Empires and imperialism, they are a physical entity and an ideology which know nothing but violence. This much is obvious, from the Persians in the bronze age to the US in the nuclear age, empires and the ideology behind them need violence against the ‘barbarian’ to act as the grease on the wheel of territorial or fiscal domination. Everybody acknowledges this, there is little to no debate on this topic, the debate comes into play however when one begins to ask if the violence of the empire starts abroad and finds its way home, or if it is in fact vice-versa.
It is my view that far from an unknown violence practised abroad coming home, it is, in fact, the other way around, that the violence is first tested at home, simply expanded and improved upon abroad and brought back home with a vengeance.
Take the British Empire for example; After William, the Conqueror defeated Harold and claimed the throne a brutal subjugation of the locals and nobles took place. It took him at least a decade of constant warfare with the local nobles to finally cement his place on the throne. The violence he used to cement his place on the English throne was then turned towards the Irish in what became and remains one of the longest and most brutal periods of colonisation (note that the UK consist of the colonies of Northern Ireland).
The sharpening of the teeth in Ireland was extended across both the Atlantic (in Africa and the Americas) in the Pacific and Oceania (the Indian Subcontinent, Australia, New Zealand and the countless Pacific islands). But the violence always remained at home, and with the same force. Slavery in the Americas had its bastard cousins, the servant, serf and peasant, in the English heartland who were being treated with a severity only marginally better than the slaves.
The violence meted out to the protesters at Morant Bay was of the same ferocity as the type meted out to the labour workers in the UK 30 years prior and 30 years later. The same can be seen in the former German Empire which was born out of the violent crushing of the worker protests in the 1840s. The same architects of that crushing, the same lawyers and judges who sentenced workers to extreme punishments, were the same ones who created the German Empire. They were the same ones in the German colonial endeavours in Africa where the natives were put down with an even greater and more refined ferocity.
The same men who led the colonial ventures in Africa and the Pacific were the same ones who in the end put down the rebellions in Germany post-1918 such as the suppression of the Spartacus rebellion, and in the end, they were the same men who acquiesced to the Nazis and actively participated in the extermination of some 8 million people.
Such a pattern can also be traced with today’s empire the USA. The near destruction of the Amerindian population, the chattel slavery, the indentured servitude are all horrors which were dealt upon the local population during the period of expansion even before the US had the strength to move abroad. The ferocity with which the American colonies cum nation slaughtered the natives was surpassed in their first foreign wars (Mexican-American war and the Spanish-American war). It should be noted that following both those wars, the officer corps were the same ones who violently suppressed both worker, suffragettes and race protests.
The timeline of history shows us that the violence of empires is first used within its direct borders to suppress dissent and then exported. Why then do persons within empires act surprised when the violence practised abroad comes home? The answer is simple as it is uncomfortable, the persons within the empire buy into the illusion that they are part owners of the empire. They feel a sense of pride in the imperial expansion abroad (which their children often take part in), and at times some of the imperial wealth accumulated at the top trickles down to the people so they feel like beneficiaries.
They then act shocked and even offended when the state returns their gaze upon citizens in the heartland. The people who live within the modern-day empire must understand that the violence it refines abroad it first tries at home and if the violence is to end then the imperial structure must be dismantled. The issue is not the empire bringing home generals who commit atrocities, it is that the empire routinely uses violence to suppress internal dissent and then those persons moving abroad. If the violence abroad and within the empire is to stop, if the citizens of those nations truly yearn for a peaceful existence then they must first deal with the violence within those countries and come to terms with the mentalities (imperialism) which breed these actions and say such actions are unacceptable and unnecessary.
Until that is done, until the imperial thought is abandoned and viewed with ridicule and scorn then the violence outside imperial borders and within them will only continue. Chase away and condemn imperialists for a more peaceful future or continue to live under their violent oppression and exploitation, those are the options facing those inside the belly of the empire.
jamaicachange 