In the week 3 reading on Wiremu Tamihana and the Mana of Christianity, Head argued that “[h]ow Christ was reflected in the colony … rather than faithfulness to the Treaty of Waitangi, was the tool of evaluation of British rule that Māori found meaningful.” When Governor Gore-Browne made the belligerent decision to enforce the purchase of land in Waitara with imperial troops and trigger the Taranaki Wars, the English were seen to be following the savage god Uenuku while Māori were remaining faithful to the Christian God. Indeed, Head writes that, for Wiremu Tamihana, Christianity provided “a voice of resistance to the colonial Government.”
The hypocrisy exposed here regarding the English colonial pretense isn’t really surprising. It is no secret that the colonial government ultimately coveted land for settlement and power and were willing to jettison their professed Christian virtues in its pursuit.
But what I find interesting is the very existence of such a pretense, which is by no means a historical anomaly. The imperial pursuit of wealth and power has been a common prerequisite for many historical conflicts, yet it seems to have spawned a history of denial. British imperialists were insistent that their project was the spread of Christianity and civilization, articulated by the well known concept of the ‘white man’s burden’. The ‘Spanish Conquest’ was portrayed as a divinely mandated mission of Christianization. The Romans devoted an entire artistic and architectural campaign to configuring Roman imperialism as an extension of pax (peace) and civilization into barbarity.
That each of these powers slaughtered indigenous peoples, eradicated civilizations and instigated devastating cultural oppression indicates that their priorities did not lie in benevolence and the spread of virtue. But the elaborate ideological gymnastics performed to create such narratives suggests that we are not totally comfortable with perceiving ourselves as motivated by wealth and power and self-interest. We are hostile to the idea of our own selfishness. There exists an internal conflict between what we want and what we want to want.
Perhaps this is not surprising. Greed is compelling but not becoming. But I’m curious as to the extent and expression of this colonial guilt. What was the social perception of colonial violence within the societies of colonial powers? Were any of these narratives of benevolence successful in enabling collective self-delusion? Or did guilt manifest itself in other ways? Why was the desire to appear magnanimous enough to generate elaborate myth-making but not to inhibit the perpetration of historical atrocities?
If one thing is clear to me, it is that this pattern of denial and disguise must be unpacked, especially as it continues to have effects in our present. How America has explained its aggressive foreign policy, for example, springs to mind. New Zealand has participated in its own act of denial with our problematic colonial past long omitted from the collective kiwi consciousness. Our desire for appealing senses of self cannot prevent us from acknowledging and addressing injustice and developing an honest relationship with our own history.
Bibliography
Head, Lindsay. Wiremu Tamihana and the Mana of Christianity in Stenhouse, John.; Wood, G. A. Christianity, modernity and culture; new perspectives on New Zealand history (pp 58-86). Australian Theological Forum, 2005.
I think you’ve hit on a very fascinating topic in this post, the ‘elaborate ideological gymnastics’ that humans seem to be so good at. As you say, this phenomenon is present all throughout history. I remember studying Julius Caesar and his Gallic Wars in high school; in order to justify his conquest of Gaul, he first had to provoke the Gauls into conflict so that they could be justified as defending Rome, a rather clear example of the lengths we often go to find reasoning for our actions.
Humans are, I think, quite good at self-reflection, often too good at it for our own peace of mind. We’re also rather good at creating social environments and ideas that are full of contradictions and hypocrisy, such as the many countries with both a significant Christian influence and significant exploitation of both resources and workers—if the idea of greed being one of the seven deadly sins, and therefore one of the worst possible qualities, was truly taken to heart, these two could not exist in tandem. America is one such country that comes easily to mind. This combination of self-reflection and almost inherent contradiction and hypocrisy therefore means that these ideological gymnastics are often the only way we can justify our worst actions to ourselves, and therefore put our overly-self-reflective minds to rest.
Picking on America again, you can see just how billionaires justify their excessive wealth despite the significant economic problems much of the country faces. These excuses often include phrases like ‘I worked hard to get to this point’, because, while America may have that Christian influence, it’s also built on the ‘American Dream’, the idea that, if you just work hard enough, you’ll achieve everything ever you dreamed of, an idea ignorant of the injustice built into its country’s systems. By picking and choosing what ideals they want to highlight, they can force the focus of both themselves and the public onto what they’ve achieved in accordance with one value, rather than what they hoard in violation of another. As you say, ‘greed is compelling but not becoming’, so one must search to call it something else in order to sleep well at night.
You also ask about the extent of this colonial guilt and the perception of colonial violence within colonial society. Again, I think this is something that can be clearly seen in the modern day, throughout much of the world. Depending on who you talk to, bringing up New Zealand’s violent past can trigger a rather intense reaction. It seems to be that the perception that colonial powers were justified in their actions pervades today, hence these intense reactions to the suggestion to the contrary. Another theme that often occurs in these reactions is the idea that ‘even if these atrocities were unjustified, their descendents shouldn’t carry the guilt for them’, despite the fact that their consequences are still present today. Seeing as conversations along these lines rarely ever actually suggest that their descendants should carry this guilt, they seem to be rather clear evidence that they do carry it, that it extends to the modern day. It is perhaps a case of how one ‘doth protest too much’, this guilt being so pervasive that any suggestion it exists must be aggressively denied, because to acknowledge one feels it would be to acknowledge colonialism as unjustified.
The ability to perform these elaborate ideological gymnastics seems to be a very human trait that often enables us to undertake and excuse our worst acts. If what we truly held closest was the values we claim to love, would these gymnastics ever be necessary?