Answer to Question #167243 in History for Omar Ibrahim

Question

What is contradictory of the suggestion that the white race had a Devine obligation to bring “civilization”, culture & capitalism to native communities, globally?

Answer 1

The Western nations vindicated their colonization on foreign indigenous societies as a sacred obligation to spread their form of civilization, culture and capitalism to the rest of the world. This opinion is contradictory because the Whites were actually using their perceived superiority in race, culture and civilization to promote and conduct exploitative and destructive policies that became part of the colonization process. Prejudiced beliefs made the European colonizers trust that they had the moral obligation and rights to make decisions and have control of land and natural resources belonging to the “uncivilized.” Their superiority complex made them consider indigenous governments, laws, cultures, beliefs and economic setups illegitimate. Christianization in these native communities was largely through imposition by destroying local cultures and religions rather than friendly evangelism. The European colonial powers’ way of spreading civilization and capitalism to pre-capitalist societies globally was through economic and labor exploitation for private profit, enacted through looting, terrorism, expropriation, annexation and continued subjugation. The development of global capitalism was a means of the Whites to accumulate and concentrate the capital and economic structures of foreign territories and transfer it to White societies. This capitalist world system would also keep native communities at the bottom, where they would provide free or cheap labor. The Whites fulfilled their parasitic capitalist needs through colonialism, terrorism, racial slavery and genocide at the cost of humanity.