The british empire (from 1776 to 1931)

THE BRITISH EMPIRE (from 1776 to 1931)

The indipendence of the 13 American colonies, proclaimed in 1776, and recognized in 1783 with the treaty of Versailles, was harmful for the English imperial ideal. The British colonial expansionism found new ways out in Asia, in Africa and the South-East of the Australian Continent. The anti-napoleonic wars gave a new impulse to the British Empire. After Trafalgar(1805), England conquered and organized a powerful colonial system, from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. In 1815 the United Kingdom headed an enormous Empire.

Under the reign of Queen Victoria, Great Britain went through a period of great economic, social an moral transformations. The repression of slavery (abolished in 1807) and other humanitarian objectives, allowed Britain to gain the task of supervisor of seas and gave her a lot of occasions for interventions, in Africa and in Asia, in the affairs of many little States. In spite of the diffidence of Liberals about colonial enterprises and the development of a hostile spirit to the material enrichment, the will to stop foreign ambitions and overseas communities added new territories to the British power. From 1839 to 1842 the British Empire fought the 'Opium War' against China, after which Britain obtained access to five Chinese ports and control of Hong Kong.

In the 1850s Britain tried to prevent the Russian expansion in Asia, to the prejudice of the weak Ottoman Empire, which controlled Turkey and the Arab countries. So, from 1853 to 1856, Britain, France, Turkey and Sardinia defeated Russia in the Crimean War. In 1857 England had to face the Indian Mutiny caused by unease which came from the imposition of the English way of life on colonies. It was followed by an Act of Parliament which transferred the Government of India to the Crown, abolishing the East India Company. In 1877 Queen Victoria obtained the title of 'Empress of India'.

After the opening of the Suez Canal (1869) and the progresses of navigation, European expansion went in a new phase of frenetic development, in which Great Britain partecipated too.

Benjamin Disraeli, the first minister from 1874 to 1881, gave the decisive impulse to this movement, in spite of Liberal opposition, headed by Gladstone. On the other hand, imperial ideology also entered  into the mentality of those opposing the Conservators. Under this impulse, the Empire enriched of numerous countries, conquered with many different pretexts (strategic, politic, commercial, humanitarian).

From 1899 to 1902, Britain was the protagonist of war in the South of Africa, against the Dutch settlers, the Boers, for the control of Cape of Good Hope.

English public opinion was getting wed to considering Empire as a vast community of feelings and interests which assembled all English possessions. But the presence of a national sentiment in India, where, in 1885 there was the first national Congress, was considered a more dangerous threat then rivalries with others European powers for future Imperialism.

The victory in 1918 and the division of defeated empires allowed the maximum extension of the British Empire. Thanks to the development of Asiatic populations and to the increased importance of petroleum, the Empire axis wasn't the Atlantic, but the Indian and the Pacific Ocean, and the importance of the Middle-East was increased. However, problems arose, requiring new solutions. Most colonies asked for autonomy from the motherland. Thanks to the concession of independence to the more evolved countries, the idea of a federal Union, directed by London, was abandoned. This event was sanctioned by imperial conferences in 1926 and 1930, and it was consecrated by the Westminster statute of 1931. Therefore Commonwealth succeeded to the British Empire.

IMPERIALISM

The terms imperialism means the tendency of  nations, populations and states, to expand their limits and to dominate politically, militarily and economically in geographic areas and on populations which are culturally and ethnically DIFFERENT . In spite of the variety of forms and motivations(political, financial, military, demographic, religious) which characterized the different imperialisms testified by history, the will of overcoming and of dominating is always at their origins , increased by an awareness of a civil, cultural or racial superiority that wants to justify this expansionistic tendency.

A new and decisive impulse to imperialism, in an economic way, is verifiable during the development of capitalism and above all during the first industrial revolution of West Europe(centuries 18^th and 19^th ), which was the consequence of the last colonial expansion, that, later changed the same characteristics of colonialism and increased competition.

In the second half of the 19^th century, together with the triumph of capitalistic industrialism, interested in new commercial ways and increasing quantities of row materials at low cost, imperialism as full ideology developed, like an exaltation and exasperation of nationalistic principles, like an application to international relations of new theories about race, about willpower, about the struggle for survival.

The principle of 'the struggle for survival' was elaborated by Charles Darwin in his work 'The origins of Species': only people with advantageous characteristics will survive, while others without them will die. So during peoples' lives, and as the consequence of species, there is a choice, or 'natural selection', that determines the 'survival of the fittest'.

The belief in the existence of a better race above others was born from the misunderstanding of these principles.

The period between 19^th and 20^th century is called 'Age of Imperialism'. While the different European and extra-European powers are dividing the world; while the multiple colonial enterprises assert themselves, the original economic causes become dark and the materialistic exigencies change in something that can be defined as a sort of categorical imperative of politic and ethnic power. In this way, out of the material interests, other instincts, other impulses, other passions are born: the will to maintain the acquired rights; the sentiment to protect national authority; the belief to have a mission of civilization to act in the world; the duty-the moral work- of white man, according to the words of a great imperialistic poet- Rudyard Kipling; the need to show their own national pride, virtue and willpower. The development of this imperialistic ideology caused an atmosphere of massacres and destruction which characterized Europe for 30 years from 1880 to mid 1914.

Marxism-Leninism was born by critics of imperialism, even if from socialism, characterized by nationalism, new forms of imperialism like fascism or nazism developed in the first post-war period, together with a particular form of sovietic imperialism.

After the second world war the collapse of fascist governments, the general process of decolonization, the birth of new extra-European nationalism and the expansion of Communist world, had caused the decline of classic imperialistic theories.

COLONIALISM

Colonialism is the typical manifestation of imperialism in Modern age.

While the opponents of colonialism see in as an unjust exploitation of a country, through a political subordination, the supporters underline the positive aspects that the colonized countries had obtained after colonization, better economic structures, commercial developments, public works, technical and cultural progress.

The arguments that served to justify the existence of the empire can be summarized as follows:

1)The British were Christian. Christianity was the one true faith. Therefore Britain                                                                                                                                                   had a moral and religious duty to spread Christianity.

2)Britain had achieved a high level of scientific and technological development. Therefore She had a moral duty to educate other people in science and technology and so improve their quality of life.

3)The British considered their own form of government to be the best; therefore they had a moral duty to govern people they considered incapable of good self-government.

On the other hand, anti-imperialists ague that imperialism is wrong for the following reasons:

1)The imperialist power appropriates the natural and human resources of the subject nation for its own enrichment.

2)the imperialist power imposes its own culture upon the subject nation to the detriment of the indigenous culture.

3)Imperialism robs the subject people of their full human dignity, and, like other forms of power, corrupts the imperialist itself.

However, increased English colonial expansion, at the beginning of the Victorian age(1837), was characterized by some negative aspects: discriminated territorial division, that didn't respect the previous division as well as ethnic and social-economic relations; destroying structures and native traditions; the enslavement of populations together with the exploitation of better lands and sources in order to colonize and finance English groups, with the consequent repression, until GENOCIDE, against any people attempting to resist. In fact the most recurrent images, that characterized Victorian life, are associated with the realization of the Empire. Many factors contributed to increase the development of the imperial way of life. Patriotism, a typical Victorian feeling, was influenced by ideas of racial superiority. Towards the end of Victoria's reign, the British had come to accept that, in human hierarchy, they had a supreme role. In part, they only had to look at their Empire, at the variety of races and people they governed, to find confirmation of this concept. There emerged a powerful belief that the 'races' of the world were divided by fundamental physical and intellectual differences; that some people were destined to be led by others. There was the belief that God had imposed the British to give their superior way of life, their institutions, law, politics, to native people. In this way the Empire was often regarded as a mission of civilization.

During the Victorian age most British citizens believed in their right of the Empire and they thought that imperial expansion would employ extra wealth, capital and population; they were extremely proud of their Empire and of spreading their civilization everywhere in the globe. This attitude came to be known as 'Jingoism', a form of aggressive and warmongering patriotism.

The term colonialism is used to put the negative aspects of this phenomenon in evidence, that consists in exploitation of natives, considered inferior because they are DIFFERENT compared with their own ethnic, cultural, religious, political, economical.parameters.

AUTHORS ABOUT COLONIALISM

In the 19^th century Daniel Defoe had developed the theme of civilization of white man, exalting the positive aspects of this phenomenon. In his work Robinson Crusoe, a doctor, the only survivor of a shipwreck, is lost on an island where savages live and he tries to establish fundamental rules of modern civilization showing a colonialistic attitude.

The British Victorian colonial experience was especially reflected in the works of two writers, Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad, when the British colonial process was just finishing. While The first exalted imperial power and believed in the 'burden' of the British, who, as the elected race, had to carry civilization all over the world and establish their government based on honour and dignity, the second ones criticized the Empire because it was based on absolute economic exploitation.

So Kipling was the poet of British imperialism and the exalter of patriotic and nationalistic spirit; his works were born from an educative aim, to create the perfect citizen and to stimulate moral qualities. He expressed a vivid sense of the English duty to civilize, which had been identified with a kind of jingoistic imperialism. In 1898 during the occupation of the Philippines by the United States, he wrote the poem 'The white man's burden', dedicated to American people, involved in the enterprise of colonial expansion. His aim is to invite them not to lose heart against conquered populations, but to continue in the expansion, justified by reasons of a superior civilization. So the white colonizer is seen as a benefactor of humanity, distributor of the advantages of progress, sometimes misunderstood by the populations to which he gives these advantages.

Joseph Conrad, in his greatest works, combined the exotic evocation of far lands with a rigorous human critic exam of moral dilemma, deceptions and desperation. His work, 'Heart of Darkness', is based on the authors experience who, in 1890, spent six months in the Congo. He witnessed the specific form of colonial imperialism which King Leopold II of Belgium practised in his Congo free State. Leopold pursued his Congo interests in the name of philanthropy and anti-slavery. He stated that the agents of the State had to accomplish the noble mission to continue the development of civilization in Africa, gradually reducing the primitive barbarism and fighting against their violent habits. They also had to accustom the population to general laws, of which the most needy and salutary was that of work. Actually he wanted to exploit the wealth of the Congo State: abundance of ivory and rubber was their only priority, physical mutilation and abuse their method. In 'Heart of Darkness', Marlow, remembers his navigation experience when he was the captain of a Belgian battell busy in the ivory trade, on a great river of Congo. This novel is above all a powerful and cruel picture of a inhumane exploitation of man that some colonial companies practised without pity in Africa. The fluvial battell is sent to search a station of the company in which Marlow works, directed by a mysterious Mr. Kurts. Marlow is anxious to know Kurtz, because during his journey he meets many people who depict him as an <<emissary of pity, science and progress>>, but, when he meets Kurtz, he understands that he is a visionary full of hallucinations, consumed by illness. He is worshipped by the Indians as a kind of God, and it becomes clear that he has committed a series of appalling crimes and acts of cruelty in order to establish total power over the Indians. During the voyage of return, Kurtz dies, pronouncing ambiguous words: <<The horror, the horror>>. Kurtz carries the <<darkness>> of the Continent within his heart, folished for the experience of absolute power and corrupted by greed and ambition.

The wilderness is the place where the whites lose their innocence, first in their quality of members of a civilization, then as individuals. Collectively the whites are responsible for the pointless destruction of people and natural life, and for the use of cruel violence. Kurtz had the idea to elevate the natives bringing them the light of western civilization, an idea that carries him to madness.

The novel is rich in imagery and symbolism about the river Thames and the Congo, Marlow and Kurtz, black and white, light and dark. At the beginning light is associated with calm, peace, beauty and good. Darkness, on the other hand, is seen as an insidious menace to light and as evil. As Marlow penetrates into the darkness of Africa, black acquires positive connotations: it is the colour of the jungle, of a primitive, noble environment and of its people. White, instead, is associated with the negative aspects of Colonialism: violence, exploitation, hypocrisy, indifference. Starting as elements of the landscape, light become ambiguous symbols of civilization and savagery, exchanging roles in a complex pattern in which white can be more savage than the primitives. So Marlow's journey is a geographical discovery of the black Continent, and can also be considered as a journey into the self: civilized man, freed from restrains of society and work, finds out that, at heart, he is savage and instinctive, rather than rational, and that he can prove even more savage and cruel than the natives he has the 'duty' to civilize.

The story is in fact concerned with effect of the Dark Continent on Kurtz and Marlow. During his voyage Marlow strives to hold on to the feelings of sanity and normality to which he has been accustomed. The case of Kurtz is totally different: he has given into the appeal of darkness, losing self-possession and indulging acts of lust and extreme cruelty. Compared to the darkness of Kurtz, Marlow can no longer defend himself: his simple ideas of virtue, justice and honour prove inadequate to explain the nature of the evil which he has seen and the effect which it has had on him.

Really Conrad wants to exalt the national Spirit; on the other hand, his conservatorism doesn't prevent him, differently from Kipling, to depict, with great clearness, some degenerations of imperialism of the great European nations, as it is in 'Heart of Darkness'.