The Benefits of Imperialism - Essay Example

History 6 – Imperialism and its Effects The benefits of Imperialism were not truly realized until the British and other Western European nations began their systematic exploitation of the riches of the New World. Newly discovered territories yielded new lands, materials and slave labor which set off a global race among the ‘developed’ nations to see how many of the less developed nations they could control. There were several reasons why this push was so strong. Not only was it necessary on a political front to ensure the nation had enough additional land to defend its claim as a world leader, but the economic advantages of vast amounts of resources and raw materials were required to keep the growing nations growing and the new available lands were demanded by overpopulated cities and towns. As each nation struggled to acquire new territories, they remained focused primarily on what was best for the home country with little or no concern for the previous occupants of the nations they were destroying. By the mid 19th century, the new imperialism was well underway. Gaining and controlling new territories outside the original country was justified through many different angles. Growing populations required more land in which to expand and faraway territories provided an opportunity to decrease the over-crowding of prisons without actually having to address the underlying social issues that led to crime. Cultural expansion meant greater control over a greater proportion of the globe and thus a stronger economic and political position. Countries slow to enter the imperialist movement were eventually forced to do so as the only means of establishing themselves as a prominent nation rather than one ripe for expansionist agendas of foreign entities. Unfortunately, another cultural element of the imperialist age was a generalized racial attitude in which the white Europeans held themselves as superior in all ways from their darker-skinned fellow humans and felt it their duty to “bring up” these inferior races. “Europeans thought that they were better than Africans” (McDougal-Littell, 1999). Church officials and missionaries encouraged imperialism because the natives of conquered territories could be more easily coerced to convert to Christianity thus increasing their coffers as well. However, in expanding into these territories, few, if any, of the imperialist countries stopped to consider the negative impact they were having or the people they were dominating. Convert them as contributors to the church, yes; remember their humanity, why? Examples of this are plentiful. Trade laws in India required Indian industries to provide dyes, coffee, cotton and tea to British companies, forced closure of many Indian businesses and dictated which crops were to be grown (McDougal-Littell, 1999). As a result of these kinds of practices, many individual farmers and even entire villages were not able to grow enough food for themselves. The same things happened in occupied parts of Asia as well. Even though the Asians were able to grow much more rice thanks to European advances in technology and agricultural methods, so much of it was being exported that there were local food shortages (McDougal-Littell, 1999). Not only did this cause strained relations between the occupied countries and the occupiers, but also introduced or exacerbated conflicts among peoples of these regions who often had vastly different pasts from what was imposed on them. The people of Iran, for example, have a long and relatively similar cultural background full of contradictions and complexities. This begins with the opulence and progressive conceptions typically referred to in stories and old texts of ancient Persia. “This was the ceremonial and spiritual capital of a vast empire, built by Cyrus, Darius and Xerxes, titans who names still echo through history” (Kinzer, p. 17). The kings of Persia, centered in Iran, were the overlords of much of the surrounding kingdoms, commanding obeisance and yearly gifting rituals, making Iran an advanced multicultural district that was highly advanced in art, thought and economics. Their ancient traditional beliefs held to Zoroastrainism, “which holds that the sacred responsibility of every human being is to work toward establishing social justice on earth” (Kinzer, p. 19). When the Persians fell to the Arabs and had Islam imposed upon them, they adapted the Islam faith to be more in keeping with these ancient beliefs, preferring to follow the teachings of Ali as the legitimate successor to Mohammed, creating the Shiites. This interpretation of dedication to a higher calling and a higher truth spoke to the elements of Zoroastrianism still present in the culture and led to the development of the nation of Iran in the 1500s and again built it to cultural superiority. However, an underlying suspicion in the heart of the people also permitted a barbarous bent to emerge, eventually leading to the fall of the Shahs in 1722 to Afghan tribesmen (Kinzer, p. 27). Following this disaster, Iran’s rule eventually fell to the Qajar, who repressed cultural growth or progress for the next 200 years, making it open to exploitation by more advanced nations. Under foreign rule in the form of multiple countries, primarily Britain and Russia, owning all of their assets, the Iranian people suffered. All of the wealth was in the hands of the foreigners and the Iranians were left with high rates of unemployment, high inflation and massive food shortages (Kinzer, p. 33). By 1901, the oil under Iran that was to become the primary driver of the 20th century and the source of so much wealth to the world was handed over to British control, only fueling new efforts by the people to resist the spendthrift practices of their monarchy and replace it with something more in line with democratic principles. By 1917, Russia had relinquished her hand in Iran and the country fell completely under British rule. As the country has developed, its leaders have leaned more and more toward communist ideals in reaction to the harsh treatment they have received at the hands of the British and capitalist entities that have expressed no concern or regard for their cultural way of thinking. This reaction to Imperialist attitude is also prevalent in other areas of the currently turbulent Middle East. The U.S. response to issues in places such as Palestine have provided the Iraqis with a sense that the United States is not any different from the British or the French in terms of their motives for offering aid or for invasion. While the U.S. remained the one Western power that the people of the region were cautiously optimistic about, the United States’ demonstrated heavy Israeli bias since the beginning of the Reagan era reinforced already held beliefs that the West is not concerned about humanitarian issues as much as they are about personal gain. This belief is founded, however, on the West’s demonstration, through Britain, of how larger powers dominate smaller ones with their treatment of Iran. In relating the problems of Iraq and Afghanistan to the problems of the rest of the Middle East, Khalidi (2005) discusses not only the problems with commonly-held Arab beliefs regarding the motives of the United States in Iraq and elsewhere, but also the problems of internal strife between differing factions forced together by external rule, problems with imposed governments with little to no concern for the rights or needs of the people, failed or sabotaged democracies and power bids for control of oil or other resources in the region. Many governments that have been in power in these regions in the past 100 years have been little more than token authorities acting only upon the approval and for the benefit of one Western power or another. These governments have been enforced by and removed through the presence of occupying troops, ostensibly to support and maintain, but effectively threatening and coercing. The lack of trust on the part of the native people toward the West is well-founded and individual and continues to be proven in almost every action that has been taken in recent decades. Concerning Iraq in particular, Khalidi (2005) points out that the nation itself was created through an agreement between the Western powers as a means of controlling the suspected oil and with no regard to the traditional animosity that existed between the various tribes they brought together. It is only natural that this animosity is now directed toward the external powers that enforced this upon them. Works Cited Khalidi, Rashid. Resurrecting Empire. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2005. Kinzer, Stephen. All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. McDougal-Littell. “Telescoping the Times: The Age of Imperialism, 1850-1914.” (1999). September 14, 2010 Read More