Language education sowed the ideals that ended the empires that spread it
Evidence
The West European emĀ pires, by the very nature of the culture, the institutions, even the languages which they brought with them and imposed on their colonial subjects, demonĀ strated the ultimate incompatibility of democracy and empire, and sealed the doom of their own domination. They taught their subjects English, French and Dutch because they needed clerks in their ofļ¬ces and counting houses. But once these subjects had mastered a Western European language, as did increasing numbers of Muslims in Western-dominated Asia and Africa, they found a new world open to them, full of new and dangerous ideas such as political freedom and national sovereignty and representative government by the consent of the governed. ā Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 688
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the Said/Orientalism cluster: the imperial knowledge project (teaching language/ideals) produces the very anti-colonial consciousness that dismantles empire. Echoes the irony that colonizers forge the weapons of their own critique.