BC Cook
MARK Twain wrote a scathing attack against warmongering and imperialism about a hundred and twenty years ago. He found himself, as he looked through the morning newspaper, surrounded by five or six wars scattered over the face of the earth, none of which seemed necessary or justified. As we scan the latest headlines, we find ourselves amid an identical situation, from Ukraine to the South China Sea, from Israel to the Korean peninsula. Do Twain’s words still apply? Enjoy the following passage from “To the Person Sitting in Darkness” and decide for yourself. I have edited out references to obscure historical events that may not have meaning for the modern reader.
“Extending the blessings of civilization to our brother who sits in darkness has been a good trade and has paid well, on the whole; and there is money in it yet, if carefully worked — but not enough, in my judgment, to make any considerable risk advisable. The people that sit in darkness are getting to be too scarce — too scarce and too shy. And such darkness as is now left is really of but an indifferent quality, and not dark enough for the game. The most of those people that sit in darkness have been furnished with more light than was good for them or profitable for us. We have been injudicious.
“The Blessings-of-Civilization Trust, wisely and cautiously administered, is a daisy. There is more money in it, more territory, more sovereignty and other kinds of emolument, than there is in any other game that is played. But Christendom has been playing it badly of late years, and must certainly suffer by it, in my opinion. She has been so eager to get every stake that appeared on the green cloth, that the people who sit in darkness have noticed it — they have noticed it, and have begun to show alarm. They have become suspicious of the blessings of civilization. More — they have begun to examine them. This is not well. The blessings of civilization are all right, and a good commercial property; there could not be a better, in a dim light. In the right kind of a light, and at a proper distance, with the goods a little out of focus, they furnish this desirable exhibit to the gentlemen who sit in darkness: love, justice, gentleness, Christianity, protection to the weak, temperance, law and order, liberty, equality, honorable dealing, mercy, education, and so on.
“There. Is it good? Sir, it is pie. It will bring into camp any idiot that sits in darkness anywhere. But not if we adulterate it. It is proper to be emphatic upon that point. This brand is strictly for export — apparently. Privately and confidentially, it is nothing of the kind. Privately and confidentially, it is merely an outside cover, gay and pretty and attractive, displaying the special patterns of our civilization which we reserve for home consumption, while inside the bale is the actual thing that the customer sitting in darkness buys with his blood and tears and land and liberty. That actual thing is civilization, but it is only for export. Is there a difference between the two brands? In some of the details, yes.
“We all know that the business is being ruined. The reason is not far to seek. It is because our [President] McKinley, and [British Prime Minister] Chamberlain, and [Germany’s] Kaiser, and the [Russian] Czar, and the French have been exporting the actual thing with the outside cover left off. This is bad for the game. It shows that these new players of it are not sufficiently acquainted with it.
“It is a distress to look on and note the mismoves, they are so strange and so awkward. Mr. Chamberlain manufactures a war out of materials so inadequate and so fanciful, and he tries hard to persuade himself that it isn’t purely a private raid for cash, but has a sort of dim, vague respectability about it somewhere, if he could only find the spot; and that he can scour the flag clean again after he has finished dragging it through the mud. It is bad play. For it exposes the actual thing to them that sit in darkness, and they say: “What! Christian against Christian? And only for money? Is this a case of magnanimity, forbearance, love, gentleness, mercy, protection of the weak — this strange and over-showy onslaught of an elephant upon a nest of field-mice, on the pretext that the mice had squeaked an insolence at him—conduct which ‘no self-respecting government could allow to pass unavenged?’ as Mr. Chamberlain said. Was that a good pretext in a small case, when it had not been a good pretext in a large one? — for only recently Russia had affronted the elephant three times and survived alive and unsmitten. Is this civilization and progress? Is it something better than we already possess?”
Let us pick up Twain’s discourse next week.
BC Cook, PhD lived on Saipan and has taught history for over 30 years. He is a director and historian at Sealark Exploration (sealarkexploration.org)
