Gregory Shafer, “The Common Currents of Imperialism” (2003)
"We are there to reach out to love them and to save them, and as a
Christian I do this in the name of Jesus Christ."--Franklin Graham
"There was nothing left for us to do but to take them all and to
educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize, and Christianize them...."-President McKinley
Imperialism is a pesky thing. No matter how ardently one tries to
adorn it in the garb of democracy and liberation, it seems always to
look the same. One hundred years ago, the United States fought Spain
with the pretense of liberating the Philippines and other "possessions"
from subjugation. "A splendid little war," mused John Hay, the U.S.
ambassador to England, in pondering the windfall it would mean for
U.S. citizens. For the Filipino people, however, the occupation of their
nation was anything but splendid. As a subjugated people, they fought
the U.S. oppressors and their exploitive plans as heroically as they had
the Spanish. While Mark Twain and others castigated American icons
like President Theodore Roosevelt for their genocidal cleansing of the
Filipino people, too many others remained mute, unwilling or unaware
of how the United States had used the ruse of liberty and democracy
to establish a pacific base in the Philippines.
Much of the same has also occurred in Iraq, where searches for
weapons of mass destruction have been overshadowed by a growing
Iraqi chorus for U.S. troops to leave their country. Whether President
George W. Bush ever had any desire to do anything hut give contracts
to his favorite oil companies is questionable, but one thing is rather
clear: the Iraqi people, both Shiite and Sunni, don't want Americans in
their country and have asked them to leave in daily protests and
orchestrated demonstrations: through marches, through civil
disobedience, and in talks with U.S. officials. "Iraq cannot be ruled
except by Iraqis," said Sheikh Hussein Sadr, dean of the Islamic
Council in London, on April 28, 2003, as reported by USA Today. Just
two days alter a disquieting 60 Minutes special revealed the
sweetheart deals that were going to Haliburton--Dick Cheney's former
oil company--Bush tried to remind the nation that the mission in Iraq
was noble. "America has no intention of imposing our form of
government or our culture," USA Today quoted Bush in a speech to
Iraqi-Americans in Michigan on April 28. Interestingly, Bush omitted
any discussion about intentions to develop the reservoir of Iraqi oil or
the contracts that had been doled out to U.S. companies with ties to
the White House.
Not surprisingly, many also wondered about the people who weren't
being invited to talk about the rebuilding of Iraq. Many were concerned
about the exclusion of certain Iraqi groups that might want U.S. troops
expelled and an end to U.S. rapacity in their nation. Others wondered
why nobody was finding connections to terrorism or weapons of mass
destruction, as that was the pretext for invading the country in the
first place. As an American student asked, "Can someone remind me
why we invaded Iraq? If it was to rid the world of a deluded and
dangerous dictator, shouldn't we have pursued Kim Jong in North
Korea? Is this about freedom or Americanization?"
Actually, the phrase often used for this kind of colonialism is
benevolent assimilation, an insidious process in which the aggressor
nation prostrates the victim nation and then begins to absorb it by
plundering its resources and inculcating its people to believe that the
usurpation was all done to liberate them and extricate them from an
evil force. This lesson of imperialism, as has been played out in Iraq,
amazingly and horrifyingly parallels the actions in the Philippines one
century earlier.
When the United States first occupied the Philippines, the same
mantra of liberating the people and bringing civilization to the land
was espoused. Roosevelt referred to the Filipino people as childlike and
suggested that they were too barbaric, too savage, to be left to their
own devices. This eruption of manifest destiny seemed to justify the
carnage, the plundering, and the abject disregard for human rights. In
writing about the terror in his piece, "The Philippine-American War:
Friendship and Forgetting," Reynaldo Ileto reminds us that the United
States had an Axis of Evil one century ago as well, where one was
either an American or an official villain. In trying to conquer the
Filipino rebels, the U.S. military resorted to a policy that abandoned
"amigo warfare" for an approach that was eerily similar to Bush's
"shock and awe." "Henceforth," announced General Franklin Bell, in
dealing with incorrigible Filipinoes, "no one will be permitted to be
neutral.... The towns of Tiaong, Dolores, and Candelaria will probably
be destroyed unless the insurgents who take refuge in them are
destroyed."
Colonel Cornelius Gardener, the first governor of Tayabas, recalled the
irony of the violence. The United States was supposed to be the
emancipator, but instead it simply lorded over a people for whom it
had little regard. In speaking of the U.S. troops and their actions,
Gardener lamented, "Of course the best houses in every town were
occupied by them and every hidden place ransacked in hope of the
booty of Eastern lands, so often read of in novels."
Mark Twain, the celebrated author and humorist, was never deluded
by the patriotic fervor. In his essay "To the Person Sitting in the
Darkness," he refers to the deception and perfidy of the American
cause:
We knew they supposed we were also fighting
in their worthy cause--just as we had
helped the Cubans fight for Cuban independence--and
we allowed them to go on thinking
so. Until Manila was ours and we could
get along without them.
In the process, thousands of Filipino people were killed and
dispossessed. It was all trumpeted as a crusade to emancipate. In
reality, it was the absorption of one country by another that was more
powerful--replete with domination, occupation, and propaganda.
April 27, 2003, presented the world with some of the first rumblings of
what occupation is like in Iraq and how uneasy the relationship is
between colonizer and colonized. After an acrimonious demonstration
against U.S. presence in the area, sixteen Iraqi citizens were gunned
down by U.S. soldiers, and seventy-five more were injured. According
to the Detroit Free Press, Dr. Ahmed Ghanim al-Ali, director of the
Fallujah General Hospital, reported that three of the thirteen dead
were boys no older than ten. And he added later that his "medical
crews were shot at when they went to retrieve the injured, which he
said numbered 75 people."
May 1, 2003, brought more of the same. The Detroit Free Press
reported that U.S. soldiers fired on anti-American demonstrators
massed outside a U.S. compound--killing two and wounding eighteen-when unidentified attackers lobbed two grenades into the compound.
Such escalating violence--the daily ritual of challenging U.S. presence
on Iraqi soil--is emblematic of the imperialist's struggle. With citizens
ardently opposed to a cultural interloper, and with the taste of real
freedom resonating through their systems, they have little patience for
the invading force.
And so the real conflict begins. With former Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein--the designated villain--removed from power, Bush is
continually forced to dance around the prickly issue of imperialism.
Much like the situation in the Philippines, the Iraqi situation is no
longer about amigo warfare but the subjugation of an intractable
people--people who refuse to let the United States absorb their culture
and appropriate their resources. Indeed, if Iraqi autonomy were the
goal, wouldn't it be good for the United States to abdicate power to a
United Nations team, so that questions about the surreptitious
interests of the United States wouldn't be raised? If democracy and
self-government were the endeavor, wouldn't it be wise to step to the
side and permit Iraqis--in conjunction with an international team--to
construct a democracy from the rubble of another U.S. attack?
In late June the United Nations called for the establishment of a
representative Iraqi interim authority to help in rebuilding the country
that was ravaged by U.S. bombs. "A fundamental precursor to any
process is the establishment of a representative Iraqi interim
administration to lead the reconstruction process," said Ramiro Lopez
da Silva, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq in speaking to the
Associated Press. To this end, an inaugural meeting of the Iraqi
governing council met for the first time on July 13 in order to delegate
more responsibility to Iraqi officials over local municipalities.
Such questions were made more provocative by the enduring and
rather shadowy place of oil companies in Iraq. Curiously, the nation
with only "altruistic designs" gave contracts to oil companies six
months before the war even started. Even more unsettling, Haliburton,
the oil company once directed by Dick Cheney, was chosen to develop
this energy, which will generate incredible profits. Again, imperialism
suggests that one nation exploit a less powerful nation for its human
and natural resources, perceiving its people as inferior and unable to
govern itself. The dominating nation sees its role as paternalistic, as
charitable to a population incapable of self-rule. It exploits its superior
status to take what it wants under the presumption that it is doing the
victim nation a favor.
"The Bush administration is marinated in oil," argued consumer
advocate Ralph Nader while speaking on a February 26, 2003, National
Public Radio program.
Forty-one of the top administration officials
were on boards of directors, including
Condoleezza Rice, of course Cheney was
head of Haliburton, George Bush came out
of Harken Energy. There are enormous ties.
Added Arianna Huffington in a revealing March 19 essay entitled
"Corporate America Divvies Up the Post-Saddam Spoils":
The Bush Administration is currently in the
process of doling out over $1.5 billion in government
contracts to American companies
lining up to cash in on the rebuilding of postwar
Iraq. So bombs away. The more the better--at
least for the lucky few in the
rebuilding business.
Imperialism is founded in media distortion and national fear. Because
the aggression is clearly unjustified, the imperialist must weave a
fabric of accusations, persuading its citizens that attacking and
subjugating the victim nation is in their self-interest. In 2003 this was
accomplished with the assistance of the events of September 11,
2001. With many U.S. citizens reeling from the unforgettable carnage,
the soil was fertile for action--action that would make easy scapegoats
of any country the president already wanted to attack. From that point
it was easy. The goal of the Bush team--which had long eyed the
untapped oil fields of Iraq--was to make a case for terrorism. With
Osama bin Laden seemingly on an extended vacation, why not pursue
the world's second largest oil fields? Within weeks after the 9/11
terrorist attacks, the White House was whipping up fear and blending
it with hatred--all in hopes of justifying aggression against oil-rich
Iraq. Nobody liked Hussein anyway, and his use as a puppet of the
United States had long since passed. The temptation was just too
great, and the frenzy of fear was an irresistible tonic for violence.
And so the political machine went into action. While no credible
evidence linked Hussein to 9/11, the administration fomented a string
of provocative allegations, sending Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell around the country with
dire predictions for U.S. safety. By fall 2002, the Pew Research Center
reported that two-thirds of the U.S. citizenry believed that Hussein
"helped the terrorists in the September 11 attacks." Fascinatingly, this
was despite the fact that, according to Norman Solomon in his book
Target Iraq, there was unanimous agreement among U.S. spy
agencies that "evidence linking Baghdad with the September 11
attacks, or any attacks against Western targets since 1993, is simply
non-existent." Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk was laconic in
adding, "Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 11 September. If the
United States attacks Iraq, we should remember that."
In the Philippines and the larger war with Spain, the propaganda war
was also predicated upon lust for expansion and driven by a compliant
media. Indeed, journalist William Randolph Hearst clearly wanted war
and used his New York Journal to generate turbulence whenever he
could. As in Iraq, war was simply good business. As Howard Zinn's A
People's History of the United States reveals, Roosevelt wrote to a
friend in 1897, "In strict confidence, I should welcome almost any war,
for I think this country needs one." On the eve of the Spanish
American War, the Washington Post wrote:
A new consciousness seems to have come
upon us--the consciousness of strength--and
with it a new appetite, the yearning to
show our strength.... Ambition, interest,
land hunger, pride, the mere joy of fighting,
whatever it may be, we are animated by a new
sensation. We are face to face with a strange
destiny. The taste of the Empire is in the
mouth of the people even as the taste of
blood in the jungle.
Today, many only know of a Spanish-American war in which the
Philippines was extricated from imperialistic Spain. We hear quixotic
tales about rough riders and intrepid marches. Few schools in either
the Philippines or the United States discuss the disquieting details of
how U.S. troops blazed a trail of destruction, killing women and
children and labeling the casualties uncivilized niggers. Zinn recounts
that a volunteer soldier from the state of Washington wrote, "our
fighting blood was up, and we all wanted to kill niggers ... This
shooting human beings beats rabbit hunting all to pieces."
What do the words of imperialism sound like? Consider the excerpts
from Senator Albert Beveridge in January 1900. In recalling the
carnage of Filipinos and the laments from some that the war was
rapacious and cruel, Beveridge reveals the hubris of a people who are
inebriated on nationalistic fervor-a people who believe, like Bush, that
Americanization is synonymous with civilization:
My own belief is that there are not 100 men
among them who comprehend what Anglo-Saxon
self-government even means, and
there are over 5,000,000 people to be governed.
It has been charged that our conduct
of the war has been cruel. Senators, it has
been the reverse.... Senators must remember
that we are not dealing with Americans
or Europeans. We are dealing with Orientals.
In Iraq the mantra has been along the same racist and Eurocentric
lines and has included talk of the inherently violent character of
Islamic people. As Bush supposedly tries to placate critics and assure
citizens of his altruistic mission, others wonder about his ties to
conservative Christians who have spoken in monolithic terms about
Islam. The Reverend Billy Graham's son Franklin is infamous for his
depiction of Islam as intrinsically evil. The man who offered prayers at
Bush's inauguration was quoted in the December 12, 2001, issue of
Christian Century depicting Islam as "wicked, violent, and not of the
same God." He continued, "It wasn't Methodists flying into those
buildings, and it wasn't Lutherans."
And of course, conservatives have been unabashed in their agenda to
develop the oil fields that make Iraq a treasured conquest. In 1899,
the United States sought the coal, sugar, coffee, hemp, and tobacco of
the Philippines. Earlier it had opened the natural resources of Cuba
and annexed Guam as a base for meddling in the affairs of Japan. Why
not plunder the nation you are civilizing? Iraq has oil--lots of it. What
better solution for a nation that drives gas-guzzling SUVs and thrives
under the assumption that it has a celestial mission to bring capitalism
and increased opportunity so as to benefit its corporate friends.
In the end, imperialism has a very distinctive look: it is arrayed in
corporate money, driven by jingoism, and sprinkled with whiffs of
patriotism and egocentricism. It looks the same today as it did a
century ago--and smells just as bad.
Gregory Shafer is an assistant professor of English at Mott College in
Flint, Michigan.
COPYRIGHT 2003 American Humanist Association
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Question:
One of the most overlooked aspects of Frida Kahlo’s life in film, Frida, is her
communism, in particular, her fascination with Stalinism. As Stephanie Mencimer
states in her article about Kahlo, Kahlo was a “devout Stalinist” (Mencimer, 1). Kahlo
never deviated from this fascination despite the fact that Stalin was a well-‐known
mass murderer responsible for the deaths of millions. Kahlo featured the Soviet
ruler in one of her last paintings, wrote poems about him, and practically
worshipped him as evidenced by many references to him in her journal (Mencimer,
2). In the film, none of this is referenced and Stalin is only mentioned once by
Trotsky when he calls Stalin a “bureaucrat”. Although Kahlo does not respond to the
comment, she also does not seem to disagree with Trotsky’s assessment of Stalin.
This depiction paints a picture of Frida Kahlo that is either incomplete or not
entirely truthful.
The one that takes a stand based on his politics in the film is actually her
husband, Diego Rivera, who paints Vladimir Lenin on one of his murals at the
Rockefeller Center in New York. Nelson Rockefeller asks him to remove Lenin and
Rivera refuses, unwilling to compromise his beliefs. But, we never see Frida make a
political stand like this in the movie. Instead the film showcases her independence
and self-‐determination to become a revered painter, while rendering her leftist
political views as a footnote.
Do you view the film as an act of historical revisionism meant to show Kahlo
in the most positive light while completely ignoring essential facts about Kahlo and
Mexico during her time? Is this simply a biopic love letter to Frida Kahlo rather than
an accurate and well-‐balanced representation of who she was and what she
believed? If so, why do you believe that Frida Kahlo’s story is told in this fashion?
Response:
I completely agree with your assessment. The director's and the filmmakers had a
specific agenda and message that they wanted to communicate about Kahlo, and this
agenda and message did not necessarily fit with the reality of the person that they
were portraying. As a result, the film focuses on Kahlo’s struggles, self-‐
determination and successes without exploring her political views sufficiently.
It should be noted however, that much of the crimes of Stalin was obscured by a vast
network of censorship and terror within the boundaries of the Soviet Union, and
was rationalized by propagandaists like Walter Duranty (Stalin’s Apologist by S.J.
Taylor). Many of the intellectuals of the time were caught up in the idealism of
communist ideology. Mostly secular humanists who desired social justice, they
believed that communism was the key to solving all of the problems of the world.
They thought it would end oppression, inequality, and even human self interest and
greed! Stalin's Soviet Union was the only functioning communist nation at the time,
and the majority of foreign communists (like Rivera and Kahlo) looked at his
country with a pseudo-‐religious devotion, as a perfect model for civilization.
The film accepts Frida was communist, but ignores her Stalinism. Instead it
promotes the idea (through the characters of Trotsky and Rivera) that Stalinism was
fundamentally different than Communism (at least the Soviet version). This position
is supported by many contemporary Communists (they still do exist), and could be
an attempt by the filmmakers to make Frida's beliefs more palatable to audiences.
To be fair to Rivera and Kahlo, they did not always support Stalin. In the "About
Frida Kahlo's Art" reading, both she and her husband actually left the Mexican
Communist Party in 1929 due to its Stalinist support. Their views changed later on,
she rejoined the party, and even attempted to create a self portrait of herself
alongside Stalin prior to her death. Nevertheless, their early rejection of Stalin
shows that they were not rigid ideologues like many other communists, and might
not necessarily support it if conflicted with their personal values.
None of this removes the moral culpability of supporting Stalin, but it does put it in a
less black and white context.
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