In Defense of Colonialism

I assure you, the title is not clickbait. There is nothing wrong as such with colonialism. Modern imperialism, which is what most people are thinking of when they speak about imperialism or colonialism, is thoroughly objectionable. But not for the reasons that most in contemporary political discourse suppose. In what follows I will first define precisely what should be understood by ‘colonialism’. Thereafter, we will see why colonialism is unobjectionable. Finally, I will explain the real reason why modern colonialism should be regarded as a bad thing.

What is Colonialism?

What is colonialism? How is it distinct from imperialism? There have been some efforts to distinguish the two in scholarly discourse. For example, Singh (2001) treats colonialism as a practice, while imperialism is taken to be the ideology underlying that practice. Alternatively, Arneil (2023) understands colonialism to be an ideology that entails the notion of elevating the subjugated lands, while imperialism is an ideology of naked domination.

Clearly, there is no consensus or authoritative distinction between the two terms. In both of the aforementioned attempts to distinguish the terms, the distinctions made are rather fine grain. Etymologically speaking, there is little distinction to be made. Empire comes from the Latin word to rule, while colony comes from the Latin root colonia. The first refers primarily to the centre of empire, while the latter refers primarily to the periphery. Each implies the other. It is difficult to conceive of colonies without an empire, as it is hard to see how empires can be formed without colonization. Therefore, I will follow Pitts (2010) in treating colonialism and imperialism as synonyms.

Having established this, we should turn to the question of what colonialism/imperialism is. Being a Traditionalist, I will treat Traditional imperialism as normative, and modern imperialism as a deviation. Before considering modern imperialism, let us consider the essence of Traditional imperialism. Schuon tells us:

The purpose of ancient imperialism was to spread an “order”, a state of equilibrium and stability which conforms to a divine model and which is in any case reflected in nature, notably in the planetary world; the Roman emperor, like the monarch of the “Celestial Middle Kingdom”, wields his power thanks to a “mandate from Heaven”. Julius Caesar, holder of this mandate and “divine man” (divus), was conscious of the providential range of his mission; as far as he was concerned, nothing had the right to oppose it, Vercingetorix having been for him a sort of heretic. If the non-Roman peoples were considered “barbarians”, it is above all because they were outside the “order”; from the point of view of the Pax Romana, they manifested disequilibrium, instability, chaos, perpetual menace. … Imperialism can come either from Heaven or simply from the earth, or again from hell; be that as it may, what is certain is that humanity cannot remain divided into a scattering of independent tribes; the bad would inevitably hurl themselves upon the good, and the result would be a humanity oppressed by the bad and hence the worst of all imperialisms. What may be called the imperialism of the good constitutes therefore a sort of inevitable and providential preventive war; without it no great civilization is conceivable. It may be argued that all this does not take us away from human imperfection, and we agree; far from advocating an illusory angelism, we acknowledge the fact that man remains always man whenever collectivities with their interests and passions are involved; the leaders of men are obliged to take account of this fact, unpleasant though it may be to those “idealists” who judge that the “purity” of a religion consists in committing suicide.

Cosmological Significance

The above is in need of some unpacking for our purposes. Imperialism is a response. It is a response to decline. In the most ancient times, when humanity is closest to primordial perfection, it is also most uniform. Perhaps this is why, in the Abrahamic Traditions, we speak of a single man and woman, Adam and Eve. This remote era is a golden age not because of its homogeneity as such, but because all people are of the highest caste — the priestly. The political form of this era is anarchy, not in the sense of chaos but as that term is employed by anarchists. There is little or no social hierarchy, and order is spontaneous and egalitarian.

As the decline proceeds, the warrior caste gradually comes into being, even if at first they are not entirely distinguished from the priestly caste. At this stage, the political order is that of hunter-gatherer tribes such as are still found in remote places even at this late stage. Social strata exist, but are fairly minimal as a consequence of the relatively high tenor of humanity. As humanity continues to fall, this state of political organisation becomes untenable. The mechanisms of the fall are plural. It is monocausal in that it is destined to occur. Our world falls because it must, all possibilities must of necessity be actualised. But the mechanisms of the fall, the dynamics by which it proceeds, are multiple. What unites them is the necessity of their coming about — this is what makes them so difficult to combat.

As it pertains to tribal forms of political organisation, the main drivers of the fall are these: the declining inner quality of human beings and their increased heterogeneity, as manifested in the emergence of the lower castes, and the emergence of new technologies, themselves a product of the increasing materialisation or solidification of reality. The net effect of these changes are that, at the level of relations between societies, it becomes possible for worse people to dominate better people through physical force. This is to say, technological developments that constitute spiritual decline, bring with them increased populations and more sophisticated weaponry, which makes it possible for more degenerated societies to dominate or annihilate those that cleave to more ancient modes of existence. Within societies there is an increasing complexity so that older spontaneous forms of order must give way to order that employs coercive force.

Here the imperial mode of political order comes into being. Empire is that political order which responds to the needs of the world in a late stage of degeneration. It is the last legitimate form of political organisation, as it is the last one to ground itself in metaphysical reality. Empire is that political form in which the higher castes (priests and warriors) of complex societies impose an order on an increasingly chaotic world as the lesser of two evils. Indeed, in that it is mandated by the Absolute, it is a good. Because the rulers of empire derive their legitimacy from the Absolute, and model their order on God’s relationship to creation (which, at the material level of ontology — intervening between the metaphysical and social — is also demonstrated by the solar system), there is a universal order. As planets revolve around the sun, pulled by its gravitational power, so too does creation ‘revolve’ around the Unconditioned (or ‘immobile’) Absolute and the colonial periphery ‘revolve’ around the imperial ‘centre of gravity’. It is for this reason that both the Absolute and imperial power are described with solar imagery. Think of Dàrì Rúlái 大日如來(the ‘Great Sun’ Buddha) or the solar supreme deity in both Shinto and ancient Egyptian religion. Think also of Louis the Sun King or the solar imagery of the Caesars.

Universality of Empire

Given their universal archetype, Traditional empire is also always universal. The Emperor of China was the ruler of “all under Heaven” — that is to say everything. Barbarians were merely rebellious subjects who had not yet recognised their status vis-à-vis the Emperor. In aspiration to imitate its metaphysical archetype, empire expands continuously until it exhausts itself. This failure to perfectly imitate its divine model, as well as the plurality of competing universal empires, is an instance of what the Buddha called dhukka (or ‘unsatisfactoriness’) which characterises the conditioned, phenomenal world. The question of the plurality of empires is also related to the question of the plurality of religions, each empire basing itself on this or that Tradition and thus forming the material context for the development of civilizations.

Often, the limits of empires are to be found where they butt up against another imperial order which they cannot defeat. The very fact of the stability of the latter order is attested to by the fact that it cannot be overcome by the expanding order. This may be seen as a providential judgment on an imperial order. If an empire’s frontiers cannot be pushed back by another, then it retains the mandate of Heaven by virtue of its successful imposition of virtuous order. If it fails to do so, it will be overcome. An example of this is how the expanding Mongol empire was seen as the scourge of Allah by the Muslims of the Islamic empire that it over ran.

Colonialism is then the imposition of order on the world by the imperial center. It is good, essentially and metaphysically, because it carries the mandate of the Absolute. It is good, contingently and materially, because it imposes order and security. It is the natural mode of political organization where legitimacy is seen — correctly — to come from Above, and the here bellow is in a state of complexity and heterogeneity. It is no surprise then that empire has been the normal mode of political organization for the vast majority of recorded history.

Potential Objections to Imperialism

Let me anticipate some objections to colonialism. Firstly, that colonialism represents the domination of one People/nation over other People/nations, and is therefore unjust. Secondly, that it entails the destruction of local culture and the imposition of an imperial culture. Thirdly, that empire is a system of economic exploitation.

The first objection reflects a modern, that is to say democratic-nationalist, worldview which can see imperialism as somehow ‘unnatural’. It views humanity as divided into neat, pre-existing nations which should each have their own sovereign political expression. I have dealt with the fundamental unreality of nations previously. Nations are neither natural entities nor legitimate ones. An order of nation-states rather than empires denotes not ‘freedom’ but domination by (necessarily illegitimate) nationalist elites rather than by colonial elites (which may or may not be legitimate), since domination by an elite is an inevitability in complex society — as elite theory has long since shown.

As to the cultural question, it is true that colonialism entails the expansion of imperial culture at the cost of local culture. But let me offer you a provocation — what is ‘your’ culture? Let us suppose you are a Syrian. What is your language? Arabic. What is your religion? Most likely, Islam or else perhaps Christianity. How did these come to be your language and religion?

The answer? By Muslim Arab colonialism. Unless you are a Christian Syrian, in which case you have your religion primarily as a consequence of Roman colonialism. Western culture is simply unimaginable without the Roman Empire. English culture is a product of successive Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Norman conquest. If you are southern Chinese, you most likely owe your Chinese culture to colonialism. China at the time of the Zhou dynasty did not reach further south than the Yangtze river, if it even stretched that far. That Fujianese and Guandongese consider themselves Chinese is a result of millennia of colonialism. Empire having been the normal political unit for most of history, colonialism was also the normal conduit of culture formation and dissemination.

The third objection is typical of the reductivism of the modern perspective. Some empires were indeed economically exploitative. Others not. To argue that empires are essentially instruments of economic exploitation is perhaps true of modern liberal empires. But to suppose that it is true of Traditional empires is to totally disregard the transcendent justification to empire that was central to the worldview of these Traditional empires. If it is not essential to empires, then the historically contingent fact of colonialism having been economically exploitative is not an argument against the essential virtue of colonialism.

Modern Imperialism

I have defended colonialism/imperialism as essentially legitimate. I’m fully cognizant that I’ve probably provoked no inconsiderable measure of outrage in my more politically correct readers. Rest assured, dear sensitive reader, I do not defend Western — that is to say modern — imperialism. The British Raj was a bad thing. But not because it was imperialism, but rather because it was modern.

As Schuon observed, “[i]mperialism can come either from Heaven or simply from the earth, or again from hell”. The empires of modernity are of the latter two origins.

The colonial projects that are most commonly conjured to mind in contemporary discourse were those of modern Western Europe, or more precisely the great powers of modern Western Europe like Britain, France and Spain. These empires are to be condemned not for all the modernistic reasons that they routinely are, but rather because they were instruments for the promulgation of modernity.

The essentially modern character of these Western empires can be seen in the national-democratic character of the empire. The sovereign of these empires was not an emperor ordained by God. Instead, it was a People, and the leadership built empires in the name of the expansive will of this People.

In carrying out their so-called ‘civilizing mission’, modern colonialists only managed to ‘barbarize’ their subjects, dragging them down to their own level. Witness the direct causal relationship between the experience of subjugation of Traditional societies like India, Indonesia and much of the Arab world by quantitively superior but qualitatively inferior Western states, and the taking root of modernism in the former. Even in Traditional societies that were not, in the main, subject to colonialism the embrace of modernity was a reaction to modern imperialism. As in the cases of Japan, China, Thailand and arguably Turkey and even Russia, modernity was embraced as only this it was believed could stave off colonial subjugation.

We must emphasise that it is not colonialism as such that is to be condemned, but modern colonialism. The societies that were just listed were all themselves empires. If one is to condemn imperialism regardless of if it has a metaphysical justification or not, then Western imperialism was no more objectionable than the empires it replaced. The anti-colonial projects would have been legitimate if they were not nationalist as such, but instead rejected the modernism of Western empire and embraced indigenous Tradition. Such movements did, in fact, exist — most prominently embodied by Mahatma Gandhi — but they were regrettably but perhaps inevitably superseded by modernist nationalism, such as that of Nehru while we are on the topic of India.

Post-colonial nationalism is perhaps even more insidious than Western colonialism. In the latter, local people could at least be led by local elites to reject modernism as something foreign. What is more, one cannot help but be irked by the rank hypocrisy of many of these nationalisms denouncing Western colonialism while legitimising themselves on the basis of their colonisation by earlier empires. We can see this in Indonesian nationalists’ exaltation of the Majapahit and Srivijaya Empires, and Indian nationalists embrace of the Mauryan Empire (as can be seen from the Indian passport bearing the image of Ashoka’s column). To be sure, the Majapahit, Srivijaya and Maurya are all to be exalted as legitimate bearers of Heaven’s mandate, but the nationalists fail to recognise the metaphysical basis for this. One suspects this double standard is a product of the currently fashionable academic trend of discriminating against ‘white’ people.

This having been said, we should have no patience for contemporary defenses of modern colonialism that exist in reaction to this trend. One often hears of the supposed material benefits that colonialism brought Traditional societies. The network of railways in India and the abolition of sati are the most frequently given examples. To defend or attack colonialism on this basis is completely besides the point. India and other post-colonial states probably do benefit from the infrastructure they inherited. In view of the mind-boggling numbers that died as a result of famines during British rule in India, the brutality of the Belgians in Africa, and the Opium War the conventional wisdom regarding the material impact of Western colonialism is probably correct. This is not to say that there are not counter-examples — Hong Kong was indisputably made enormously wealthy by the colonial experience. Even if the conventional wisdom is wrong, no amount of material enrichment could compensate for the irreparable damage done to Tradition. No amount of wealth can compensate the loss of one’s soul. To consider the case in point, after 100 years of British colonialism Hong Kong is wealthy — but Chinese Tradition there is in at least as bad a state as it is in mainland China after decades of civilizational vandalism. In some regards, Hong Kong is even worse off than the mainland.

Modern liberal imperialism was illegitimate, and no degree of material benefit can change this — if indeed any benefit was to be found. These empires were, as I said before, empires of the earth. As has become my habit, let us end on a dour note. There are still worse empires than those of liberalism. These are the empires of hell.

The colonial projects of liberal Western Europe were driven primarily by rapine. They had no legitimacy and disrupted the integral, metaphysically grounded civilizations they conquered. But they had their compensations. All of these empires brought with them Christian missionizing. Let me be clear — this missionizing was not the reason for empire and was primarily a bad thing. Coming from a spiritually unhealthy zombifying civilization as they did, their primary function was to disrupt the integrity of Traditional civilizations. The Japanese were right to eject Catholic missionaries, even if one cannot applaud the brutality of their methods. However, the legitimate Tradition that these missionaries transmitted may permissibly be seen as a kind of divine compensation. Indeed, the West’s former colonies, particularly those in Latin America, Africa and the Philippines, have been better custodians of Christianity than the West.

As an aside, one may, perhaps, be tempted to make the argument that Western empires fulfilled the Traditional imperial function of imposing an order. This may well be true, for example where Britain and France imposed peace amongst warring African tribes. This, however, misses the crucial point that these tribes, as Traditional polities had the right to make war — where modern nation-states like Britain and France had no such legitimate right.

Empires of Hell

The empires of hell were those hypocritically ‘anti-imperialist empires’ of the Soviet Union and the Axis powers. These empires brought with them no divine compensation nor did they, for the most part, impose order. Instead, they spread particularly pernicious manifestations of modernism that either brutally suppressed Tradition (the Soviet Union) or else subverted it (the Axis powers). Illegitimate and incompetent as the present liberal American Empire may be, it would be madness to prefer fascist or communist empire. At the very least, authentic religion may be freely practiced under the present dispensation. Unfortunately, the future of the American Empire — or whatever empire overturns it, whether this be Russian or Chinese, will most likely be of an infernal nature.

References:

Arneil, B. (2024). ‘Colonialism Versus Imperialism’, Political Theory, vol. 52, no. 1, pp. 146–176.

Pitts, J. (2010). ‘Political Theory of Empire and Imperialism’, Annual Review of Political Science, vol. 13, pp. 211–235.

Schuon, F. (1984). Light on the Ancient Worlds. World Wisdom Books. Bloomington, Indiana.

Singh, A. (2001). https://www.lehigh.edu/~amsp/eng-11-globalization.htm