genda

A
By Dr Dipak Basu

Imperialism of the new Century

The logic of old imperialism was to occupy countries to extract their resources and labour force to enrich their own home countries. For the European powers, occupation was not enough; whenever possible, they have reduced the local population to a bare minimum to create a commonwealth of White European people. Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, Central and South America and, to some extent, South Africa have experienced deliberate depopulation policies alongwith the traditional colonialism in India, China and in the rest of the world. The argument was in terms of ´White man´s burden´, i.e. White Europeans have a moral responsibility to uplift the people of the backward countries with primitive civilisations and protect the native people from aggressive neighbours and invasions.

Justification for colonisation of India by the British was that the otherwise Tartar hordes from Central and West Asia, implying that Turks, Mongols, Persians, Afghans, will occupy India. Another justification was to impose a civilised order, administration and Christian culture and religion.

Although the industrial revolution in Britain was financed by the colony of Bengal in India, where within 10 years since 1757, one-third of the population was wiped out by ruthless exploitation, Western historians and intellectuals have no knowledge of that but, instead, they now have a new argument to create a ´New Imperial Order´ to rescue the so-called ´failed States´. Their arguments are based on ´utilitarianism´, the fundamental philosophical principle of capitalism, which is the guiding force for the ´New International Order´. The architecture of the ´New International Order´ for the last decade was in terms of three international organisations: the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organisation, all controlled by the former colonialists of the Western countries. The purpose is to control world trade, finance and economy to reward those who are efficient, whether these are countries or social classes. A new dimension is now added to justify physical control of the unfavoured nations, in terms of inefficinecy of their governments to have sustained economic growth. According to the Western powers, inefficient governments breed international terrorism, which must be erased out by taking control of the so-called ´failed States´.

Definition of Failed States

A ´failed State´ can be defined as a State where the government is in near collapse after a long drawn insurgency or civil war or invasion; where people are at the mercy of the armed groups or warlords; where most of the public services are either not available or are there only for the powerful people; where basic facilities for a decent life, education, law, civil services are in a near collapse state. Most countries in Africa, smaller republics of the former Soviet Union, former provinces of now defunct Yugoslavia, some of the island States in the Pacific and in the Caribbean Sea are in that condition. Some parts of a large country can also be in that situation.

The Ache province of Indonesia, Mindanao province of the Philippines, some parts of Thailand, Peru, Bolivia, and Nepal are allegedly in that condition. However, does that mean they have to be subjugated and their sovereignty should be passed on to developed countries to provide welfare?

Utilitarian British philosphers like Bentham, James Mill, and John Stuart Mill, since the 18th century, have justified intervention on this ground. Their arguments now have been echoed by the so-called neo-conservatives of USA and Britain. The British Prime Minister Blair recently (The Guardian, March 5, 2004) has advocated the idea of ´pre-emptive intervention´ as a solution to international terrorism, that normally emerges from these ´failed States´. ´Failed States´ also challenge orderly ones by boosting immigration pressures.

Foreign Affairs, the organ of the United States Council of Foreign Relations, recently has asserted a very powerful argument for imperialistic intervention.

´Experience has shown that non-imperialist options-notably, foreign aid and various nation-building efforts-are not altogether reliable. An obstinate group of dysfunctional countries has refused to respond to these approaches. The rich world increasingly realises that its interests are threatened by chaos, and that it lacks the tools to fix the problem. Now US foreign policy must again respond to circumstance-this time to the growing danger of ´failed States´.

´The chaos in the world is too threatening to ignore, and existing methods for dealing with that chaos have been tried and found wanting. The question is not whether the United States will seek to fill the void created by the demise of European empires but whether it will acknowledge that this is what it is doing.´ (Sebastian Mallaby, ´The Reluctant Imperialist: Terrorism, Failed States, and the Case for American Empire´ in Foreign Affairs, March-April, 2002).

Some of the so-called ´failed States´ have already been taken over by the developed countries. Former Yugoslavia is under the UN-NATO control; East Timor and Solomon Islands were taken over by Australia in conjunction with the UN; Rwanda-Burundi are in UN control; Liberia and Sierra Leone are controlled by Britain.

The main problem is to know whether a ´failed State´ is the result of a deliberate policy of the developed countries to provide justification for the ´take-over´ or it is the result of the poor quality of civilisation and the leadership of that ´failed State´. There is no unique answer to this question. Former Yugoslavia was destroyed when Germany gave recognition to the breakaway provinces of Croatia and Bosnia, which were pro-German during the Second World War. Afghanistan was destroyed because of the intervention of Pakistan and the US in 1978, immediately after its revolution to abolish monarchy. Now the destabilisation process is going on in Venezuela to turn it into a ´failed state´. The problems in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines and in Kashmir in India are the results of interventions by some Islamic countries. Thus, it is not possible to rule out deliberate intervention as the cause of the ´failed State´.

India as a ´failed State´ in 18th century

In The History of British India, 1st edition, 3 volumes, London, 1817, James Mill had the conviction that India needed enlightenment and progress. Mill believed that if non-European peoples in Asia, including India, were enlightened through interacting with the Europeans, they would progress and the global happiness would be increased. India would progress and the Indians would be able to have more happiness under British rule than when they were governed by their native kings. Global happiness will be obtained if all races of peoples of the globe are ´civilised´ in the utilitarian sense. Mill had a conviction that all non-European peoples would become ´civilised´ if the European knowledge, arts, manners, and institutions were diffused to them. Mill was particularly concerned with how to bring enlightenment to what he believed to be ´half-civilised´ people, such as people in India and other Asian nations:

´What glorious results might be expected for the whole of Asia, that vast proportion of the earth, which, even in its most favoured parts, has been in all ages condemned to semi-barbarism, and the miseries of despotic power?´ ([7] p.284)

In Bentham´s view (in L. Campos Boralevi, Bentham and the Oppressed, Walter de Gruyter, 1984, Chapter 6), “if the Indians were left to their own native princes, they would inevitably be ruled by despots.” Since the enactment of the Pitt´s Indian Act in 1784, a system of neutrality had been the official British international policy in India and was declared repeatedly in the Act of 1793. The two Acts prohibited the Governor-Generals of British India from making any attempt to pursue schemes of conquest and extension of dominion in India.

Mill claimed that, in some cases, a ´system of vigilant interference´, instead of a system of neutrality, should be adopted. Mill contended that the ´system of vigilant interference´ was not offensive in nature but was as defensive as the system of neutrality ´in spirit´: ´By keeping a watchful eye upon the princes of the country, marking the individual from whom danger is most imminent, and hedging him round, by contracting alliances with his neighbours, so that he must force his way to you through a rampart of foes, you are obviously both repressing the desire to attack, and lessening the danger, should war be inevitable´ ([5] p. 485). Mill believed that this system was in principle no more than ´the policy of foresight and prevention´ ([5] p. 485). Nevertheless, Mill admitted that ´by opening a door to defensive policy on this ground, we open a door to offensive policy also´ ([5] p. 486).

Inspired by the utilitarian mentality, Mill committed himself to an aof creating a global liberal order in which the happiness of humankind would be maximised. Such an order is attainable only if every nation progressed to a maximal extent. From Mill´s perspective, it was desirable for those who were at a higher level of progress to help those, who were at a relatively lower level of progress. ´Neo-imperialists´ have the same logic in terms of enhanced welfare for the people of the ´failed States´.

(To be concluded) – (The writer is a professor of Economics with Nagasaki University, Japan.)