Britain Should Stop Trying to Pretend That Its Empire Was Benevolent
Dear friends,
I came across this article which I found would be educational.
Tsem Rinpoche
Britain Should Stop Trying to Pretend That its Empire Was Benevolent
Alan Lester
May 13, 2016 | 6.42pm AEST
The recent debacle of David Cameron’s filmed condemnation of Nigerian and Afghan corruption and the Queen’s remark on Chinese officials’ rudeness 1 highlights the persistence of imperial thinking in Britain. There seems to be a continuing assumption within the British establishment that it sets an example for others to follow and that the British are owed deference by others.
Ever since evangelical antislavery activists campaigned for Britain to abolish the transatlantic slave trade, Britons have assured themselves that imperial overrule is compatible with the “benign tutelage 2” of other races and nations. Unlike the other European empires, Britons tell themselves, theirs was an empire founded on humanitarian compassion for colonised subjects.
The argument runs like this: while the Spanish, Portuguese, French, Belgians and Germans exploited and abused, the British empire brought ideas of protection for lesser races and fostered their incremental development. With British tutelage colonised peoples could become, eventually, as competent, as knowledgeable, as “civilised” as Britain itself. These platitudes have been repeated time and again – they are still at the heart of most popular representations of the British Empire.
Even when we are encouraged to pay attention to empire’s costs as well as its benefits, these costs are imagined solely in terms of specific incidents of violence such as the Amritsar Massacre in India 3 or the suppression of the Mau Mau rebellion 4 in Kenya. Britain has excused itself from that most structural injustice of empire – the slave trade itself – by the fact that it was Britain that pioneered its abolition.
Members of Kenya’s Mau Mau resistance movement at Downing Street
Acknowledgement that cities such as Bristol, Liverpool and London were enriched by Britain’s dominance of the trade, that many stately homes were built on its wealth and that the compensation money paid to owners upon emancipation – rather than the enslaved – helped drive the industrial revolution and the growth of the City of London, tends to be confined to more critical quarters 5.
By contrast, runs the same argument, the benefits that empire brought to the world are universal. Everyone – Nigerians, Afghans and Chinese included – should be grateful for the rule of law, the English language, modern education, railways and free trade, all things that Britain provided in order to usher in the modern age.
Selective Memory
But to remember empire in this way is an act of incredible selectivity, if not wilful forgetting. Far from being of universal benefit, these features of British rule were designed in the first instance to benefit British settlers, producers and traders. The partial inclusion of colonised peoples themselves in their benefits had to be hard won by those peoples in the face of racist laws and customs.
Revered now. Imprisoned then: Mahatma Gandhi
Black people generally weren’t allowed to travel on the railways on the same terms as white people. Gandhi’s political awakening 6 came when he was thrown out of a whites only carriage on a South African railway. Government-run education systems 7 varied hugely in time and place but were generally not extended to “natives”. Their education was left to mission societies able to reach only a tiny proportion of them. The Indian Residential Schools of Canada 8 and many of the institutions into which Aboriginal and so-called “half-caste” children were forced in Australia 9 were notoriously neglectful and abusive.
St. Paul’s Indian Industrial School, Manitoba in 1901.
One of the first things that some indigenous elites did with their education was challenge white peoples’ entitlement to rule their countries. The colonial “rule of law” generally worked in favour of white settlers, elites and men. Even where explicitly racist legislation was avoided, proxies for race such as English language tests were used. These either imposed different standards on “native” populations or kept Asian people out of settler colonies unless their labour was required.
The wider adoption of English certainly facilitated more global conversations and business transactions among male elites. But it only served to heighten the exclusion of most non-English speaking subjects and women from access to the credit and political capital that flowed through Anglophone global networks.
Much the same could be said for free trade, which tended to enrich the colonial masters rather than their imperial subjects – let’s not forget it was the argument for free trade which was used to force China to continue accepting opium imports against its will, starting China’s “Century of Humiliation 10”.
Imperialism Was No Gift
Democracy was not actually a concept with which British elites were comfortable – or with which colonised peoples were familiar throughout most of the era of Britain’s imperial rule. Rather, it was something hard won, largely once the British had left.
Those under the “benevolent” rule of empire did not necessarily experience British imperialism as a gift. For many around the world, the costs of empire were not restricted to the occasional episode of violent repression, nor even to structural injustices such as the slave trade. Rather, these were systematic, everyday costs. These costs included exclusion – from power and privilege in their own lands – coupled with humiliation at being made to pay deference to white people who assumed the right to govern them.
Before condemning the corruption and rudeness of others perhaps we should remember the act of imperialism itself may be seen as self-interested, arrogant rudeness on a global scale.
1. Queen’s remark on Chinese officials’ rudeness
2. Benign tutelage
3. Amritsar Massacre in India
4. Suppression of the Mau Mau rebellion
5. Confined to more critical quarters
6. Gandhi’s political awakening
This Won’t End Well – U.S. Just Sent an Entire Carrier Strike Group to Confront China
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it was benevolent – to those who flourished from it – there will always be people suffering and benefitting no matter what the political system might be – it is always quite hard to be objective
Many colonial powers, have taken tracks of land and country via the rule of ‘might’.
One thing for certain is that, when we try to rule others using force, it does not last forever.
One thing to note though, the British were miles ahead of other Colonial Powers, they did build infrastructure and educated the masses. Their motivation may not be all that altruistic however the people they colonized made quite a jump to the modern world and modern state structure.
Countries and modern states that were setup by the Brits, they became the Commonwealth of states. Some countries were mired in perpetual conflicts, so no perfect report card for the British.
All people should stop thinking their past Empire Was Benevolent.
Hi Mark, you’re absolutely right in your comments. I watched a video the other day where a former CIA agent explains what she learned during her years undercover. Maybe you’ve seen it too, it’s been making its rounds on the Internet. Anyway the very first thing she said was that everyone always thinks they are right. For example, ISIS will believe with 100% conviction that they are right in their attacks, and the people who bomb Syrians will believe with 100% conviction that they are doing the right thing.
She talked about building peace on the basis of understanding one another. What makes Person A think they are right, and what makes Person B think they are right, that is something we really need to understand. And upon understanding it, how can we get the two perspectives to come to an agreement?
I thought that was an interesting video because it made me realise that’s how a lot of conflict erupts and is sustained. The two parties are totally convinced they are doing the right thing, just as empires will be totally convinced they are benevolent towards their colonised subjects.
Anyway, you might be interested in this article too: https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/current-affairs/when-you-kill-ten-million-africans-you-arent-called-hitler.html
Thank you!
Thank you Rinpoche for this article. For years now I have been fascinated by British empire because during world war II, they are one country who did not bow to the 3rd Reich rule, and they never been conquered by any other countries in their history. I guess just like many historians, I am most fascinated by the winner.
I do acknowledge that Britains wealth came from oppressing other countries that they colonised. Not to mention that during Elizabeth the I, she was using pirates to harass Spanish ships and rob them to fill her coffers. I think it is not a secret they they also use opium to drug and incapacitate the Chinese, and take advantage of Indians superstitious nature in American continent by giving them alcohol so they can get in touch with supernatural creatures.
I don’t necessarily agreed with their intention and what they are doing, but I have to admit, Britain is one country who really studied their colony well and use this knowledge to retain their influence over their conquests.
Valentina
Thank you Rinpoche,
The British has always been a wolf in sheep’s clothing. 披着羊皮的狼 🙂
With folded palms,
Thank you Rinpoche for the sharing.
all Brits are wolves in sheep’s clothing?
Do any of us have a choice about which ethnicity/nationality we are born into?
There is NO purely innocent ethnic group or nation – look at the Old Testament – filled with wars and “ethnic cleansing”, History is full of bloodshed, AND YET, despite all this,
Buddha was born, Jesus was born, many other amazing people who left the world a better place than how it was when they found it- Leonardo Da Vinci, Einstein, Copernicus, Nicola Tesla, many many others, of every nationality and ethnicity . . .
Calling others bad won’t make me any better, calling someone fat won’t make me thinner, calling someone ugly won’t make me more beautiful,
don’t be racist