They should come out as imperialist and proud of it There is a progressive tradition of support for colonialism, which the Euston manifesto group could champion
Geoffrey Wheatcroft Wednesday May 10, 2006 The Guardian Whatever else the Iraq enterprise and the supposed attempt to democratise the Middle East have done, they have produced some unlikely alliances, and begun some fascinating new disputes. The question of imperialism has been raised again, though in a way that is uncomfortable on more than one side politically, as the recently promulgated Euston manifesto suggests. The Iraq war has divided opinion, but not just on conventional left-right lines. It was largely opposed here by the left, but also by a number of former Tory cabinet ministers (not to say more ordinary Conservatives than Labour voters), and in America not only by liberals and radicals but by veteran conservatives such as Peter Viereck and William Buckley. Another division has opened on the American neoconservative right. Many neocons angrily resent any suggestion that the US could ever be described in terms of imperial hegemony. But some neocons have begun to say that America is indeed an imperial power, and a good thing too: Charles Krauthammer has insisted that Americans must stop shying away from the word "empire", adding that "we could use a colonial office in the state department". Here even the moderate left still does shy away from the idea of empire, as can be seen from the new group that began life in a pub near Euston station a year ago and will be formally launched later this month. A "loose association of bloggers, journalists, academics and activists", the signatories to the Euston manifesto include Nick Cohen, John Lloyd and Francis Wheen, as well as the Americans Paul Berman and Michael Walzer. Not all Eustonians supported the Iraq war, but they are broadly "liberal hawks", or progressive interventionists. Their manifesto deplores "the anti-Americanism ... infecting so much left-liberal thinking". In essence they believe the west, with all its acknowledged faults, is a benevolent and progressive force. One criticism was anticipated by the group: its manifesto would probably be "subordinated to a blanket and simplistic anti-imperialism". How right they were to foresee this is shown by some of the criticisms flying back through cyberspace since the manifesto first appeared there: the "progressive" defence of what George Bush and Tony Blair have done in Iraq is the same as that "used by imperial powers through history, including the western imperialism of the 18th and 19th centuries", writes one sceptic, and another says that the Eustonians are only the latest "leftist colonisers". Those words are meant to sting. But should progressives and democrats - as the Eustonians proclaim themselves to be - mind? "Liberal imperialist" was a current term a century ago, but what it describes has a much longer provenance, from when the Hanoverian Whigs thought themselves the progressive party, and pursued an aggressive foreign policy and expansion beyond the seas. In the next century Mill, Macaulay and even Marx made approving noises about British rule in India. Macaulay thought it proper to elevate the Indians by teaching them Shakespeare and the doctrines of the Glorious Revolution. Early on, Marx believed "the English were the first conquerors superior, and therefore inaccessible, to Hindu civilisation"; for much the same reason Engels approved initially of France's conquest of Algeria. And why not? According to Marxist doctrine, socialism could arrive only after bourgeois capitalism. A comparable outlook was found on the left well beyond the Marxists. Europeans instinctively believed that Europe "had achieved the highest form of civilisation ever known", which was its duty to export throughout the world, AJP Taylor wrote. He added, only part playfully, that "these were radical beliefs": that was why the Fabians supported the Boer war and championed the British empire. Two things changed. In 19th-century Europe plenty of noble-spirited men and women devoted their lives to the abolition of slavery and the protection of indigenous peoples, but you will search in vain for many who believed that Asia or Africa had a civilisation to compare with Europe's. That became an article of faith on the left only more recently. And the left, including Marx, did not originally have any serious view of imperialism. But a century ago JA Hobson propagated a theory of imperialism - as economic exploitation and a means of exporting capital - that was taken up by Lenin and accepted far beyond his own political faction. Even then the anti-imperialism of the left was problematic. There is much to be said against Europe and the west, and the century of Hitler, Franco, Mussolini and Stalin wasn't much of an advertisement for "the highest form of civilisation ever known". Yet even now the deepest moral case against colonialism often looks more reactionary than progressive. Maybe the Euston group should be less nervous of "leftist colonisers" as a term of abuse. They are, after all, right that the US and EU member states are democracies, and that the Arab countries are not. There is a plausible slogan to be added to their manifesto: "Progressive, democratic, imperialist, and proud of it." They might even provide some recruits for a new colonial office. ยท Geoffrey Wheatcroft is the author of The Strange Death of Tory England [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1771476,00.html ------------------------ Yahoo! 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