Dear Sirs and Madams,
Niall Ferguson, bless his Scottish heart, is a fantastic historian and has produced incredible analyses of the 19th and 20th centuries. I've read a few of his books and they never cease to awe me. I particularly found his public dismissal of advocates for the use of the word "islamofascism" refreshing. Nonetheless, I have to disagree with his assessment that the British sacrifice of its own empire to stop the German and Japanese empires should absolve Britain of all its other sins. He furthers his claim in a debate amongst a few historians that the alternative to a world with a British hegemony was one ruled by a worse empire like Russia or Germany. After all, says Niall Ferguson, look at all the contributions from the British Empire like the financial establishments and global trade. I would like to state my resounding rejection of this apology for the British Empire.
I like England. I love it for Oxford University, the House of Commons, the cozy country cottages with a trout filled creek running beside it, etc. However, I must be cruel to English history for I believe too many English historians, including Niall Ferguson, have not been critical enough with it. When faced with criticisms regarding British rule over India, Niall Ferguson responded by arguing that the alternative, a potential Russian rule over India, would not have been more favorable to the Indians. Regarding a Russian occupation of India, there has never been a serious Russian attempt to advance south of the Hindu Kush. Ferguson played the tune of the age old myth that the Russian are driven by a search for a warm water port. The same epidemic of Russophobia in the mid 19th century caused diplomats like Stratford Cannings to exacerbate the negotiations between the Ottomans and the Russians, sparking the Crimean War. Forget geopolitics, the Crimean War was fought to defend British and French interests in the Mediterranean against an enemy who had no intentions of making a serious challenge to Egypt or the Mediterranean. Clearly, Ferguson is still struggling to defend his empire from imaginary threats.
Yes, Britain fought tooth and nail against Nazi Germans and the Japanese, but it was the expanse of the British Empire itself that provoked the militarists to pursue a policy of expanding their own lebensraum. The political and economic conditions that sparked the World Wars can be epitomized by the British Empire. What, absolve? How about taking part of the blame?
A great point was brought up by historian Eric Hobsbaum regarding Ferguson's claim on the spread of the financial institutions and capitalism. The Latin American republics had an intimate trading relationship with Britain, with much investments and loans traveling across the Atlantic, yet they were never under British colonial occupation like the Indians or the Egyptians. Therefore, the colonial institutions were not necessary for the transfer of capitalism and free trade. (I despise arguments made on the economic contributions of imperial masters to their colonial subjects)
Eric Hobsbaum made a great point, but missed the bigger picture. The economic system that the British Empire enforced was never free. Mike Davis, the author of Late Victorian Holocausts, writes that the export of 6.4 million hundredweight of wheat was maintained by the British viceroy in India during the 1870s despite the drought in the Deccan plateau. Between 12 and 29 million people died, a feat unsurpassed until the horrors of the 20th century. By creating taxes and restrictions on key essential commodities (such as salt) the British created an unfair system where the society could not function and produce efficiently. These unfair conditions destroyed indigenous entrepreneurs that had once traversed the Indian Ocean to trade. One could say that the British did more to impoverish the Indians than any other European empire that had set foot on India.
Furthermore, the British government's apathy towards the human suffering resulting from the famines they helped create is a serious indictment. The British intensified the famine by refusing to allow Indians to have a voice in the politics as Amartya Sen notes:
"Famines are easy to prevent if there is a serious effort to do so, and a democratic government, facing elections and criticisms from opposition parties and independent newspapers, cannot help but make such an effort. Not surprisingly, while India continued to have famines under British rule right up to independence … they disappeared suddenly with the establishment of a multiparty democracy and a free press. … a free press and an active political opposition constitute the best early-warning system a country threaten by famines can have"
Not only did Britain stunt Indian prosperity, but it was also an accomplice in killing Indians during the droughts. Colonialism was a social, political, and economic killer of nations. Ferguson would ask "But would the Mughals have done better?". Why yes, they might well have done better without exporting millions of tons of grain while the people are starving or turning land for food production into land for cash crops.
Unless, one is prepared to establish a price for human life, I think it is fair to say that Britain's overall performance during its imperial rule over the quarter of the world was less than honorable and not so well minded.
Godspeed,
Yong Kwon
Niall Ferguson, bless his Scottish heart, is a fantastic historian and has produced incredible analyses of the 19th and 20th centuries. I've read a few of his books and they never cease to awe me. I particularly found his public dismissal of advocates for the use of the word "islamofascism" refreshing. Nonetheless, I have to disagree with his assessment that the British sacrifice of its own empire to stop the German and Japanese empires should absolve Britain of all its other sins. He furthers his claim in a debate amongst a few historians that the alternative to a world with a British hegemony was one ruled by a worse empire like Russia or Germany. After all, says Niall Ferguson, look at all the contributions from the British Empire like the financial establishments and global trade. I would like to state my resounding rejection of this apology for the British Empire.
I like England. I love it for Oxford University, the House of Commons, the cozy country cottages with a trout filled creek running beside it, etc. However, I must be cruel to English history for I believe too many English historians, including Niall Ferguson, have not been critical enough with it. When faced with criticisms regarding British rule over India, Niall Ferguson responded by arguing that the alternative, a potential Russian rule over India, would not have been more favorable to the Indians. Regarding a Russian occupation of India, there has never been a serious Russian attempt to advance south of the Hindu Kush. Ferguson played the tune of the age old myth that the Russian are driven by a search for a warm water port. The same epidemic of Russophobia in the mid 19th century caused diplomats like Stratford Cannings to exacerbate the negotiations between the Ottomans and the Russians, sparking the Crimean War. Forget geopolitics, the Crimean War was fought to defend British and French interests in the Mediterranean against an enemy who had no intentions of making a serious challenge to Egypt or the Mediterranean. Clearly, Ferguson is still struggling to defend his empire from imaginary threats.
Yes, Britain fought tooth and nail against Nazi Germans and the Japanese, but it was the expanse of the British Empire itself that provoked the militarists to pursue a policy of expanding their own lebensraum. The political and economic conditions that sparked the World Wars can be epitomized by the British Empire. What, absolve? How about taking part of the blame?
A great point was brought up by historian Eric Hobsbaum regarding Ferguson's claim on the spread of the financial institutions and capitalism. The Latin American republics had an intimate trading relationship with Britain, with much investments and loans traveling across the Atlantic, yet they were never under British colonial occupation like the Indians or the Egyptians. Therefore, the colonial institutions were not necessary for the transfer of capitalism and free trade. (I despise arguments made on the economic contributions of imperial masters to their colonial subjects)
Eric Hobsbaum made a great point, but missed the bigger picture. The economic system that the British Empire enforced was never free. Mike Davis, the author of Late Victorian Holocausts, writes that the export of 6.4 million hundredweight of wheat was maintained by the British viceroy in India during the 1870s despite the drought in the Deccan plateau. Between 12 and 29 million people died, a feat unsurpassed until the horrors of the 20th century. By creating taxes and restrictions on key essential commodities (such as salt) the British created an unfair system where the society could not function and produce efficiently. These unfair conditions destroyed indigenous entrepreneurs that had once traversed the Indian Ocean to trade. One could say that the British did more to impoverish the Indians than any other European empire that had set foot on India.
Furthermore, the British government's apathy towards the human suffering resulting from the famines they helped create is a serious indictment. The British intensified the famine by refusing to allow Indians to have a voice in the politics as Amartya Sen notes:
"Famines are easy to prevent if there is a serious effort to do so, and a democratic government, facing elections and criticisms from opposition parties and independent newspapers, cannot help but make such an effort. Not surprisingly, while India continued to have famines under British rule right up to independence … they disappeared suddenly with the establishment of a multiparty democracy and a free press. … a free press and an active political opposition constitute the best early-warning system a country threaten by famines can have"
Not only did Britain stunt Indian prosperity, but it was also an accomplice in killing Indians during the droughts. Colonialism was a social, political, and economic killer of nations. Ferguson would ask "But would the Mughals have done better?". Why yes, they might well have done better without exporting millions of tons of grain while the people are starving or turning land for food production into land for cash crops.
Unless, one is prepared to establish a price for human life, I think it is fair to say that Britain's overall performance during its imperial rule over the quarter of the world was less than honorable and not so well minded.
Godspeed,
Yong Kwon
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