What Is New About New Imperialism?

What is New about New Imperialism?

The European Powers started to expand their power 'continentally' in the late 19th century due to several important factors such as the need to satisfy their business interest and also most frequently discussed the imperialists' 'thirst' for power, prestige and acknowledgement from their other rivals which subsequently led to the formation of a new concept called ‘The New Imperialism’. Moreover the New Imperialism also introduced some changes in the administration of the colonies the social policies and the economic dominance of the imperialists. Nevertheless there are some skeptics who defiantly argued that the essence of this ‘New Imperialism’ was not much different from that of ‘The Age Old Imperialism’ and furthermore in reality the difference was rather far from clear cut.

The transition of this Age Old Imperialism to the New Imperialism saw the significant changes in international, social and administrative policies of some great European powers particularly the British in their effort in governing their African and Asian colonies. Before the year of 1870, the British strictly adhered to the policy of non-intervention but it all changes when they realized that their commercial and self-interest would be jeopardised if they did not change their policy to pro-intervention. And so because of that reason the British as well as the other European Powers instead of controlling the territories in Africa and in Asia indirectly through economic influence and trade, they began to take over direct responsibility for their administration and defence. This direct intervention not only affected the ruling native government at that time but also the people of the colonies.

Compared to the Age Old imperialism, the New Imperialism had certainly brought long lasting effects amongst the local people as it did not only change the natives lifestyle but also distorted their rights as a true citizen of the colonies. The natives were often mistreated exploited and oppressed by the European imperialists who show no mercy to the poor natives. This situation was very common in Africa. Examples can be taken from the situation in Congo where King Leopold II who was the King of the Belgians began to see Congo as his fiefdom sweeping the profit as his own personal gain. Leopold was brutal, cruel to the locals as he somewhat involved the natives in forced labour with minimum wages which subsequently led to slavery.

New imperialism at some point was indirectly provoked by the curiosity of European adventurers and missionaries. The activities of explorers and adventurers, anti-slavery societies and Christian missions all these shaped the face of new imperialism. The new craze about new imperialism is that not only they came for trade but they also tried to sell their faith of Christianity in Africa and Asia. This at a whole benefited the Africans as then they were exposed to education through missionaries. The Imperialists on the other hand also benefited as they then were able to carry out their trading activities without causing much discontent among their new 'Christian Brothers'.

New Imperialism brought about economic benefits for the Colonialists and the fact that some historians stated that the development of infrastructure was one of the merits of New Imperialism was highly doubtful to some critics who were pro-Marxism. And if there was any significant development or even an investment it was remarkably little. Moreover the truth of this whole investment for the development of Africa issue was greatly doubted as if there was any effort made to develop infrastructure of Africa, Africa would not be one of the underdeveloped and become one of the most 'worn-off' continents in the world in these

1 present days. Furthermore the Germans after they acquired great colonial areas in Africa they never developed nor invested in them to the same extent as Britain. In fact studies proved that even though in the late 19th centuries. The Great European Powers notably Britain and France had already found new 'outlets' in Africa and in Asia large amounts of capital for investment were not invested in the recently-required African colonies but most of it went to the United States of America, Canada, Argentina, South Africa and Australasia. These countries were investment havens for the European powers in the age old imperialism and evidence proved that these countries were still investment havens even in the new imperialism period. Therefore it can be argued that new imperialism was in fact not ‘new’ at all.

An important point which could differentiate the old imperialism from the new one was that old imperialism did not really damage the relationship between the European Powers but new imperialism had certainly brought about tension and therefore strained the political relations between these great European powers. Moreover New Imperialism was also a long- term caused of antagonism among the Powers which led to war. Imperialism is the desire of nations to own colonies and form an empire. European countries had been taking over colonies throughout the world since the fifteenth century and so this pattern continues in the policies of new imperialism. Due to the pressure of the invisible law which provoked Powers to claim colonies there was an unwritten competition to take over parts of the world they had earlier considered not worth colonising. Britain and France and Germany and France had almost gone to war over clashes in North Africa. Italy resented France because they prevented the setting up of Italian colonies and the British and Russians clashed over who should have control in Persia but were both worried that Germany would take land in the Middle East. Imperialism had an important side effect that explains why the ‘Great War’ became a world war. As each European country gained colonies those colonies became committed to helping the motherland in the event of a war. And so because of that the policies of new imperialism had indirectly dragged along the colonies to the verge of wars and this would rarely happen in the old imperialistic age.

With certainty new imperialism involved new nations such as Germany and Italy both of which were late in acquiring colonies. Both Germany and Italy had one common feature that is they were driven to acquire colonies due to the pressure of the public and politicians. Moreover both of these countries were at the time new unified countries and so were eager to undertake colonial ventures for the consideration of power and prestige. The colonies did not really strengthened the position of Germany as did for Britain and so this dismayed the Germans who realised that they were actually disilllusioned and so blamed Bismarck for German's last entry into the scramble of Africa. The Italians on the other hand had neither the resources nor the tradition to succeed as a colonial power. These new nations felt that they were overrule by Britain, France and Russia who were Great Powers of new imperialism and so their feeling of discontentment resulted in the development of another augmented concept called 'Fascism and Militarism'.

2 After much evaluation we can come up with a statement that the concept of new imperialism was not a fully new concept at all. In fact some policies inductions in the old imperialist age were still going on strong in the so called new imperialism. As a matter of fact, it is not wide of the mark for us to say that new imperialism was without a doubt an augmentation of the old concept of new imperialism.