Kipling's "White Man’s Burden" and Philippines Colonization

Decolonizing the North

The White Man’s Burden became popular because of the chaos between the north vs. the south. From the past 500 years of history, everytime that there will be a colonization established between them, people always assume the notion of superiority. Superiority means that people want to civilize the third world country to show their power to others.

What is colonization?

Colonialism is a practice of domination, which subdues one people to another. It is hard to define colonialism in a practical way because it is somehow related to imperialism. Like Colonialism, imperialism also involves political and economic power on dependent territories. Colonization is not just capturing the territory but also for domination and hierarchy. The poem White Man’s Burden tells us that colonization is a good endeavor for the white man’s country. Rudyard Kipling says that “Take up the White Man’s burden” and “To serve your captives need” shows that the United States should help the Philippines by giving their “need”. In addition, the “Have done with childish days” means that the United States must civilize the Philippines. If you will analyze the poem deeper, it is not only about the colonization of the Philippines by the white men. The poem also shows us that not only the slave but also the oppressed and the oppressor were suffering in this era. As Gandhi says “The oppressor are not free from this false idea”. He clearly formulated individuality of freedom, not only in the sense that the oppressed of the world are one but also in the wider sense that the oppressor too was caught in the notion of oppression. By this kind of idea, decolonization becomes essential in the north because the progress of wealth simultaneously creates poverty, knowledge creates ignorance and freedom creates un-freedom.

Ethical decolonization

Most non-western cultures based their idea of democracy in their life. With this idea, the nature was treated as sacred, and the human evolution was measured with the capacity of the human to interact and create harmony. As such, the idea of human beings are not part of the democracy of nature’s life was a mistaken belief.

Economic colonization: The growth of affluence, the growth of poverty

The main problem here is the growth of capitalism and the capitalists. The only growth they are focusing on is the growth of capital. Growth of affluence and poverty both made a destruction in our society. The two created externalities in the environmental destruction and poverty creation, they are linked to each other. Human get their labor from our nature. The source of their wealth is the destruction of nature. There is a transformation when there is a motive of profit, it is either a good or bad transformation in our nature but the idea of transforming something into a resource always have a negative outcome for me because people will abuse something no matter what happens.