On The Presumed Right of Nations to Uplift and Civilize
Darwin theorized that species evolved, mutated to become an improved version of themselves. The finches that he studied are a famous example of this. From Darwinism came a social, humanity-centric idea that had brewed for years, but could suddenly use science as some sort of basis, twisting the evidence to fit one very specific premise: that some people, some cultures, are simply more evolved and, by extension, more apt to survive. Like a tree growing particularly vicious, invasive branches, this idea spread and, in a startling example of self-reflection, underwent periods of metamorphosis as it grew, changing along its many limbs. Similar ideals grew alongside and from it, some young and some old. It became the white man’s duty, his burden, to civilize the natives, the savages, the uncultured peoples. White men, after all, had technology, advancements distant tribes could only dream of. They had science, philosophy, the white man’s religion. It was in those times seen as the solemn responsibility of the Western world to uplift, to civilize their rogue, seemingly Neolithic counterparts. But as a world that has too changed from this state, the burden is now placed to question this idea. Did the white man have the right to “civilize,” other nations and their peoples? When one looks at America, at Britain, at France, at the great, sprawling, imperialist nations who often took on this responsibility to “uplift” the so-called savages, can it truly be concluded that these nations had the right to take such action? The answer, simply put, is no. This right is nonexistent, an intangible concept created to justify horrific actions to a public that, in spite of the evil that might be ascribed to them, did indeed have some sort of conscious. The idea of this right defies the actual rights and duties of nations, and by claiming that it comes from the genetic or social superiority of one race, one culture, one nation over another in a survival of the fittest justification denies the actuality of humanity. Moreover, the idea that this could be a right of nations forces an impossible to be put in place: to define what, in a manner of abstract and flexible concepts, is the true meaning of civilized. Even so, in attempting to reach these goals, the nations who made such efforts failed abruptly not the savages they thought they were helping, but themselves, and their own humanity.
What is the right of a nation? This is a crucial question, and efforts were made to answer it with the drafted Declaration on Rights and Duties of States. A text that the International Law Commission adopted in its first session in 1949, the draft specified in numerous articles what exactly the rights of the nations were, and, in extension, what the duties of the nations were. Nowhere in the draft did the authors of that document state any nation as being in possession of the right to uplift or to civilize the people of another nation. In fact, when one considers the document in tangent with reflection as to the actions taken by nations in history to civilize one another, a clear violation can be found of the ascribed duties. To expand, the interference named as a the civilizing of a nation was often (if not always) Imperialistic and, as one sees when one looks back upon the past, often borne with the ships of war. When America entered into war with Spain (a conflict which the Americans provoked for their own gains) and consequently seized Spain’s overseas empires, they did not leave the people to their own selves, but established the Platt Amendment, greatly diminishing the rights of the Cuban people to act for themselves, to govern themselves. It was America’s choice, when they could have taken grace, when they could have upheld the principles upon which they were founded, to instead restrict the Cuban government. The Amendment prohibited the Cuban government from entering into any international treaty that would, as the amendment stated it, compromise Cuban independence, and forced the Cuban people to acquiesce to the United States the right to intervene into Cuban affairs. It also urged the Cuban surrender of the Isle of Pines and interfered in Cuban economics and land control, with the Cubans agreeing to sell and lease territory to the United States for the American benefit. These actions are contrary to what would be later be defined as the rights of states, that every state has (as explained in Article One of the hitherto mentioned declaration) the “right to independence and… to exercise freely, without dictation by any other State, all its legal powers.” The Amendment also is in defiance of Article Two (“Every State has the right to exercise jurisdiction over its territory and over all persons and things therein”) and Article Three (“Every State has the duty to refrain from intervention in the internal or external affairs of any other state.”). More so, by having gone to war to achieve its political ends, the United States also stood in defiance of Article Nine, which establishes that it is the duty of States to refrain from resorting to war as “an instrument of national policy,” and to refrain from the “threat or use of force against… another state.” While it may be argued that these actions by the American government were before the establishment of these articles and the conception of the Draft Declaration on Rights and Duties of States by more than half a century, it must be understood that history has depth. These rights and duties may not have been written, but that does not mean that they were altogether inexistent. It can now be understood through the lens of these outlined duties that the United States had indeed no right to take the action as they so did choose. The American government did in fact overstep their rights as a nation and, when William McKinley declared that “there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them,” he was certainly cementing into history that no nation could ever have the right to “uplift and civilize,” another.
The rights of a nation may seem a vague concept to many, but the rights of a person under their nation are certainly more well known. What is a nation? Is it anything more, in its simplest form, than a culmination of people united under one banner and one government composed of the people (whether or not by the people), to protect the interests of those people and their rights? Rights which have been defined and redefined upon a specific set of principles? And, if a nation is no more than the collective of its people, it stands to reason that a nation’s rights too must be extended to include the rights of its people. Therefore, the actions included in the pursuit of civilizing named savages, however noble said named peoples were considered in the “sophisticated” world, may be viewed on a level as though the nations were no more than they were, persons. If a person, a sole entity, were to enter into the house of another human and claim it all for themselves, and force the removal of possessions they disagreed with, routines which were against their own values, they would be denounced, arrested, imprisoned. This is the sensible thing to do. This is what would befall such a person who would earn themselves the title of a criminal. Why then, would any nation be allowed to do the same? People, even in large numbers are still, at the heart of the thing, people. And people must not only be kept accountable for their actions, but must be reprimanded for overstepping their rights.
Though it is not in any way a recognized right of nations to force their ideal of civility upon another, some would connect the actions towards this as a right granted by strength. Some nations, it must be conceded, are stronger than others. Economic prowess and technological advancements have long allowed one nation to dominate another. It has been the way of civilization since humans gathered in such collectives. Alexander the Great lives yet in the human imagination, a famous name that cannot be forgotten, for he conquered so much of the then known world and created perhaps one of the most broad-sweeping examples not only of imperialism but of cultural diffusion. Great Britain, Spain, France, America, all of these nations once built sweeping empires simply because they could. Certainly, there were benefits to be gained for the nations who grew their own might, but at its heart, it was done because it could be done. Veni, vidi, vici, proclaimed the nations, proclaimed their heads of state as though they were Caesar, as though they were Rome. Some would say that they had this right because they had this ability – that it is the nature of the strong to survive. But humans have gone past what nature once allowed. Humanity builds towering skyscrapers and touches the clouds, flies without wings and swims without fins. Humans are evolving without the need for genetic adaptations, though those still come. The definition of strength is continuously changing – once, it might have been the physicality of a person, now perhaps the connections fostered, the network and the economic value of a person. And humans have cared often for their weak. Compassion exists within humans. Survival of the fittest is a voided argument in many senses simply because humans have redefined what it is to be fittest to survive, because humans have snubbed death and stared disaster in the face. Humanity discovered fire, electricity, formed the wheel. Humans do not destroy their weak, but develop medicines and equipment to help them to reach their full potential. There can be no right for one culture to overcome another, for one nation to act in the action of “uplifting and civilizing” another with a justification in strength because this is simply not how humanity functions. Only the strong survive has been rewritten.
What is civility? What does it mean to civilize someone, to uplift them? A quick internet search in this modern era will provide you a dictionary version of the verb civilize. It means to bring a place or a people to a stage “of social, cultural, and moral development considered to be more advanced.” Such synonyms include enlighten, edify, improve. Humanize. What a strange thing, to say that we might improve another person, or that we might humanize them. Improve them from what? Who is to say what is improved? Whose right is it to say what is and is not civil? Who makes that decision? A secondary internet search reveals that civilized is considered an antonym to savage. Savage, you will find, often was used to describe people who were considered uncultured. People who did not have access to modern amenities, who did not speak the white person’s language, did not know the Christian god. Yet this is not the only use for the word. Savage can also mean brutal, cruel, vicious. Violent. Can one person then civilize another if they are violent with them? If they cause death among the people who they have promised to benefit? How could that even be possible, to uplift a person amongst death and darkness? Amongst bloodshed? It cannot. And yet this is how the thing is done. When the United States government took control of the former Spanish empire, they were met eventually with opposition. Opposition that would become the Philippine Resistance, and which would claim some twenty thousand Filipino lives. This was done all with the meaning of uplifting the Filipino people. You cannot uplift a person when you are murdering them, no more so than you may uplift them when you are denying their rights. In a letter Emilio Aguinaldo, the leader of the Philippine Resistance, would speak of how his people were treated by the American government. He spoke of how “the guns of the United States,” were turned upon those who were protesting the American treatment of the Filipinos. He said that the American imperialism imitated the “despotic cruelty,” of the Spanish government, in some senses even surpassing the Spaniards denial of liberty to the Filipino people. Yet America had said that they were uplifting these nations. Many would argue that this is a matter of perspective. But that cannot be the argument for everything which history provides. Right and wrong do exist in the world, and no matter what the perspectives of the time were, it cannot be simply said that this is a matter of what side a person is on. Leave perspective to the philosophers, this is a matter of fact. The fact is that the effort to civilize nations is done through violence and through the denial of rights, and so it is not the creation of civility or the lifting of a person, but in fact a violently forced mimicry of cultures. Civil nations do not condone death and bloodshed, and you cannot civilize through uncivil means, though this is how human nations try. Therefore, there can be no argument that a nation may possess the right to uplift, to civilize, because it cannot be done. It is an impossible task based in an impossible quandary.
Humans are peculiar creatures. As a species widely considered to be the most evolved to exist upon the face of the planet Earth, there is a sense of arrogance that can exist alongside the emotions which are considered to be most humanizing – compassion, empathy, love. Perhaps this arrogance is what leads a culture to develop a sense of self that is above others. Perhaps this is why nations consider themselves more advanced to possess a different language, a different god, a differing set of ways. But humans, for all they have achieved, are still rudimentary creatures. They still refer to the fear which kept their primate ancestors safe from harm. In a modern world, fear can still have its uses. However, to fear what is different, that has no use. It is true that it is a base instinct and, when speaking in a matter of fearing one ideology over the other, it is based in a uniquely human want to understand the world which surrounds. Humans long for similarity because it is a confirmation bias, and when something exists to threaten that confirmation, often times the instinctual response is to be afraid, and to want to eliminate or to change what is different, what is considered by that human, by that culture, to be wrong. But it is not the right of one person to force their beliefs onto another, and so to may it not be the rights of nations to do the same. Humanity thrives with its differences. Those who live in cultures modern society might consider less civilized may still have much to teach. Their values, their beliefs, cannot be considered to be holistically demanding of change. The human action towards such change are in fact simply too brutal, too violent physically and culturally, and so it must be accepted that there is no right to civilize a nation, nor to attempt to uplift them. To assume such a guise of possessing this right is to put oneself above another, and such arrogance can only lead to violence and danger. When one nation points to the faults of another, and proclaims that something must be done, that nation must ask itself – are they asking for the right to uplift, or proclaiming their duty to help the oppressed? If it the former, then there is no right to be granted. That right does not exist. It is reserved for no person, no man nor woman, and no nation.