Imperialist Countries and Imperialist Systems Today - Essay Example

IMPERIALISM The current investigation looks into whether or not there are imperialist countries and imperialist systems today, even though today there are not the formal empires of former centuries. The main term for the continuance of imperialist influence in society today is neo-colonialism. Taking a 20th and 21st century perspective, the current report argues that imperialism does in fact continue to exist today, as shown especially in the many troubles of African countries. By looking at examples of neo-colonialism in countries like Morocco, one can see the lasting impact that imperialism has had, even across a gulf of years. Politics are impacted by neo-imperialism in many examples of African civil society. In this system, when the European colonialist power ostensibly leaves, often the very same rules are left behind to be picked up by newer nationalist movements in places like Algeria and Morocco. The arrested development of the sovereign African nation soon becomes replaced by an imperialist-placed society in which the European colonizer seeks to mirror its home institutions in the new land, ignoring those of the conquered African nation. This is then replaced by the neo-colonialist nation which seeks again to mirror the European colonizer in terms of ostensibly self sufficient economic policy. Europeans present themselves to colonial people as having a high degree of sophistication and technology, and view the colonial people as being backwards and superstitious… “The image of colonialism as a progressive project was widely persuasive in its time, not only to the great majority of Europeans, but also to many colonial subjects. We can take the metaphor of disenchantment further” (Maghraou, 1998). This quote shows how the tone of superiority works culturally as well as in an economic way to oppress the native culture, often in a self sustaining manner that continues across the years. The situation in 20th century and modern Morocco is a good example of how imperialism can be said to still be a live today. “In Talmin in March 1901, that the French could occupy the area… Sheikh Maal-Aynayn led the people in a series of battles against the French invaders” (Boahen, 1987). Despite political, social, and cultural resiliency on the part of Morocco and a system which could have been worse in terms of social control and lack of autonomy, French colonialism and neo-colonialism in Morocco has fostered the Western belief that instead of destroying the viability of other cultures in terms of future expression and growth, they were instead improving these cultures, which were peopled by and large by ignorant, albeit sometimes virtuous, savages who were waiting their whole holistic-cultural lives (as faceless representatives of “the Arab” or “the African”) for European cultural munificence. This is not only true for France’s African colonies and Asiatic societies, but also for victims of colonial oppression the world over, from Mexico to the US. Basically, what imperialism is, is a display of arrogance and the mockery of a conscience that is used to excuse exploitation. The same thing can be said of missionary Christianity. Both routes lead to the domestic support of a nation or state whose population is encouraged to be terrified and attracted to the idea of the exotic other perpetuated by imperialism. The propaganda of conquest turns it into charity. Alternative histories are eliminated, as the adage goes. All it takes is a generation. In the example of Morocco, due to the post-colonial integration of the imperialist society, Moroccan culture was still suppressed to some extent, although to a lesser degree and more socially than politically, as the influences were there but the culture had been changed somewhat by the power-structure placed there by the French, even after they were defeated by nationalist tendencies. This is how the current under-development of much of French speaking Africa can be traced back to French imperialism and neo colonialism. Resiliency on the part of Morocco can be in part ascribed to the continuance of a dynastic political structure and in part to a historical tendency towards minimization of external influence over integral cultural and society. From its earliest days, the Moroccan sultanate “developed an ambivalent attitude towards the world surrounding it. Bordered by strong neighbors to the north and east its ruler were often forced to pursue a creative and flexible set of principles in their conduct of foreign affairs… to dislodge or at least to minimize the influence of external forces on the affairs of their state” (Gerschovitz, 2000). Without this minimization, the post-imperial situation could have been much worse. The tenets of humanity, to the invader, stem from the advancement of technology which allows the imperialist to displace and then ignore or mistreat native inhabitants of colonial lands, “Their principle function was to provide legitimacy for the French colonial venture, by inscribing it as invested with a world historic progressive mission. This ideological mission however came into crisis following World War I, when with the emergence of nationalism the evident human costs for North Africans began to call into question the colonial venture” (Maghraou, 1998). However, the after-effects still are prevalent, as they are in any society which has only fairly recently become independent of a imperialist power structure on which it had previously been dependent. Post-colonialism and neo-colonialism can also be connected to ideas mentioned above concerning imperialism. Imperialism, although it does involve a certain amount of fantasy on the part of the European, is not a harmless fantasy, but a chain of fantasies perpetuated as a rational field of knowledge. This is where the true danger of colonialism lies; in the fact that people are encouraged to take it seriously. In this way, French colonialism is made to seem rational and intellectually valid to the general culture of the Moroccan, and often finds its most staunch proponents rising from the cultures that have been destroyed by imperialism and colonialism. Like the colonial histories they replaced, “nationalist histories were progressive narratives; their existence presupposes the sequence: pre-colonial, colonial, post-colonial (and thus of the in-built obsolescence of the colonialist narrative). While they claimed to speak in the name of the people, in fact most nationalist histories of the period privileged urban elite perspectives” (Burke, 1998). During the process of colonialism and neo colonialism, ways of life were forever altered in ways that cannot be recovered. There is no redress. The ideas commonly shared in the present about developed and developing nations would cease to exist in the absence of these abovementioned processes, and arguably the world would be a totally different place in which to live. Although European imperialism likes to take the tack of moral superiority, it has been founded and legitimized on a foundation of greed and competition that led to the destruction of the natural life-patterns of millions of people. No one knows what would have happened otherwise: there is only the absence that intellectual neo-colonialism seeks to fill with hypocrisy and racism. “In Morocco, the attainment of independence meant a widening of the political horizon from the local to the national level which was accompanied by the growth of a system of rewards… the historical investigation of this background should provide a firm context for descriptions of political activity before and after independence” (Brett, 1976) But at times, historical memory must also critique structures, and in Morocco this appears to have happened fairly more often than in some other imperialist structures in which repression and assimilation were more forcefully instated, rather than implicit. REFERENCE Boahen, A (1987). African Perspectives on Colonialism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Brett, M (1976). The colonial period in the Maghrib and its aftermath: The present state of historical writing. The Journal of African History. Burke, E. (1998). Theorizing the histories of colonialism and nationalism in the Arab Maghrib - Beyond Colonialism and Nationalism in North Africa. Arab Studies Quarterly. Chazan, N., P. Lewis, R. Mortimer et al. (1999). Politics and Society in Contemporary Africa. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Gerschovich, M (2000). French Military Rule in Morocco: Colonialism and its Consequences. Portland, OR: Frank Cass. Maghraou, D. (1998). Moroccan colonial soldiers: Between selective memory and collective memory. Arab Studies Quarterly. Read More