--- "Marvin Long, Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > "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: > 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 > === message truncated ===
Geez, Marvin, do you think all those places the British went were some sort of Rousseauian paradise before they went in? My family (on my Dad's side, at least) was pretty active in the Indian independence movement. I'm at least as, and I dare say considerably more, familiar with the depredations of coonialism than you. _But_: 1. There is a reason that the British empire was far more humane than any of the others (contrast it with Spain, France, or Belgium sometime) and that reason is largely the sentiments expressed by Kipling and 2. If Britain had peacefully left its colonies in, say, 1910 or so, I think we would say that, on the whole, the British Empire did good for the world. They held on too long, but a comparison of India (for example) before and after they left suggests to me that India would not be unified, would _certainly_ not be a democracy, and so on without their influence. They weren't ideal - American rule of conquered areas was considerably better, for example, judging by the American presence in Haiti and a few other places, and the American record could certainly stand to be improved. But they genuinely went about the mission of empire with a concern for the people they ruled that is not duplicated in any other other European powers. As far as I can tell you're so caught up in the rush of condemning what they did that you're kind of missing what was really going on. No one's defending the Empire as an altruistic endeavor. The extent to which it _was_ conducted in a not-so-bad fashion, though, is quite remarkable. Standing on a high horse and condemning other people is really easy and it feels really good. It's not terribly productive though. Tell me, if we do end up establishing a stable democracy in Iraq (a 50/50 chance at best, given the total # of Arab democracies in the world - I'll give you a hint, Iraq would take it from a round to a linear number) - would you at least feel a little embarassed? Gautam __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
