Imperialism

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“Imperialism is as evil a concept as humankind has ever devised” (Kenneth Griffin)

In the 40 years after 1870 European countries expanded their existing colonial empires by over 10 million square miles and acquired in the process up to 150 million new subjects, about a tenth of the world’s population at that time.
Many historians and commentators have wondered, and is still wondering what the reasons were for imperial expansion. Some have said it was economic reason because many industrial powers searched for new markets, raw materials and good investment opportunities. Some also say that the European powers colonised because of political causes and mass nationalism. In conclusion, there are many answers to why Europeans started to colonise. But there were some influencing factors; the rapid technological progress in the second half of the 19th century made expansion overseas possible. The construction of steamships and railways made long journeys more feasible. Medical breakthroughs enabled explorers and missionaries to survive for longer periods in the tropical climes of Africa and Asia.
At this time European peoples were the most advanced and civilised people in the world, and therefore though they had a duty to try to civilise the non-European people e.g. Africans and Indians. Many Europeans felt that they had to help the less fortunate people on planet earth, for example by teaching them the Christian beliefs and European skills (Social Darwinism). But they sure did it in different ways.

Some colonisers were real sadistic men; they shot native people like animals when passing their villages. One who describes this well is H.M. Stanley; “To punish them for four hours persecution of us we turned about and set fire to every hut on either bank… It should be observed that up to the moment of firing the villages, the fury of the natives seemed to be increasing, but the instant the flames were seen devouring their homes the fury ceased, by which we learned that fire had a remarkable sedative influence on their nerves.”
This proves that they were not only shooting people, they sat fire on their homes too, and by doing that also saw that the natives were afraid of fire (This was a conclusion that no one had ever come up with before…). There are other examples of this sadistic behaviour against the natives. For example the Congo scandal which tells us how the rubber workers were punished if they were late or hadn’t collected enough rubber etc; “We tried, always going further into the forest, and when we failed and our rubber was short, the soldiers came to our towns and killed us.” (Roger Casement – Congo Report to the Marquess of Lansdowne) But they were not only punished to death; natives died because they couldn’t work at their own farms since they had to collect rubber, and they could therefore not get any food that way. The soldiers did of course not give them any food so some natives simply starved to death. Others were simply just tortured (as the victims on the picture who’s got there hands cut of).

All these people coming into Africa also meant that new culture came in, some Europeans actually forced natives to abandon their own culture and embrace the culture of the colonial power. Another major negative effect of imperialism was the political boundaries; these were drawn without considering tribal lands or natural boundaries. This could lead to many problems, one example is that if lets say France and Britain drew a line through north west Africa and divided a tribal land into two parts, they no longer were in the same country and therefore were not under the same rule. This must have led to a lot of problems and confusion between the tribal natives. All because of the uncaring imperialists.

But colonisation and imperialism led to other major catastrophes as well. One of these was the Boer war in South Africa. This was a war between Dutch emigrants and Britain. The war led to a lot of death, not only amongst the soldiers (22 000 British soldiers died) but natives too, they who was not even in the war were killed in great numbers due to the “need” of land rich on minerals and metals = money. Anther thing that was terrible about the Boer war was the concentration camps that the English set up to put women and children. This was a tactic to make the Boers surrender and give up Transvaal and the Orange Free State (the two Boer territories in South Africa). A tactic which killed thousands of innocent people and families, and also gave a bad name, or a loss of British face in the eyes of the world.
An English lady called Emily Hobhouse was one who alerted the world to the horrors of the camps. “These people will never ever forget what has happened; the children have been the hardest hit. To maintain this kind or camp means nothing less than murdering children.”

We can not only say that imperialism was a bad thing, it actually had some positive sides as well.
All missionaries weren’t there to reclaim land; some humanitarians were actually there to provide natives with essential services like education and health service. But also to end all the barbaric practises and customs in some colonies and instead teach them e.g. Christianity. But also the knowledge of the Europeans increased about the colonial areas. The European political models and ideologies spread to the colonies – nationalism, self determination, Marxism democracy etc.
The European colonisers where good builders and used their skills to make the infrastructure in Africa. Railways, roads, hospitals, universities etc. were built and is still used by former colonies today.

So should we agree with Kenneth Griffin; imperialism was an evil concept which just killed Africans and took control ove...