which is the form of civilization in the story of colonization ?
Answers
Explanation:
On the reverse side of the Victory Medal, also known as the Inter-Allied Victory Medal, which was awarded to many of those who served in the First World War are inscribed the words: “THE GREAT WAR FOR CIVILISATION 1914-1919.1” Eighty years on from the “war to end all wars”, then United States President, George W. Bush, responded to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 by declaring a “war on terror” that is “civilization’s fight” or a “struggle for civilization”. When we consider the notion of the “burden of civilization” and all that has been done in its name, one has to ask: How did the idea of civilization -so often thought of in a positive light, particularly by its many European advocates, despite their often less-than-civilized methods in advancing civilization- come to be so closely associated, perhaps even synonymous for some, with conflict and conquest? Walter Benjamin poignantly illustrated this point when he noted that there “is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism”.
The concept of civilization occupies a particularly prominent and complicated place in the history of ideas. Its place in world history more generally is even more complicated, as alluded to above. The significance of the idea of civilization is captured by the French linguist, Émile Benveniste, when he declares it to be “one of the most important terms in our modern lexicon.” He further describes civilization as one of a small number of “essential words” or ideas intimately connected to the “whole history of modern thought and the principal intellectual achievements in the Western world”. Benveniste is essentially right in that civilization is a distinctly Western idea, but it must be noted that it has also had a significant impact in the non-Western world, particularly in relation to the notion of the burden or sacred trust of civilization.
This gives us a clue as to why civilization has something of a dark side, so to speak. John Maynard Keynes was on to something when he argued that the “ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood.” As he added, “soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil” Whether it is ideas associated with Marxism-Leninism, responsible for the deaths of untold millions in revolutions gone awry, or expansionist liberalism in the guise of colonialism, the consequences of ideas and the language that accompanies them reverberate well beyond the realm of abstract theory and the ivory tower -they can have a very real impact on actions and outcomes. As Heinrich Heine, the German writer and poet pithily observed: “The thought precedes the deed as the lightning the thunder”
A century-and-a-quarter later, Isaiah Berlin pointed out in his essay “Two Concepts of Liberty,” how Heine had warned the French in the early 1830s “not to underestimate the power of ideas: philosophical concepts nurtured in the stillness of a professor’s study could destroy a civilization”. Berlin might well have added that the idea of civilization itself is one of those powerful concepts; as is the language of civilization more generally. The ideal of civilization, or the norm of civilization, along with antithetical terms such as barbarism and savagery, have long been used and manipulated by powerful political and cultural figures to explain, rationalize, and justify decisions and actions that have shaped the course of history.
When the French historian and statesman, François Guizot, set out to describe the characteristic features of European civilization, he did so in a generally positive manner, noting that “the first fact comprised in the word civilization (…) is the fact of progress, of development; it presents at once the idea of a people marching onward, not to change its place, but to change its condition; of a people whose culture is conditioning itself, and ameliorating itself. The idea of progress, of development, appears to me the fundamental idea contained in the word, civilization”. In celebrating literature, the sciences, and the arts, Guizot declared: “Wherever [hu]mankind beholds these great signs, these signs glorified by human nature, wherever it sees created these treasures of sublime enjoyment, it there recognizes and names civilization.” Similar to others before him, Guizot identified “Two facts” as integral elements to the “great fact” that is civilization: “the development of social activity, and that of individual activity; the progress of society and the progress of humanity.” Wherever these “two symptoms” are present, “[hu]mankind with loud applause proclaims civilization”