Today is Queen Victoria's birthday. It would have been her 192nd, but all good things must come to an end, and in the case of her life, that happened in 1901. However, the day lived on as Empire Day, a celebration of the British Empire.Perhaps you are wondering why I, an American, am celebrating the Empire. After all, isn't American Independence Day a repudiation of the Empire? Americans sometimes think of themselves as heirs to the British tradition of representative government, trial by jury and free enterprise. Less often do modern day Americans think of themselves as heirs to the Empire, but I am willing to argue just that.
Let me highlight this phenomenon with regard to just one imperial possession, India. As a child, I grew up playing both Parcheesi and Carrom; at the time I knew that the former was Indian in origin (known there as "Pachisi"), but I found out only last year that the latter is also an Indian game. As a child I also played chess (a game of Indian origin, though much earlier than the Empire) and I once came upon a special variant of the game called Maharaja. What is striking, in retrospect, is that at a young age I knew what a maharaja was, probably because of this comic. Likewise, as a child I was taught to despise thugs, wash my hair with shampoo and wear pajamas, though I had no idea that any of these words came from Hindi. As an adult I took to wearing seersucker, including on my visit to Jordan (another imperial holding, taken from the Turks by imperial troops, but I digress); this too is a product of the Raj. The world is simply too interconnected for Americans to think they have nothing to do with Britain's historical role in Africa, Asia and far-flung corners of the world.
In 1958 Empire Day was renamed Commonwealth Day and since 1976 the Commonwealth has celebrated it on the second Monday in March. But being a man of history, I have a certain nostalgia for the old things. This is not to say that all the Empire did was good or right, but today we choose to remember it at its best; tomorrow we can criticize, if we must.
Today's image of Queen Victoria comes from BritishMonarchs.co.uk. The lovely map comes from the University of West Georgia's Readings in the History of the British Empire. Lovely though it be, it does not show the Empire at its fullest extent; for that, click here.
4 comments:
"Less often do modern day Americans think of themselves as heirs to the Empire, but I am willing to argue just that."
Do you think this has anything to do with our "Puritanical upbringing"? That is: We are reluctant to accept something (true), because we don't want to admit how much we like something we "shouldn't"?
Another theory: Americans are actually so imperial that their paradoxically insular. Everyone trades in dollarsr, speaks English, and watches football (right?); so, how could Americans be "taking over" the world, if we all have so much in common already?
***
I find your desire to separate the "good from the bad" in empiricism familar, if not a tad contradictory. (That is, I want to feel the same way but am not sure if it's desirable.) Put another way: What do mean by "empire"?
Was the United States a kind of empire from the very beginning? Under what circumstances can empiricism be "virtuous", if any? Why not, for example, invade Iran/Syria/Libya and run them, rather than just "help" them? I realize it's a tricky business--this res publica I love so much--but it seems there a lot of questions that come into play a nation gets bigger, stronger, or "freer" than the likes of Switzerland.
Barry, you're no doubt right about the Puritanicalism (Puritanicality?) of Americans, though I suspect what is primarily at play here is simply the assumption of Americans that our nation sprung fully armed from the head of Britain. We sometimes acknowlege that we were in fact in her womb for some time, but far be it from us to admit that even after birth we continued to interact with the Mother Country and her other children. (As a corrective to all this, I heard an interesting lecture a couple months ago claiming that the US was a de-facto dominion of Britain from 1783-1861, with local government and control of domestic affairs, but heavy investment by Britain in the economy and limited wiggle room internationally.) We have not always been a superpower, though we wish we were.
Have we been an empire from the start? Well, we've certainly had a lot of open land since the Treaty of Paris, so kicking out the locals, settling the land and then acquiring more was a regular part of American history for a solid century. That's fairly imperial. But is that all I mean by the term "empire"?
Yes and no. I think we can make a distinction between continental and maritime empires. The US and Russia are the primary examples of continental empires, though Canada, China, Brazil and others might have some insights to add. Also, the US became a maritime empire with acquisition of Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, though I would argue that, by and large, our culture remains that of a continental empire. However, while one might draw parallels between the American West and Russian Central Asia, the US also has two other qualities which contribute to the discussion: immigration and commerce.
For most of its history America has taken in large numbers of folks from elsewhere (mostly Europe, but also Vietnamese, etc.). The Brits eat curry because they ruled India; we eat pizza because Italians immigrated here. Likewise, the US has been a trading nation since its founding, with American vessels visiting the Far East as early as the 18th century. Neither immigration nor trade is imperial (sorry to disappoint the Marxists), at least not in the way maritime or continental empires are. Still, these qualities dovetail with America's continental imperial culture to produce something which often bears considerable resemblence to Britain's maritime empire.
And I haven't even mentioned the 1939 production of Gunga Din, which inspired Temple of Doom...
"[T]he US was a de-facto dominion of Britain from 1783-1861, with local government and control of domestic affairs...."
THAT is a hot sports opinion--but I could see how a case could be made for it.
***
The distinction you make between "continental" and "maritime" empires is quite compelling--and necessary. I also like how you cite the US as an "empire of commerce", a fact as true today as ever. Given that, would you consider Americanization as a kind of empiricism?
***
You make a good point about the Louisiana purhcase et al., but that wasn't exactly what I meant by "empire from the beginning". Rather: since the US was a federation of fairly independent states under "control" of a central government, could one argue that it was a kind of "empire"?
***
"And I haven't even mentioned the 1939 production of Gunga Din, which inspired Temple of Doom..."
Um, what's Gung Din?
Barry, I think you mean "imperialism," not "empiricism".
Is Americanization a form of imperialism? At the end of the day, I say no. First, it's hard to say whether or not it's intentional. Building Britain's Cape-to-Cairo corridor was clearly intentional; even America's seizure of the Philippines - though more haphazard - was fairly intentional. Americanization may be intentional, but it may not.
Second, the purpose or benefits to Americans of Americanization are somewhat fuzzy. Sure, it makes it easier to travel abroad and to sell our goods. But who cares if Africans are using American lingo? Europeans of yesteryear believed in the civilizing mission - that helping Africans speak their lingo (and assume the other trappings of European culture) was uplifting for Africans. We might disagree, but the purpose is clearly there. A case could be made for the perceived value of Americanization - particularly in politics and trade, though less so with culture - but I'm not so convinced.
***
The issue of the federal "empire" over the states is an interesting one, in which I am insufficiently versed to make the following comments. It seems that, conceptually, the federal system leaves a nice place for acquisitions and new states. Want to add a new state from Canada, Mexico or some Pacific island? No problem; we have room for diversity within our federation. But in practice, so far as I can tell, there was actually a strong desire to make new states conform to the old. We had to settle the West with white people, since the brown ones were not perceived to have the capabilities needed for democracy. Moreover, so long as power lay with the states, that apparatus which looked beyond America's borders - the federal government - was too weak to busy itself with serious imperialism. The war with Mexico came fairly early in our history, but most acquisitions - Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, not to mention Cold War informal empire - came after the federal government had wrestled much control away from the states.
***
Gunga Din is a poem by Kipling, which inspired a film. You should watch it, because it's fun, because it's a great look into the period, and because you'll see Temple of Doom in a whole new light (or at least a little bit new).
Post a Comment