Motives For Imperialism

Imperialism is a policy of a country spreading their power and influence with diplomacy or military force. The act of imperialism is widespread across the world because of three main motives. These motives consist of political, religious, and economic factors involved in the expansion of the industrial nations. These imperialists weren’t necessarily evil. The main reason nations participated in imperialism was because they had strong feelings of nationalism, and felt it needed to be spread to weaker countries. Some decided imperialism was a way to spread their religious beliefs. Imperialism is terrible, and the nations who participated in it did terrible things to others. However, no matter how awful the imperialists were to foreigners imperialism

Powerful countries bulk up their militaries and seek land across the world for a strategic camp asserting their dominance to smaller countries. The patriotism in these countries is so powerful they feel as though their culture needs to be expanded. When threats of security or status of the dominant country and it’s people is when political imperialism takes action. In George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant when telling why he shot the elephant he states, “To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing — no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man’s life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at. (Orwell, 1946)." This quote shows that psychological pressure controls people. The narrator thought about not shooting the elephant, but when he thought of what society would think if he didn’t assert his dominance he changed his mind. The same problem happens in politics all the time. To be seen as superior countries take control of weaker nations asserting their dominance and power. This is not a respectful action, and ultimately causes tons of

An example of this is the European Christian missionaries that created churches in claimed territory. Missionaries mainly spread their religion through teaching the natives their language. They taught their language through game-like religious rituals and lessons. “If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it (Twain,1916). This quote from Twain’s The War Prayer explains perfectly the forced religion onto natives. Everyone is different, and has different beliefs. Twain is explaining how no two people need the same things. He’s stating that two countries can coexist without practicing the same religion. Another example of religious imperialism is in Kipling’s The White Man’s Burden. The burden of the white man is the need to civilize and Christianize native peoples. This is shown in the statement, “Take up the White Man's burden--Send forth the best ye breed--Go, bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait, in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild--Your new-caught sullen peoples, Half devil and half child (Kipling, 1899).” These Christian people saw their newly caught savages as less than people who it was their responsibility to