The topic of imperialism began to resurface around the time the Bush administration began considering going into Iraq. Now, present day imperialism seems to be a hot topic.
Robert Sibley analyzes the purpose and justification of having an Anglosphere empire in his article, “We Should All Sing the Praises of an Anglosphere Empire”. Contrary to what we hear in mainstream media about the United States being a present day empire, Sibley discusses the idea of “a ‘voluntary empire’, an ‘association’ of countries that share the traditions of common law and democratic institutions.” He makes the point that yes the United States “controls” the world with their military and economic strength but, according to Bush, the U.S. does not want to rule Iraq as did the Romans and British with their colonies. The Anglospherists, on the other hand, hope that an integration of Anglosphere countries (such as U.S., Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada, as well as islands in the Caribbean and India) would act as a bloc and “serve as a bulwark against the forces of disorder.”
In Tristram Hunt’s article, “Decline and Fall…Must Empires Always Self-destruct?”, he is not warning the Anglosphere Empire about the “natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness” (that Edward Gibbon thought to be the cause for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire). Rather it is to the United States that Hunt ask the question, “What we all want to know is where we stand on the cycle: at the dawn of a millennial empire, or on the precipice of a new Dark Age?” He leads up to this question by discussing the decline of Rome and how the British followed a similar path in the 1900’s. Churchill, after reading Gibbon’s account of the fall of the Roman Empire, believed Britain could avoid Rome’s fate if the “Empire committed to peace, trade and civilization.” However, Churchill was not able to avoid the decline of the British Empire as it came with the end of World War II. Hunt, claiming that it is possible to see some of the elements that were in the “human failings of the Roman story” in the United States, wonders if we too are perhaps on the path of the British and the Romans before them.
As the world studies Rome and its rise and fall, Great Britain is having difficulty with the lack of education that covers its own Empire. According to Tryst Williams, in the article “The Empire Strikes Back”, Ofsted, an “educational guardian” in England, has warned England about this fault in their educational system and want British students to spend more time learning about the British Empire. The debate is dragged further when some say they believe that the treatment of the natives and slavery should not be taught in schools. And of course others believe that it is alright to teach this in schools “as long as it is taught well”, says Professor Chris Williams.
The debate is discussed deeper in Yasmin Alibhai-Brown article “The New Defenders of the British Empire”. The debate revolves around the actual history of the British Empire. One group believes that everyone, the conquered and the conquerors, benefited from the imperialism of Britain while others disagree and believe that the story of the conquered should be taught in schools as well. One argument, made by Dadabhai Naoroji, is that the British may have prevented the Indians from “plundering” each other but only so they could “plunder” the Indians. Alibhai-Brown made the observation that “there is no balance” to the history of the British Empire.
As we have seen, while the topic of imperialism begins to resurface, analyses of not only past and present empires are being revised. And, as always, comparisons of present empires to the Roman Empire unfold in hopes of foreseeing the future.