinions, still one boundary needs to be defined: the boundary between good works and exploitation. It is clear that the greed of imperialists such as King Leopold II can not be mistaken as humanitarian works in any right. But, what of the works today? Surely some of the efforts taken to improve poverty stricken areas are genuine, but how do we define the difference? Is it really selfless if McDonalds claims it will donate the profit from its fruit parfaits to Katrina support? (A fictional example). But, still the same message would exist that McDonalds is explointing the compassion of its customer to increase its profit, while also explointing the misfortune of others to make a profit. One may argue that if the money really does go to a cause that that alone makes McDonald's efforts humanitarian. I have to disagree. A humanitarian act does not create an auxiliary profit for those who are providing the help. The works are done without self-consciousness in the least. If McDonalds says it will donate a portion of its profit to those in need. McDonalds benefits from such a deal in multiple ways. It gains a good reputation as a company that wants to help those less fortunate than themselves. If the plan works, McDonalds makes money and is only required to give a portion of their profit, just as they said they would. But, there are also corporations which perform humanitarian works for no personal gain such as kiva. Really, it is a matter of finding the right group and not lumping all groups together. Therefore, in response to the novel which we heard an excerpt from today, it would be incorrect to say that all "white man" interaction with under developed countries is exploitation like that of the early imperialists. For while some corporations do seem to attempt to deceive us in their false acts of altruism, others do not. And, even then, those false acts of altruism can hardly be compared to that of the greedy, relentless rule of King Leopold II in the Congo.