Mystery solved?

There has been much outrage and bewilderment in the media these past few days about how on earth a Yemeni terrorist managed to sneak explosives through security, while flying on a one-way ticket without luggage, without a passport, and without a credit card, especially when the CIA had been warned repeatedly about this particular individual. How could all of our elaborate security apparatus fail so monumentally when crunch time came?

Of course, the most logical resolution to the mystery is the one that no one in the media will ever consider...maybe the security apparatus wanted to let him through....

After all, things have been a little too peaceful for too long, and complacent people don't make good imperialists.

Edit: To avoid confusion, I should point out what I thought was obvious--namely, that I am far from asserting this as the solution to the mystery...I only raise it as an intriguing, and probably unanswerable, question.

Imperial Bewilderment

This book is bizarre. It’s a sort of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde book. On the one hand, it’s extremely well-written, and tells a very complex historical narrative in a lucid and compelling manner, something that is quite difficult to do. It is also very honest and up-front about the greed, oppression, and exploitation upon which the British Empire was founded, and by which it was more often than not sustained. And yet...

...the introduction and conclusion feel like they were written for another book entirely. A book that was not honest about the greed, oppression, and exploitation of the British Empire, or perhaps a book by Dick Cheney.

After telling a tale that leaves you disgusted with the evils of the British Empire (even though, to be sure, there was much good and much repentance as well), and himself admitting that these things were evil and oppressive (and indeed, trying to construct a weak defense: “Well, didn’t we gain absolution by sacrificing our empire in fighting the Japanese and Germans?”....only problem is that Britain was not trying to sacrifice her empire in fighting them, she was hoping to hold on to it.), Ferguson concludes by telling us that the Empire was on the whole a good thing, and indeed, so much so, that we’d be screwed without it, and the US needs to imitate it. Hang on a minute...what??

I’ve tried to reconstruct the logic of the conclusion, and it just doesn’t work.
See, in order to prove that the Empire was on balance a good thing for the world, Ferguson would need to show either that the countries dominated by the Empire were better off with it than they would’ve been without it, or that, though they were worse off, the dominators gained so much at their expense that, by a sort of aggregate-happiness meaure, it was worth it. The latter is of course morally reprehensible, so Ferguson doesn’t attempt it. The former, however, is extremely difficult to show, because it relies on hypotheticals...do we really know how these nations would’ve been governed if the Empire had not taken them over? No. Then we do not know how well off they might have been without it. So Ferguson has set himself a hard task, and the only evidence he offers is a smattering of fairly selective economic statistics. These fail on three counts: 1) as just mentioned, they cannot in fact prove that what in fact happened was better than what would otherwise have happened, since we don’t know what that might have been, 2) they are selective enough that we cannot be persuaded that nearly all of the colonized countries profited, only some, and even if all did, we do not know if that was due to a few people getting really rich at the expense of everyone else, or not, 3) economic well-being is only one measure of well-being. Ferguson has such an annoyingly modern econidolatrous mind that he fails to even consider that demonstrating increased GDP does not ipso facto demonstrate a better world.

Now, even if Ferguson did demonstrate that the Empire was on balance a good thing for the world, that is no argument that it was a morally good thing, or something that should be repeated, unless you’re a utilitarian. After all, as Ferguson admits, some pretty rough stuff had to be done in order to bring about this better world of free trade and globalization. Oh, but maybe that was just because they were rough folks--we could do Empire better now, without all the brutality and oppression, right? Well, Ferguson is too smart to take that route. He admits that the better world order of globalization that we now have could not have come through peaceful means--it required the sword, it required the hard iron edge of empire.

But apparently Ferguson is a blatant utilitarian. Near the very end, he cites a speech by Tony Blair shortly after 9/11, talking about the need to bring security to a conflict-ridden world and spread freedom and democracy and all that rot. And then Ferguson very shrewdly points out that what Blair is really saying, in somewhat glossed-over language, is Victorian imperialist rhetoric: “we need to go in by force and replace bad governments with ones we like better so that we can open nations up to trade with our economies.” At this point I’m cheering Ferguson on, right? Yeah, Ferguson, way to read between the lines! Way to debunk all the fancy rhetoric! Way to show Blair and Bush for the imperialist jerks they really are!

But then Ferguson is like, “Yeah, Blair has the right idea. Only problem is that he’s naive about how much military muscle it will take to do all this, military muscle only the US has. And the problem with the US is that they’re too afraid to use it.”

Or, to quote him precisely, “The weak still need the strong, and the strong still need an orderly world, a world in which the efficient and well-governed export stability and liberty, and which is open for investment and growth. All of this sounds eminently desirable.” The US “lacks the drive to export its capital, its people, and its culture to those backward regions which need them most urgently, and which, if they are neglected, will breed the greatest threats to its security.”

So, according to Ferguson, bring on “Anglobalization” 2.0! I can only hope the American people do not warm to the imperial project as readily as their British predecessors did, and as readily as this Oxford don seems still to do.

Shock and Awe, Old School

One of the most helpful features of Niall Ferguson's narrative is how it gives one a new and clearer perspective on modern American imperial policies by seeing them through the lens of another empire's actions more than a century ago. Kinda like Nathan telling David the story of the rich man stealing the poor man's beloved sheep--you find yourself thinking, "Wow, that's horrible...oh wait...that's us."

For instance, Ferguson tells of how popular the Empire was in pop culture--in young adult fiction (e.g., G.A. Henty), in advertising, in newspapers and magazines--in particular, how much the public loved to read about smashing imperial victories over half-clad natives half a globe away. All of which, when you think about it, is rather pathetic...I mean, how could any self-respecting Brit feel a swelling sense of national pride and triumph by reading about British troops with machine guns obliterating hordes of Africans with spears who are trying to defend their homeland? How's there any glory in that? I mean, c'mon, pick on someone your own size.

Perhaps the most appalling example of this was the Battle of Omdurman, 1898.
Here Lord Kitchener's 25,000 British and Egyptian troops, with several batteries of Maxim machine guns, engaged a force of 52,000 Dervishes, armed with swords or primitive rifles. In a five-hour long massacre, Kitchener lost only 400 dead or wounded; the Dervishes suffered, by some reports, 95% casualties. The battle was considered a glorious triumph for British arms, a sensation in the press. And you ask yourself, "Why? Didn't they feel just a little bit awkward about fighting with such an unfair advantage?"

Until you remember the 2003 invasion of Iraq. How many Americans (including myself) were glued to the TV to watch with glee, triumph, and national pride as the largest air force in the world dropped thousands of tons of explosives on a country that had essentially zero air force, in a intentionally theatrical "Shock and Awe" campaign? Weren't we so proud of our good ol' boys for crushing a bunch of poorly armed foot soldiers in the desert? The memory made me feel a bit sick when I recalled it after listening to Ferguson's account of the Battle of Omdurman.

In fact, the parallels go much deeper. Omdurman was the culmination of an invasion that aimed to take care of unfinished business from 13 years before, when a British force sent to relieve George Gordon had never properly "revenged" his death, unseated the Arab dictator in power, or taken control of the country. Hence the national excitement after the victory. Sound familiar? (The 1st Gulf War began in 1990; the 2nd in 2003.)

A lot of valuable lessons to be learned here, though unfortunately Ferguson fails abysmally to draw them (a later post to come on this).

The Evil Empire

Niall Ferguson's Empire continues to baffle and dismay. It's almost as if he wrote his introduction before he set out to work on his book, and then never went back to revise it. Supposedly, his goal was to vindicate the British Empire against its harsher critics, to show that it was "on balance a good thing."

And yet the tale he has told has been one of almost unremitting greed, oppression, exploitation, deception, and murder. Perhaps "unremitting" is strong...after all, it obviously wasn't Genghis Khan's empire; it obviously exercised restraint and chivalry, but so do most bands of brigands, it turns out. As the story of British expansion in Africa dragged mournfully on, I found myself, at the outbreak of the Boer War, enthusiastically cheering on the Boers, and wishing them success against the evil empire. Of course, I knew it was vain, but I didn't know just how appalling the outcome was to be.

After a costly and difficult defeat of the vastly outnumberd Boer forces, the British occupied their capital of Bloemfontein, only to find that the Boers were not ready to surrender, but would continue fighting on in the countryside. The solution? Burn down all their homes and farms, and herd their wives and children into concentration camps, camps where nearly a third of them would die in the next two years. Meanwhile, the British officers dined and danced in Bloemfontein, waiting for the Boers to give up. Ferguson provides this nauseating vignette:

"Meanwhile, at the Bloemfontein residency, the band played on. Eventually, after several months of the Gay Gordons and Strip the Willow, the ballroom floor began to wear thin. To avoid any mishaps befalling officers' wives, the old floorboards obviously had to be replaced, and so they were. Happily for the accounts of the officers' mess, a use was found for the old ones. They were sold to Boer women to make coffins for their children, at the cost of 1 pound 6 shillings a plank."

By the end of this narrative, I found myself eagerly wishing the British to get their comeuppance in the First World War.

Apparently sensing that his reader may be feeling this way, Ferguson interrupts his narrative to defend the empire shortly before beginning his narration of World War I. The important thing, he insists, is that, for all its faults, the British Empire was considerably more benign than the other empires at this time--the French, Germans, and French were far more brutal in their treatment of their African colonies, and the Russians and Japanese had horrible track records in Asia. Indeed, it was by expending its strength in nobly and self-sacrificially resisting these much more evil empires, rather than by being rebelled against by angry subjects, that the British Empire collapsed. The first claim holds, I think, little water. I should scarcely justify my personal sins by pointing out that at least I am not quite as wicked as my neighbor next door. And I do not think that, as Christian, we can successfully argue (as Ferguson tries to do) that an evil and oppressive institution should be supported and and defended if it serves the important purpose of restraining even more evil and oppressive institutions. This seems to be the Neuhaus defense of the American Empire: Sure we may be wicked and exploitative, but if we weren't monopolizing the exploitation business, other, much more sinister people would be doing it instead. We can thank God in his providence for allowing the lesser rather than the greater evil to hold sway for a time, but we can scarcely join a marching band and start cheering on the lesser evil, or assist in a PR campaign trying to prove that it's not so bad, after all.

As far as the second claim--Britain's noble self-sacrifice in the struggle against the more evil empires--that may be so. Certainly, there was more self-interest than self-sacrifice in Britain's conduct of foreign policy from 1914-1950...the sacrifices were more necessary than voluntary. But perhaps it is so that Britain did, in some measure, atone for her previous imperial sins in these years by the staggering sacrifice she bore in the struggle against a considerably more amoral Germany (twice) and Japan. And for that, whatever our reservations about the justness of the wars, we may offer her some somber appreciation and respect.

Evangelical Imperialism

In listening to Niall Ferguson’s Empire (on audiobook) lately, I’ve encountered some rather depressing anecdotes about evangelicalism, which show that its recent complicity with injustice is nothing new.

Consider this: We all know about John Newton, right? Author of “Amazing Grace” and other hymns, great evangelical preacher, former slave trader who converted and became a leader of the anti-slavery movement. Great story, right? Well, except for one little detail. Newton’s evangelical conversion took place before he became the captain of a slave ship. It was only after several years as a slave trader that it occurred to him that his Christian duties might conflict with his occupation. Modern evangelical blindness on the Third World Debt problem seems to have plenty of historical precedent.

In another depressing episode, Ferguson tells the story of the great Sepoy Mutiny in India in 1857, which was largely a response to the missionary movement; the Indians felt that their religion was threatened, and so they rose in rebellion against the British. Now, I have no problem with the missionaries making the Indians feel threatened about their religion, but it is the response to the rebellion that is deeply troubling. The missionary societies and the evangelicals were the loudest voices calling for vengeance without mercy against the rebels. “In churches all over the country, the theme of the Sunday sermon shifted from redemption to revenge,” Ferguson says. He offers an extended quote from a sermon at the time by none other than Charles Spurgon, which he characterizes as a “call to holy war: “The Hindus’ worship necessitates all that is evil, and morality must put it down. The sword must be taken out of its sheath, to cut off our fellow subjects by their thousands.”

It was all chillingly reminiscent of the evangelical response to 9/11, in which the part of the US population that most fervently claimed to be washed by the blood of Jesus became the most bloodthirsty part.