Introduction
Empire Writing is my second essay about India, focusing on British attitudes towards imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. I pulled writings from the book Empire Writings, a collection of writings from that time period about imperialism.
Empire Writing
HR: The Book, An ABC, for Baby Patriots, Notes
One thing I noticed reading The White Man’s Burden and an ABC, for Baby Patriots, was the view that the British took towards their subjects. It reminds me of the Manifest Destiny that we in the United States took towards western expansion. For better or for worse, us and the British believe our way of life to be the only way of, and that it is our duty to enlighten others.
An ABC, for Baby Patriots was a children’s book promoting English culture. In the United States, we learn that A is for apple as we eat a lot of them. In this book, “E is our Empire where sun never sets; the larger we make it, the bigger it gets”. Teaching language teaches a culture, when kids learn the alphabet, they learn about their own culture. In Britain, it was taught to children that British culture was “the” culture, creating a belief that their way of life was the best. The book goes on to talk about the Queen’s Army and Navy, which are the most fearsome warriors on the planet, and that their flag, the Union Jack represented freedom, and that “you know that beneath it you’re happy and free. It is similar to the belief in America that our flag represents freedom and prosperity.
In Empire Writing, there was a popular poem by Rudyard Kipling titled The White Man’s Burden. Though the poem was about the United States in the Philippine-American War, he was a Briton born in India. He was one of the many around the late 1800’s who believes that European style industrialization was the way to free the third world. One line from his poem was “Take up the White Man’s burden- the savage wars of peace- Fill full the mouth of famine”. Whether it was the Philippine-American War, unrest in India, or the modern-day War in Afghanistan, impoverished peoples of the world would resist westerners in their countries, though they are there in their minds to help. In a way, I almost agree with Kipling. Many people today are still facing, famine, disease, and poverty. We as Americans and even those in Europe do not face these problems. Since we do have it all, we should help them. Not only morally, but we have an economic interest in the uplifting of them. They have resources we need and they have resources they need. Rather than what he implies in The White Man’s Burden, fighting wars of peace, we should engage in trade. Maybe that means there is something to what Kipling wrote, though I would not say it is racial like his title implies, there is a burden we bare to help those in need. The Chinese, who are obviously not white, are going through a time of prosperity. They are engaging with some of the poorest countries in Africa, building infrastructure, bringing food, and creating jobs for the citizens of those countries. They went a different route than Kipling, having fought no wars, but still followed some of his ideas. They are freeing people from poverty, oppression of dictators (kings as Kipling put it), and decently reaping the rewards.
One thing Kipling did say that stood out was “Hate those ye guards”. The British did have a supremacist view of themselves. When Gandhi was in South Africa, he believed himself to be “British” until a police officer threw him off of a side walk for being “brown” and was treated like a second-class citizen. Kipling even said that those the White Man must free are “half devil and half child”.
Both An ABC, for Baby Patriots, as well as The White Man’s Burden to me demonstrated a belief that the British are superior to their subjects. Excerpts from an ABC, for Baby Patriots and The White Man’s Burden demonstrate that the British culture is the culture, and the rest are backwards. The White Man’s Burden almost satirically showed how they believed that had an obligation to help and free the rest of the world, and that of course they would reap great rewards for that they have done.