‘The White Man’s Burden’: The Philippines was the early Iraq

Rudyard Kipling called introducing democracy to the Philippines “The White Man’s Burden.” He warned that the mission would not be universally popular:

Take up the White Man’s burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard.

The poem boldly encouraged the U.S. campaign 100 years ago to patiently prepare the Filipinos for self-government. Kipling should have called it “The Free Man’s Burden.” In any case, the poem describes many of the phenomena we now see in the liberation of Iraq.

Muslim insurgents. In fact, the Philippines in 1906 had a lot of similarities to today’s Iraq, right down to suicide attacks by Muslim insurgents -- the Moros.

On the other side of politics, Mark Twain called the American role in the Philippines “a quagmire.” He joined the Anti-Imperialist League to demand the U.S. withdraw.

“We have got into a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater,” Twain wrote.

First Asian parliament. Because the Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt stuck with the Philippines, the United States was open to accusations of imperialism and colonialism. Americans also questioned whether the 1898-1913 mission was worth the loss of 4,324 U.S. troops.

On the other hand, by 1907, the Philippines had the first elected parliament in all of Asia. And without American protection, this nation without a navy probably would have fallen early in the century to land-hungry Japan.

“No great civilized power has ever managed with such wisdom and disinterestedness the affairs of a people committed by accident of war to its hands,” Teddy Roosevelt said in 1908 of America’s relationship to the Philippines.

World War II. Had the Philippines been part of the Japanese empire in 1941, instead of attacking Pearl Harbor and invading the Philippines, Japan would have been in a position to attack and invade Hawaii, establishing dominance over the Pacific.

At the end of World War II, the Philippines finally was granted its independence. It is a democracy today, but descendants of the Moro insurgency still make mischief under the name Abu Sayyaf.

Frank Warner

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The White Man's Burden1899

THE UNITED STATES AND THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDSTake up the White man's burden --
  Send forth the best ye breed --
Go bind your sons to exile
  To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
  On fluttered folk and wild --
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
  Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man's burden --
  In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
  And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
  An hundred times mad plain.
To seek another's profit,
  And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden --
  The savage wars of peace --
Fill full the mouth of Famine
  And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
  The end for others sought,
Watch Sloth and heathen Folly
  Bring all your hope to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden --
  No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper --
  The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
  The roads ye shall not tread,
Go make them with your living,
  And mark them with your dead!

Take up the White man's burden --
  And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
  The hate of those ye guard --
The cry of hosts ye humour
  (Ah, slowly!) toward the light: --
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
  "Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden --
  Ye dare not stoop to less --
Nor call too loud on freedom
  To cloak your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
  By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
  Shall weigh your Gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden --
  Have done with childish days --
The lightly proffered laurel,
  The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
  Through all the thankless years,
Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,
  The judgment of your peers!

* * *

SEE ALSO: ‘Too much Johnson’: Mark Twain’s secret critique of the 1906 U.S. assault on Mount Dajo, the Philippines.

Update: Here's a comment from the Philippines:

oo nga, pagkatapos mong bigyan ng cultura, bigyan ng democrasiya, bigyan ng economic relation, movies and entertainment, fashion and trends, at kung ano ano pa ikaw pa ang sisisihin dahil sa maling pamamalakad ng bansa at tao. We ought to thank the west for giving us these things that we are now enjoying. What is happening in our country is but our own doing so let's stop blaming other and move forward just like the rest of the fighting survivors of this competitive world.

Comments

[Christopher Taylor]

I quoted some sections of the book "Tragedy of the Korosko" by Arthur Conan Doyle on my site a while back. The pertinent sections were all about the thankless, hated task of being the guys that the world turns to when they need their problems fixed, the guys everyone expects to deal with trouble spots and bring prosperity and liberty to the darkest parts of the planet.

Back then, of course, it was the British Empire.

[jj mollo]

Those who fight against the fall of darkness may stuggle in vain. They may make terrible mistakes. They will be seen as rogues, fools, liars and criminals. They may, in fact, be all of those things. The fight is still a good fight.