The West Man's Burden

     Rudyard Kipling's dually famous and infamous poem "The White Man's Burden" speaks to a growing and strong American nation to reach forth like her European brethren and establish colonies abroad for the good of the far reaches of the world. Because of this poem as well as his outspoken support for British imperialist goals, Rudyard Kipling has long been recognized as one of the most vocal proponents of Western imperial expansionist ideals along with Cecil Rhodes. At the turn of the twentieth century, Europe controlled the world in every measurable aspect from population growth and military innovation to industrial production and scientific exploration. Because of this incredible gap of European possibility to the rest of the world, imperial ideals took hold during the conquest and colonization of the New World. By the time of the French Revolution, Europe was seeking the establishment of trade ports and settlements throughout Asia, and by the close of that same century, nearly all of the known world was either colonized by or allied with an imperial European nation.
     Rudyard Kipling, who grew up in India, advocated for extending the imperialist agenda both toward nations friendly with Great Britain and to ensure the civilization of the rural, barbaric, pagan peoples of non-Europe. Kipling's and Europe's ideology for the colonization frenzy during the Age of Imperialism arose from the medieval practice of Christianizing Eastern and Baltic Europe in the medieval period. Europe was able to expand eastward because of more advanced military techniques, which, when combined with the lessons of New World colonization and naval development, allowed Europe to apply those technologies to the formation of empires. As British might reached the zenith of its capabilities, Kipling submitted his poem to one of the strongest proponents for American imperialism, Theodore Roosevelt, who became Vice President under William McKinley, a politician who built his career advocating American expansionist policies.
     The process of successful colonization necessitates more advanced technology than currently possessed by the native populations. Technology allows the colonizers to travel, establish a presence, and fend off natural and human attempts to dislodge their encampment. As European nations established colonies around the world, foreign lands were secured through the oppressive application of technological innovation birthed in Europe since the Renaissance. Ocean going vessels, rifles, trains, machine guns, canned goods, and assembly-line industrial capacities allowed the imperialist goals of Europe to become reality.
     Aside from the political goals that drove the conquest of the world, especially in the nineteenth century, there were as many motivations as advocates to interact with, subdue, and civilize the non-Western regions of the world. The Opium Wars between China and Great Britain exemplify the priority of economic might on a global scale to the real development of "civilization." Decades later, the slaughter of the Congolese people by the Belgians revealed no change in the approach or treatment of native peoples with regard to their non-economic existence. Despite the abusive, calloused use of native peoples as slaves for hard labor, the Christian Missionary movement, started in the early nineteenth century, sent waves of individuals to appeal to the eternal well-being of the souls of the natives. The techniques, methods, and interactions between these missionaries and the natives can be disputed, but several succeeded in establishing friendly relationships.
     Colonization depended on control of the native peoples, but British over-extension in Africa resulted in the bloody Boer Wars in the 1890s. With realization of the limits of modern British capacities, Kipling hoped to activate British-friendly American sentiment for colonialism. The rhyme and meter of "The White Man's Burden" are attuned to an upbeat marching song calling sloven, cowardly men to better the world.
     With the self-wrought destruction of the World Wars within Europe and the adoption of technological and industrial equipment throughout the rest of the world, Europe's Age of Imperialism weakened and collapsed completely midway through the twentieth century. The United States, a nation who resisted colonizing until the very end of the nineteenth century, maintained the technological innovation of its European heritage while avoiding the destruction of the World Wars which allowed it to express its own forms of imperial behavior into the early parts of the twenty-first century.
     Disregarding the politically-weighted, racial imagery of the native African and Asian populations, the concept of the right of the powerful to control colonization  was contested by intellectual, white elitists in America for decades prior to World War I. This resistance to capitalize on its technical superiority to the non-European world complemented American isolationism despite arguments for colonization's benefits for monetary gain, spiritual enlightenment, and furtherment of civilization .
     Of all the causes that incited the imperialist agenda, the desire to industrialize and develop other cultures to the technological level of Europe largely succeeded after almost two centuries of occupation and turmoil. Those other cultures, from Brazil to South Africa and India to Indonesia, have progressed to compete with and even out-compete the European giants that introduced industrialized techniques of development. Given that many developing countries are advancing their economic production, most nations, arguably, have learned the lessons that European imperialism sought to teach them, though they are understandably not grateful for the repression and bloody strife those occupations created. If that is the case, the White Man's Burden should be nearly accomplished.

     There are two main viewpoints of the Age of Imperialism and "The White Man's Burden." The acceptable viewpoint from the nineteenth century is that the Western Man sacrifices the luxuries of his home country to build railroads, extract resources, and educate the natives. Conversely, the acceptable viewpoint of late twenty and twenty-first centuries is that the white man oppressed, repressed, and enslaved local tribes for his own economic and political gains.

     Comparing the mindset of Rudyard Kipling when he sent his poem to Theodore Roosevelt in 1899 with the events of the past one-hundred seventeen years, let us attempt to reconsider the words of the poem, "The White Man's Burden."

Take up the White Man's burden--               We took up the White Man's burden--

Send forth the best ye breed--                         We sent out our only sons--

     Go bind your sons to exile                         We wasted all our children

  To serve your captives' need;                       As slaughter for their guns;

     To wait in heavy harness,                          Our yolk's a heavy burden,

  On fluttered folk and wild--                              We tried to give it up--

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,                   Our nations tire and burn out,

     Half-devil and half-child.                               We've drunk our bitter cup.

Take up the White Man's burden--               We took up the White Man's burden--

     In patience to abide,                                   Behind borders strove to hide,

  To veil the threat of terror                                      Remember 9/11

  And check the show of pride;                        And check the show of pride;

  By open speech and simple,                        With lies of revolutions,

  An hundred times made plain                       We left on broken roads

     To seek another's profit,                               But now our nation's troubles,

  And work another's gain.                                 All promise to implode.

Take up the White Man's burden--               We took up the White Man's burden--

  The savage wars of peace--                             The savage wars of greed--

Fill full the mouth of Famine                             Exploited earth's abundance

And bid the sickness cease;                        And silenced death's gross need;

And when your goal is nearest                    And when the goal was finished

  The end for others sought,                              The end of empire sought,

Watch sloth and heathen Folly                    Watched civil war and arms deals

Bring all your hopes to nought.                        Bring all our work to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--               We took up the White Man's burden--

     No tawdry rule of kings,                                 We overcame their kings,

  But toil of serf and sweeper--                        But still beat down their workers--

  The tale of common things.                              For faster, cheaper things.

  The ports ye shall not enter,                         Their ports have higher tariffs,

  The roads ye shall not tread,                        Their roads have higher fees,

Go mark them with your living,                         Meanwhile our nation suffers,

And mark them with your dead.                           We rule from bended knees.

Take up the White Man's burden--               We took up the White Man's burden--

     And reap his old reward:                               And reap our same reward:

  The blame of those ye better,                       The scorn for those we labour,

  The hate of those ye guard--                        The fear of those we guard--

  The cry of hosts ye humour                             The sounds of rifle fire

(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--                            Now killing off our aid:-- 

"Why brought he us from bondage,                  "Leave now our native cities,

     Our loved Egyptian night?"                         Undo what you have made!"

Take up the White Man's burden--               We took up the White Man's burden--

  Ye dare not stoop to less--                            Give up your weariness--

Nor call too loud on Freedom                       Have men call out for Freedom

  To cloak your weariness;                                 To hide our sins against;

  By all ye cry or whisper,                               With all our justice given,

  By all ye leave or do,                                    With all our Freedom spent,

  The silent, sullen peoples                            The stronger, better peoples

Shall weigh your gods and you.                         Just want us to relent.

Take up the White Man's burden--               We took up the White Man's burden--

  Have done with childish days--                         It's time to lay it down--

     The lightly proffered laurel,                           Esteem's not given freely,

  The easy, ungrudged praise.                        The laurel leaves grow brown.

Comes now, to search your manhood          What now is modern manhood?

  Through all the thankless years                      What have our efforts won?

Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,              Take up our load, ye Other!

     The judgment of your peers!                           Embrace your native son.

     With the financial turmoil within Europe in recent years including the 2008 Subprime Mortgage Crisis, Greek Financial Crisis, Refugee Crisis, and Brexit, European finance seems historically vulnerable while other non-Western nations are defining their own economic and political courses. The Asian Tigers are the strongest engines of growth in the world, even with China's uncertain transparency. The G20 membership further exemplifies the economic progress of non-European nations over the last century. While The European Union remains the largest trade conglomerate in the world, the rise of the Asian economies and the development of African resources stands as a testament to the ability and capacity of the "sullen peoples" of European colonialism. Whether this success stems from or in spite of colonialism, the European conquest of the world has revealed a burden that will never be put down.

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Agatha Tyche