Trump’s praise of British colonialism revives the ghosts of the Raj

During Britain’s King Charles III's state visit to the US from April 27th to the 30th, great bonhomie and mutual admiration were on display. Both King Charles and US President Donald Trump focused on the ‘qualities’ of the two peoples and their enduring special relations. Behind this cheer, both leaders gave out unmistakably sombre messages.

Trump emphatically and Charles subtly conveyed their belief in the primacy of the Anglo-Saxons. This was aimed at all peoples, including Caucasians. There can be no other interpretation of his reference to AUKUS (Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States) and the nuclear submarine project. It will be recalled that Australia had broken its submarine contract with France to enter into this arrangement. The message was clear: when push came to shove, the Anglo-Saxon countries only relied on themselves and no other state.

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Specifically to those who had suffered the ravages of British colonialism, Trump pointed to the debt that they owed the colonial master and exploiter for the “legacy of law, liberty and British custom”. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have articulated views, since the beginning of this year, which can only be interpreted as thinly covered justifications of colonialism. The premise of their opinions is that the expansion of European power to other lands was a positive development for all peoples. It brought advancement and the benefits of civilisation. These are deeply offensive views and contain the essential justification that the colonising powers used to justify the subjugation of peoples in different parts of the world. Before proceeding further, a look at what Trump and Rubio said.

Trump said at a banquet he hosted for Charles on April 28, “Today, most of Britain's former colonies have no idea what they truly owe to this towering legacy of law, liberty and British custom that they were given. We were given that, and it was a great, great gift." During the same address, he also said, "The British Empire that began here in America certainly did not end here. The sons and daughters of the British Isles went on to found more countries and spread more civilisation than any nation before. They built an English-speaking world upon which the sun never sets and provided an example to which free people will always turn. It always turned. They have such love and such respect."

Trump’s key thought is that Britain spread “more civilisation than any nation before”. It is this thought – that the British and Europeans gave the benefits of civilisation to ‘lesser breeds without the law' – which was the foundation of the entire edifice of colonialism. Indeed, instead of viewing colonialism as an exploitative and dehumanising system which was advantageous to the colonial powers, Trump flipped the argument. Europe saw colonialism as a ‘White Man’s Burden’, the onerous pursuit of charity. It is this thinking that was stated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio during his address to the Munich Security Conference in February this year.

Rubio extolled the virtues of their common Western civilisation. On commonality he said, “We are part of one civilisation – Western civilisation. We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilisation to which we have fallen heir."

On Western civilisation Rubio stated, "A great civilisation that has every reason to be proud of its history, confident of its future, and aims to always be the master of its own economic and political destiny." And, on Europe’s contribution to civilisation, Rubio claimed, “It was here in Europe where the ideas that planted the seeds of liberty that changed the world were born," further stating that it was in Europe that the world got “the rule of law, the universities, and the scientific revolution.”

There is no doubt that Europe made remarkable progress beginning with the 18th century. This was the period of the Enlightenment which gave the world ideas of the equality of human beings and of responsible government. It was also the period when the scientific revolution began. That enabled Western countries to harness the power of steam and make advances in weapons technology. Together these contributed to Europe’s expansion into Asia, Africa and other parts of the world. This development was for power and economic and financial gain. And, in time, it led to the establishment of the colonial system, which continued till the 1950s and 1960s.

It would be profoundly wrong to consider the colonial system to be altruistic. It was anything but that. It gave no gifts. Indeed, it was designed to unashamedly drain away the wealth of the colonies to the colonising country. Besides, the idea that Europe was on a civilising mission in the conquered country is deeply flawed. It presumes that the conquered countries were barbaric, though that is what the colonial powers propagated. That enabled them to consider the conquered peoples sub-humans who could be denied all human rights. It also led to massacres and genocides and wiping out civilisations, as in North America and Australia, where indigenous civilisations were removed root and branch.

Significantly, it was not colonialism which led to the renewal of colonial societies but the response to it. The innate strength of indigenous cultures and civilisations asserted itself and brought about renewal and, in some cases, as in India, a renaissance. Taking pride from the ancient springs of Indian civilisation, determined to remove the social ills that were present and open to fresh ideas, the leaders of the Indian renaissance accomplished what can only be called a revolution. The process of the comprehensive transformation of India – a work still in progress – was not because of any gift from the erstwhile colonial state but the result of the vision, work and sacrifice of countless Indians. Independent India led the process of global decolonisation.

There is one other aspect to this issue. On May 3 Trump posted on Truth Social that it was unlikely that Iran’s proposal for the war’s end would be acceptable. He gave this reason “they have not yet paid a big enough price for what they have done to Humanity, and the World, over the last 47 years”. Whatever may be any person’s thinking on Iran’s policies since the establishment of the Iranian Islamic Republic in 1979 one fact is incontrovertible. There can be no comparison between the harm Iran may have done to the damage of the colonial system to the Global South. It is ironic that Trump is now praising colonialism.

(The writer is a former Indian diplomat who served as India’s Ambassador to Afghanistan and Myanmar, and as secretary, the Ministry of External Affairs. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)