The White Man's Burden

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"The White Man's Burden" is a poem by the English poet Rudyard Kipling. It was originally published in the popular magazine McClure's in 1899, with the subtitle The United States and the Philippine Islands.^[1] "The White Man's Burden" was written in regard to the U.S. conquest of the Philippines and other former Spanish colonies.^[2] Although Kipling's poem mixed exhortation to empire with sober warnings of the costs involved, imperialists within the United States latched onto the phrase "white man's burden" as a characterization for imperialism that justified the policy as a noble enterprise.^[3]

The poem was originally written for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, but exchanged for "Recessional"; Kipling changed the text of "Burden" to reflect the subject of American colonization.^[4] The poem consists of seven stanzas, following a regular rhyme scheme. At face value it appears to be a rhetorical command to white men to colonize and rule people of other nations for their own benefit (both the people and the duty may be seen as representing the "burden" of the title), and because of this has become symbolic of Eurocentrism. A century after its publication, the poem still rouses strong emotions, and can be analyzed from a variety of perspectives.

Contents 1 The Poem 2 Differing interpretations 3 Contemporary interpretations 4 See also 5 Notes 6 References

[edit] The Poem

Take up the White Man's burden

Send forth the best ye breed

Go, bind your sons to exile

To serve your captives' need;

To wait, in heavy harness,

On fluttered folk and wild

Your new-caught sullen peoples,

Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man's burden--

In patience to abide,

To veil the threat of terror

And check the show of pride;

By open speech and simple,

An hundred times made plain,

To seek another's profit

And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--

The savage wars of peace--

Fill full the mouth of Famine,

And bid the sickness cease;

And when your goal is nearest

(The end for others sought)

Watch sloth and heathen folly

Bring all your hope to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--

No iron rule of kings,

But toil of serf and sweeper--

The tale of common things.

The ports ye shall not enter,

The roads ye shall not tread,

Go, make them with your living

And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden,

And reap his old reward--

The blame of those ye better

The hate of those ye guard--

The cry of hosts ye humour

(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--

"Why brought ye us from bondage,

Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--

Ye dare not stoop to less--

Nor call too loud on Freedom

To cloak your weariness.

By all ye will or whisper,

By all ye leave or do,

The silent sullen peoples

Shall weigh your God and you.

Take up the White Man's burden!

Have done with childish days--

The lightly-proffered laurel,

The easy ungrudged praise:

Comes now, to search your manhood

Through all the thankless years,

Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,

The judgment of your peers.

[edit] Differing interpretations

A straightforward analysis of the poem may conclude that Kipling presents a Eurocentric view of the world, in which non-European cultures are seen as childlike. This view proposes that white people consequently have an obligation to rule over, and encourage the cultural development of, people from other ethnic and cultural backgrounds until they can take their place in the world by fully adopting Western ways. The term "the white man's burden" has been interpreted as racist, or taken as a metaphor for a condescending view of non-Western national culture and economic traditions, identified as a sense of European ascendancy which has been called "cultural imperialism". A more obvious interpretation is the philanthropic view, common in Kipling's formative years, that the rich have a moral duty and obligation to help the poor "better" themselves whether the poor want the help or not.^[5]

Within a historical context, the poem makes clear the prevalent attitudes that allowed colonialism to proceed. Although a belief in the "virtues of empire" was wide-spread at the time, there were also many dissenters; the publication of the poem caused a flurry of arguments from both sides, most notably from Mark Twain and Henry James. Much of Kipling's other writing does suggest that he genuinely believed in the "beneficent role" which the introduction of Western ideas could play in lifting non-Western peoples out of "poverty and ignorance". Lines 3-5, and other parts of the poem suggest that it is not just the native people who are enslaved, but also the "functionaries of empire", who are caught in colonial service and may die while helping other races less fortunate than themselves. This theme may also be echoed in the Christian missionary movement, which was also quite active at the time in Africa, India, and other British and European colonies (e.g. the Christian and Missionary Alliance).

Some commentators point to Kipling's history of satirical writing, and suggest that "The White Man's Burden" is in fact meant to satirically undermine imperialism. Chris Snodgrass, in A Companion to Victorian Poetry^[6] describes Kipling's poetry as problematizing "imperial sensibilities with wry irony and scepticism, viewing all human endeavour as ultimately transitory". Kipling also wrote many poems celebrating the working classes, particularly the common soldier. Six months after "The White Man's Burden" was published, he wrote "The Old Issue", a stinging criticism of the Second Boer War, and an attack on the unlimited, despotic power of kings. The Norton Anthology of English Literature argues it is no satire, but in line with Kipling's strong imperialism and a belief of a "Divine Burden to reign God's Empire on Earth", that other, less Christian nations would otherwise take.^[4]

[edit] Contemporary interpretations

One criticism of the 2005 Make Poverty History campaign, and specifically the live8 concerts, was that people who argue that it is a responsibility of richer countries to help less-developed countries have sympathy for the metaphoric idea of a white man's burden.^[7]

It has been pointed out that the demands by some sections of Western society for foreign military intervention by richer countries in civil wars of less-developed countries, are often expressed in terms analogous to those of the poem: that the intervention is morally correct and would restore the conditions of law and order which are vital to the economic and cultural growth of a nation.^[8]

As Max Boot writes: "In the early twentieth century, Americans talked of spreading Anglo-Saxon civilization and taking up the 'white man's burden'; today they talk of spreading democracy and defending human rights. Whatever you call it, this represents an idealistic impulse that has always been a big part in America's impetus for going to war."^[9] The title of this book, The Savage Wars of Peace, comes from "The White Man's Burden".

Although the poem is taught in America, British schools have not elevated it to similar levels of discussion. The term "white guilt" is sometimes used as a modern twist on the historic white man's burden. It is used by some white people to validate discrimination against other white people, because of their own perceived responsibility or culpability for historical wrongs.

In 2006, former World Bank economist William Easterly published The White Man's Burden, an analysis of "why the West's efforts to aid the rest have done so much ill and so little good". In this book he questioned the 'utopian social engineering' that the development community brings to local communities and plays the idea of the White Man's Burden through current benign intentions (Bill Gates, Bono, Sachs, etc.) ultimately derived from a long history of meddling in others' affairs - that usually goes wrong.

[edit] See also

• Coolitude
• Scientific racism
• Manifest Destiny

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• A Companion to Victorian Poetry, Alison Chapman; Blackwell, Oxford, 2002.
• Outline of Sanity Alzina Stone Dale; iUniverse, 2005.
• Full text of the poem
• "The White Man's Burden" and Its Critics
• The Black Man's Burden by Edward Morel, 1903
• "The Brown Man's Burden" an anti-imperialist parody of Kipling's poem by Henry Labouchère (1899)
• "The Real White Man’s Burden" another parody by Ernest Crosby (1902)
• [1] Full text of "The Leopard's Spots - A Romance of the White Man's Burden 1865-1900" by Thomas Dixon (a novel praising the Ku Klux Klan)