Sunday, April 28, 2013

Colonialism


Sunday Morning Sermon


19th century in Europe was a time of industrialization. Factories in Europe required raw materials to be manufactured into marketable products. As a result, Europeans sought both a source of raw materials, as well as, a market for manufactured goods from other nations. This economic motivation played a large role in the colonization of the world. 

Politics in Europe also led to colonization. Nationalism -a strong form of identification with and pride in one's nation-resulted in competition between European nations. This competition often resulted in wars between nations. Competition over colonial expansion aas another way that national competition between European nations was demonstrated in the late 19th century. One of the causes of the scramble to occupy and rule which resulted in the colonization of large porions of South America, Africa and Asia, was the competition between European nations. No major nation wanted to be without colonies. The competition was particularly strong between Britain, France, and Germany, the strongest European nation-states in the late 19th century.
In addition, ideologies of racial hierarchy were prevalent in Europe in the 19th century. Many Europeans viewed themselves as the most advanced civilization in the world, and some saw it as their mission to "enlighten" and "civilize" people in the rest of the world. This feeling of racial superiority and "responsibility" was captured in a poem written in 1899, The White Man's Burdenby the British poet Rudyard Kipling . Many inaccurate and racialist stereotypes of peoples, which existed at the time, were used to justify colonialism.
The colonization of the third world coincided with the expansion of Christian missionary activity. Christianity was introduced to the third world only in the modern era. Christian missionary activity began in earnest in the 19th century during the same period of time that European countries were becoming more engaged in these lands. Historians do not all agree on what the relationship was between Christian missionary activity and colonialism. However, evidence suggests that while many missionaries opposed the harsher aspects of colonialism, they were supportive of the colonization of under developed countries. Missionaries who supported colonialism believed that European control would provide a political environment that would facilitate missionary activity. This support for colonialism played an important role in legitimizing the colonial endeavor among the citizens of the colonizing powers in Europe.
*The White Man's Burden
by Rudyard Kipling
Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.
Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain,
To seek another's profit
And work another's gain.
Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine,
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
(The end for others sought)
Watch sloth and heathen folly
Bring all your hope to nought.
Take up the White Man's burden--
No iron rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go, make them with your living
And mark them with your dead.
Take up the White Man's burden,
And reap his old reward--
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"
Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness.
By all ye will or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent sullen peoples
Shall weigh your God and you.
Take up the White Man's burden!
Have done with childish days--
The lightly-proffered laurel,
The easy ungrudged praise:
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years,
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers.
Amen!

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