A Yale debater publicly defended colonial delay in self-government
Evidence
Immediate brotherhood, he said flatly, was “not practical.” The “subject peoples” of the British Empire were simply not ready for self-government yet. Furthermore, he didn’t see any time in the near future when they would be. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 226
Categorization
- SEED: Essay angle on how the ‘not ready for self-government’ argument was deployed at the 1911 World Congress and its afterlife in later colonial apologetics.
- XREF: connects to: Admiration for aristocratic rule slid logically into racial contempt — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 224; Native collaborators reproduced colonial arguments against their own societies; Critique from within colonial power is constrained by personal dependence on that system (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Native collaborators reproduced colonial arguments against their own societies
#exemplifies(0.85) - Critique from within colonial power is constrained by personal dependence on that system
#exemplifies(0.85) - The doctrine of progress makes colonialism appear natural rather than impositive
#exemplifies(0.80) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 217 - Colonial discourse lets the colonizer speak for the colonized while silencing them
#exemplifies(0.80) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 114