I maintain that colonial Europe is dishonest in legitimating colonialism a posteriori by the evident material progress which has been realized in certain domains under colonial rule; …that nobody knows at what stage of material development these same countries would have been without European intervention; that the technical equipment, the administrative reorganisation, in a word: the “Europeanization” of Africa or Asia was in no way linked to a European occupation—as is proved by the example of Japan; that the Europeanization of the non-European continents could have been achieved in other ways than under the Europan boot.[17]
SOCIAL DARWINISM: THE PRIMACY OF NAKED POWER
Theories of the white man’s burden reflected the growing feelings of moral uneasiness with imperialist policies amongst the enlightened metropolitan elites. However, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century we can witness in Western Europe a rude and cynical reaction against this new moral criticism with the emergence of legitimation theories based on social Darwinism. As the term indicates, these theories were inspired by Charles Darwin, especially by his theories of “natural selection” and the “survival of the fittest,” which he had developed in The Origin of Species (1859). Darwin’s theory was biology. It was not sociology or political science. However, already Darwin himself had given his theory a wider interpretation when he applied it to the human world in his book The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871). In this work he spoke of the “lower races,” a term that he not only used to refer to colonized peoples outside Europe, but also to some peoples inside Europe. For instance, he quoted uncritically an author who compared the Scots, supposed to be “frugal, foreseeing, self-respecting, [and] ambitious,” with the Irish, who were considered to represent an “inferior and less favored race.”[18] Many of Darwin’s contemporaries were eager to grant his theory of the survival of the fittest, including its implicit conclusions of racial superiority and inferiority, an almost universal validity. It was a theory, considered not only useful to explain the biological world, but also human society, and even international relations.
Darwin’s theory became popular because it responded to the ideological needs of the imperial powers of his time. Already Marx noted in 1862, “It is strange how Darwin recognizes among beasts and plants his English society with its division of labour, competition, opening of new markets, ‘inventions’ and Malthus’ struggle for life. It is Hobbes’s bellum omnium contra omnes.”[19] Although for Marx Darwin’s biological theory presented a surprisingly accurate description of the capitalist society of his time, for many of his contemporaries Darwin’s theory provided rather a mandatory prescription of policies to be followed. This was especially the case for recently unified nations, such as Germany and Italy, both aspiring to become colonial empires. These countries were historical latecomers. It was only after unification in the second half of the nineteenth century that they had the strength and the ambition to build a colonial empire. By that time, however, apart from Africa, most of the territories of the globe were already occupied by the older colonial powers. What arguments could they bring forward to claim their share? The Christian faith? The established colonial powers had already done this before them, and, in addition, this claim had in the meantime become obsolete. Or should they provide support for their territorial claims by stressing their unique civilizing mission? Could the white man’s burden not also be shared by Germany and Italy? The other powers were not convinced. While complaining about the unbearable weight of their burden, they were not in a hurry to share it with others. It was the new theory of social Darwinism that provided them with a solution. Neither Germany nor Italy needed new moral legitimation theories, such as the white man’s burden. These were, according to them, merely hypocritical veils cast over the naked economic interests of the old, established colonial powers. They only claimed a “rightful place under the sun.” They just claimed their part of the cake. Their only legitimation was their newly acquired power and their military strength, expressions of their racial superiority. This new social Darwinist legitimation theory of the latecomers found a staunch defender in the German historian Heinrich von Treitschke (1834–1896). Treitschke confirmed that “it was the highest moral duty of the state to take care of its power.”[20] However, this was challenged by Friedrich Meinecke, because it “leads, first, to suspending the definitive character of international treaties and, further, to inciting the praising of the glory of war…. He [Treitschke] considers war the only remedy for sick nations on the verge of sinking into egoistic individualism.”[21] Meinecke commented: “The new German theory says: ‘Our interest is our right,’ the old, very old English theory is: ‘Lawfulness is our interest.’”[22]
Germany’s and Italy’s claims for colonial expansion were based on the slogan Might Makes Right. In Germany social Darwinism expressed itself also in pan German theories, which were “a racist variant of those legitimation and expansion attempts.”[23] “Economic advancement and the subjugation of overseas territories seemed due to the ‘natural qualities’ of the nation, ‘that means its racial qualities.’ In any case, massive demands could be deducted from these. Out of the racist pan Germanism, that would heal the world, emerged a pseudo-scientifically ‘disguised legitimation’ for permanent expansion.”[24] Theories of the white man’s burden, even if they might have appeared hypocritical, still preserved a moral legitimation for imperial rule and justified this rule by the benefits that this rule was supposed to bring to the colonized populations. Pan Germanism and social Darwinism, on the contrary, did away with any bad conscience and proclaimed loudly and without any moral restraint the right of the strongest. “The general basic values in Imperial Germany,” wrote Helge Pross, “…were order, obedience, subordination, duty, work, performance, discipline, functioning. In the thinking of very many bourgeois men and women the state, monarchy, national greatness and [Germany’s] international standing equally had the status of values, they were desirable and should be realized.”[25] “Many citizens dreamt of German greatness, German international standing, a policy that would give Germany its rightful place as one of the leading world powers…. The state became a value in itself.”[26] Worshipping an almighty state that was able to extend its imperial rule overseas went hand in hand with feelings of racial superiority. According to the historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler the logical conclusion of these theories was fascism: “Undeniably since the 1870s–1880s this social Darwinism has spread throughout the western industrial nations and it has exercised a demonstrably great influence, but it reached its apogee only in the racist radicalization by National Socialism.”[27]
17
Aimé Césaire,
19
Karl Marx, Letter of June 18, 1862,
20
Quoted in Friedrich Meinecke,
23
Hans-Ulrich Wehler,
25
Helge Pross,