Author: Kamron Knowlton

Through much of the readings and lectures, particulary on todays reading ” Race-Making and Colonial Violence in the U.S. Empire” you get a sense of imperilaism being justified or even caused by nationalism. To have such pride and belief in ones nation, religion and culture to only want the same for others. In fridays reading the dialogue wavers between narrators admiring the filipinos yet then some rejecting the filipinos so called “savage” ways of warfare. However as stated as well in the reading on page 174, certianly not civilized actions were recorded such as robbing, ravishing and kicking those who complained by U.S soldiers. This cannot be mistaken though as many U.S soldier did not do this as the same goes for not all Filiponos were “savages”.  In my opinion, the Filipinos were much like early america, fighting for their independence from a higher authority after being seperated. America fighting for independence and against taxation from europe while in their scenario the Filipinos heard rumor of america looking for replacement slaves and fought ever so more for independence and national identity. The U.S justified their actions of war and racial slurs with their nationalism, believing in their superiority and “civil” ways. Providing a promise of civilizing the “savages” for their own good, much better than the filipinos own nationalism. Similar scenarios occured in Jaffa were the difference between civilizing and helping the people of the ottoman empire or overextending their jurisdiction and taking advantage of them became a blurry line. Its another case of pride in nationalism to assimilate their ideals and influence into another civilization without much consideration for the civilization itself. This can also be seen by other nations such as france and ethiopia.

With the rise of modernization in both latin america and japan, it was interesting to see from both articles (Latin America pg 86, De-Asianization pg 131) that back then people thought those not taking part in moderization were backwards and foolish. Any idea or way of life that was deemed irrational was disposed of for rational and scientific ways. It was thought that “barbarians” should be taught to be patriotic, modern and conform to the then standard social norms. Their Governments outward appearances were taken lightly instead for order and progress. For example, in the Latin American article (pg 85) force of arms had been used to maintain the stability of order and progress. Pertaining to my knowledge, suicide rates in japan significantly increased for the sake of progress as workers were being worked to death at their jobs. Employers stepped in by adding suicide nets to the side of high building to deter casuality rates. In addition the lecture about Brazil talked about how the elites decided that european immigrants were aloud in to purely whiten the city and promote economic growth. Another noticeable trend was that the elites got richer and the poor got poorer. In Latin America with the increase of tranportation and production of raw material came money flow for the elite. This power was used to enforce the law and take advantage of landowners such as farmers. Similar cases may have been seen in Japan and Brazil. Without a doubt, the elites of each society had something to gain from modernizing transportation, weapons and technology. The elites were the main driving force for moderization and with it came the ground works for their success and the ever declining fortune for the common folk.

Near the end of the summary the word “survival” is used to imply that the world in general is struggling to face global entanglement as if it is necessary to continue progress, reassimalation and innovation. However, I believe the word “stress” is more appropriate for this topic. Nations, states and even individuals do not necessarily need to improve themselves as they stand but it is the “stress” that comes with comparing themselves to something better, efficent or ethically right that brings the real struggles to face global entanglement. In my mind the word “survive” is used when a thing is acheiving the bare minimum to function without any kind of luxury or surplus of it needs. However, what is seen with every civilzation is the “stress” for improvement whether it is from an outbreak of a disease in which an antidote can be made to save more lives or increase in technically to reduce the “stress” of hard labour. In capitalism it is a known fact that competiters are required so that companies have a need to show that they are better than their competiters.