UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
Dr. Raymund W. Lo
Just when you thought the world has moved away from its unsavory past, along come two events that once again focus the spotlight squarely on colonialism. I refer to the recent passing of Queen Elizabeth II and ascendancy to the throne of King Charles III in the Great Britain, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Both Great Britain and Russia were past colonial powers that conquered much of the world. Britain’s colonies all over the world composed an empire that the sun never set on, as the Brits proudly say. At its height, the British Empire claimed North America, Australia, New Zealand, the Indian Empire (present-day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh), Malaysia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Cyprus, Iraq, part of the Arabian peninsula, and a large part of eastern Africa, South Africa and Egypt, Sudan, Nigeria, Gold Coast, and many more.
The Russian Empire encompassed large swaths of Eastern Europe, including present-day Ukraine, the Baltics, Poland, Finland, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, and the Turkestan territories, as well as parts of the Ottoman Empire, central Asia, and even Alaska. Some of these territories still remain part of the present Russian Federation, and a larger area was under the domination of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Today the British Empire has been reduced to a loose federation, the British Commonwealth. The bonds remain, however tenuous, but many former colonies are trying to remove the vestiges of colonial rule. When Queen Elizabeth lay in state with the Imperial Crown, Scepter, and Orb on display atop her coffin, it once again evoked memories of the British imperialist past, with many calling for the return of the Crown jewels to their countries of origin.
Such was the furor that a slew of online articles and YouTube videos came out to detail the atrocities of colonialism. One such video, “What did the British loot from the Old Summer Palace in Beijing?,” resonated so much with me for two reasons. One, I’m ethnically Chinese and a keen student of Chinese history.
The other is the fact that this event in 1860, the sacking of the Summer Palace, was when the French and British forces plundered, apart from the 1.5 million priceless treasures and cultural relics, the first specimens of the Pekingese dog breed, which I have been involved with since 1970. This means I own living relics of Chinese history and British imperialism. A historical vignette: one of the five stolen Pekingese dogs was given to Queen Victoria I, appropriately if insensitively named “Looty.”
This is a well-made video with old illustrations to back up its facts. Aside from the looting, the British, to avenge the murder of its diplomats, torched Yuan Ming Yuan, the beautiful Old Summer Palace, an irreplaceable cultural treasure, described as “heavenly,” forever lost. This has been described as the greatest act of cultural vandalism in modern history. Such are the heavy costs of colonialism, which included forced subjugation of entire peoples, wholesale plunder of natural resources and cultural treasures, racism, genocide by war and disease, and lasting psychic trauma.
The former colonies are demanding the return of their lost patrimonies. Although some have been returned, a large majority still sit in Western museums and private hands, awaiting repatriation to their spiritual homes. Prime examples of these are the Rosetta Stone from Egypt and the Elgin Marbles looted from the Parthenon in Athens. But there are so much more. In fact, countless objects, big and small, and culturally invaluable, need to find their way home for these countries to finally heal from their colonially inflicted national wounds.
While these objects represent past transgressions, Russia, under Vladimir Putin, is presently undertaking a return to its imperial past by trying to bring Ukraine back into its orbit. But Ukraine, under the valiant President Volodymir Zelensky, is bravely resisting the invasion with the aid of the USA and the European Union. The annexation of 13 percent of Ukrainian territory is but the latest manifestation of colonialism. As with all wars, this brings with it the usual atrocities of genocide, rape, and plunder, in addition to wholesale physical destruction, which will take decades to repair once peace is restored.
The greater danger is that Russia is a nuclear power and Putin is now threatening to use his nuclear arsenal, raising fears of a global nuclear conflict which no one can win. That will spell the end of human civilization as we know it.
The war is also fueling food shortages, and energy insecurity, and driving inflation further north, showing how we are all interconnected in this world. There is much uncertainty in life nowadays without a war complicating it. The threat of nuclear annihilation adds to our insecurities. It’s unbelievable that one man holds the key to the resolution of this crisis, but here we are at this inflection point in history. This is present-day colonialism at its worst.