Religion, Politics and Empire (thoughts on the Levine reading)

The British motivations for imperialist expansionism are mostly explored in political, economic and social categories. While the lines are often blurred between the three major aspects, what is perhaps more important is the legitimacy behind each claim. Levine’s article brings up several interesting points about the dynamism of British imperialist desires and operations over time, but what is striking in the article is the uneasy relationship between religion, politics and empire.

Supposed regard of “British law and governance as the finest and noblest expression of humanity”(104) meant British imperialists set their sights on expansionism in a spirit of organizing the world through their systems. The undeniable link between British civilization and religion meant that the idea of a “civilizing mission” had both political and social implications.

This appears problematic on two levels;
(i) The assumption of the inferiority of everyone who was not British became a cornerstone on which they built their empire(s).
(ii) This line of argument meant the provision of a morally affirming justification to invade and occupy foreign lands, begs the reader and/or observer to question the extent of truth behind the motivation of the civilizing mission

The inconsistency in theory and practice manifested through ‘disorderly white communities in the outback making “claims of empire as a civilizing mission fragile” (108). This disenchantment of the civilizing mission, that ‘duty of imperialism to take civilization to lesser peoples’ (105) degenerated at times into “devastation wreaked on local populations”(109). What perplexes the situation further, is that while the ‘Evangelicals fervently believed in the civilizing propensities of Christianization” (114),which should have fit perfectly with the ‘noble’ British imperial desires, they were suspect of impeding imperialist operations (and the way of life) with their “anti-slavery protests”(119) and open criticism “of colonial practice” (119). This then seems like the civilizing mission argument, in reality, amounted to little more than a flimsy, convenient label of social and political aspirations to conquer resource rich parts of Asia, Africa and the Americas.

The relation between politics and empire then becomes slightly more complex. While there was undeniable political agenda in imperialist desires to control land, population and resource, the very politics in expressing and representing the desires for, aspirations to and motivations of the expansion of the British Empire involved the emphasis of social aspirations deemed moral (and noble) over economic ones. While there was no doubt intent and an initial effort to ‘civilize’ through missionary posts, education and setting up of infrastructure, one might also use Levine’s article as a platform to explore the effectiveness of their efforts and the possibility that the civilizing mission was meant to aid the ease of imperial operations for the British to continue their economic exploits in their colonies.