Foremost, about the losses that the Westerners caused in countries with which they came into contact, imperialism revolved around perceptions of white supremacy. The possession of white skin became the ticket one needed to guarantee his or her place among the civilized nations while that of any other shade belonged to a lower class. Surprisingly, while signs of the given perceptions were present even when the Portuguese used religion as a cause for exploration and domination of the world in the seventeenth century, it was not until the mid-nineteenth century that the West found conclusive proof. In 1859, Charles Darwin’s publication dubbed On the Origin of Species revolutionized human relations along the lines of “Natural Selection” and the “Struggle for Existence” (p.638). According to the theorist, the environment was not only capable of “rejecting that which is bad” but also “preserving and adding up all that is good” (Darwin, On the Origin of Species, p.639). Darwin’s theory encompassed plant and animal subjects, but his Caucasian readers saw more of his work than a mere attempt to explain biological processes. With a particular interest in this analysis’s thesis, Pollard et al. explain that pro-imperialism forces used Darwin’s findings to mean that “it was natural for the strong nations to dominate the weak” (p.619). Thus, among societies and nations, the uncultured or backward populations became the “bad” while the civilized numbers qualified as “good.” Suddenly, science could explain the prosperity of the West: far from being immoral, it was natural to have the Europeans invade territories and exploit the lands and the people.
With the given facts in mind, it is now safe to look at some of the positive effects of westernization. From a personal view, the disruption of the social, political, and economic spheres of countries such as those in Asia did not necessarily mean that every person lost autonomy or some authority. In contrast, the arrival of the Westerners merely affected those who were in positions of power; after all, the oppressed would have remained so regardless of who held the reigns in their community. In the given case, women are an ideal example, and even the European authorities were aware of the reality that their presence “improved women’s status” (Pollard et al., p.659). Qiu Jin agreed in her writing on the Injustices to Chinese Women in early nineteenth century. From childbirth, the life of a Chinese female was uncertain because their families either killed or treated them with “coldness and disdain” because they were to become “someone else’s property,” presumably in marriage (Jin, Injustices to Chinese Women, p.677). Meanwhile, in what appeared to be a twisted view of beauty, the Chinese society coveted tiny feet and advocated for older girls to have their feet bound tightly that “flesh [became] rotten and the bones [were] broken” (Jin, Injustices to Chinese Women, p.677). The problem with the given tradition stems from the fact that the men did not have to endure such treatment and they were more valuable than their female counterparts were in China. Since the Europeans considered such practices barbaric it is no wonder that Qiu Jin’s advice to her readers carries the traits of Westernization: she instructed them to “open schools, build factories, and contribute to charitable organizations” (Injustices to Chinese Women, p.677). Unmistakably, the woman saw the industrialized world of the West as the escape route for her gender, and that alone gives evidence to the premise of westernization as the stepping-stone towards the redemption of those who faced oppression before the arrival of the whites.
At this point, one tricky component of westernization becomes apparent: the phenomenon was not uniform across the globe. The impact of the West on countries in Africa and Asia differed based on the interests that the Europeans and the Americans had on each nation. That is why the story of the Caucasians in the African Continent carries themes of oppression and brutality while in China some members of the society readily embraced the new culture. Furthermore, and as one would expect, unlike in China the slave trade played a significant role in the relationship between Africans and the newcomers. Thomas Phillips’s 1694 description of Buying Slaves at Whydah portrays African men and women as retail goods for which the owners do not care. That applies in particular when he cautions white merchants that African slave traders desire cowries so much that they would delay the sale of the human chattels even when “those [the whites] have on board are dying while [they] are buying others ashore” (Philips, Buying Slaves at Whydah, p.491). Instead of urging his readers to ensure that slaves traveled under right conditions or to hasten each sale to avoid the deaths of their captives, Philips focuses on how best the European traders could get cowries from the King (Philips, Buying Slaves at Whydah, p.491). Such was the disregard with which Europeans handled Africans, and the same attitude paved the way for the mistreatment of the natives in Africa and abroad. Asia was not the home of the enslaved masses in the West; thus, its response to Westernization had to be different.
In conclusion, the cultural imperialism efforts by Western countries during the nineteenth and twentieth century rid nations of their autonomy and eradicated traditions. However, while the lack of free will was enough to call for decolonization, it also benefited some members of the impacted communities with women forming the largest faction. Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species encouraged the Western nations to pursue their interests on the grounds of superiority and Qiu Jin’s Injustices to Chinese Women shows that women had much to benefit from the same. After all, and as mentioned above, westernization had little to no chance of affecting the oppressed because they were already familiar with their lack of freedom. The people in power had more to lose as the authority shifted from them to the foreigners. Similarly, historical relations were at play even in the target period; as a result, westernization took place within the boundaries of a pre-existing blueprint. The little value that Thomas Philips associates with his Buying Slaves at Whydah echoed through the centuries to influence the Europeans to partition Africa and misuse her people. In the end, the westernization of Africa and that of Asia differed enough to highlight some positive effects in the latter than in the former.
Works Cited
Burlingham, Kate. “European Imperialism.” YouTube, 25 Feb 2015,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_2iKmkAB9A
—. “Nationalism and Japan.” YouTube, 4 Mar 2015,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbwyveX_iLM
Darwin, Charles. "On the Origin of Species (1859)." Pollard, Elizabeth, Clifford Rosenberg and Robert Tignor. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart. W. W. Norton & Company, 2015, pp. 638-639.
Jin, Qiu. "Injustices to Chinese Women (early twentieth century)." Pollard, Elizabeth, Clifford Rosenberg and Robert Tignor. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart. W. W. Norton & Company, 2015, pp. 677.
Phillips, Thomas. "Buying Slaves at Whydah (1694)." Pollard, Elizabeth, Clifford Rosenberg and Robert Tignor. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart. W. W. Norton & Company, 2015, pp. 491.
Pollard, Elizabeth, Clifford Rosenberg and Robert Tignor. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart. Concise Edition. Vol. II. W. W. Norton & Company, 2015.
