World History

Unit 4: The Emergence of Modern Nations

Chapter 18: Asia In Transition

39. Thu, Jan 30, 2014

Once again we see how Europe's dominance in the 18th through 20th centuries was not the product of any particular skill, superiority, or destiny, but sheer luck. Imagine the British and Portuguese facing a China with the power and vigor of the Han Dynasty — or of Genghis Khan — rather than the slowly fading Qing. Imagine Clive landing in India only to be confronted by Asoka or Babur. Instead the Europeans encountered the stumbling a Qing dynasty in China, a Japan which had frozen itself at 1630, and an India deeply divided.

The Europeans were quick to take advantage. Although operating from the opposite side of the planet, they managed to conquer large swathes of Asia, forced concessions on the rest, and in general did what they liked. The book, while not as detailed as it might be, does present some of the consequences of this: fighting a war for the right to get hundreds of thousands of Chinese addicted to opium (essentially the raw material for heroin), forcing the Indians to fight each other, and of course forcing extraterritoriality on everyone they could. The book also tries to explain a few of the benefits of colonialism, particularly in India.

Yet Chinese or Indian historians looking back on this era might raise a few eyebrows, because the book does not present in explicit terms what enabled the Europeans to conquer and rule, namely racism. "Enabled," in this case, does not refer to the physical power, the reasons for which we have already discussed. Instead we are looking here at the ideas of colonialism, and racism in particular. The book does allude to Westerners' ideas of their superiority, but apparently cannot bring itself to speak of the racial component.

It is vital to understand that racism is not necessarily inherent. While there is a natural tendency to say that one's own people are best, and a tendency toward suspicion of strangers, Africans, Asians, and Native Americans were not initially viewed by Europeans as inferior, just exotic. In the converse, many early European travelers became entirely accepted by the peoples they encountered. Yet over a stunningly short period of time, racism sprang into being. Consciously or otherwise, it was invented. It was invented for the purposes of allowing imperialism. "They are like children, they are like animals, they are backward, ignorant, stupid, disgusting, not even human" — all these ideas and more were swiftly adopted and spread as soon as it became clear that non-white people had what white Europeans wanted. It is far easier to justify theft of land or of people when you stop viewing your victims as human.

The ramifications are still with us, as the picture on page 475 shows. In it we have heroic or innocent white people surrounded by aggressive, even bestial dark-skinned attackers. The skin color difference is emphasized, as it would be for centuries. And the lasting effects of racism can be seen in the simple fact that the authors picked this picture to illustrate the Indian Mutiny. (Admittedly many of their other picture choices have been spectacularly bad, and one should not ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence. But one of racism's more insidious habits is sneaking in unnoticed.) The mistreatment of British civilians in the Black Hole of Calcutta or the Mutiny were indeed vile, but the mistreatment, beatings, and executions of Indians by the British were far more numerous and probably more severe. A picture of the execution of a sepoy might have been more appropriate. Even the name "Indian Mutiny," with its overtones of improper rebellion against legitimate authority, shows the same pattern; though here the book has to go by accepted practice if it wants to be understood, the accepted practice does perpetuate an incorrect idea.

To give a true picture of the racist core of colonialism is probably actually impossible. It would certainly give us all nightmares. The general idea was masterfully summed up by Montesquieu, however: "It is impossible for us to think of such creatures as men," he observed dryly, "because, allowing them to be men, the suspicion would follow that we ourselves are not Christian."

That is, in a way, the essence of racism: an idea of inferiority invented to justify brutality. And colonialism was nothing if not brutal.

• While racism and imperialism oftentimes wound up leading to wildly implausible applications of power, initially there were tangible benefits for the European conquerors. What drew Europeans to other parts of the world? With that in mind, how did racism help advance the European agenda?
• Do a little reading on the brown-eyed, blue-eyed exercise and the infamous Stanford prison experiment. How do these events relate to the issues of racism and colonialism?
• The Chinese and Japanese, in particular, had rather racist notions of Europeans as well in this era. How might those attitudes have come to be? How would they affect European racism? How might this Asian-to-European racism have affected or been affected by the moderate success of China and Japan in maintaining their sovereignty?
• Why might the book have been reluctant to address the issue of racism in colonialism head-on?
• The views given here reflect Mr. C's best understanding of racism studies. But could I be ascribing too much malice to the Europeans? They were, after all, the ones who had gone halfway around the world; they were, after all, the ones with the superior military hardware; they were, after all, the ones who won. Might racism have arisen simply from the evidence?

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