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Essays, Opinion, & Commentary |
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Something to Think About
by Gordon Francis Corbett
It is time to say the old words. It is time to utter the old phrases. It is time to think about "colonies," and "empire," and even, "Take up the white man's burden." Imagine that in 1901, a ship stuffed with nitrocellulose had been steamed into San Francisco Harbor and exploded. Such a detonation would have scoured many of that city's storied hills, and would have killed thousands of its people. Our great-grandparents could immediately have rattled off a list of suspects. One of the most plausible would have been the Moros, whose Philippine Islands we had just wrested from the Spaniards. William McKinley had urged us to build an American empire, which goal Theodore Roosevelt endorsed. After having endured Spain for centuries, the Moros did not welcome us. Given the ship and the guncotton, they might have liked the idea of using them to deliver an eviction notice. Many of our American predecessors would have reacted then much as we did on 11 September, but with a difference. After the shock wore off, and after they learned who had destroyed San Francisco, they would have erupted not only with anger, but with condescension as well. They would have condemned the attack as something to be expected "from trash like those Moros." This reaction would have stemmed from their belief that one of the supposed purposes of imperialism is to civilize uncivilized people. Their anger and condescension would have resulted partly from the realization that the proposed "civilizees," being uncivilized, had somewhat ungraciously rejected our attempt to enlighten them: "What ingrates!"
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Something to Think About Index |
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