A Reader’s Comment on Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Immigrant? – Part I
A Real Left’s reader’s critique of Part I of my three-part essay has prompted me to respond in a little more detail. It became apparent to me that something which I had thought was obvious might not be that obvious to others. It then occurred to me that my argument, a central plank in the whole piece, might suffer from a deficiency stemming from my own complacency about it.
I made the point in Part I that uncontrolled immigration from Britain and Europe had a played a major role in traumatic demographic, social, cultural and economic changes for indigenous people in the Global South. As a result, to the extent that uncontrolled immigration today in parts of the West is a concern for the indigenous population in these countries, I expressed empathy with that fear based on my acknowledgment of the role immigration had played in past demographic changes.
The reader criticised my equating of colonial immigration with uncontrolled immigration today. The basis of my comparison was that both would have undesirable effects on the populations who bear the burden of that migration. The reader felt that the examples of past colonial immigration that I cited represented “conquest” and cannot not be compared to today’s immigration into the West by people “trying to get a job or escape war”. She therefore felt that there was just no comparison to be made between uncontrolled immigration that is complained of today in some Western nations and the migration that took place from Europe to its colonies in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.
Here is her comment.
“Well it certainly is not ahistorical to point out that what you call “uncontrolled immigration,” given your examples, is not immigration at all but conquest. It’s qualitatively different to come to a place armed to the teeth for the purpose of grabbing land or resources or enslaving the population, than to come to a place with little in your pocket trying to get a job or escape (as you rightly say) war in your own country. So, calling conquest immigration further obscures the issue. which, is, as you say, already complicated.”
The reader is correct in pointing out qualitative differences, but any qualitative differences are irrelevant to the argument I was trying to make, which is in fact a simple one:
Large-scale migration from Europe to various colonies, for whatever reason, took place. (And the reasons and circumstances of that migration in each example I gave do in fact vary from case to case.)
The indigenous populations who bore the consequences of that migration may have wanted to control it but could not. In all instances cited, there was a power vacuum or imbalance that was violently exploited, with mass migration used as a tool. A conceptual absence of ‘national sovereignty’ and ‘border control’ were likely contributory factors in this power imbalance.
Ergo, there was uncontrolled immigration into those territories that became colonies.
So, labelling historic immigration as “conquest” immigration is neither here nor there when we examine its effect – traumatic demographic and social changes and the potential for similar effects to be experienced today in the West, or at least the fear that they might be.
I also think that the reader’s own characterisation of colonial immigration as “conquest”, with the migrants arriving “armed to the teeth”, is somewhat caricatured. If we examine the nature of colonialism more closely and the way it unfolded, we might conclude that both the colonial immigration of yesterday and Western immigration today share similar root cause in that they are both economic, not military, with force subsequently applied to defend economic interests in the case of the historical examples.
European Jews emigrating to Palestine between 1896 and 1939 were not “armed to the teeth”. They were certainly encouraged to believe in the Zionist project, and Palestinians, who had inhabited those lands for centuries, were given no say in the matter. Uncontrolled immigration? I think so.
The date in history that Australia celebrates as its national day is the date that Britain established a prison colony in Sydney – 26th January 1788. Australia was originally planned as a penal colony – an agricultural work camp for British convicts. That of course is also the beginning of the dispossession of Australia’s Aboriginal people as the colonisers spread across the continent. From the perspective of the indigenous population, it’s hard to argue that isn’t uncontrolled immigration.
With a few quotes from some scholarly work, I will try to nuance colonialism to show that:
it was not as much about “conquest” as it was about business backed up by force to defend trade and profit when necessary;
the migrants from Europe were, for the most part, not “armed to the teeth”, although we know full well that Britain did use military force to protect its overseas trade interests and that the settlers or colonisers themselves were more than heavy-handed with the ‘natives’;
like today’s migration, much of the movement of people from Europe to the colonies was driven by a combination of adventurism and economic migration or, as the reader who commented on my piece said of today’s migrants, “com[ing] to a place with little in your pocket trying to get a job”.
Here are some observations made by Bernard Porter from his work: The Lion’s Share – A Short History of British Imperialism 1850-2004 [1].
The economic roots of British imperialism and colonialism
“The roots of British imperialism were material, not cultural. Specifically, it grew out of the nature of the British capitalism of the time[2]… This ‘informal empire’ was the product of Britain’s expanding economy…Every year the industrial system devoured more raw materials and turned them into saleable commodities, and demanded yet more materials and markets; that its appetite would spread ever wider beyond Britain's national boundaries was therefore natural… The result was a constant expansion of Britain's world market to match the expansion of her industrial production at home [3].”
Not every ‘colony’ was colonised. Settlement and migration was not always a prerequisite
“In a way Argentina was as much a British ‘colony’ as Canada[4]… the mere fact that Britain had an economic interest in a country did not make that country her colony or dependency… If another country voluntarily accepted and fulfilled these requirements, as for example Argentina did by treaty in 1825, then to the way of thinking of the 19th century free trader, the bargain between her and Britain… was a fair and equal one [5]… Argentina was Britain’s perfect satellite economy: a willing servant who did not need to be enslaved [6].”
The imperial justification for force – profit and trade
Quoting Palmerston in 1860:
“It may be true in one sense that trade ought not to be enforced by cannonballs, but on the other hand, trade cannot flourish without security, and that security may often be unattainable without the exhibition of physical force [7].”
The role of adventurism and empire as a way of providing jobs for the higher-ups…
“British India had come into being through an earlier manifestation of ‘creeping imperialism’, and the cavalier empire-building of a few freelance adventurers like Clive in the 18th century[8].”
“Colonies were persisted in, said Cobden, only to enable the English upper classes to find jobs for their younger sons as governors and generals. In logic – the logic of the market, at any rate – there was a lot to be said for this view [9].”
And jobs for the plebs
Retaining colonies like Australia, New Zealand and Canada was a way of promoting kith-and-kin links to profitable trading outposts as well as absorbing surplus labour at home:
“There was also their value as settlements for emigrants, soaking up the labour surpluses that British capitalism – puzzlingly to free market zealots – continued to throw up [10].”
It should go without saying that recognising the nature of British imperialism does not make me an apologist for it – understanding is not condoning. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure that living under Ian Smith’s regime in Rhodesia for the first twelve years of my life screwed me up in more ways than I am aware of. But I also know it enriched me in more ways than I am aware of. So I’m not bitter. My father certainly had a right to be bitter about it but I never heard him complaining once about it. He made the most of a bad situation by leveraging British colonialism to secure a scholarship to study law at Exeter University and then Oxford.
And nor are the above quotes offered up as a representation of the whole truth – they can’t possibly be. More than enough has been said about the brutality that was used to reinforce the economic imperatives of empire, so I haven’t thought it necessary to ‘go off on one’ here, so to speak. These quotes are an invitation to a nuanced view of imperialism and colonialism.
Crucially, I hope some of them also help to show that the comparison I made, insofar as it references the unplanned and undesired effects of large-scale migration, is not as barmy as the Real Left reader makes it out to be!
[1] At the time of publication of the 4th edition, Bernard Porter was Emeritus Professor of History, University of Newcastle.
[2] Bernard Porter, The Lion’s Share: A Short History of British Imperialism 1850-2004, Pearson Education Limited, 2004, Preface, page [x]
[3] Bernard Porter, The Lion’s Share: A Short History of British Imperialism 1850-2004, Pearson Education Limited, 2004, Chapter 1, page 15.
[4] Bernard Porter, The Lion’s Share: A Short History of British Imperialism 1850-2004, Pearson Education Limited, 2004, Chapter 1, page 14.
[5] Bernard Porter, The Lion’s Share: A Short History of British Imperialism 1850-2004, Pearson Education Limited, 2004, Chapter 1, page 19.
[6] Bernard Porter, The Lion’s Share: A Short History of British Imperialism 1850-2004, Pearson Education Limited, 2004, Chapter 1, page 20.
[7] Bernard Porter, The Lion’s Share: A Short History of British Imperialism 1850-2004, Pearson Education Limited, 2004, Chapter 1, page 21.
[8] Bernard Porter, The Lion’s Share: A Short History of British Imperialism 1850-2004, Pearson Education Limited, 2004, Chapter 1, page 23.
[9] Bernard Porter, The Lion’s Share: A Short History of British Imperialism 1850-2004, Pearson Education Limited, 2004, Chapter 1, page 26.
[10] Bernard Porter, The Lion’s Share: A Short History of British Imperialism 1850-2004, Pearson Education Limited, 2004, Chapter 1, page 28,29.