"The White man's burden has been sung. Who will sing the Brown man's?"
Mark Twain On Thu, 6 Feb 2003, Gautam Mukunda wrote: > > Apart from which, has anyone actually read "The White > Man's Burden"? It was racist to modern ears - > although not to those of his time, let's give Kipling > some credit, please, but if people did they might > realize it does have something to say. Just because it wasn't racist to the ears of his time doesn't mean it wasn't racist in fact. And it was racist to many ears of his time [*], particularly the ears of those who opposed American colonial adventurism the Phillipines. > 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. The world is full of unchurched barbarians who need a good dose of British Christianity to be worth a whit. It'll be hard work, preaching to those brown people you've yoked to the plow, but it's your duty. > 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. Mind you, you must be model Christians, of course. Not just blustery blow-hard conquistador types. Otherwise the vicious natives will never believe your colonial enterprise is really intended for their benefit. > 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 hope to nought. Be warned that no matter how hard you work to feed, clothe, and educate these stinking masses (or rather, no matter how hard your force them to feed and clothe the Empire in addition to themselves, while educating them a bit at a time), they will always be on the verge of revolt, and you'll often be forced to start over again. > Take up the White Man's burden-- > No iron 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. Someday there will be real societies here; modern and industrial; economic engines that will benefit the natives and the Empire both. You will probably not live to see it, but have faith! > 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 ye us from bondage, > Our loved Egyptian night?" For you must never forget that these barbarians are slaves to their own deficient natures. Even as you improve their lot by teaching them the Christian and British ways of acting and thinking, they will hate you for forcing it on them. However slow it seems, though, forget not that progress will be made. > Take up the White Man's burden-- > Ye dare not stoop to less-- > Nor call too loud on Freedom > To cloak your weariness. > By all ye will or whisper, > By all ye leave or do, > The silent sullen peoples > Shall weigh your God and you. If you persevere and show a civilized warrior's mien to those who fancy themselves strong on the basis of their propensity to violence alone...then at last you will win them over, for their benefit and for God's greater glory. > Take up the White Man's burden! > Have done with childish days-- > The lightly-proffered 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. This task is set before as your mark of manhood and maturity. No matter how insane things seem or become, doubt not your purpose. (Do not let facts interfere with the truth!) Ultimately you'll be judged by those who sent you on this mission, not those whose lives you must force to new ways. It will make you cynical, cold, and bitter; that is the price of serving one's race and Lord, and it is an honorable wound to bear. --- > If you can come up with a better description of what > we will do in Iraq than "Send forth the best ye breed > . . . To serve your captives need" except for the fact > that the people or Iraq will be partners, not > captives, I have yet to hear it. But I have no real description of what we will do in Iraq. Such a description is exactly what is lacking. If Bush wants me to trust his intent, he must tell me his intent so that I may judge his performance of it. > Kipling was an > Imperialist, but he wasn't a cheerful one, or one > arguing that Britain should go out and rape and > plunder across the world. I can accept that Kipling hoped to reform the more abusive aspects of colonialism. This particular poem, however, leaves no doubt that it is his race's God-given right to do as it has done, period. All the fuckups and mistakes and greedy cruelties will be forgiven (for we must sin by nature) as long as our intentions are congruent with the Lord's. > There was plenty of that > (and we shall, hopefully, avoid doing any of that) but > there was plenty "Fill[ing] full the mouth of Famine / > And bid[ding] sickness cease" as well. I'm guessing > you don't object to that, Marvin? Of course not. Surely you don't expect anyone to believe that that was the goal of European colonialism? Or that Kipling ever really thought it was (though he might have hoped things would turn out that way in the end)? Or that that American charity for the sick and starving of the world must for some reason pass through Iraq? > Patronising and racist, certainly. But there's a > certain nobility to it for all of that. Isn't the concept of "nobility" the one that put us in the great post-colonial mess and the two world wars; isn't it the concept that keeps assholes on the Saudi throne; isn't it the very thing Saddam wants to ape? Unless you > know of something the US can do that would be _better_ > for the people of Iraq than toppling Saddam Hussein, > maybe you should be a little bit more sympathetic to > the President. He's doing it for American interests, > certainly - there's nothing immoral in that. He is, > after all, the President of the United States, not of > Iraq. But the course he has chosen is the single best > one that he could have chosen were he governing solely > in the interests of the people of Iraq, and he > deserves some acknowledgement and credit for that as > well. But I don't know that because I know only the barest outline of the course he has chosen. More to the point, every representative of state out there who claims to know the best course of action seems to be hiding something, not just Bush. It is the whole situation I'm complaining about, not just the things that irritate me about Bush. I'll give the president more slack if he will give me more information, and if the information he gives me makes sense. [*] Here's a contemporary rebuttal to "The White Man's Burden," and a harsher one than mine: http://www.boondocksnet.com/ai/kipling/labouche.html Marvin Long Austin, Texas Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Poindexter & Ashcroft, LLP (Formerly the USA) http://www.breakyourchains.org/john_poindexter.htm _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
