modernism:Heart of Darkness
Ian Feldman
> Does anyone out there have any interesting reactions to this book?
> I have to read it for my English class and am in the middle of
> thinking about a paper. Teacher does not mind colaborrative
> work? Is it meaningful to you or is it just a source of "the
> horror."
Personally, I found it hard reading because of the form chosen by
Conrad: the doubly-indirect way in which Marlow is allowed to
express grave criticism of the white man's behavior towards the
natives in Africa. Tons have been written about whether he (the
author) really had some other option in which to serve such
j'accuseations towards then-civilization of barbarism by its own
(Christian) measures. The times in question, early 1890's, were,
after all, the heights of Victorian self-righteousness and Belief
In Progress At Any Costs, the height of Colonialism justified by
colonial powers as that force that brings development to
"backward" parts of the world. Said development being delivered
at gun-point and made possible by, primarily, the inventions of
dependable backloader rifles, up-river going steamboats capable of
bringing avesome firepower inland in faraway places and last, but
not least, then-avalanche-like world market demand for rubber for
newly-invented pressurized bicycle tires.
Acc. to current lit.dogma the _HoD_ is, indeed, one of the first,
if not the first, instances of a modern writer turning "on is own"
(and then being able to get away "with it.!") Little wonder then
that when Francis Coppola came to make a personal, critical film
of the USA's involvement in Vietnam, he chose the _Heart of
Darkness_ as the plot model & basically came out with a stylized
account of that book.
More recently, there was an attempt at a discussion of Conrad...
look in /usr/spool/news/rec/arts/books for articles by:
# Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 16:29:31 GMT
# Subject: Re: Joseph Conrad
# From: seamus sweeney (sea...@maths.tcd.ie)
# From: d...@fc.hp.com (Doug Quarnstrom)
# From: sct@tumtum (Shaun Troedson.)
__Ian
Jim Kasprzak
|> The times in question, early 1890's, were,
|> after all, the heights of Victorian self-righteousness and Belief
|> In Progress At Any Costs, the height of Colonialism justified by
|> colonial powers as that force that brings development to
|> "backward" parts of the world.
Don't be so quick to take such a condemnatory tone towards all of the
efforts of the Victorian era. Yes, the colonialists recognized that
their mission was to achieve "progress at any cost" -- cost to _themselves_.
The "White Man's Burden" was not something that earned a profit for those
who bore it. The Victorians believed that it was better for a population
to be educated and brought into the world community as an equal than for
it to remain in savagery. If that's colonialism, then I for one think we
could use a bit more colonialism in the world today, especially right here
in the United States.
|> Said development being delivered at gun-point
Or, just as often, by missionaries, traders and explorers who sacrificed
their lives and fortunes in what they saw as the noble cause of uplifting
the less fortunate peoples of the world.
|> and made possible by, primarily, the inventions of
|> dependable backloader rifles, up-river going steamboats capable of
|> bringing avesome firepower inland in faraway places
And the telegraph, the railroad, modern medicine and food preservation
techniques -- all among the gifts which the Europeans brought to the rest
of the world, not to keep the native populations subjugated, but to bring
them up to the level of prosperity which they themselves enjoyed.
|> and last, but
|> not least, then-avalanche-like world market demand for rubber for
|> newly-invented pressurized bicycle tires.
I'd say that the profit motive was both last and least. Aside from the
gold and diamonds of South Africa, the palm oil of Nigeria, and the rubber
of the Congo, very little of the continent's wealth was realizable by the
19th-century developers. In most places, the colonial powers ended up
giving more than they took.
Now, having said that, I'll grant that there were atrocities committed,
certain colonies exploited for pure profit or senseless expansionism,
abuses made of the natives. Conrad based _Heart of Darkness_ on the truth.
And the colonialists did fail in their primary mission: to bring the
uneducated peoples up to their own level of civilization. But to portray
the Europeans as heartless profit-seekers who robbed an entire continent
at the point of a Maxim gun is both unfair and untrue.
|> Acc. to current lit.dogma the _HoD_ is, indeed, one of the first,
|> if not the first, instances of a modern writer turning "on is own"
|> (and then being able to get away "with it.!")
That depends on what you consider modern. Dickens criticized his own
society in his fiction, as did Swift, to name just two earlier examples.
------------------------------------------------------------------
__ Live from Capitaland, heart of the Empire State...
___/ | Jim Kasprzak, computer operator @ RPI, Troy, NY, USA
/____ *| "Buy the sky and sell the sky and lift your arms up to the
\_| sky and ask the sky and ask the sky don't fall on me..."
==== e-mail: kas...@rpi.edu or kasp...@mts.rpi.edu
Ian Feldman
Kasprzak questions my assertion of less than noble motives behind
the (Victorian era) Colonialism, as described by Joseph Conrad in
_The Heart of Darkness_ among others. Summing it up, Jim tends to
view the colonial movement as a thoroughly-positive force, full of
sacrifices, spiritual as well as financial, of the missionares,
traders and explorers so unselfishly engaged in the task of
"uplifting the less fortunate peoples of the world", "bring[ing]
them up to the level of prosperity which [the Europeans]
themselves enjoyed" and, generally, spreading the gifts of "the
telegraph, the railroad, modern medicine and food preservation
"savagery" of the, ehem, savages in question.
The profit motive, if any, comes "both last and least." The White
Man's Burden (pious, self-assigned responsibility to civilize
children of the lesser gods) weights heavily on the conscience of,
one assumes, "the colonial powers [that] ended up giving more than
they took." Thus my "condemnatory tone" towards colonialists'
mission is unwarranted, especially since that "progress at any
cost" ended up being borne by the white men "_themselves_." (All
quotes Jim verbatim and not, repeat NOT, taken out of context.)
Obviously, Kasprzak and I are living in two separate Universes,
connected perchance only via the Internet, because the late-19th
century Colonialism as known around here is anything-but any of
the above. Little did I know how wrongly I've interpreted history
all these years. Else I wouldn't have succumbed to the idea of it
being a strictly profit-driven movement to grab as much land and
natural resources from "uncivilized" people in faraway Africa and
Asia as possible, thinly (and primarily for the sake of the home
opinion) disguised as fervor to share Western-style progress and
Christianity with the pagans. The latter, mainly black and of no
obvious civilization to speak of, thus incapable of assessing the
"advantages" of having our culture thrown upon themselves not to
mention ability to choose what's best for their own good, were not
consulted. What's worse, I even have the audacity to associate
all Colonial behavior with racism, the ideology that certain races
are better, thus more deserving of survival, than others; later
the favorite leitmotif of that 20th-century idealist Adolf Hitler.
This being r.a.b. and not some alt.third-world.politicks, I do
not think it appropriate to start a lenghty discussion of whose
vision of the subject matter could be the more truthful. Suffice
it be to ask, has it ever entered your mind, Jim, that the very
justification of the mission of those do-gooder missionaries and
their ilk, of their duty to "civilize" others, rests on a self-
righteous & arrogant assumption that there was no culture and that
the 'savagery' that they saw all around them in Africa etc was all
in the eyes of the beholder?
"The only salvation for the future of the race is to annihilate
the whole people, men as women, over 14 years of age." --Lord Grey
writing to wife from Africa, Jan 23, 1897.
__Ian Feldman <ia...@random.se>
Mujtaba Ghouse
> Don't be so quick to take such a condemnatory tone towards all of the
>efforts of the Victorian era. Yes, the colonialists recognized that
>their mission was to achieve "progress at any cost" -- cost to _themselves_.
>The "White Man's Burden" was not something that earned a profit for those
>who bore it.
Ah, yes. England is so much richer today than during the Empire. :-)
Let me bring this back to books by recommending Evelyn Shuckburgh's "Foreign
Office Diaries," (specifically, "The Descent To Suez 1951-56," a cataclysmic
time for the Empire). Shuckburgh started this period as private secretary to
Sir Anthony Eden, who became prime minister. Later, Shuckburgh became head
of Middle Eastern Affairs. A sample (p.71):
"I ended extremely gloomy about British prospects everywhere. . .
International law and the temper of international opinion is all set against
the things which made us into a great nation, i.e. our activities outside
our own territory. Bit by bit we shall be driven back into our island where
we shall starve."
Clearly, not all those who actually ran the Empire shared Jim's feeling
that ". . . The White Man's Burden was not something that earned a profit
for those who bore it."
-Mujtaba Ghouse
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Oh my piglets, we are the origins of war, not history's forces, nor the
times, nor justice nor the lack of it, nor causes, nor religions, nor ideas,
nor kinds of government, nor any other thing. We are the killers. We breed
wars, it runs in our blood like syphilis. Dead bodies rot in streams because
living ones are rotten. For the love of God, can't we love one another just a
little?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim_...@transarc.com
ia...@random.se (Ian Feldman) writes:
> In the too-good-to-be-true message <2657b7$2...@usenet.rpi.edu> Jim
> Kasprzak questions my assertion of less than noble motives behind
> the (Victorian era) Colonialism, as described by Joseph Conrad in
> _The Heart of Darkness_ among others. Summing it up, Jim tends to
> view the colonial movement as a thoroughly-positive force, full of
> sacrifices, spiritual as well as financial, of the missionares,
> traders and explorers so unselfishly engaged in the task of
> "uplifting the less fortunate peoples of the world", "bring[ing]
> them up to the level of prosperity which [the Europeans]
> themselves enjoyed" and, generally, spreading the gifts of "the
> telegraph, the railroad, modern medicine and food preservation
> techniques" in order to combat the (intrinsic, one supposes,)
> "savagery" of the, ehem, savages in question.
>
> connected perchance only via the Internet, because the late-19th
> century Colonialism as known around here is anything-but any of
> the above. Little did I know how wrongly I've interpreted history
> all these years. Else I wouldn't have succumbed to the idea of it
> being a strictly profit-driven movement to grab as much land and
> natural resources from "uncivilized" people in faraway Africa and
> Asia as possible, thinly (and primarily for the sake of the home
> opinion) disguised as fervor to share Western-style progress and
> Christianity with the pagans.
[I've trimmed the above a bit to save space.]
The problem with your argument is that ALL of colonialism was
certainly NOT driven only by the profit motive. Some of it
certainly was. Some of it, on the other hand, was driven by
a paternalism, in which some of the colonial powers thought
it was their duty to civilize the rest of the world. (I'm not
arguing that they were right to do this, by the way.) Colonialism
was driven by a mix of forces, and it oversimplifies the issue
to try to attribute it to any one motive.
******************************************************************
Jim Mann jm...@transarc.com
Transarc Corporation
The Gulf Tower, 707 Grant Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
(412) 338-4442
roger m squires
>
> "The only salvation for the future of the race is to annihilate
> the whole people, men as women, over 14 years of age." --Lord Grey
> writing to wife from Africa, Jan 23, 1897.
>
"Of the Australian black man we may certainly say that he
has to go. That he should perish without unnecessary
suffering should be the aim of all who are concerned in
the matter." -- Anthony Trollope
>
>__Ian Feldman <ia...@random.se>
rms
Jim Kasprzak
|> In the too-good-to-be-true message <2657b7$2...@usenet.rpi.edu> Jim
|> Kasprzak questions my assertion of less than noble motives behind
|> the (Victorian era) Colonialism, as described by Joseph Conrad in
|> _The Heart of Darkness_ among others. Summing it up, Jim tends to
_Thoroughly_ positive? No. I simply asserted that many of the colonialists
were acting in what they believed to be the best interests of the people
in the colonies. Given the advantage of perspective gained by a century of
hindsight, we can see that many of their goals were misguided, and even in
the areas where they could have done some good, they mostly failed to achieve
that potential. I questioned your assertion of less than noble motives
because I think that there were some motives involved which _were_ noble.
|> [summary of my article deleted]
|> (All quotes Jim verbatim and not, repeat NOT, taken out of context.)
Agreed, and I stand by everything I said. But I notice that you don't
happen to quote the part where I agree that there were instances of
atrocities, abuses, and generally evil actions on the part of these same
colonialists. I simply argue that colonialism was driven by motives
both noble and ignoble.
|> Little did I know how wrongly I've interpreted history all these years.
Nobody's perfect.
|> Else I wouldn't have succumbed to the idea of it being a strictly
|> profit-driven movement to grab as much land and natural resources from
|> "uncivilized" people in faraway Africa and Asia as possible...
You speak sarcastically, but I do not: if this is your opinion of colonialism,
then you _have_ misinterpreted history.
|> This being r.a.b. and not some alt.third-world.politicks, I do
|> not think it appropriate to start a lenghty discussion of whose
|> vision of the subject matter could be the more truthful.
Okay. I'm taking the rest of this argument to e-mail. But I do not retract
any of my previously stated opinions.
And just for the sake of including some books, my most recent references
for colonialism were Thomas Pakenham's _The Scramble for Africa_ and
David Levering Lewis' _The Race to Fashoda_.
Joseph Askew
>In article <a8aa...@random.se>, ia...@random.se (Ian Feldman) writes:
>|> The times in question, early 1890's, were,
>|> after all, the heights of Victorian self-righteousness and Belief
>|> In Progress At Any Costs, the height of Colonialism justified by
>|> colonial powers as that force that brings development to
>|> "backward" parts of the world.
> Don't be so quick to take such a condemnatory tone towards all of the
>efforts of the Victorian era. Yes, the colonialists recognized that
>their mission was to achieve "progress at any cost" -- cost to _themselves_.
Not quite. Progress was to be achieved at any cost to anyone else. I
defy you to give me an example of significant monetary loss in any
colonising effort divorced from strategic needs. Colonialism was not
just profitable it was outrageously profitable.
>The "White Man's Burden" was not something that earned a profit for those
>who bore it.
The people who bore it were the third worlders not the Europeans. Again,
name any country where the largest cost was not borne by the locals.
Perhaps you might care to discuss how the Americans paid a large price
than the Philippinos as they were "uplifted"?
>The Victorians believed that it was better for a population
>to be educated and brought into the world community as an equal than for
>it to remain in savagery.
No they did not. They went out of their way to prevent such a thing.
There are even examples of retrograde acts - in the Caribbean for
example. When voting was tied to property levels and free blacks
began to approach those levels they were abolished, after petitions
from the whites and direct rule was imposed. Entrance Exams for the
Indian Colonial Service were held in London, Hindus could not travel
to England and retain their caste status. When asked to hold *two*
exams the British refused on the grounds of Indians gaining entrance.
>If that's colonialism, then I for one think we
>could use a bit more colonialism in the world today, especially right here
>in the United States.
That is not colonialism it is revisionism of the worse and most
disgusting sort.
> Or, just as often, by missionaries, traders and explorers who sacrificed
>their lives and fortunes in what they saw as the noble cause of uplifting
>the less fortunate peoples of the world.
At gun point. Which missionaries sacrificed diddysquat for the "less
fortunate peoples of the world" as opposed to their later fame and glory.
Now I know you can find quite a few Catholic monks if you know what you
are doing but I would like you to name three.
As for traders and explorers name any six you can think of.
> And the telegraph, the railroad, modern medicine and food preservation
>techniques -- all among the gifts which the Europeans brought to the rest
>of the world, not to keep the native populations subjugated, but to bring
>them up to the level of prosperity which they themselves enjoyed.
Crap. The Europeans had none of these things when they left Europe.
Moreover some of the "modern medicine" category was already known to
parts of the third world and the Europeans learnt from them. Nor was
any of these brought to the Third World to help the locals. You can
see this in discussions among British officials, if given the choice
between spending money on irrigation (which was very useful) or on
railways (which were indirectly useful even though they were laid
along military routes) the money went to railways.
> I'd say that the profit motive was both last and least. Aside from the
>gold and diamonds of South Africa, the palm oil of Nigeria, and the rubber
>of the Congo, very little of the continent's wealth was realizable by the
>19th-century developers. In most places, the colonial powers ended up
>giving more than they took.
Nonsense! Africa had the least and so it was taken last even though
it had more people in need of help. If you were right then Africa
would have been colonised first. It was not even though Europeans
reached it first. You are wrong. QED.
> Now, having said that, I'll grant that there were atrocities committed,
>certain colonies exploited for pure profit or senseless expansionism,
>abuses made of the natives.
Name three that weren't.
>Conrad based _Heart of Darkness_ on the truth.
>And the colonialists did fail in their primary mission: to bring the
>uneducated peoples up to their own level of civilization.
They did not fail in their primary mission which was to bring as
much loot back to Europe as fast as possible. Find me ONE government
document from Elizabeth I or Phillip of Spain saying "go forth and
lift the natives up"
>But to portray
>the Europeans as heartless profit-seekers who robbed an entire continent
>at the point of a Maxim gun is both unfair and untrue.
It is neither unfair nor untrue, it is the literal truth.
Any examples of any legislation that reflected a moments consideration
of the Africans as people? Forced labour continued to the present
century in British Africa, "punitive expeditions" too. An African
was beaten to death in Kenya in 1907 for accidentally knocking a
womans rickshaw by a passing Army officer. Care to guess on the
penalty Captain Gough received?
Joseph Askew
--
Joseph Askew, Gauche and Proud In the autumn stillness, see the Pleiades,
jas...@spam.maths.adelaide.edu Remote in thorny deserts, feel the grief.
Disclaimer? Sue, see if I care North of our tents, the sky must end somwhere,
Actually, I rather like Brenda Beyond the pale, the River murmurs on.
Robert Douglas MacNevin
the European soul, where a fellow can let his pants down and relax,
enjoy the smell of his own shit. Where he can fall on his slender prey
roaring ... and guzzle her blood with an open joy. Eh? ... Out and
down in the colonies, life can be indulged, life nad sensuality in all
its forms, with no harm done to the Metropolis, nothing to soil those
cathedrals, white marble statues, noble thoughts.... No word ever gets
back." Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
Robert MacNevin
Vancouver Canada
rmac...@sfu.ca
Ted B Samsel
Gore Vidal's EMPIRE wades into the late 19th-early20th c.
morass of colonial adventurism......
--
Ted....
Joseph Askew
>In article <a8ac...@random.se>, ia...@random.se (Ian Feldman) writes:
>|> In the too-good-to-be-true message <2657b7$2...@usenet.rpi.edu> Jim
>|> Kasprzak questions my assertion of less than noble motives behind
>|> the (Victorian era) Colonialism, as described by Joseph Conrad in
>|> _The Heart of Darkness_ among others. Summing it up, Jim tends to
>|> view the colonial movement as a thoroughly-positive force...
> _Thoroughly_ positive? No. I simply asserted that many of the colonialists
>were acting in what they believed to be the best interests of the people
>in the colonies.
Are you perhaps confusing the Imperialists themselves with their middle
class quasi-intellectual apologists? Curzon is one thing Kipling another.
Do you have any evidence of any sort that Lord Curzon (a bit late but
a throughly Victorian figure) had the best interests of the Indians in
mind when he said to give up India would mean an immediate fall to second
rate nationhood for Britain? Or perhaps Churchill (we are getting even
later now) meant well by opposing independence for what he habitually
referred to as "niggers"?
Or we could stick strictly to the correct time frame - how does forcibly
protecting the illegal and immoral trade in a dangerous prohibited narcotic
co-incide with the best interests of the Chinese? Perhaps you might care to
expand on the perceived best interests of the inhabitants of the Middle
Kingdom?
>Given the advantage of perspective gained by a century of
>hindsight, we can see that many of their goals were misguided, and even in
>the areas where they could have done some good, they mostly failed to achieve
>that potential. I questioned your assertion of less than noble motives
>because I think that there were some motives involved which _were_ noble.
Such as?
> Agreed, and I stand by everything I said. But I notice that you don't
>happen to quote the part where I agree that there were instances of
>atrocities, abuses, and generally evil actions on the part of these same
>colonialists. I simply argue that colonialism was driven by motives
>both noble and ignoble.
Could you perhaps name three Imperialists would were driven by noble
motives as opposed to their hack journalists? Rhodes perhaps? I am sure
he said a number of things we could both quote to our advantage.
>> Else I wouldn't have succumbed to the idea of it being a strictly
>> profit-driven movement to grab as much land and natural resources from
>> "uncivilized" people in faraway Africa and Asia as possible...
> You speak sarcastically, but I do not: if this is your opinion of colonialism,
>then you _have_ misinterpreted history.
This is colonialism. The Spanish sailed in search of souls and spices. Souls
they could and did find at home, it was the spices that drove them onward.
I doubt that anyone could find much evidence of anything resembling noble
purpose in the entire enterprise but I do wish you luck in trying.
Anand Bemra
>In article <2657b7$2...@usenet.rpi.edu> kas...@rpi.edu writes:
>> And the telegraph, the railroad, modern medicine and food preservation
>>techniques -- all among the gifts which the Europeans brought to the rest
>>of the world, not to keep the native populations subjugated, but to bring
>>them up to the level of prosperity which they themselves enjoyed.
>Crap. The Europeans had none of these things when they left Europe.
>Moreover some of the "modern medicine" category was already known to
>parts of the third world and the Europeans learnt from them. Nor was
>any of these brought to the Third World to help the locals. You can
>see this in discussions among British officials, if given the choice
>between spending money on irrigation (which was very useful) or on
>railways (which were indirectly useful even though they were laid
>along military routes) the money went to railways.
>> I'd say that the profit motive was both last and least. Aside from the
>>gold and diamonds of South Africa, the palm oil of Nigeria, and the rubber
>>of the Congo, very little of the continent's wealth was realizable by the
>>19th-century developers. In most places, the colonial powers ended up
>>giving more than they took.
>Nonsense! Africa had the least and so it was taken last even though
>it had more people in need of help. If you were right then Africa
>would have been colonised first. It was not even though Europeans
>reached it first. You are wrong. QED.
I have read part of Edward Said's "Culture & Imperialism".
Seems to me that kas...@rpi.edu sure could benefit from reading it.
This absurd, arrogant notion that europeans had benevolence in their
heart and wanted to "uplift" the "subjects" is sick. A brute who
sees the face of an angel in the mirror.
Edward Said is a professor at Columbia University and teaches
literature.
--
Screw PBS & NPR news. Tired of news "sanitized for your protection?". Try:
misc.activism.progressive, "Lies Of Our [NY]Times", "Z" magazine (Boston).
KPFA 94.1 FM (Bay Area), 90.7 (L.A.), 90.1 (Houston, TX), 89.3 (Washington, DC)
These are my opinions, not my employer's.
Ian __Dinosaur Alert__ Feldman
with his guns and killed us and talked about eating his god all
day long. We thought you were cannibals. And there's another
thing -- your god never had a woman. Look --he shone a torch on
his arm-- I'm the blackest African I know, with a strong need
for sex. It's genetic; it's in the skin. I think about it all
the time. If I don't have a woman every night I get ill. [...]
You white men, we don't know how you breed. You have a god born
without any sex! And then he never had a woman! And what about
the god's mother -- a woman who never had a man? If that's not
plain silly, I don't know what is."
--Dr Macellin Agnana, head of the
Ministry for the Conservation
of Fauna and Flora in Congo,
speaking to Redmond O'Hanlon in
_The Congo Dinosaur_, Granta 39
Ian __Dinosaur Alert__ Feldman
to its highest pitch, a falsetto shriek of indignation, of real
temper. The dog turned and bolted.
"Love your neighbour! You white men burned all the Jews just in a
year or two, a mere six million. You say that was a great crime,
and so it was, but what about us? What about our holocaust? From
the Congo alone you sold thirteen million of us into slavery. It
went on for centuries. For centuries no man knew if he'd live to
see his children grow up. What kind of god let you torture us
like that?"
Edward Hartnett
I have read part of Edward Said's "Culture & Imperialism".
Seems to me that kas...@rpi.edu sure could benefit from reading it.
This absurd, arrogant notion that europeans had benevolence in their
heart and wanted to "uplift" the "subjects" is sick. A brute who
sees the face of an angel in the mirror.
I think it's impossible to ascribe one motive for European
colonialism. Certainly many of them felt they were helping the
savages. "White man's burdern" and all that. But history clearly shows
that profit was the main motive for initial colonization. Take India,
for example. For hundreds of years it was run by a company, not the
British gov't.
On the other hand, you have to acknowledge that, eventually,
benevolence played an ever-increasing role in colonialism, until it
reached the point where places like India were released more or less
for no other reason. And there was a great civilizing influence by
colonialism, if you consider european civilization to be better and
more humane than many of the civilizations that they took over (and I
personally think that it was).
So I wouldn't say it is "sick" to think that some of the colonizers
were trying to do their best by the natives (while turing a handy
profit for themselves). They were, certainly. The question is, were
they themselves as civilized as they thought they were. The answer is,
probably not. They were certainly misguided. But is it fair to judge
them by modern standards? Remember, the standards that you are judging
them by evolved as part of that european culture, and in a large part
their evolution was assisted by colonialism.
--
Edward Hartnett e...@twod.gsfc.nasa.gov
(301) 286-2396 fax: (301) 286-3460
Lisa S Chabot
> Didn't Sherlock Holmes say something that the most interesting problems
> didn't even have a crime as their basis?
Not quite:
...
I seated myself in his armchair and warmed my hands before
his crackling fire, for a sharp frost had set in, and the windows
were thick with the ice crystals. "I suppose," I remarked, "that,
homely as it looks, this thing has some deadly story linked on to
it -- that it is the clue which will guide you in the solution of
some mystery and the punishment of some crime."
"No, no. No crime," said Sherlock Holmes, laughing. "Only
one of those whimsical little incidents which will happen when
you have four million human beings all jostling each other within
the space of a few square miles. Amid the action and reaction of
so dense a swarm of humanity, every possible combination of
events may be expected to take place, and many a little problem
will be presented which may be striking and bizarre without
being criminal. We have already had experience of such."
from the beginning of "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle"
(as seen on the Internet Wiretap)
Not the "most", perhaps, but some.
(With thanks to Mary Morstan Watson and the other characters of
the Sherlock Holmes mailing list.)
--
Wake! for the Golden Cat has put to flight
The Mouse of Darkness with his Paw of Light...
Jim_...@transarc.com
to subjegate the rest of the world without caring who they hurt
is equally sick. The real answer is somewhere in the middle.
The Europeans were like most people everywhere: there were some
rotten bastards who cared about nothing but making a profit, no matter
who it hurt. And there were some altruists who really wanted to help
those who they felt did not have the some of the things that they
had.
Sanjiva Prasad
And the notion that the Europeans were all arrogant monsters out
to subjegate the rest of the world without caring who they hurt
is equally sick. The real answer is somewhere in the middle.
The Europeans were like most people everywhere: there were some
rotten bastards who cared about nothing but making a profit, no matter
who it hurt. And there were some altruists who really wanted to help
those who they felt did not have the some of the things that they
had.
And why shouldn't we regard the majority, including some of the second group
as "dupes and fellow travellers" of the first group? The missionaries were
willing dupes, the younger sons, the would-be-unemployed-at-home and the soldiers
of fortune were willing fellow travellers. To be provocative, let me say that
one can even question whether the proposition that's the subject of your
first sentence should be in the past tense. An example of warped and
destructive "supposed benevolence" the huge EEC subsidies to their cattle
farmers to farm substandard beef for export to sub-Saharan Africa, destroying
the indigenous cattle-farming in that region. And they talk about dumping
and unfair competition. And please spare us the brand of environmental
consciousness that eliminates toxic wastes by exporting them to a poor
African country.
Let us ignore for the moment the issue of slavery and patently racist
laws, social discrimination and other abridgements of human rights.
Can one say that all-in-all the European colonists gave more than they
got? Just look at a table in Paul Kennedy's "Great Powers" book, and
you see a frightful picture. You are looking at a situation where in 1750
India produced about 25% and China 30% of the world manufactured products
to the situation in 1900, where the figures for these countries were
around 1 and 2 percent. There was a forcible destruction of artisans
guilds and bans on normal economic activity (sale of woven cloth, even
production of salt), a massive de-urbanisation, the sudden advent of massive
famines due to forced agricultural policies -- the massive famines, particularly
in Bengal coincided with English hegemony in that region. 10 million died
in a famine in the late 18th century, and some millions later, British rule
ended with the Churchill-imposed famine of '43 claiming a couple of million.
And this is not even officially genocide like what happened in the Congo in the
early 20th century. It was systematic policies like this that appalled some
more sensitive Europeans (e.g. Annie Besant, an early campaigner for Indian
independence), causing their traitorous hearts (booky allusion) to turn against
their "race". The Industrial Revolution (we'll go along with Toynbee and accept
the "R") would have comparatively enriched Europe, but not to this skewed extent
-- China and India, at least, would have experienced the modern age sooner had
they not been forcibly prevented from doing so.
However, the past is the past, and one has to live with the accidents
of birth. Since no sane person is asking for reparations or accusing
you personally of racism based on what someone did in the past, the
issue is how *you* see the players of the times, and what actions you
are willing to be apologists for. If Edward Hartnett thinks European
culture was "better or more humane" than the civilisations they displaced
at the time colonialism began or that India was "released" out of
"benevolence" signalling the end of the colonial period, he ought to
get a better, less sentimental education. Or else, he is welcome to
indulge in one of the rites rumoured to be part of the Templar initiatation.
---
Sanjiva Prasad, Magus E-mail: san...@ecrc.de
European Computer Industry Research Centre Off: +49 89 92 69 91 58
Arabellastrasse 17 Fax: +49 89 92 69 91 70
81925 Muenchen, Germany Res: +49 89 16 33 59
John Wilkinson
|> benevolence played an ever-increasing role in colonialism, until it
|> reached the point where places like India were released more or less
|> for no other reason. And there was a great civilizing influence by
|> colonialism, if you consider european civilization to be better and
|> more humane than many of the civilizations that they took over (and I
|> personally think that it was).
The people of India won their independence after about 100 years of struggle. The humane and increasingly benevolent British, who shot rebels from cannon in the 1850's, were still massacring unarmed demonstrators in the 1920's.
As for the 'great civilizing influence', those being so influenced, e.g. by the Dutch in Indonesia or by the Belgians in the former Congo, naturally had a different perspective.
sayan bhattacharyya
Edward Hartnett <e...@twod.gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote:
>
>On the other hand, you have to acknowledge that, eventually,
>benevolence played an ever-increasing role in colonialism, until it
>reached the point where places like India were released more or less
>for no other reason.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Edward Hartnett e...@twod.gsfc.nasa.gov
Hardly. The Quit India movement against the British in
1942 organised by the Indian National Congress, which
saw popular participation on a scale unprecedented till
then, probably convinced the British more than anything
else that colonialism in India had become non-sustainable.
The naval mutiny by Indian seamen of the Royal Indian
Navy in 1946 at Bombay and elsewhere, and the conscious
move by the mutineers to link their mutiny with the broader
nationalist struggle (the mutineers jointly flew the flags
of the Congress, the Muslim League and the Communist Party
on the ships they had taken over) probably convinced the
British more than anything else that the military arm
which maintained colonialism could no longer be relied
upon. Basically the British had no choice at that point
other than to leave.
ObBooks: 1) Quit India Movement : British secret documents
New Delhi, India ; Interprint, 1986.
2) Royal Indian Navy uprising and Indian freedom
struggle, by V.M. Bhagwatkar,
Amravati, India : Charvak Prakashan, 1989.
-Sayan Bhattacharyya.
Sayan Bhattacharyya | Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
Graduate student |
Artificial Intelligence Lab |
The University of Michigan |
Edward Hartnett
However, the past is the past, and one has to live with the accidents
of birth. Since no sane person is asking for reparations or accusing
you personally of racism based on what someone did in the past, the
issue is how *you* see the players of the times, and what actions you
are willing to be apologists for. If Edward Hartnett thinks European
culture was "better or more humane" than the civilisations they displaced
at the time colonialism began or that India was "released" out of
"benevolence" signalling the end of the colonial period, he ought to
get a better, less sentimental education. Or else, he is welcome to
indulge in one of the rites rumoured to be part of the Templar initiatation.
Hey, I just can't let this go by. If you knew YOUR history you would
know that, for example, slaves were sold to the Europeans by other
natives of Africa, that wives were burned with their dead husbands in
India, and that accussed criminals were routinely tourtured to death
in China. In short, the world was a very nasty place! I'm not going to
get in the possition of defending the Europeans too much for taking
over the world. After all, as I said, they weren't trying to help
anyone but themselves. But let's not get all misty-eyed about the
natives either, and ignore the many well-documented cases of
attrocities that were not perpetrated by Europeans.
Edward Hartnett
In article <EJH.93Se...@twod.gsfc.nasa.gov>,
Edward Hartnett <e...@twod.gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote:
>
>On the other hand, you have to acknowledge that, eventually,
>benevolence played an ever-increasing role in colonialism, until it
>reached the point where places like India were released more or less
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>for no other reason.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Hardly. The Quit India movement against the British in
1942 organised by the Indian National Congress, which
saw popular participation on a scale unprecedented till
then, probably convinced the British more than anything
else that colonialism in India had become non-sustainable.
The naval mutiny by Indian seamen of the Royal Indian
Navy in 1946 at Bombay and elsewhere, and the conscious
move by the mutineers to link their mutiny with the broader
nationalist struggle (the mutineers jointly flew the flags
of the Congress, the Muslim League and the Communist Party
on the ships they had taken over) probably convinced the
British more than anything else that the military arm
which maintained colonialism could no longer be relied
upon. Basically the British had no choice at that point
other than to leave.
The British in the 40's did have the military capability to supress
the Indian uprising, the same way they always had. This option was
unteneble because the British voters would no longer stand for it.
They had begun to think of the Indian people as people, not as savages
that had no rights (as they did in Victorian times).
The resistance movements against the British were not militarily
powerful enough to kick them out. But they were militarily powerful
enough to lead to a lot of bloodshed and mayhem. In the old days
that's what would have happened (and did happen). But in the 40's the
British voter was no longer willing to support the wholesale
suppression of rights that would be required to keep India down.
To address your example above: how many ships were seized? Enough so
that the British Navy wouldn't be able to sink them? I think not.
In the mutiny of 1849 (I can't quite remember the year - was that it?)
there was a lot more bloodshed, but the British never considered
giving India up. By the 1940's public attitudes had changed, and they
saw that the empire they had been so proud of had been built by
military force, and that it could only be continued by force. What I
am saying is, in Victorian times the consent of the goverened (i.e.
the Indian people) was not considered important. By the 40's, it was.
That was a shift in public attitudes away from racist imerialist
policies. That is what I meant by moral reasons.
Nancy Cruz
> "No wonder we were frightened of the white man when he came here
> with his guns and killed us and talked about eating his god all
[Rest of quote deleted)
Alice Walker has a short story on the same topic. It's called
"The Diary of an African Nun" and is located in the collection of
short stories entitled "In Love and Trouble". A Great read!
Nancy
--
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Nancy Cruz - a.k.a. "Tensha, the Icewoman" | New York University |
| cr...@lab.ultra.nyu.edu |Ultracomputer Research lab|
+--------------------------------------------+--------------------------+
John McCarthy
to leave must claim that it also convinced the British to leave
all their colonies starting about the same time.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
Brian Russel Rourke
>Those who claim that the Quit India movement convinced the British
>to leave must claim that it also convinced the British to leave
>all their colonies starting about the same time.
That's not all that implausible as a partial explanation. The Quit India
movement made it clear to the British that without the use of massive
violence they could not continue to occupy India. Certainly, many in
the British governing and military elites wouldn't have minded doing
just that (remember Churchill's contempt for those who felt "squeamishness
about the use of gas" in Iraq), but the Labor Party came to power in 1945.
The British people, as opposed to the governing classes, had begun to have
doubts about colonialism as resistence mounted worldwide. The Labor Party's
decision to end the British occupation probably reflects this attitude.
The French, it will be remembered, did not leave Algeria or Vietnam so easily.
The British might have followed a similar course.
It's worth keeping in mind that the British withdrawls were often characterized
by efforts to ensure neo-colonial control after formal independence had been
negotiated. The maps of Africa and the Middle East look the way they do
because of this strategy.
Finally, the British were economically and militarily exhausted after WWII, and
could not afford to hold onto a huge empire by force. The US strategy to
weaken British control over the world economy during the war played a part
in this (remember Greece?). Maybe one could argue that the British public
had some politically principled motive during the forties, but not the state
or the ruling classes. The most important thing to understand about this
period is the world-wide development of anti-colonial, nationalist or
revolutionary movements (China, Persia, Ireland, Mexico, Kenya, Somalia . . .
just to give a few examples).
John McCarthy
sayan bhattacharyya
>The British in the 40's did have the military capability to supress
>the Indian uprising, the same way they always had [...]
>The resistance movements against the British were not militarily
>powerful enough to kick them out. [...]
>To address your example above: how many ships were seized? Enough so
>that the British Navy wouldn't be able to sink them? I think not. [...]
>In the mutiny of 1849 (I can't quite remember the year - was that it?)
It was 1857.
>there was a lot more bloodshed, but the British never considered
>giving India up. By the 1940's public attitudes had changed [...]
>saw that the empire they had been so proud of had been built by
>military force, and that it could only be continued by force.
I think you missed the point entirely. There is a great
difference between the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 and the
Royal Indian Navy mutiny of 1946.
From the point of view of sheer numbers, of course the
R.I.N. mutiny was numerically less significant than the
Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. After all the R.I.N. mutineers
were overpowered within the space of a few weeks whereas
the Sepoy Mutiny had taken the British the better part
of a one-and-half years to overpower. Material damage
and loss of life was also incomparably greater in the
Sepoy Mutiny than in the 1946 mutiny. But the importance
of the R.I.N. mutiny cannot be measured by its military
significance alone ("how many ships were seized?"...etc)
as you seem to think. The importance of the R.I.N.
mutiny and the concern it caused to the British derive
from two other factors.
Firstly, while the Sepoy Mutiny had been a movement of
the disaffected sepoys and the dispossessed feudal
Indian elite, the R.I.N. mutiny on the other hand,
while it involved only the lower-ranked Indian naval
ratings, clearly had a nationalist and consciously
anti-imperialist praxis underlying and motivating it
(I mentioned in my earlier post how the naval mutineers
raised the flags of the Indian National Congress and
the Communist Party on their ships). This conscious
attempt by the mutineers to forge a link between
their mutiny and the nationalist movement was what
made it dangerous and intimidating. It was an
ideologically motivated mutiny in a way that the
Sepoy Mutiny was not. Thus, when the Sepoy Mutiny
was crushed and the Indian feudal elite eliminated
in 1857-1858, there was no chance of another Sepoy
Mutiny breaking out in the near future. On the
other hand, because the R.I.N. mutiny was motivated
by a living ideology that continued to exist even
when that particular mutiny was crushed, it was
virtually certain that similar mutinies would
continue to break out, and this is why I said
that the military arm of colonial rule could no
longer be trusted.
Secondly -- and this is related to the first --
recall that the Sepoy Mutiny received almost no
support from large sections of the country. South
India and Bengal for instance were totally
apathetic to the sepoys' cause and in fact Bengal
emphatically favored the British over the sepoys.
The situation in 1946 was however very different.
Demonstrations in support of the naval mutineers
(as well as in support of the soldiers of the
"Free Indian Army" of Subhash Chandra Bose who
were being tried in military court around the
same time) broke out in almost all major Indian
cities. Thus there was an element of broad-based
mass support to the naval mutineers in a way
that clearly wasn't there in 1857.
Matt Austern
> The problem with your argument is that ALL of colonialism was
> certainly NOT driven only by the profit motive. Some of it
> certainly was. Some of it, on the other hand, was driven by
> a paternalism, in which some of the colonial powers thought
> it was their duty to civilize the rest of the world. (I'm not
> arguing that they were right to do this, by the way.) Colonialism
> was driven by a mix of forces, and it oversimplifies the issue
> to try to attribute it to any one motive.
From _Gravity's Rainbow_ [all ellipses are Pynchon's, not mine]:
Where's the fun if they're all going to die off? Just a big hunk
of desert, no more maids, no field-hands, no laborers for the
construction or the mining---wait, wait a minute there, yes it's
Karl Marx, that sly old racist skipping away with his teeth
together and his eyebrows up trying to make believe it's nothing
but Cheap Labor and Overseas Markets. ... Oh, no. Colonies are
much, much more. Colonies are the outhouses of the European soul,
where a fellow can let his pants down and relax, enjoy the smell
of his own shit. Where he can fall on his slender prey roaring as
loud as he feels like, and guzzle her blood with open joy. Eh?
Where he can just wallow and rut and let himself go in a softness,
a receptive darkness of limbs, of hair as woolly as the hair on
his own forbidden genitals. Where the poppy, and cannabis and
coca grow full and green, and not to the colors and style of
death, as do ergot and agaric, the blight and fungus native to
Europe. Christian Europe was always death, Karl, death and
repression. Out and down in the colonies, life can be indulged,
life and sensuality in all its forms, with no harm done to the
Metropolis, nothing to soil those cathedrals, white marble
statues, noble thoughts. ... No word ever gets back. The silences
down here are vast enough to absorb all behavior, no matter how
dirty, how animal it gets. ...
--
Matthew Austern Maybe we can eventually make language a
ma...@physics.berkeley.edu complete impediment to understanding.
Laurie Mann
>In article <QgVoGOiSM...@transarc.com> Jim_...@transarc.com writes:
>> The problem with your argument is that ALL of colonialism was
>From _Gravity's Rainbow_ [all ellipses are Pynchon's, not mine]:
<<quotes from GR about colonialism deleted>>.....
This is an interesting exchange. Jim raises a point based on history,
and you respond with a long quote from a novel. Hmmm....while this
is rec.arts.books, it seems like if you're going to discuss a point with
someone, you should approach it from the same perspective.
** Laurie Mann *
lm...@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu * Lauri...@genie.geis.com **
** Ignore the irrelevant; it soon falls out of fashion. Robin Morgan **
Brian Russel Rourke
>I find the whole concept of "neocolonial control" to be just a slogan.
>--
>John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
Why?? Do you have any reason for making such a judgment, or is it just a way
to avoid becoming familiar with a large and complex field? The British
did indeed try to place in power sympathetic governments in the "Middle
East" to ensure that BP and Royal Dutch Shell could still exercise control
over the world oil market (though ultimately the Brits had to buddy up
with the US and share). Among other things, "neo-colonial control" means
formal political independence combined with outside control of the economy
and key state sectors (military, police). If you think that that does not
describe the situation of most nations in the world, I would like to
see some evidence or argument.
John McCarthy
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Path: CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU!headwall.Stanford.EDU!nntp.Stanford.EDU!rourke
From: rou...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Brian Russel Rourke)
Sender: ne...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Mr News)
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
References: <JMC.93Se...@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> <1993Sep11.2...@leland.Stanford.EDU> <JMC.93Se...@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 93 23:25:38 GMT
Lines: 18
It is the advocates of the concept of "neocolonial control" who have
to provide the evidence. The concept is used by politicians in
underdeveloped countries to excuse their own failures, to improve
their begging position for international aid. It is used by leftists
in the developed countries.
The big oil companies maintaining worldwide marketing organizations
doesn't count as neocolonial control in my book. The international
oil market is quite competitive on both the supply and the demand
sides. What system for finding oil, developing it and marketing it
would count as other than neocolonial control in Rourke's mind?
By the way, is the control over oil producers, oil buyers or both?
There is this "formal political independence" Rourke speaks of. Who
controls the "Indian economy and key state sectors (military, police)?"
What does this slogan come down to in fact as applied to India, which
started our discussion?
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
Edward Hartnett
say, however, I do not believe that you are correct when you say there
was no chance of another Sepot mutiny. Perhaps in hindsight we can say
this, but at the time all the British could say was "Wooa! That was a
close one! Who would have thought it could have happened?" And they
only had to look Northwards to Afganistan and Russia to find people
who (they thought - with good reason) would be willing to try and
start it up all over again. I think that, at the time, the danger of
another mutiny was clear to them.
Secondly, my point was that the R.I.N. mutiny, and the unrest of that
time, would have been possible to suppress in a purely military way.
You suggest that it would have been impossible for the British to
remain, and I agree, but not for military reasons. The reason it was
impossible was that the British voters would not have sat still for
the kind of military campaign that would have been required. In my
opinion the moral underpinnings of imperialism had fallen away.
Jim_...@transarc.com
> Jim_Mann writes:
> And the notion that the Europeans were all arrogant monsters out
> to subjegate the rest of the world without caring who they hurt
> is equally sick. The real answer is somewhere in the middle.
> The Europeans were like most people everywhere: there were some
> rotten bastards who cared about nothing but making a profit, no matter
> who it hurt. And there were some altruists who really wanted to help
> those who they felt did not have the some of the things that they
> had.
>
> And why shouldn't we regard the majority, including some of the second group
> as "dupes and fellow travellers" of the first group? The missionaries were
> ers
> of fortune were willing fellow travellers.
Well, you cut the sentence I responded to and changed the argument.
The post that I was responding to was one that said, basically, (I no
longer have the original on hand), that all the Europeans were
nasty, greedy bastards, and that anyone who said they weren't was
sick. My point was that this was an over-generalization. Of course,
some of them were greedy bastards. And some of them really did care
about the people in the colonies. And most were somewhere in the
middle. In other words, about like people everywhere.
roger m squires
and related threads, but will reiterate that I
found the personal insights of Ms. Bohannan in
_Return to Laughter_ wonderfully illuminating of
the mindset of Kurtz as she struggled with the
conflicts between her Western culture and that of
the African natives she lived among, as well as
having striking parallels with Nietzsche's
_Birth of Tragedy_.
Apollonian *principium individuationis* and Dionysian
laughter both find concrete representations in
Bohannan's book, not to mention that the African god
Agundu ('the grinning skeleton of the world') is
precisely the Grecian Silenus described by Nietzsche.
David Reisman's (of _The Lonely Crowd_ fame) Forward
to the Natural History Library edition of _Return to
Laughter_ is also worthwhile.
rms
Sanjiva Prasad
You should have let it go by. Nowhere did I get misty-eyed over the pretty
abominable practices in the former colonies by the `natives', or be suggest
that these cultures were anything like Utopia (More tom-toms for Bill Riggs).
I merely objected to a characterisation of a culture that indulged in an
enormous amount of savagery and barbarism down to the middle of this century
as a "better or more humane" civilisation. The world still is a very nasty
place, and it finally took Europe a Holocaust to see how horrible it could
get. For a while -- there's this ugly situation a few hundred miles east
and south of where I am.
And if you did know something about "my history", whatever that is, you
would know better than to parrot the simplistic notion that `Suttee',
or the burning of wives on their dead husbands' pyres was the general
practice or indeed that it was the British who abolished it. It's a
downright abominable practice, but was confined to some sections of
society -- a few subcastes. Moreover, the main successful campaigner
against Suttee was a rather illustrious Indian called Raja Ram Mohun Roy,
who lobbied, convinced the British provincial administration to reverse
their policy of "non-interference" in social practices [a policy marked by
convenience and hypocricy] and declare Suttee illegal.
Edward Hartnett
OK, how about characterizing the Europeans as slightly less barbaric.
You seem to have a bee in your bonnet about this for some reason.
And if you did know something about "my history", whatever that is,
I meant that in reply to your suggestion that I get a better or less
sentimental educatiuon. I suggest that you get a better or less
emotional view of history.
you
would know better than to parrot the simplistic notion that `Suttee',
or the burning of wives on their dead husbands' pyres was the general
practice or indeed that it was the British who abolished it. It's a
downright abominable practice, but was confined to some sections of
society -- a few subcastes. Moreover, the main successful campaigner
against Suttee was a rather illustrious Indian called Raja Ram Mohun Roy,
who lobbied, convinced the British provincial administration to reverse
their policy of "non-interference" in social practices [a policy marked by
convenience and hypocricy] and declare Suttee illegal.
Oh, now I understand. Thanks for clearing that up for me. Except of
course you are also saying that it was the English that declared
suttee illegal, so I don't really see what your point is. Nor was I
suggesting that suttee was the whole of the barbaric customs of
pre-English India, it was just an example. But since you are not
misty-eyed about precolonialist cultures, then I don't see what
difference it makes.
So you are saying then that the current culture of India (which would
not exist without the European influence) is no more humane and no
better than the pre-invasion culture?
KRESSJA
Take a look at Alphonso Lingis' EXCESSES, for some other very interesting
things in this vein.
Sample quote:
"The phenomenology of the Cargo cult is an investigation of the way the
rational economy of the white man is refracted on the dark soul of the Stone
Age. Its obverse, less studied academically, is an inquiry into the ethical
impact of the destitution of...millions...upon the soul of a lonely traveler."
-JK
"ever eager to enlighten and clarify"
______________________________________________________________________________
| | |
| John Kress | "Very well; I hear; I admit, but I have a voice, too, and for |
| | good or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced." |
| | -Conrad, Heart of Darkness |
|______________|_______________________________________________________________|
Raghu Seshadri
-to leave must claim that it also convinced the British to leave
-all their colonies starting about the same time.
-John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
You have a point, but this claim is not altogether
without merit. Consider that Britain acquired a lot
of territory in the Middle East and Asia only to
protect the trade route to India; with the loss of
India, much of her Asian Empire lost their rationale.
Once the most painful decisions on Asia were made,
the post war momentum was on to make a clean sweep of
decolonization all over the map - you can make a case
that the Africans got a jolly ride without having to
really work to get the colonial powers off their back.
Raghu
Raghu Seshadri
-Firstly, while the Sepoy Mutiny had been a movement of
-the disaffected sepoys and the dispossessed feudal
-Indian elite, the R.I.N. mutiny on the other hand,
-while it involved only the lower-ranked Indian naval
-ratings, clearly had a nationalist and consciously
-anti-imperialist praxis underlying and motivating it
This statement gives the impression that the Sepoy
Mutiny must have involved fewer of the masses than
the Navy mutiny. ( I do not know if this was Sayan's
understanding. ) The fact is that the average man
in 1857 was far more passionately attached to his
caste and his King, and therefore this made the Sepoy
affair a far more dangerous and dreadful event as far
as the British were concerned. Modern sneering at
'feudal elite' betray an ignorance of what motivated
men in other eras. No doubt, our grandchildren will
sneer at our attachments and predelictions.
Some calculations show that no more than 5 - 8% of
the population was involved in the Freedom Movement
as a whole. Surely the 'feudal elite' could motivate
a much higher segment of their population to get involved.
- It was an
-ideologically motivated mutiny in a way that the
-Sepoy Mutiny was not.
And what ideology was that ?
-Sayan Bhattacharyya.
RS
Brian Russel Rourke
>In article <1993Sep12....@leland.Stanford.EDU> rou...@leland.Stanford.
EDU (Brian Russel Rourke) writes:>
>>> In article <JMC.93Se...@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> John McCarthy writes:
>>> >I find the whole concept of "neocolonial control" to be just a slogan.
>>> >--
>>> >John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
>>>
>> Why?? Do you have any reason for making such a judgment, or is it just a way
> > to avoid becoming familiar with a large and complex field? The British
> > did indeed try to place in power sympathetic governments in the "Middle
> >East" to ensure that BP and Royal Dutch Shell could still exercise control
>> over the world oil market (though ultimately the Brits had to buddy up
> > with the US and share). Among other things, "neo-colonial control" means
>> formal political independence combined with outside control of the economy
>> and key state sectors (military, police). If you think that that does not
> > describe the situation of most nations in the world, I would like to
> > see some evidence or argument.
>>
>>
>>
>It is the advocates of the concept of "neocolonial control" who have
>to provide the evidence. The concept is used by politicians in
>underdeveloped countries to excuse their own failures, to improve
>their begging position for international aid. It is used by leftists
>in the developed countries.
Well, if "leftists" use it it must be bad? Sounds to me like a "rightist"
answer. I keep waiting for the day to come when people will respond to the
substance of a position rather than anathamatize it because it fails
to toe some neo-liberal or conservative line.
The work of most theorists of neo-colonialism, dependency, and
unequal development condemn international aid, which is usually a subisdy
to exports by the transnationals or a means to impose IMF-style "reform"
that has been so successful throughout the world. The arguments used by
governments and politicians tend to be quite different (for example: the
"right to development" argument deployed against first world environmentalist
groups by Malaysia and other states).
>
>The big oil companies maintaining worldwide marketing organizations
>doesn't count as neocolonial control in my book. The international
>oil market is quite competitive on both the supply and the demand
>sides. What system for finding oil, developing it and marketing it
>would count as other than neocolonial control in Rourke's mind?
>
Isn't it more than a little sly to limit the oil companies activities to
"maintaining worldwide marketing organizations" as if that's all they do?
I mean, it was my understanding that profit had something to do with it--
or is that another "leftist" slogan? If oil were used first for
development to meet local needs and subsequently for export, then that would
be a step in the right direction [i.e. less neo-colonial]. The fate of
Mossadegh's government in Iran suggests how imperial powers respond to even
modest economic nationalist measures.
>By the way, is the control over oil producers, oil buyers or both?
I'm not sure whom you mean by "producers": the countries that have the oil
or the people who actually take it out of the ground? I think the people
who do the work have no control over the process. Some countries, such as
Mexico and the OPEC members, have managed to gain some control when
international circumstances were favorable. The oil buyers are controlled
most immediately by stockholders and boards of directors, I would imagine.
>
>There is this "formal political independence" Rourke speaks of. Who
>controls the "Indian economy and key state sectors (military, police)?"
>
>What does this slogan come down to in fact as applied to India, which
>started our discussion?
India is an interesting case. By successfully exploiting Cold War rivalries,
the Congress Party established some political and economic independence. In
keeping with the strategy of non-alignment articulated by Nehru and others
at the Bandung Conference in 1953. Was this strategy successful? That's
open to argument. The Indian economy has grown more than, say, Ireland's or
Haiti's. But now the IMF is moving in, and an export driven economy can
boast of approximately 14 million child laborers. One of the key questions
must be how, in spite of economic growth, India's economy remains in such a
state when, before the British arrived, Indian industry and agriculture was
highly successful and competitive. As for the military and the police, India
probably had to accomodate itself to Soviet policy to some extent during the
period when the two countries were allied. But the government did manage to
prevent outside influence over the army and police, thus avoiding the fate
meted out to Indonesia, which did not.
>--
>John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
>*
>He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
Brian Rourke
"How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?"
"I don't know. I don't know. You will kill me if you do that
again. Four, five, six--in all honesty I don't know."
"Better," said O'Brien. --George Orwell, _1984_
Sanjiva Prasad
Those who claim that the Quit India movement convinced the British
to leave must claim that it also convinced the British to leave
all their colonies starting about the same time.
The Brits `gave up' one set of colonies in '47-'48. The next lot
of decolonisation wasn't till around '60. One and a half decades
(which is about how long the Napper or the Third Reich lasted) is
a significant interval, as a student of history should know.
I don't believe the Quit India movement convinced the British to leave
(such a tactic wouldn't [and didn't] work with the Churchill monster
in power). But I would be interested in your theories on why the
Brits left; if it wasn't mainly the process that began with demands for
Home Rule and culminated in the Quit India movement, then what?
I'd also like to say that the contention that the British could
have, had they chosen to, crushed the Freedom Movement militarily,
[and the only reason they did not was because of a conscience or
political perceptions back home] is nonsensical. The first part of
such a claim seriously ignores the social structures involved in the
British rule. The second part of the claim is only partly accurate,
and finds virtue where there wasn't much of a choice. There is a
modern tendency [post Vietnam] to over-estimate the efficacy of
media, publicity and using public perceptions to influence policy.
Unfortunately Uncle Dickie's Oscar-winning magnum opus may lead
one to think that India won Freedom (booky allusion) as a result of
the West looking through Bourke-White eyes.
Edward Hartnett
John McCarthy writes:
Those who claim that the Quit India movement convinced the British
to leave must claim that it also convinced the British to leave
all their colonies starting about the same time.
The Brits `gave up' one set of colonies in '47-'48. The next lot
of decolonisation wasn't till around '60. One and a half decades
(which is about how long the Napper or the Third Reich lasted) is
a significant interval, as a student of history should know.
I don't believe the Quit India movement convinced the British to leave
(such a tactic wouldn't [and didn't] work with the Churchill monster
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Is there even any point in discussing this with you? You obviously are
very emotional about the whole thing.
in power). But I would be interested in your theories on why the
Brits left; if it wasn't mainly the process that began with demands for
Home Rule and culminated in the Quit India movement, then what?
It was. But how did they force the British to leave? Bombing London?
Shooting the Queen? Or appealing to the British conscience?
I'd also like to say that the contention that the British could
have, had they chosen to, crushed the Freedom Movement militarily,
[and the only reason they did not was because of a conscience or
political perceptions back home] is nonsensical. The first part of
such a claim seriously ignores the social structures involved in the
British rule.
I'm willing to be enlightened. Considering the fact that they had a
battle-hardened, highly trained, and well-equiped global military, I
don't see why they couldn't have overrun India just as they had in the
past. The Free India movement certainly didn't have anything that
could have stood up to it if the British were willing to use it. Where
were the Free India planes, tanks, ships, guns, bombs, and soldiers?
The second part of the claim is only partly accurate,
and finds virtue where there wasn't much of a choice.
What about the choice of rounding up all the Free India leaders and
shooting them? What about the choice of gassing to death any large
gathering protesting British rule? For heaven's sake! They had just
fought WWII! Do you really think India would have stood a chance
militarily? And that is the most brute-force approach. There is no
reason at all to think they could not have combined military might and
political manipulation, as they did so often in the formation of their
empire. It's the old carrot and stick thing. If they had hit one
faction with the stick and given another a carrot, they probably could
have done irreparable damage to the Free India movement.
There is a
modern tendency [post Vietnam] to over-estimate the efficacy of
media, publicity and using public perceptions to influence policy.
I disagree, at least in this case. So did Ghandi, apparently, since
his whole sratagy depended on public influence and publicity.
Unfortunately Uncle Dickie's Oscar-winning magnum opus may lead
one to think that India won Freedom (booky allusion) as a result of
the West looking through Bourke-White eyes.
Here I have no idea what you are talking about.
Sanjiva Prasad
Edward Hartnettand I argue over how barbaric Euros and non-Euros were,
are and will be. I suggested he get a better or less sentimental education
if he held that European culture was superior to those it displaced, since
it had indulged in an `enormous amount of savagery and barbarism down to the
middle of this century'. When I chopped up his `pious widows as pyre-wood'
example, he offers:
OK, how about characterizing the Europeans as slightly less barbaric.
You seem to have a bee in your bonnet about this for some reason.
Ah, but my bonnet lies across the ocean. Somehow I can't agree to the
characterisation you suggest. Perhaps living 15 km from Dachau might have
something to do with it. (Or are we to be impressed by the cleanliness?
There's perhaps something to this --- superiority of culture measured by
whether people wash their botties, or use toilet paper, and a developedness
index related to the softness of their asswipes. Sounds Rabelaisianly good
to me.)
I meant that in reply to your suggestion that I get a better or less
sentimental educatiuon. I suggest that you get a better or less
emotional view of history.
And where do I find such a book, of suitable title?
[I wrote on Ram Mohun Roy's enormous contribution to getting rid
of the abominable practice of Suttee.]
Oh, now I understand. Thanks for clearing that up for me. Except of
course you are also saying that it was the English that declared
suttee illegal, so I don't really see what your point is. Nor was I
suggesting that suttee was the whole of the barbaric customs of
pre-English India, it was just an example. But since you are not
misty-eyed about precolonialist cultures, then I don't see what
difference it makes.
I made the point in the interest of accuracy. If government is by
authority and is non-representative, one would have to petition the
powers that be to change the laws, as Ram Mohun Roy did with the
provincial British administration. By analogy, it seems that you would
give the Great King and not Esther credit for halting persecution of the
Jews in Persia. And who would you credit with ending segregation in southern
US in the 50's and 60's?
So you are saying then that the current culture of India (which would
not exist without the European influence) is no more humane and no
better than the pre-invasion culture?
Well, it would require shorting zillions of neurons to conclude I said anything
of the kind. And a few zillion more to accept the reasoning in your proposition.
sayan bhattacharyya
>
>
>
>
>What about the choice of rounding up all the Free India leaders and
>shooting them? What about the choice of gassing to death any large
>gathering protesting British rule?
>
Mr. Hartnett does not seem to realize that a mass movement
with broad-based mass support cannot be stopped this way.
If the leadership is rounded up, as happened initially
during the Quit India movement, new leaders continually
emerge at the grass-roots level to carry on the struggle.
How else can you explain the emergence of such unlikely
leaders during the Quit India movement as the eighty-year
old peasant woman Matangini Hazra who was shot while
leading a march on a police station in Midnapore,Bengal ?
>I disagree, at least in this case. So did Ghandi, apparently,
>Is there even any point in discussing this with you? You obviously are
>very emotional about the whole thing.
Is there even any point in discussing Indian history with
Mr. Hartnett? Who seems unable to spell even Gandhi's
name correctly ?
> Edward Hartnett e...@twod.gsfc.nasa.gov
Elaine Kyung Chang
>In article <CDCKu...@ecrc.de> san...@ecrc.de (Sanjiva Prasad) writes:
>> I don't believe the Quit India movement convinced the British to leave
>> (such a tactic wouldn't [and didn't] work with the Churchill monster
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Is there even any point in discussing this with you? You obviously are
>very emotional about the whole thing.
Is there even any point in discussing this with Mr. Hartnett? Who's being
"emotional" here? To take such obvious offense at what to many is an
accurate description of Churchill means that the offended party has quite
an investment in the exalted image of the "great man." It seems that anyone
who dares speak on behalf of History, from the point of view of the
dominated, is doomed to have "emotional" responses; and only those who
maintain the "official" line have actual facts? To accuse one who dares
call Churchill monstrous of emotionality is a cheap and disrespectful--not
to mention unconvincing--put-down. It isn't at all informed debate.
>
>> in power). But I would be interested in your theories on why the
>> Brits left; if it wasn't mainly the process that began with demands for
>> Home Rule and culminated in the Quit India movement, then what?
>
>It was. But how did they force the British to leave? Bombing London?
>Shooting the Queen? Or appealing to the British conscience?
Are the options really military might *or* moral conscience? British
*conscience*, wha? I'd like to hear what that really means. It seems
this either/or argument, presented as self-evident, assumes once again
the _de facto_ superiority of the dominant order. Resistance need
not avail itself of advanced weapons of destruction, or appeals to
the rulers' "higher conscience," in order to succeed.
>
>> I'd also like to say that the contention that the British could
>> have, had they chosen to, crushed the Freedom Movement militarily,
>> [and the only reason they did not was because of a conscience or
>> political perceptions back home] is nonsensical. The first part of
>> such a claim seriously ignores the social structures involved in the
>> British rule.
I agree with Prasad; and I must repeat that these social structures are
considerably more complicated than who's got the guns and planes, and
who's got the moral conscience.
Edward Hartnett
In article <EJH.93Se...@twod.gsfc.nasa.gov>,
Edward Hartnett <e...@twod.gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote:
>In article <CDCKu...@ecrc.de> san...@ecrc.de (Sanjiva Prasad) writes:
>
>
>
>
>What about the choice of rounding up all the Free India leaders and
>shooting them? What about the choice of gassing to death any large
>gathering protesting British rule?
>
Mr. Hartnett does not seem to realize that a mass movement
with broad-based mass support cannot be stopped this way.
If the leadership is rounded up, as happened initially
during the Quit India movement, new leaders continually
emerge at the grass-roots level to carry on the struggle.
How else can you explain the emergence of such unlikely
leaders during the Quit India movement as the eighty-year
old peasant woman Matangini Hazra who was shot while
leading a march on a police station in Midnapore,Bengal ?
The Nazis managed to keep France under their heel in the face of
broad-based mass (and armed) support. Similarly for the American gov't
and the Native Americans. If they don't care how many people they have
to shoot then all the broad-based mass movements you can muster won't
help.
Jack Campin
> Edward Hartnett <e...@twod.gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote:
>> What about the choice of rounding up all the Free India leaders and
>> shooting them? What about the choice of gassing to death any large
>> gathering protesting British rule?
> Mr. Hartnett does not seem to realize that a mass movement
> with broad-based mass support cannot be stopped this way.
> If the leadership is rounded up, as happened initially
> during the Quit India movement, new leaders continually
> emerge at the grass-roots level to carry on the struggle.
As it happens the British were concurrently engaged in crushing another
mass movement for independence at the same time as the Indian freedom
movement was at its height. This was in Greece, where they were using
British planes and tanks to crush the indigenous partisan army ELAS and
install a government of ex-Nazi collaborators. They won. And they did it
without a flicker of popular protest at home. So *some* mass movements can
stopped that way. Though it may be that they thought India might be more
expensive to bomb into submission.
--
-- Jack Campin -- Room 1.36, Department of Computing & Electrical Engineering,
Mountbatten Building, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton, Edinburgh EH14 4AS
TEL: 031 449 5111 ext 4192 FAX: 031 451 3431 INTERNET: ja...@cee.hw.ac.uk
JANET: possibly backwards BITNET: via UKACRL BANG!net: via mcsun & uknet
Raghu Seshadri
Mr Sayan Bhattacharyya writes:
> Mr. Hartnett does not seem to realize that a mass movement
> with broad-based mass support cannot be stopped this way.
> If the leadership is rounded up, as happened initially
> during the Quit India movement, new leaders continually
> emerge at the grass-roots level to carry on the struggle.
As it happens, this was not the way events panned out.
The British did round up all the top leaders of the
Congress and put them away; the second level leaders
were not quite upto snuff. This paved the way for
the great tragedy that unfolded next.
As long as leaders like Gandhi & Nehru & Maulana Azad
were around with their clear, fairminded, progressive,
secular voices, narrow minded, divisive fundamentalist
forces like the Muslim League could make no impression
on the Muslim masses. But with these leaders silenced,
the League unleashed a propaganda of hate, which the
second level Congress leaders didn't have the imagination
or talent to stem. Whereas the League had only 5% of the
Muslim vote in 1941 ( just before the Quit India movement),
it got 56% n 1946!
This proves that it is not axiomatic that by annihilating the
top leadership, the British could not have changed destiny.
RS
Anand Bemra
>...The Free India movement certainly didn't have anything that
>could have stood up to it if the British were willing to use it. Where
>were the Free India planes, tanks, ships, guns, bombs, and soldiers?
>What about the choice of rounding up all the Free India leaders and
>shooting them? What about the choice of gassing to death any large
>gathering protesting British rule? For heaven's sake! They had just
>fought WWII! Do you really think India would have stood a chance
>militarily? And that is the most brute-force approach. There is no
>reason at all to think they could not have combined military might and
>political manipulation, as they did so often in the formation of their
>empire. It's the old carrot and stick thing. If they had hit one
>faction with the stick and given another a carrot, they probably could
>have done irreparable damage to the Free India movement.
> Edward Hartnett e...@twod.gsfc.nasa.gov
> (301) 286-2396 fax: (301) 286-3460
Edward Said in Culture & Imperialism writes:
In India, for instance, by the 1930s "a mere 4000 British
civil servants assisted by 60,000 soldiers and 90,000
civilians (businessmen & clergy for the most part) had
billeted themselves upon a country of 300 million persons."
The will, self-confidence, even arrogance necessary to
maintain such a state of affairs can only be guessed at, but,
as we shall see in the texts of 'A Passage to India' and 'Kim',
these attitudes are at least as significant as the number of
people in the army or civil service, or the millions of
pounds England derived from India.
He is quoting Gandhi (not Ghandi, Edward. You might have missed an
earlier discussion about the correct spelling for proper nouns). With
those kind of ratios, and the kind of military technology they had, the
Britishers didn't stand much of a chance in a rebellious India.
anand
--
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