Democracy, Imperialism And How We Are Literally Being Railroaded
John Gaudet
November 28, 2006
The other day I was listening to Robert Harris the bestselling British author of historical novels being interviewed on PBS. His latest, Imperium, was being discussed, along with the basis in Roman times for absolute authority. Which reminded me that historical novels are not the place to look for historical accuracy; the reader is better advised to go to the original source, or to proper history books for the facts.
We were given a good example of such misplaced energy when Catholics and other readers allowed themselves to be seduced by Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code. There Opus Dei was used as a means to develop a fictional plot. To add insult to injury he used that organization to support twists and turns all purported to be true, even while he announced it was only fiction. This only proved once again that historical novels serve a purpose in that they entertain, but also, Da Vinci Code notwithstanding, a good historical novel can provide lessons in history of a general nature.
That was the tone of Harris’s thoughts, as he explained the case of Pompey, the Roman emperor who negotiated an imperium maius or maximum imperial power in order to help him to put down pirates in the Mediterranean. Once granted he never gave up the imperium, thus emperors following him continued to use it to justify actions, even as they flew in the face of democracy. To those who questioned they replied, “If you are not with us you are against us,” the forerunner of Bush’s famous expression, “If you are not with us, you are with the terrorists.”
This kind of imperial thinking can lead us into some regrettable situations. Not too far back in history we can see examples of how the Imperialist dream often became a nightmare. During the Victorian era for example. The British proposed to build a railroad that would cut right across East Africa and with one stroke open that ‘Eden’ to development.
The case was put by Sir Gerald Portal in a report to the British Parliament. All the right imperialist reasons were there, the need to ensure protection of the source of the Nile from Britain’s enemies, a great potential market for British goods, the huge traffic expected, and a stabilizing effect in settling the region with British settlers.
Political resistance to this 1894 venture surfaced immediately, including the Liberals pronouncement that the Government had no right to drive a railway through country owned by the Masai. And by what right did England have to assert mastery over thousands upon thousands of unlettered African tribesmen? Such arguments along with the claim that it would be a waste of taxpayers’ money were easily brushed aside with a grand Tory flourish, after all if England were to step away from the task, they would by default leave it to other nations to take up the work which England would be seen as “…too weak, too poor, and too cowardly to do ourselves.”
Once launched, the early reports of the railroad coming back to England did not bode well, and soon the project took on the attributes of a big-time loser. The wild nature of it – shaky looking wooden trestle bridges, enormous chasms, prohibitive cost, hostile tribes, men dropping by the hundreds from diseases, and man-eating lions pulling railway workers out of carriages at night - led the London tabloids to call it the “Lunatic Line,” and the "Lunatic Express." Both terms that seemed to fit. The Africans called it "The Iron Snake."
It might well have foundered were it not for imperial calls to, “Stay the course!” Does that sound familiar? Somehow, if we face down the rebellious native, if we persist in “doing the right thing,” we will succeed, we will, “muddle through.”
The British were good at this. In the opinion of Winston Churchill there were none better. When he looked at the completed railroad in 1902, he said, “The British art of ‘muddling through’ is here seen in one of its finest expositions. Through everything – through the forests, through the ravines, through troops of marauding lions, through famine, through war, through five years of excoriating Parliamentary debate, muddled and marched the railway.”
The railway is still in use today. Although during the intervening years it was allowed to run down to a perilous degree and almost went under of its own accord. Under new management it will undergo a major reorganization and renovation and perhaps will survive.
We can only surmise what would have happened if the imperialists had not had their way, if the millions of pounds ($793 million in today’s money) were invested instead in improved roads, health projects, food production and local development. At the time the railway served the settlers’ interest more than the Africans and that did not change much with history.
Some see parallels in the way the Chinese government has recently pushed through a railroad to Tibet, an enormously expensive, 3.68 billion dollar undertaking that obviously will open up Tibet to settlement and will provide military transport to far-flung border regions. Both of these reasons are disclaimed by the Chinese government, but enough criticism exists to make one wonder if the world isn't about to be again duped by imperial decisions best left back on the drawing board.
Whither imperium maius?
We were given a good example of such misplaced energy when Catholics and other readers allowed themselves to be seduced by Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code. There Opus Dei was used as a means to develop a fictional plot. To add insult to injury he used that organization to support twists and turns all purported to be true, even while he announced it was only fiction. This only proved once again that historical novels serve a purpose in that they entertain, but also, Da Vinci Code notwithstanding, a good historical novel can provide lessons in history of a general nature.
That was the tone of Harris’s thoughts, as he explained the case of Pompey, the Roman emperor who negotiated an imperium maius or maximum imperial power in order to help him to put down pirates in the Mediterranean. Once granted he never gave up the imperium, thus emperors following him continued to use it to justify actions, even as they flew in the face of democracy. To those who questioned they replied, “If you are not with us you are against us,” the forerunner of Bush’s famous expression, “If you are not with us, you are with the terrorists.”
This kind of imperial thinking can lead us into some regrettable situations. Not too far back in history we can see examples of how the Imperialist dream often became a nightmare. During the Victorian era for example. The British proposed to build a railroad that would cut right across East Africa and with one stroke open that ‘Eden’ to development.
The case was put by Sir Gerald Portal in a report to the British Parliament. All the right imperialist reasons were there, the need to ensure protection of the source of the Nile from Britain’s enemies, a great potential market for British goods, the huge traffic expected, and a stabilizing effect in settling the region with British settlers.
Political resistance to this 1894 venture surfaced immediately, including the Liberals pronouncement that the Government had no right to drive a railway through country owned by the Masai. And by what right did England have to assert mastery over thousands upon thousands of unlettered African tribesmen? Such arguments along with the claim that it would be a waste of taxpayers’ money were easily brushed aside with a grand Tory flourish, after all if England were to step away from the task, they would by default leave it to other nations to take up the work which England would be seen as “…too weak, too poor, and too cowardly to do ourselves.”
Once launched, the early reports of the railroad coming back to England did not bode well, and soon the project took on the attributes of a big-time loser. The wild nature of it – shaky looking wooden trestle bridges, enormous chasms, prohibitive cost, hostile tribes, men dropping by the hundreds from diseases, and man-eating lions pulling railway workers out of carriages at night - led the London tabloids to call it the “Lunatic Line,” and the "Lunatic Express." Both terms that seemed to fit. The Africans called it "The Iron Snake."
It might well have foundered were it not for imperial calls to, “Stay the course!” Does that sound familiar? Somehow, if we face down the rebellious native, if we persist in “doing the right thing,” we will succeed, we will, “muddle through.”
The British were good at this. In the opinion of Winston Churchill there were none better. When he looked at the completed railroad in 1902, he said, “The British art of ‘muddling through’ is here seen in one of its finest expositions. Through everything – through the forests, through the ravines, through troops of marauding lions, through famine, through war, through five years of excoriating Parliamentary debate, muddled and marched the railway.”
The railway is still in use today. Although during the intervening years it was allowed to run down to a perilous degree and almost went under of its own accord. Under new management it will undergo a major reorganization and renovation and perhaps will survive.
We can only surmise what would have happened if the imperialists had not had their way, if the millions of pounds ($793 million in today’s money) were invested instead in improved roads, health projects, food production and local development. At the time the railway served the settlers’ interest more than the Africans and that did not change much with history.
Some see parallels in the way the Chinese government has recently pushed through a railroad to Tibet, an enormously expensive, 3.68 billion dollar undertaking that obviously will open up Tibet to settlement and will provide military transport to far-flung border regions. Both of these reasons are disclaimed by the Chinese government, but enough criticism exists to make one wonder if the world isn't about to be again duped by imperial decisions best left back on the drawing board.
Whither imperium maius?
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