Tony Benn Quotes
Remember, imperialism is always presented as humanitarian: the white man's burden, the cross going round the world, the poor benighted natives, the sun never sets. . . So you have to be very careful about humanitarianism.
Benn, Tony. More Time for Politics: Diaries 2001-2007. Hutchinson, 2007.
The title of this controversial poem became a rallying cry for imperialists and anti-imperialists both. The imperialists saw it as a justification for expansionism and colonialism—that the white had a moral responsibility to bring civilization to the other races. To the anti-imperialists it was a racist justification for imposing Christian values on the rest of the world which didn’t want them. In the quotation example here, the poem was used to state a dilemma of foreign aid and trying to bring democracy and freedom to the world.
Mexico was in a chaotic state with the central government not able to control the countries, especially in the North. There were numerous American proposals like this one. See {596782}.
This quotation illustrated the extreme right wing viewpoint of some military leaders, even when the policy was only to enforce a “no fly zone” that had been agreed to by Iraq and the coalition forces. While Looney’s wing would use military force to take Middle East oil, that policy was completely contrary to the Clinton Democratic administration’s position at the time and the Bush Republican administration’s position that followed.
The “We” to which he was referring were the British officials and civil servants who governed all of India as a colony of the British Empire.
Albert succeeded his dead uncle, Leopold, whose Belgian Congo colonization was particularly rapacious. His statement was a signal that the colonial abuses were to stop.
Lindbergh, a great aviator, was a Fascist who was a great admirer and supporter of Hitler and Mussolini. He appeared to be tragically foolish, when 2 years later, the Japanese, with almost perfect precision, carried out the then largest and most successful air attack when they bombed and strafed Pearl Harbor. The entire attack was made from aircraft carrier based planes, the hardest and most technically complex of air operations.
Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament for Bristol South East and Chesterfield for 47 of the 51 years between 1950 and 2001. He later served as President of the Stop the War Coalition from 2001 to 2014.
