Even anti-war activists adopted the white man’s burden framing once war began

Evidence

In the lead-up to the Iraq war of 2003, I was part of a large and vibrant anti-war group that opposed the war and stood firm against George W. Bush’s imperial agenda. Somewhere between 6 and 11 million people in hundreds of cities around the world protested against the impending war, in what was considered the largest global protest on a single day in human history. Yet, immediately after the war had started, the group began to shrink. The explanation on offer by those drifting away was that now that the United States had intervened, it was perhaps best to give it a chance to “bring democracy” to Iraq. It surprised me to hear this “white man’s burden” argument parading as common sense in the twenty-first century. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 68

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ in that both show liberal framings masking imperial/class prerogatives. — connects to: Framing crises by historical analogy shifts public support for war — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 396; Early anti-slavery advocates often still believed in white supremacy and racial separation — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3389
• SEED: Angle: why ‘give the intervention a chance’ is the psychological flip point that dissolves even committed anti-war movements — the pragmatism trap.

Broader Connections

• Framing crises by historical analogy shifts public support for war #complicates (0.80) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 396
• Early anti-slavery advocates often still believed in white supremacy and racial separation #corroborates (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3389