{"id":8574,"date":"2015-07-29T10:35:44","date_gmt":"2015-07-29T17:35:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=8574"},"modified":"2015-07-29T10:35:44","modified_gmt":"2015-07-29T17:35:44","slug":"the-truth-about-western-colonialism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-truth-about-western-colonialism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Truth About Western \u201cColonialism\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

How the misuse of a term legitimizes the jihadist myth of Western guilt.<\/em><\/h3>\n

by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ Defining Ideas<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Photo
Photo via Front Page Magazine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Language is the first casualty of wars over foreign policy. To paraphrase Thucydides, during ideological conflict, words have to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which is now given them.<\/p>\n

One word that has been central to our foreign policy for over a century is \u201ccolonialism.\u201d Rather than describing a historical phenomenon\u2013\u2013with all the complexity, mixture of good and evil, and conflicting motives found on every page of history\u2013\u2013\u201ccolonialism\u201d is now an ideological artifact that functions as a crude epithet. As a result, our foreign policy decisions are deformed by self-loathing and guilt eagerly exploited by our adversaries.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The great scholar of Soviet terror, Robert Conquest, noted this linguistic corruption decades ago. Historical terms like \u201cimperialism\u201d and \u201ccolonialism,\u201d Conquest wrote, now refer to \u201ca malign force with no program but the subjugation and exploitation of innocent people.\u201d As such, these terms are verbal \u201cmind-blockers and thought-extinguishers,\u201d which serve \u201cmainly to confuse, and of course to replace, the complex and needed process of understanding with the simple and unneeded process of inflammation.\u201d Particularly in the Middle East, \u201ccolonialism\u201d has been used to obscure the factual history that accounts for that region\u2019s chronic dysfunctions, and has legitimized policies doomed to fail because they are founded on distortions of that history.<\/p>\n

The simplistic discrediting of colonialism and its evil twin imperialism became prominent in the early twentieth century. In 1902 J.A. Hobson\u2019s influential Imperialism: A Study<\/em> reduced colonialism to a malign economic phenomenon, the instrument of capitalism\u2019s \u201ceconomic parasites,\u201d as Hobson called them, who sought resources, markets, and profits abroad. In 1917, Vladimir Lenin, faced with the failure of classical Marxism\u2019s historical predictions of the proletarian revolution, in 1917 built on Hobson\u2019s ideas in Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism<\/em>. Now the indigenous colonized peoples would perform the historical role of destroying capitalism that the European proletariat had failed to fulfill.<\/p>\n

These ideas influenced the anti-colonial movements after World War II. John-Paul Sartre, in his introduction to Franz Fanon\u2019s anti-colonial screed The Wretched of the Earth<\/em>, wrote, \u201cNatives of the underdeveloped countries unite!\u201d substituting the Third World for classic Marxism\u2019s \u201cworkers of the world.\u201d This leftist idealization of the colonial Third World and its demonization of the capitalist West have survived the collapse of the Soviet Union and the discrediting of Marxism, and have become received wisdom both in academe and popular culture. It has underwritten the reflexive guilt of the West, the idea that \u201cevery Westerner is presumed guilty until proven innocent,\u201d as French philosopher Pascal Bruckner writes, for the West contains an \u201cessential evil that must be atoned for,\u201d colonialism and imperialism.<\/p>\n

This leftist interpretation of words like colonialism and imperialism transforms them into ideologically loaded terms that ultimately distort the tragic truths of history. They imply that Europe\u2019s explorations and conquests constituted a new order of evil. In reality, the movements of peoples in search of resources, as well as the destruction of those already in possession of them, is the perennial dynamic of history.<\/p>\n

Whether it was the Romans in Gaul, the Arabs throughout the Mediterranean and Southern Asia, the Huns in Eastern Europe, the Mongols in China, the Turks in the Middle East and the Balkans, the Bantu in southern Africa, the Khmer in East Asia, the Aztecs in Mexico, the Iroquois in the Northeast, or the Sioux throughout the Great Plains, human history has been stained by man\u2019s continual use of brutal violence to acquire land and resources and destroy or replace those possessing them. Scholars may find subtle nuances of evil in the European version of this ubiquitous aggression, but for the victims such fine discriminations are irrelevant.<\/p>\n

Yet this ideologically loaded and historically challenged use of words like \u201ccolonial\u201d and \u201ccolonialist\u201d remains rife in analyses of the century-long disorder in the Middle East. Both Islamists and Arab nationalists, with sympathy from the Western left, have blamed the European \u201ccolonialists\u201d for the lack of development, political thuggery, and endemic violence whose roots lie mainly in tribal culture, illiberal shari\u2019a law, and sectarian conflicts.<\/p>\n

Moreover, it is blatant hypocrisy for Arab Muslims to complain about imperialism and colonialism. As Middle East historian Efraim Karsh documents in Islamic Imperialism<\/em>, \u201cThe Arab conquerors acted in a typically imperialist fashion from the start, subjugating indigenous populations, colonizing their lands, and expropriating their wealth, resources, and labor.\u201d Indeed, if one wants to find a culture defined by imperialist ambitions, Islam fits the bill much better than do Europeans and Americans, latecomers to the great game of imperial domination that Muslims successfully played for a thousand years.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the first Arab-Islamic empire of the mid-seventh century to the Ottomans, the last great Muslim empire,\u201d Karsh writes, \u201cthe story of Islam has been the story of the rise and fall of universal empires and, no less important, of imperialist dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n

A recent example of this confusion caused by careless language can be found in commentary about the on-going dissolution of Iraq caused by sectarian and ethnic conflicts. There is a growing consensus that the creation of new nations in the region after World War I sowed the seeds of the current disorder. Ignoring those ethnic and sectarian differences, the British fashioned the nation of Iraq out of three Ottoman provinces that had roughly concentrated Kurds, Sunni, and Shi\u2019a in individual provinces.<\/p>\n

There is much of value to be learned from this history, but even intelligent commentators obscure that value with misleading words like \u201ccolonial.\u201d Wall Street Journal<\/em> writer Jaroslav Trofimov, for example, recently writing about the creation of the Middle Eastern nations, described France and England as \u201ccolonial powers.\u201d Similarly, columnist Charles Krauthammer on the same topic used the phrase \u201ccolonial borders.\u201d In both instances, the adjectives are historically misleading.<\/p>\n

France and England, of course, were \u201ccolonial powers,\u201d but their colonies were not in the Middle East. The region had for centuries been under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire. Thus Western \u201ccolonialism\u201d was not responsible for the region\u2019s dysfunctions. Rather, it was the incompetent policies and imperialist fantasies of the Ottoman leadership during the century before World War I, which culminated in the disastrous decision to enter the war on the side of Germany, that bear much of the responsibility for the chaos that followed the defeat of the Central Powers.<\/p>\n

Another important factor was the questionable desire of the British to create an Arab national homeland in the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, and to gratify the imperial pretensions of their ally the Hashemite clan, who shrewdly convinced the British that their self-serving and marginal actions during the war had been important in fighting the Turks.<\/p>\n

Obviously, the European powers wanted to influence these new nations in order to protect their geopolitical and economic interests, but they had no desire to colonize them. Idealists may decry that interference, or see it as unjust, but it is not \u201ccolonialism\u201d rightly understood.<\/p>\n

No more accurate is Krauthammer\u2019s use of \u201ccolonial borders\u201d to describe the region\u2019s nations. Like all combatants in a great struggle, in anticipation of the defeat of the Central Powers, the British and French began planning the settlement of the region in 1916 in a meeting that produced the Sykes-Picot agreement later that year. But there is nothing unexceptional or untoward in this. In February 1945, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin met in Yalta to negotiate their spheres of influence in Germany and Eastern Europe after the war. It would be strange if the Entente powers had not<\/em>laid out their plans for the territories of the defeated enemy.<\/p>\n

Thus as part of the peace treaties and conferences after World War I, the French and British were given, under the authority of negotiated treaties and the supervision of the League of Nations, the \u201cmandates\u201d over the former Ottoman territories lying between Egypt and Turkey. In 1924 the goal of the mandates was spelled out in Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant: \u201cCertain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus the nations created in the old Ottoman territory were sanctioned by international law as the legitimate prerogative of the victorious Entente powers. There was nothing \u201ccolonial\u201d about the borders of the new nations.<\/p>\n

One can legitimately challenge the true motives of the mandatory powers, doubt their sincerity in protesting their concern for the region\u2019s peoples, or criticize their borders for serving European interests rather than those of the peoples living there. But whatever their designs, colonizing was not one of them. Indeed, by 1924 colonialism had long been coming into question for many in the West, and at the time of the post-war settlement the reigning ideal was not colonialism, but ethnic self-determination as embodied in the nation-state, as Woodrow Wilson had called for in February 1918: \u201cNational aspirations must be respected; people may now be dominated and governed only by their own consent.\u201d The Anglo-French Declaration issued a few days before the war ended on November 11, 1918 agreed, stating that their aims in the former Ottoman territories were \u201cthe establishment of National Governments and administrations deriving their authority from the initiative and free choice of the indigenous populations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Again, one can question the wisdom of trying to create Western nation-states and political orders in a region still intensely tribal, with a religion in which the secular nation is an alien import. That incompatibility continues to be an ongoing problem nearly a century later, as we watch the failure of nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the hopes of the Arab Spring dashed in the violence and disorder of the Arab Winter.<\/p>\n

But whatever the sins of the Europeans in the Middle East, colonialism is not one of them. The misuse of the term may sound trivial, but it legitimizes the jihadist narrative of Western guilt and justified Muslim payback through terrorist violence, now perfumed as \u201canticolonial resistance.\u201d It reinforces what Middle East scholar J.B. Kelly called the \u201cpreemptive cringe,\u201d the willingness of the West to blame itself for the region\u2019s problems, as President Obama did in his 2009 Cairo speech when he condemned the \u201ccolonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims.\u201d<\/p>\n

This apologetic stance has characterized our foreign policy and emboldened our enemies for half a century. Today the region is in more danger of collapse into widespread violence and more of a threat to our national interests than at any time in the last fifty years. Perhaps we should start crafting our foreign policy on the foundations of historical truth and precise language.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How the misuse of a term legitimizes the jihadist myth of Western guilt. by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ Defining Ideas Language is the first casualty of wars over foreign policy. To paraphrase Thucydides, during ideological conflict, words have to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which is now given them. One word that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[978,225,59,842,22,230],"tags":[91,231],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2ei","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6475,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/watching-the-middle-east-implode\/","url_meta":{"origin":8574,"position":0},"title":"Watching the Middle East Implode","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 12, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Only when we recognize the fundamental role Islam plays in the region can we begin to craft sensible policies that put U.S. interests first. by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0Defining Ideas\u00a0 The revolutions against dictators in the Middle East dubbed the Arab Spring have degenerated into a complex, bloody m\u00e9lange of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Islam"","block_context":{"text":"Islam","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/islam\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2454,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/time-for-a-foreign-policy-paradigm-shift\/","url_meta":{"origin":8574,"position":1},"title":"Time for a Foreign Policy Paradigm Shift","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine The greatest danger in foreign policy is a reliance on worn out paradigms and unexamined assumptions. 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There is no tactic currently being used by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Palestine"","block_context":{"text":"Palestine","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/palestine\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5522,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/high-anxiety\/","url_meta":{"origin":8574,"position":4},"title":"High Anxiety","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 20, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"How modernity feeds Arab anti-Semitism by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers There\u2019s an Elvis Costello lyric that goes, \u201cI used to be disgusted; now I try to be amused.\u201d Before 9\/11 that was pretty much my philosophy. Working in the university, I was daily treated to the postmodern mumbo-jumbo, multicultural\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. 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For Kerry, the rebels in Libya are the same as those in Egypt, \u201cpeacefully demanding freedom and dignity.\u201d Long oppressed by tyrants\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Islam"","block_context":{"text":"Islam","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/islam\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8574"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8576,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8574\/revisions\/8576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}