Accents
Mark Twain the anti-imperialist
April 21, 2010 marked the 100th Anniversary of the death of Mark Twain, my favorite American author. He is yours too when as a young reader you’ve fallen in love with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. I recall how our teacher in the elementary would tell us to do a Tom Sawyer after class hours when we were sent out to go sweep the school grounds. “Have fun. Every clean sweep of the broom is a play. Take pleasure. Enjoy.” Thus did Tom Sawyer make whitewashing the fence enjoyable so much so that his fellow boys took turns doing what otherwise would have been a mandatory job for him, a task to get over with. Work becomes play when…aw, shucks, we all know about it. Mark Twain delightfully delivered the point through his novel.
As a tribute to commemorate the death anniversary of Mark Twain (birth name, Samuel Langhorne Clemens), I’d like to focus on the less popular aspect in the life of the American novelist, satirist and humorist. All three rolled into one so much so that William Faulkner, himself a Nobel Laureate in Literature, dubbed Mark Twain the “Father of American Literature.”
Mark Twain strongly criticized the imperialistic reach of European nations and later that of America over other countries. He affirmed his anti-imperialistic views in a declaration clear and loud in rich metaphor: “I am an anti-imperialist. I oppose putting the eagle’s talons on any other land.” America’s national emblem, the eagle with the widespread wings and sharp talons, personified all invaders, not just America. Include Spain and Japan that like America had encroached on Philippine soil for political, economic, and socio-cultural reasons. In other words, it was all about aggressive expansionism.
A nationalist, whose name I can’t ascertain (nuances of this imperialistic motive have passed from one mouth to another) pointed out that, “For every dollar that America invests in the country, America takes back four in return.” I think it was the great nationalist Claro M. Recto who discerned it first, then I heard the same from the venerable Jovito Salonga. Reverberations followed from the centrists and in the demos of the left. To go further into history, the skewed Parity Rights got our natural resources gradually depleted. The Philippines was granted equal rights to invest in the US as much as the US can do in Philippine territory, but does a small country possess the wherewithal to invest in big America? Instead, we became and are avid consumers of imports that exceed far beyond what we export. What balance of trade, pray tell. The imbalance began at the time of Mark Twain and depressingly continues to the present.
The eagle’s talons perched on alien land to “civilize” the inhabitants, opined Mark Twain, but the more dominant reason was to enrich the invaders. “Civilization” masking exploitation; the colony as easy prey to the colonizer. When the Filipinos were forced to accept American rule, Mark Twain was outraged, he came up with a dissertation condemning colonization. Hereunder are excerpts that pertain only to the Philippines. Abjectly categorized among other innocents is The Filipino is the person sitting in darkness together with other innocents as abjectly labeled by Mark Twain. My comments are in brackets.
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To the Person Sitting in Darkness
New York: Anti-Imperialist League of New York, 1901. HistoryWiz Primary Source.
Extending the Blessings of Civilization to our Brother who Sits in Darkness has been a good trade and has paid well, on the whole; and there is money in it yet, if carefully worked — but not enough, in my judgement, to make any considerable risk advisable. The People that Sit in Darkness are getting to be too scarce — too scarce and too shy. And such darkness as is now left is really of but an indifferent quality, and not dark enough for the game. The most of those People that Sit in Darkness have been furnished with more light than was good for them or profitable for us. We have been injudicious. [The shroud of darkness to keep people in their innocence was not enough because there were those who were getting more enlightened.]
The Blessings-of-Civilization Trust, wisely and cautiously administered, is a Daisy. There is more money in it, more territory, more sovereignty, and other kinds of emolument, than there is in any other game that is played. But Christendom has been playing it badly of late years, and must certainly suffer by it, in my opinion. She has been so eager to get every stake that appeared on the green cloth, that the People who Sit in Darkness have noticed it — they have noticed it, and have begun to show alarm. They have become suspicious of the Blessings of Civilization. More — they have began to examine them. This is not well. [The natives slowly felt the exploitation.]
The Blessings of Civilization are all right, and a good commercial property; there could not be a better, in a dim light. In the right kind of a light, and at a proper distance, with the goods a little out of focus, they furnish this desirable exhibit to the Gentlemen who Sit in Darkness: LOVE, LAW AND ORDER, JUSTICE, LIBERTY, GENTLENESS, EQUALITY, CHRISTIANITY, HONORABLE DEALING, PROTECTION TO THE WEAK, MERCY, TEMPERANCE, EDUCATION, — and so on. There. Is it good? Sir, it is pie. It will bring into camp any idiot that sits in darkness anywhere. But not if we adulterate it. It is proper to be emphatic upon that point. This brand is strictly for Export — apparently. Apparently. Privately and confidentially, it is nothing of the kind. Privately and confidentially, it is merely an outside cover, gay and pretty and attractive, displaying the special patterns of our Civilization which we reserve for Home Consumption, while inside the bale is the Actual Thing that the Customer Sitting in Darkness buys with his blood and tears and land and liberty. That Actual Thing is, indeed, Civilization, but it is only for Export. Is there a difference between the two brands? In some of the details, yes. [Mark Twain saw exported “Civilization” as actually deceptive veneer useful in taking advantage of the colonized territory.]
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The blessings of the so-called “Civilization” were thrust upon the Colonized to make the Colonizer free to squeeze the Colony out of its natural resources. Mark Twain was witness to the immoral human greed that went with colonization, by another name, imperialism. He expressed his disapproval in writings couched in figurative, satiric language that he was famous for. (To be continued.)
(Email: lagoc@hargray.com)
