The White Man’s Burden and generational change: the evolution of imperialism. Part 2

In the previous post we have placed the contemporary inequalities in the realm of international relations within a wider historical context. We have made a historical connection as well as a historical comparison between the once widely accepted idea of colonialism and the contemporary notion that some sovereign countries should have more rights and privileges than some others. The main purpose of all of this is to demonstrate that such beliefs and mental conceptions are merely transitory features of the historical evolution of human social consciousness. In simple terms, just as colonialism has died its natural death - with the ongoing Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands merely representing its post mortem convulsions - so will the global inequality among sovereign peoples one day become a thing of the past.

Of course, Stephen Miller is by no means the only person in the US to believe that superpowers can act in relation to other countries in any way they seem fit. Similar worldviews to the tune of “might makes right” are still widely held not just within this superpower in question, but also among the populations of its allied nations. And it is very likely that such ideas are still relatively acceptable in the wider world as well. Hence, while the progressives of our times will have to wait out this particular historical era, in the meantime we can glance back at some of the ideological nonsense that our predecessors had to deal with during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Here is another characteristic example of the intellectual basis for the international relations of those days:

“The black race has not yet produced, will never produce, an Einstein, a Stravinsky, a Gershwin.”

Disregarding the ignorance of this Mr. Jules Romains in relation to the achievements of black persons even in his own times, the most important question here is the following: how would our contemporary society judge somebody if he or she uttered such words today? Moreover, a certain Ewart S. Grogan had suggested this:

“[Some] principles may be laid down for the great negroid population of Africa which… apply in most instances. I will ignore the platitudes as to the equality of men irrespective of colour and progress, and take as an hypothesis [sic] what is patent to all who have observed the African native, that he is fundamentally inferior in mental development and ethical possibilities (call it soul if you will) to the white man.”

If only these individuals could have lived until our days. In any case, below is yet another justification for colonialism and the denial of sovereignty to different races, as explained by Violet R. Markham - a member of the British Liberal Party, a political activist, a writer, an anti-suffragist, and who was even elected as the mayor of Chesterfield in 1927:

“The theory of equality among men of the same race has led to revolutions in the past… It is therefore clear that the assumption of equality between such obviously unequal persons as the European and the Kaffir was bound to result in controversy… The Zulu and the Basuto at home are fine dignified men… To judge them, however, by any European standard, at once destroys their claims to distinction. The native falls lamentably short below the ideals of civilisation as we understand the term.”

And here comes the former Prime Minister of South Africa, Mr. J. C. Smuts:

“The negro and the negroid Bantu form a distinct human type which the world would be poorer without. … This type has some wonderful characteristics. It has largely remained a child-type, with a child psychology and outlook. … This happy-go-lucky disposition … has also its drawbacks. There is no inward incentive to improvement, there is no persistent effort in construction, and there is complete absorption in the present, its joys and sorrows. … These children of nature have not the inner toughness and persistence of the European, nor those social and moral incentives to progress which have built up European civilisation.”

As far as any suggestion of giving sovereignty to the Bantu people is concerned, a person from Belgium, under the name of Placide Frans Tempels, claimed that "from their first contact with the white men, the Bantu considered us from the only point of view that was possible to them, the point of view of their Bantu philosophy". As a result, these African natives had supposedly integrated the whites “into their hierarchy of life forces at a very high level". A perfect match. And a very convenient one. As further portrayed by Aime Cesaire:

“As for Mr. Mannoni, in view of his book and his observations on the Madagascan soul, he deserves to be taken very seriously. Follow him step by step through the ins and outs of his little conjuring tricks, and he will prove to you as clear as day that colonization is based on psychology, that there are in this world groups of men who, for unknown reasons, suffer from what must be called a dependency complex, that these groups are psychologically made for dependence; that they need dependence, that they crave it, ask for it, demand it; that this is the case with most of the colonized peoples and with the Madagascans in particular.”

It is difficult not to compare these outdated and supposedly scientific insights with the contemporary political observations stemming from the all-so-righteous representatives of the so-called Western powers, claiming that other nations are all craving to be liberated from their governments - whenever these are considered to be “unfriendly” towards the neo-imperial interests of the US and its friends. Just as the Africans demanded dependence upon the Europeans who knew better back then during the 19th century colonial era, so today the US and its allies know better how Cubans, for instance, or Iranians should run their countries and their foreign policies. One delusion was replaced by another. Why should any country at all, be it Venezuela or Cuba, follow the economic demands of another? And why should any country, be it Iran or Columbia, necessarily run a pro-American foreign policy?

The master race yesterday, the saviours of freedom and democracy today. But just listen to Mr. Mannoni once more:

“It is the destiny of the Occidental to face the obligation laid down by the commandment Thou shalt leave thy father and thy mother. This obligation is incomprehensible to the Madagascan. At a given time in his development, every European discovers in himself the desire... to break the bonds of dependency, to become the equal of his father. The Madagascan, never! He does not experience rivalry with the paternal authority, "manly protest," or Adlerian inferiority - ordeals through which the European must pass and which are like civilized forms… of the initiation rites by which one achieves manhood…”

Well, as of today, it rather appears that it was the destiny for Madagascar to become independent from France in 1960. It also appears that it was the destiny for such social beliefs as once held by this former psychoanalyst to die out alongside their human embodiments. And finally, all the contemporary social tales and fantasies about the presumed moral supremacy of the so-called Western civilization are equally slowly moving towards their fatal fate. The future generations will judge the imperialistic missions of today to democratize the world in the same way as we look upon the colonial missions to civilize the world in the past.

Sources:
https://asiatimes.com/2026/01/us-has-right-to-take-over-any-country-for-its-resources-miller/
Aime Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism, at https://files.libcom.org/files/zz_aime_cesaire_robin_d.g._kelley_discourse_on_colbook4me.org_.pdf
https://academic.oup.com/hrlr/article/23/3/ngad017/7234257
https://thehill.com/policy/international/5787874-cuba-political-change-rubio/
https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/25/iran-war-a-disconnect-experts-policymakers-trump-israel/

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