The White Man’s Burden and generational change: the evolution of imperialism

The ongoing US imperial debacle in its war against Iran is inevitably having a serious impact on the home soil. Higher fuel prices and wasteful spending of billions of dollars are just some of them. Some might even be more concerned about the negative impact this military action might have upon the USA’s standing in the eyes of the world, or about the clearly visible limits of its military power. However, none of these consequences of the decision to attack Iran seems to raise any challenges against certain prevailing assumptions within the US (and not only) population. Assumptions that are shared both by Trump’s supporters as well as by the critics of his military decisions. As a matter of fact, notions of this kind well predate both Trump’s presidencies.

If we are to believe the polls, for instance, in 2025 already the majority of Americans tended to accept the notion that Iran should not get a nuclear weapon. But the natural question is the following: on what basis should the US decide which countries can have and which can not have nuclear weapons, or any weapons at all for that matter. In fact, we might even begin with an inquiry - even though the answer is self-evident - over why any particular country should be making such unilateral judgments in the first place. It would be tantamount to the strongest dude in the neighbourhood deciding who among his neighbours gets to own a car, and who is not allowed to have one. And even having a say over what type of cars the lucky ones can drive.

Of course, within our societies we do have certain discriminations. For instance, there is a consensus among many that the young ones should not get to vote until they become 18. Also, there are specific health requirements that disqualify some individuals from driving a car. But these regulations are not unilateral and uncontrolled decisions by one or a few powerful individuals, nor are they particularistic restrictions. They apply universally to the entire society irrespectively of the income, social status, or personal connections of the individuals in question. As far as the global stage of international relations is concerned, one might as well attempt to come up with various universalistic regulations and limitations. And these could encompass not only nuclear weapons, but also the environment, education, or any subject whatsoever.

It is absolutely clear, nevertheless, that a distinction between friendly and non-friendly countries towards the policies of the US and its allies is not a universalistic basis. To accept such types of distinctions would mean privileges, prerogatives and inequality on the international stage. So how can even the liberal side within the US as well as within many other so-called Western countries accept and perpetuate such a discriminatory stance? Why are certain nation-states assumed as having more rights than others? In simple terms, such inequality is based upon a cartoonish and Hollywoodian division of the world into the “good guys” and the “bad guys”. The problem here is that by the nature of things, each side within any conflict will claim to be on the side of justice, whereas the opponent will always be portrayed as embodying the greatest evil. Hence, when the self-proclaimed “good guys” kill, bomb, and commit genocide - all of this is done in the name of just and righteous causes, with all of the excesses constituting the unfortunate inevitable consequences. When the other side, namely the “bad guys”, does the same, they are obviously doing everything intentionally and purely with malignant motives.

The progressives of our modern days can easily ridicule such a childish worldview. They could also abhor and challenge its discriminatory principles. However, it might equally be worth appreciating our contemporary historical circumstances whereby these so-called “evil countries” are at least sovereign states - despite the constant pressures and obstructions aimed at their sovereign policies. Not that long ago vast amounts of people around the globe were under colonial administrations. Their sovereignty - even if only on paper - was far from given. In fact, during the colonial and imperial era of the 19th and early 20th centuries the demand for sovereignty on behalf of the colonized peoples would have been considered to be as radical as to claim today that Iran, Cuba, or Algeria should have absolutely equal rights to those enjoyed by the US, the UK, or France.

Or maybe even more radical, for the constant evolution of the social consciousness makes our societies ever more opposed to the international inequality that the latest war in Iran has laid bare once again. It is within this context that we should understand the recurrent calls, for instance by Pakistan or Finland, to reform the UN security council and to abolish veto powers. However, to return to the issue of the previous generations, the idea of a sovereign Somalia, Pakistan, or the Democratic Republic of the Congo sitting at the same decision-making table with the former imperial powers would have been incomprehensible. And yet, here we are. But just as today we have various cartoonish justifications for denying equal rights to different sovereign states, our ancestors had their own proper justifications for denying the very sovereignty itself to huge numbers of individuals across the globe.

Colonialism of the bygone centuries was based upon a very different social consciousness, so different that today we would find their notions and beliefs completely ridiculous and repulsive. Likewise, the future generations will equally judge as idiotic the contemporary ideological stance that still allows to perpetuate the discrimination between our modern countries in the 21st century. The imperialism of our times is not the imperialism of the 19th century. This series of blog commentaries will revisit the way international as well as interracial relations were understood within the societies of the so-called Western countries that dominated the colonial era during and around the Victorian period.

Below is a quote by a respected 19th century French thinker, Ernest Renan:

“We aspire not to equality but to domination. The country of a foreign race must become once again a country of serfs, of agricultural laborers, or industrial workers. It is not a question of eliminating the inequalities among men but of widening them and making them into a law.”

Would a person with such worldviews be respected today? Would he or she be treated as reasonable by the standards of our contemporary social consciousness? And unfortunately, there is more:

“Nature has made a race of workers, the Chinese race, who have wonderful manual dexterity and almost no sense of honor; govern them with justice, levying from them, in return for the blessing of such a government, an ample allowance for the conquering race, and they will be satisfied; satisfied; a race of tillers of the soil, the Negro; treat him with kindness and humanity, and all will be as it should; a race of masters and soldiers, the European race. Reduce this noble race to working in the ergastulum like Negroes and Chinese, and they rebel. In Europe, every rebel is, more or less, a soldier who has missed his calling, a creature made for the heroic life, before whom you are setting a task that is contrary to his race, a poor worker, too good a soldier. But the life at which our workers rebel would make a Chinese or a fellah happy, as they are not military creatures in the least. Let each one do what he is made for, and all will be well.”

Now how do these insights by a supposedly intelligent man from a bygone century square up to our modern day realities? Aged like milk, as the saying goes… Is not that also how the future generations will treat all of the contemporary attempts by the so-called liberal democratic states to portray themselves as the exceptional beacons of freedom and liberty? Or the idea of American exceptionalism? And while Trump is now attempting to impose this exceptionalism upon other countries via bombing and bullying, this was the expression of the white man’s exceptionalism via the civilizing missions of the 19th century:

“Humanity must not, cannot allow the incompetence, negligence, and laziness of the uncivilized peoples to leave idle indefinitely the wealth which God has confided to them, charging them to make it serve the good of all.”

For “if the goods of this world ‘remained divided up indefinitely, as they would be without colonization, they would answer neither the purposes of God nor the just demands of the human collectivity’". As we see, according to a certain 19th century Christian reverend named Barde, the less developed societies had to be colonized for the benefit of “human collectivity”. Just as Trump is now doing the world a “favour” by having launched his assault upon another sovereign country…

Sources:
https://www.trtworld.com/article/18212055
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/06/19/cnn-poll-shows-clear-majority-of-americans-opposed-to-nuclear-armed-iran/
https://asianews.network/privilege-for-none-pakistan-calls-for-abolition-of-unsc-veto-power-rejects-new-permanent-seats/
Aime Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism, at https://files.libcom.org/files/zz_aime_cesaire_robin_d.g._kelley_discourse_on_colbook4me.org_.pdf
https://apnews.com/video/this-had-to-be-done-trump-claims-to-have-done-the-world-a-favor-with-attacks-on-iran-e37d53c60b9044ceb1f9ca4668778260

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