From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Mar 20 2003 - 00:41:57 MST
In two posts on March 13, Steve Davies writes
> Imperialism means a bit more than [taking of someone else's land].
> Obviously, the core aspect is one nation or state ruling over
> territory not its own original territory and (the really important
> part) the people who inhabit that territory. It's the rule of one
> people over another that makes a state an empire.
[Ron and I asked "What is 'liberal imperialism'?"]
> You need to forget about the unique American use of the word 'liberal' to
> mean 'socialist' - this makes political conversation between Americans (and
> Canadians) and people from other parts of the world unnecessarily difficult.
> "Liberal imperialism" is originally a term used by historians to describe
> the kind of 'New Imperialism' that appeared after the Berlin Conference of
> 1878, to some extent in reality, much more in theory. By extension it means
> a policy motivated or justified by the same kinds of ideas. That is, the
> notion that imperialism is not about simply conquering other peoples for
> wealth, power, or glory. It is about advanced or civilised nations ruling
> over other (not so advanced) nations so as to bring them the benefits of
> law, modernity...
Yet in all the cases I can think of from 1878 on, European powers
ruled over others' lands for the primary purpose of enriching
themselves (i.e. economic advance), or for military gain (e.g.,
the conquest of the Turkish possessions). I would be willing to admit
that a secondary consideration might be the welfare of the ruled,
at least after, as you suggest, 1878.
Probably in the minds of the American leaders, benefit to the
people of Iraq is one of the motives, but probably no higher
than about 3rd or 4th.
> An important point is that you may not need to directly rule
> over land/people de jure if your power is such that you effectively
> control it anyway e.g. British rule over about half of India plus
> places like Argentina. I'm afraid that while the US avoided that
> until the 1890s it caught a bad case after then, viz Hawaii, Puerto
> Rico, the Philippines. The policy followed in the Middle East
> after [this new] war will tell us if it has embarked on another
> round of imperialism.
Then the irony is, the more effort that is made on behalf of
the Iraqi people, then the more imperialistic the U.S. role
will become! For example, suppose (as I have just said) that
there are two reasons that come before benefiting the Iraqi
people. For the purpose of discussion, let's assume that they
are (i) ridding Iraq of WMD, (ii) stabilizing the price of oil.
Then a possible (iii) establishing a non-authoritarian or less
repressive regime in Iraq would require an extended stay by
the Coalition (or at least U.S.) forces. But the longer the
stay, the more this is a case of liberal imperialism.
> In other words to rule over other people for their own good,
> with a kind of tutelary role. Basically it's a Fabian welfare
> state but on an international level (one reason why most Fabians
> were ardent Imperialists). It seems to me that this kind of
> thinking is a major element in much argument about a war on
> Iraq, e.g. the idea that the US will reconstruct Iraq in the
> way it (allegedly) did in Germany and Japan after 1945.
The tutelary role the Fabians probably had in mind would
have extended indefinitely, no? (After all, it was widely
supposed at the time that non-Western peoples couldn't
really rule themselves on our level.)
As for Germany and Japan, it's become clear that the occupying
countries needed only "flip a switch". The Germans and Japanese
rather easily converted into stalwart democracies. We cannot
expect most Middle Eastern countries to do so, not at least without
a rather long period of "tutelage".
> The faction in Washington [Wolfowitz, etc.] are arguing, as
> I understand them, that the unique position of power the US
> found itself in at the end of the Cold War gives it the
> opportunity and the responsibility to shape the world in
> a way that both protects US interests and security and
> advances certain political ideals. Sounds a lot like liberal
> imperialism to me, could come straight out of late nineteenth
> century British imperialist writings of the Cecil Rhodes variety.
Really? As I said, the 19th century thinkers did *not* have any
intention of bringing up the White Man's burden to the White Man's
level now, did they? I gather that the English really and
sincerely were trying to do this in India, but only, I think,
well into the 1920's. Don't you think that if Rhodes and
all actually wrote this that they didn't quite mean it the
way that we would today?
> This is very much where Tony Blair and his advisors are coming from.
So in your opinion, they're not in advance of the late 19th
century imperialists?
Above you wrote
> The policy followed in the Middle East after [this new] war
> will tell us if it has embarked on another round of imperialism.
What are your criteria, more specifically?
Thanks,
Lee
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