Imperial Perspectives (Part IX)

by Jim Miles

2005

America has known many aspects of god and has used god well to establish its empire, an empire disguised as a crusade against backwardness, against evil of all sorts, a crusade against those who do not value money and private property above human caring and compassion. Part IX of Imperial Perspectives looks at the way god is used as propaganda in order to support the subjugation and killing of others.

IX. With God on Our Side

It has not only been the United States that has acted violently to obtain and retain empires, nor were they the only ones to call upon divine will, god, as justification for their actions. Most western wars, the two ‘Great Wars’ in particular, made strong use of having god as an ally. In 1913, Kaiser Wilhelm II called upon his beliefs, saying “I look upon the People and the Nation as handed on to me as a responsibility conferred upon me by God, and I believe, as it is written in the Bible, that it is my duty to increase this heritage for which one day I shall be called upon to give an account. Whoever tries to interfere with my task I shall crush.” As with most political references to Christianity, god is referred to in support of some very violent and uncivilized actions.

Hitler has numerous quotes attributed to him that call upon god, one of the more telling being his connection of anti-Semitism as being pro-Christian, a stance not unfamiliar with today’s American Christian right. “Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." [1] It is a strange twist that god is called upon to validate atrocities that no truly sane person could ever advocate and support without severe cognitive dissonance, yet somehow supposedly intelligent people rationalize it all the time.

God and Israel

There exists much influence by the pro-Israeli community on the current American government in its approach to foreign policies that affect Israel, which in turn affects all of the Middle East policies as directed at Iraq, Syria and Iran. Today’s leaders find in the question of Israel an understanding that “creates another moment of unity and common purpose for a number of Straussians active in foreign policy: it enables them to make common cause with elements of Christian fundamentalism…[that] …the protections and advancement of the state of Israel as necessary to hasten the second coming.” [2] These leaders, the unelected representatives of the Bush White House, include Wolfowitz, Perle, Libby, Bolton, Feith and others who advocate the neoconservative views. God in this case is a useful instrument to forge alliances with the electorate and with the military, recalling the advocacy of General Jerry Boykin for Bush: "Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. He's in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this." [3]

Woodrow Wilson’s God

God may or may not have put Woodrow Wilson in the White House, but it is with him that we find the roots of Bush’s political rhetoric about good governance and democracy, of “Christian values and American political institutions…as a model for all nations.” [4] It is also there that we find the roots of Bush’s current political endeavours that support Israel and seek hegemony over the oil resources of the area. The arrogance and conceit of the Wilsonian ideals are evident in the actions and reactions to those citizens of the world who did not receive American intervention with open arms. Wilson espoused fine sounding principles, but his actions were centred in reality in the interests of big business and political expediency.

Wilson sent the military into Nicaragua, continued the chain of repressive colonial actions that had hindered Haiti since its revolutionary independence from France, and kept the military busy in his relationships with Mexico. Honduras, Panama, and the Dominican Republic had their share of military intervention as well, ensuring that Latin America stayed well within the realm of the American Empire. Ultimately, Wilson brought the United States into the First World War, hoping as he did that the final outcome would reshape the political world, as it did, but not as foreseen. The U.S. became a world power broker, having increased its own productivity immensely in supplying the war with material goods; at the same time it carried the enormous debt imposed by the war on the original combatants, giving itself enormous economic power; and it developed an imposing military presence, not yet fully global but significantly larger than at the beginning of the war.

Wilson’s entrance to the war “became a crusade, against human greed and folly, against Germany and for justice, peace and civilization,” but “this conviction…made Wilson intolerant of differences and blind to the legitimate concerns of others. Those who opposed him were not just wrong but wicked.” [5] Wilson’s great plan was his Fourteen Points that outlined the future boundaries of Europe in broad terms that essentially equated nationality with territory. Unfortunately, those ideals were held only for the white people of Europe, and even then reality imposed itself on many of the European states in the form of continued subjugation to a foreign nationality. For the rest of the world, Wilsonian idealism was simply racist and religious rhetoric.

African colonies were not set free but divided up by the victors. Asia remained under colonial spheres of influence and outright empirical control. The Ottoman Empire shrunk but the nationalities internal to Turkey, the Kurds and the Armenians, continued to be repressed and ‘cleansed’. The former Ottoman territories were divided up into several mandates, with Britain taking the lead in the central lands – Iraq, Jordan and Palestine – of the Middle East, and Egypt, and France taking control of the more northerly areas of Lebanon and Syria.

Lord Balfour’s God

On the side, the Balfour Declaration, promising a Palestinian homeland to the Jewish people created undercurrents that were to become reality by mid-century. The problems that we still encounter today have a long history, but in terms of ‘current events’ they were set in motion after World War I and the failure of Wilsonian rhetoric. Race, religion, and resources had been the obstacles that the peacemakers of Europe could not overcome, and indeed did not want to overcome as it suited their still existing imperial drives.

Lord Arthur Balfour, foreign secretary in the British government, was born into wealth and, like the American president, had grown up with the Bible. His one passion within his intellectual life was the Zionist cause of establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The declaration he put forth is very simple in its description, stating “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object.” [6] This simple statement, added to the growing Zionist movement in Britain in particular, carried significant weight within the negotiations at Versailles.

The Americans had little direct influence on the decisions concerning Palestine at this time. Wilson was “sympathetic” to Zionism and is quoted as saying, “To think that I the son of the manse should be able to help restore the Holy Land to its people.” [7] In 1920, Britain received the mandate for Palestine, including terms to carry out the Balfour Declaration. In 1921, Transjordan was separated from the rest of the British mandate and Jewish immigration increased significantly in Mandatory Palestine. All this somehow fit in with Wilson’s purported interest in self-determination for all people – certainly it fit the self-determination of the Jewish people, but left the Palestinians in the Orientalist perception of simply being ignorant possessors of an essentially empty land.

It became the making of a new geography, with the more sophisticated Jewish people replacing a backward and insignificant people. This rationale continues the aspect of the godliness of one’s purpose being able to surmount obstacles that include a complete indigenous population and culture, a rationale for possessing the land and dispossessing those that are already there. The British initially carried the Zionist banner, unwittingly entering into a conflict that it could not control. Winston Churchill advocated the Orientalist view, a reversal of justice that commonly sees the occupied become less of a society and hostile and antagonistic to the invaders, “The injustice is when those who live in the country leave it to be desert for thousands of years.” [8] This carries a familiar ring, with the American takeover of the Indian lands of North America, a land argued to be mostly empty and unutilized by the native population. This new geography, this “representation of Jewish colonization as modernization was a tenacious stratagem, and many politicians used it, then and since, to legitimize the dispossession of the Palestinians.” [9]

In Vain

God has played a heavy hand throughout history, has had a great number of military and colonial projects dealt out in his name. In these representations, god is of course a white man, deeming the other races to be inferior. Also within these representations, god on our side is more divine than the ‘other’, which is reduced to a talisman or amulet representing ignorant heathen or more fully evil beliefs. God is then allowed to advocate violence and cruelty against the ‘other’ as the other becomes less than human, an object that is in the way and needs to be eliminated or pushed aside. And strangely enough, god allows the controlling occupier to become the victim of terror and subversive violence, using false pretences to twist the story of who has perpetrated violence upon whom.

America has known all these aspects of god and has used god well to establish its empire, an empire disguised as a crusade against backwardness, against evil of all sorts, a crusade against those who do not value money and private property above human caring and compassion. America’s god is forgetful, ignorant, and manipulative, creating imaginary foes with created passions of – ironically – liberty and justice, to be free from the oppression of foreigners. The slaughter of civilians, the wilful disregard of history’s violence to others, the voluntary censorship of the press and media have all supported the amnesia that allow god to continue to be on our side.

Notes

[1] Cited by Walker, Jim. Hitler’s Religious beliefs and fanaticism. July 07, 2001.
[2] Norton, Anne. Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire. Yale University, New Haven. 2004. p. 206.
[3] Rennie, David. God put Bush in charge, says the general hunting bin Laden, Daily Telegraph, November 13, 2005
[4] Kevles et al. Inventing America Volume 2. W. W. Norton & Company, New York. 2003. p. 681.
[5] Macmillan, Margaret. Paris 1919 Six Months That Changed the World. Random House, New York, 2003. p.6-7.
[6] Lord Balfour cited in Macmillan, ibid, p. 417.
[7] Macmillan, ibid, p. 422.
[8] Gregory, Derek. The Colonial Present. Blackwell Publishing, Malden, Maine. 2004. p. 81.
[9] Gregory, ibid. p. 81.

© Jim Miles. Used with permission.